I claim that by every law of logic the Southern philosophers have proclaimed themselves inferior to the negro, and worthy to be swept away to make place for him. They have claimed for him the most important place in the body politic, and as, ex uno disce omnes, the whole should be homogeneous with a part, especially the main part, it follows that the negro, and the negro alone, should be allowed to rule in a land where, as Southerners declare, 'God clearly intended him to live.' Now if God clearly intended him to live there, it must follow that he did not intend white men to reside in those regions. It may be observed in this connection that the Bible forms the great basis of all Southern argument. If a Northern writer advances any of the ignorant and impious doctrines, so common among his kind, against slavery, he is promptly and properly met with the query, 'Do you believe in the Bible?' Now the Bible endorses slavery past, and 'of course' slavery present. But the Bible also insists that the curse of labor was laid on man by the eating of the apple. On all men, be it observed, without distinction of color. But the Southerners have claimed, time and again, that 'only the black can work in the South.' Therefore it logically results, on Southern grounds, that the white man has no business whatever in the South, since he must work somewhere, and it can not be in the land of rice and cotton. Who then should inhabit that sunny clime save the 'contraband'—who should there claim the respect due to the lord of the soil if not he?
'Yo que soy contrabandista
Y campo à mé respeto.'
The more I study this subject the more does my soul expand in awe as I watch the fearful unfoldings of the terrible moral law which governs the actions of humanity. Ah, Heaven! it is fearful, it is awful to consider how ignorantly we begin our beginnings without anticipating the marvelous endings to which they rise, even as a match ignorantly lighted may explode the dusky grain which sends a city skyward! The South has toiled to elaborate a philosophy and an empire on the Nigger—and, lo! at the end thereof looms up the tremendous Afreet realm of a perfect Niggerdom, in which the white element, which first started it into life, must logically be swept away, like the worthless exuviæ of a shell from the head of a young dragon.
As one who boldly claims respect for the 'system' of the Southern Confederacy, but who wishes for its perfect development, I therefore suggest that South Carolina be set aside for the great experiment. Let the negro be there allowed to congregate and expand even to his utmost capacity. Let all the poetry and beauty of Southern institutions be concentrated in that happy realm, where, amid the groans of endless labor and the swinging of countless whips, he may show the world what he may become. Already the South has proved his capacity to work sixteen hours a day and dance all night—perhaps under black rulers he may be brought to work twenty hours a day, and give up dancing altogether. I claim, as one holding advanced Southern views, that this proposition be allowed a fair trial. If not, I shall at least have the satisfaction of having put my views before the world to bide their time. A truth never dies. Coming ages will at least do me justice. Magna est Veritas et prevalebit.
THE SLAVE-TRADE IN NEW YORK.
The National Convention which in 1787 framed the Federal Constitution, despite its firmness and patriotism, was, like all public bodies, evidently not entirely devoid of a spirit of compromise. A majority of its members were desirous of freeing the institutions of the young nation from the burden of slavery, and yet they consented to engraft the following provision upon the body of our American fundamental law:—
"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808."
Congress was awake, however, even during the administration of Washington, to its duty in the matter, and an act was passed declaring the slave-trade to be piracy. Twenty years afterward the principal European sovereigns united in the same declaration, and so the execrable commerce was hurled beyond the pale of international law. There is now no probability that it will ever regain its rank 'on change.' But its illegitimation does not seem to have greatly circumscribed its activity. In the face of apparent danger, it has continued to flourish, and there has been hardly more risk to a pirate with a living cargo from Gaboon, than would be encountered by an ordinary merchantman from pirates in the Gulf. Indeed, there were many who believed and feared, prior to the breaking out of the present rebellion, that the next compromise between the North and South would be the repeal of all laws prohibiting the African slave-trade. So rapidly yet so insidiously was the South obtaining an entire control in the councils of the nation.
It was notorious that a large proportion of the vessels which were engaged in the infamous traffic were owned and fitted out by Northern capitalists. The General Government did not exert itself in good faith to carry out either its treaty stipulations nor the legislation of Congress in regard to the matter. If a vessel was captured, her owners were permitted to bond her, and thus continue her in the trade; and if any man was convicted of this form of piracy, the executive always interposed between him and the penalty of his crime. The laws providing for the seizure of vessels engaged in the traffic were so constructed as to render the duty unremunerative; and marshals now find their fees for such services to be actually less than their necessary expenses. No one who bears this fact in mind will be surprised at the great indifference of these officers to the continuing of the slave-trade; in fact, he will be ready to learn that the laws of Congress upon the subject had become a dead letter, and that the suspicion was well grounded that certain officers of the Federal Government had actually connived at their violation.