Again, "Hatred to the whites, with the exception, in some cases, of attachment to the person and family of the master, is nearly universal among the black population. We have then a foe, cherished in our very bosoms—a foe willing to draw our life-blood whenever the opportunity is offered; in the mean time intent on doing us all the mischief in his power."—Southern Religious Telegraph.
In a debate in the Kentucky Legislature, in 1841, Mr. Harding, opposing the repeal of the law prohibiting the importation of slaves from other States, and looking forward to the time when the blacks would greatly out-number the whites, exclaimed:
"In such a state of things, suppose an insurrection of the slaves to take place. The master has become timid and fearful, the slave bold and daring—the white men, overpowered with a sense of superior numbers on the part of the slaves, cannot be embodied together; every man must guard his own hearth and fireside. No man would even dare for an hour to leave his own habitation; if he did, he would expect on his return to find his wife and children massacred. But the slaves, with but little more than the shadow of opposition before them, armed with the consciousness of superior force and superior numbers on their side, animated with the hope of liberty, and maddened with the spirit of revenge, embody themselves in every neighborhood, and furiously march over the country, visiting every neighborhood with all the horrors of civil war and bloodshed. And thus the yoke would be transferred from the black to the white man, and the master fall a bleeding victim to his own slave."
Such are the terrific visions which are constantly presenting themselves to the affrighted imaginations of the slaveholders; such the character which, among themselves, they attribute to their own domestics.
Attend to one more, and that one an extraordinary confession:
"We, of the South, are emphatically surrounded by a dangerous class of beings—degraded and stupid savages, who, if they could but once entertain the idea, that immediate and unconditional death would not be their portion, would re-act the St. Domingo tragedy. But a consciousness, with all their stupidity, that a ten-fold force, superior in discipline, if not in barbarity, would gather from the four corners of the United States, and slaughter them, keeps them in subjection. But to the non-slaveholding States particularly, are we indebted for a permanent safeguard against insurrection. Without their assistance, the white population of the South would be too weak to quiet the innate desire for liberty, which is ever ready to act itself out with every rational creature."—Maysville Intelligencer.
And now we ask you, fellow-citizens, if all these declarations and confessions be true—and who can doubt it—what must be your inevitable condition, should your soil be invaded by a foreign foe, bearing the standard of emancipation?
In perfect accordance with the above confession, that to the non-slaveholding States the South is indebted for a permanent safeguard against insurrection, Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, uttered these pregnant words in a debate, in 1842, in Congress, "The dissolution of the Union will be the dissolution of slavery."
The action of the Federal Government is, we know, controlled by the slave interest; and what testimony does that action bear to the military weakness of the South? Let the reports of its high functionaries answer.
The Secretary of War, in his report for 1842, remarked, "The works intended for the more remote Southern portion of our territory, particularly require attention. Indications are already made of designs of the worst character against that region, in the event of hostilities from a certain quarter, to which we cannot be insensible." The Secretary's fears had been evidently excited by the organization of black regiments in the British West Indies, and the threats of certain English writers, that a war between the two countries would result in the liberation of the slaves. The report from the Quarter-Master, General Jessup, a Southern man, betrays the same anxiety, and in less ambiguous terms: "In the event of a war," says he, "with either of the great European powers possessing colonies in the West Indies, there will be danger of the peninsula of Florida being occupied by BLACKS from the Islands. A proper regard for the security of our Southern States requires, that prompt and efficient measures be adopted to prevent such a state of things." The Secretary of the Navy, a slaveholder, hints his fears in cautious circumlocution. Speaking of the event of a war with any considerable maritime power, he says, "It would be a war of incursions aimed at revolution. The first blow would be struck at us through our institutions;" he means, of course, "the peculiar institution." He then proceeds to show that the enemy would seek success "in arraying, what are supposed to be, the hostile elements of our social system against each other;" and he admits, that "even in the best event, war on our own soil would be the more expensive, the more embarrassing, and the more horrible in its effects, by compelling us at the same time to oppose an enemy in the field, and to guard against all attempts to subvert our social system." In plain language, an invading enemy would strike the first blow at the slave system, and thus aim at revolution,—a revolution that would give liberty to two and a half millions of human beings; and that such a war would be very embarrassing to the slaveholders, and the more horrible, because, as formerly in South Carolina, a large share of their military force would necessarily be employed, not in fighting the enemy, but in guarding the social, that is, the "patriarchal system."