Slavery was the corner-stone and foundation of the Confederacy. Never was the trade in slaves between States so thriving as during the winter of 1860. And the leaders of the Rebellion were looking forward to the time when the commerce with Africa would be reopened. Mr. Lamar of Savannah, who during the Rebellion was agent of the Confederacy in London for the purchase of army supplies, imported in the bark Wanderer a cargo of native Africans, some of whom were sold in Charleston. There was a large party in the Confederate Congress which advocated the resumption of the foreign trade, the abolition of which in 1808 was set down as one of the grievances of the South.
It is the province of history to make a record of the bad as well as the good, shameful and humiliating though it may be. Sin and wickedness are horrible facts. To view them as such, to contemplate them in contrast with holiness and righteousness, and draw useful lessons from such contemplation, is far better than to say that they have no place in history. Posterity will wonder that a Church which called itself Christian ever gave its support and advocacy to an institution which daily brought its victims, like cattle, to the auction-block, which made no distinction of age, which was remorseless as death, and which from the cradle to the grave held its victim as with a tiger's gripe.
On the opposite page is presented a sample of an auctioneer's handbill, which I found upon the floor of the slave-mart, with the prices paid by the buyers marked in pencil against the names of the "chattels," and now appearing in parentheses.
Administrator's Sale, by Order of the Ordinary.
A PRIME AND ORDERLY GANG OF
68 Long Cotton Field Negroes,
Belonging to the Estate of the late Christopher J. Whaley.