Meantime, Florida had given some uneasiness to the slaveholders of the neighboring states; and for their accommodation chiefly, a negociation was set on foot by the government to purchase it.
Missouri was next in order in 1821. She could plead no privilege, on the score of being part of one of the original states; the country too, was relieved from the pressure of her late conflict with England; it was prosperous and quiet; every thing seemed propitious to a calm and dispassionate consideration of the claims of slaveholders to add props to their system, by admitting indefinitely, new slave states to the Union. Up to this time, the "EVIL" of slavery had been almost universally acknowledged and deplored by the South, and its termination (apparently) sincerely hoped for.[[A]] By this management its friends succeeded in blinding the confiding people of the North. They thought for the most part, that the slaveholders were acting in good faith. It is not intended by this remark, to make the impression, that the South had all along pressed the admission of new slave states, simply with a view to the increase of its own relative power. By no means: slavery had insinuated itself into favor because of its being mixed up with (other) supposed benefits--and because its ultimate influence on the government was neither suspected nor dreaded. But, on the Missouri question, there was a fair trial of strength between the friends of Slavery and the friends of the Constitution. The former triumphed, and by the prime agency of one whose raiment, the remainder of his days, ought to be sackcloth and ashes,--because of the disgrace he has continued on the name of his country, and the consequent injury that he has inflicted on the cause of Freedom throughout the world. Although all the different Administrations, from the first organization of the government, had, in the indirect manner already mentioned, favored slavery,--there had not been on any previous occasion, a direct struggle between its pretensions and the principles of liberty ingrafted on the Constitution. The friends of the latter were induced to believe, whenever they should be arrayed against each other, that theirs would be the triumph. Tremendous error! Mistake almost fatal! The battle was fought. Slavery emerged from it unhurt--her hands made gory--her bloody plume still floating in the air--exultingly brandishing her dripping sword over her prostrate and vanquished enemy. She had won all for which she fought. Her victory was complete--THE SANCTION OF THE NATION WAS GIVEN TO SLAVERY![[B]]
[Footnote [A]: Mr. Clay, in conducting the Missouri compromise, found it necessary to argue, that the admission of Missouri, as a slaveholding state, would aid in bringing about the termination of slavery. His argument is thus stated by Mr. Sergeant, who replied to him:--"In this long view of remote and distant consequences, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Clay) thinks he sees how slavery, when thus spread, is at last to find its end. It is to be brought about by the combined operation of the laws which regulate the price of labor, and the laws which govern population. When the country shall be filled with inhabitants, and the price of labor shall have reached a minimum, (a comparative minimum I suppose is meant,) free labor will be found cheaper than slave labor. Slaves will then be without employment, and, of course, without the means of comfortable subsistence, which will reduce their numbers, and finally extirpate them. This is the argument as I understand it," says Mr. Sergeant; and, certainly, one more chimerical or more inhuman could not have been urged.]
[Footnote [B]: See Appendix, E.]
Immediately after this achievement, the slaveholding interest was still more strongly fortified by the acquisition of Florida, and the establishment of slavery there, as it had already been in the territory of Louisiana. The Missouri triumph, however, seems to have extinguished every thing like a systematic or spirited opposition, on the part of the free states, to the pretensions of the slaveholding South.
Arkansas was admitted but the other day, with nothing that deserves to be called an effort to prevent it--although her Constitution attempts to perpetuate slavery, by forbidding the master to emancipate his bondmen without the consent of the Legislature, and the Legislature without the consent of the master. Emboldened, but not satisfied, with their success in every political contest with the people of the free states, the slaveholders are beginning now to throw off their disguise--to brand their former notions about the "evil, political and moral" of slavery, as "folly and delusion,"[[A]]--and as if to "make assurance double sure," and defend themselves forever, by territorial power, against the progress of Free principles and the renovation of the Constitution, they now demand openly--scorning to conceal that their object is, to advance and establish their political power in the country,--that Texas, a foreign state, five or six times as large as all New England, with a Constitution dyed as deep in slavery, as that of Arkansas, shall be added to the Union.
[Footnote [A]: Mr. Calhoun is reported, in the National Intelligencer, as having used these words in a speech delivered in the Senate, the 10th day of January:--
"Many in the South once believed that it [slavery] was a moral and political evil; that folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world."
Mr. Hammond, formerly a Representative in Congress from South Carolina, delivered a speech (Feb. 1, 1836) on the question of receiving petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In answering those who objected to a slaveholding country, that it was "assimilated to an aristocracy," he says--"In this they are right. I accept the terms. It is a government of the best. Combining all the advantages, and possessing but few of the disadvantages, of the aristocracy of the old world--without fostering, to an unwarrantable extent, the pride, the exclusiveness, the selfishness, the thirst for sway, the contempt for the rights of others, which distinguish the nobility of Europe--it gives us their education, their polish, their munificence, their high honor, their undaunted spirit. Slavery does indeed create an aristocracy--an aristocracy of talents, of virtue, of generosity, of courage. In a slave country, every freeman is an aristocrat. Be he rich or poor, if he does not possess a single slave, he has been born to all the natural advantages of the society in which he is placed; and all its honors lie open before him, inviting his genius and industry. Sir, I do firmly believe, that domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society, that has ever existed on the face of the earth."
That this retraxit of former follies and delusions is not confined to the mere politician, we have the following proofs:--