But not only this. The slave trade from Africa to the United States will never be abolished, if we allow of slavery to the west of the Mississippi. So great will be the value of slaves along the rich bottoms of that territory, that no laws, however severe, can put a stop to their importation. That accursed traffic is even now carried on with impunity, and to an incredible extent. Fifteen thousand victims have been worse than immolated at its shrine within a single year. With greater temptations to engage in it, in more remote situations, and along an unguarded frontier, no human power can altogether check it.
Nor will it be merely a foreign slave trade that this extension will encourage. An internal traffic will take place. The poorer and more healthy states will become the breeders for the new and unhealthy districts; and it will happen as it has ever done, that the pursuit of a trade, wicked and cruel in itself, will entail the commission of crimes, the violation of every moral law, the begetting of offspring for the purposes of an unholy traffic. A deadly taint will spread over the morals and character of our country, which not all our professions of liberty can purify; and if there be any prophecy in history, the rights of these long degraded beings will one day be vindicated with awful retribution.
I have treated this subject with warmth; with more warmth, perhaps, than has served my cause. But I cannot think without indignation of the attempt which is now making to extend the empire of slavery—a despotism in the bosom of a republic; and which I believe to be pregnant with the most disastrous consequences. It is necessary that the public mind should be kept awake on the subject; and I cannot refrain from lifting up my feeble voice on the occasion.
One word more, and I have done. The division in Congress upon this subject, has been truly called a geographical division. The members from the south, with scarcely an exception, voted for the introduction of slaves. Yet from the same quarter do we hear of splendid schemes for colonization and emancipation, for eradicating slavery, and pouring the light of civilization and religion upon ravaged and benighted Africa. Many of the most conspicuous actors in this great scheme of benevolence, are the men who have exerted all their talents upon the floor of Congress to increase the evils over which in another place they mourn; to sink us still deeper in the dangers into which they have confessed we are plunged.
What are we to think, Gentlemen, of the purity of your motives, or the sincerity of your professions? Is it that your fears, and not your benevolence, impel you; that you wish to rid yourselves of the free blacks, and rivet and extend your dominion over the slaves? If these imputations are false, show yourselves at least to be consistent. Do not by your own act extend the evils you so eloquently regret. Give us that proof of the sincerity of your benevolence (the only one we can believe) that it is stronger than your sense of private interest. Prove to us that you are honestly bent upon exterminating slavery, and there are thousands who now stand aloof, that will join you with all their strength in any scheme that can effect it; thousands, whose daily prayer is, that the mercy of an all-just Providence may avert from our country the calamities of a servile war and a divided empire.
We ask of you no extravagant or impracticable scheme of emancipation; We do not wish to see your Helots invested suddenly with privileges which they would only abuse; nor do we look for your relief and theirs, to any other means than those which time and cautious experience may suggest. But we beseech you, as you are sincere in your plans of colonization, as you value the fair fame of our common country, as you regard the security and prosperity of all future generations—to stay the plague of slavery from spreading, and to give to the inhabitants of the Missouri a charter which shall not disgrace the great principles of our revolution, nor allow man to be the tyrant of his fellow man.
Sandiford.
FAMILIAR LETTERS