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Selections: The War Of Slavery Or Northern Commerce And Agri...

Selections: The War Of Slavery Or Northern Commerce And Agri... image
Parent Issue
Day
18
Month
September
Year
1843
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

More than eixty years ago, Edmund Buukf, the great philosophic stotesrnan declared that the leásons of all.history proved that slavcry was not a self-supporting 6yslein. Crime is seldom profitablc. He who cnslaves man must keep him in ignorance, or the]slave will burst his fettcrs. With litlle inlelligence, and deprived of nearly every motive to industry, the slave will do Jess than the thinking freeman, and his labor will have little skill or enterprise to guide it. Henee the universa! ao kpowlegemeut of soulhern men, that one free laborer does the work of two slaves, with less hurdship. Besides, m a slave State labor is disgraceful. No persoii will work if he cae help it, lest he sink to the level of the slave. The laborsofthe field and the cares of the household are allke thrown tipon the slave, who must support himself and his thriftless master. Henee in a slave country one half the people perform little or no productivo labor to add to rhcir wealth and comforts. One half of the laboring class, of couree, are chiidren too young.or persons too infirm to labor. Many more are house and body servants. - Henee, in a State like South Carolina, or in tliose parts of it where fee labor is banished, hardly one ia fiuc of the vvhole population is a producing laborer. In a free State, like New York, one in every two persons does the work of anable bodied man. Yet the State vnluaiions show that we in New York only retain our capital stock, and add about 4J per cém a yeár to it. It is easy to see that if only one in five worked, we should bc growing poorer every year. This is actu3.!ly truc of all the slave labor parts of the South. The only apparent exception is where new lands are cleared up. In the older sections, where slave labor stil! orevails, there is an actual loss of wealth. The free States are about twice as rich as the slave States, in proporlion to their population. The wealth of the free labor section increases faster than the population , while the inhabitants of the slave región increase much faster than its wealth. Free labor makes one ncher, slave labor make the ottior poorer every aay. jl ne enure vmuu ui the annual productions of the Southern States is less than $50 dollars to each inhabitant. - Taking Senator Walker's estimate of the cost of maintaining slaves, at $17 a liead, it lea ves $4S each for every free person . Any body, by calculating the cost of maintaining his family, will see that it is not enough to support them. Muchlesscan it support the reckle6s extravagance of slaveholders. Henee, though the plontation slaves be half starved, on their peck of corn per week, the slaveholding South cannot live on its own resources. - It is not enough to rob the tslave of his uianhood, by taking away all right motives to industry, and then to rob him of what little money can be whipped ont of his miseries. - The slave system must plunder free labor, also, of its eamings, or it must die. For this system of robbing and fraud never did and never can earn an honest living! Slavery needs al least 30 millions of dollars more than the whole product of slave labor every year, to keep it alive. It must plunder the free States to this amount. It does.'Do you ask how? Attend to the facls I shall now give. Note (1.) We buy about $1,00,000,000 worth of clothing, food, drinks, iron, glass, crockery, tools, and other gooos, each year, in foreign countncs. How are tbey paid for? Not by silver and gold. A single year wold drain the nat ion of its last penny. We do it by exchanging the products of our abor for these giods. Now, the man that aises the n-heat or cotton with which I pay for English broadcloths, or French silks, has n his hand the real money I must use to pay br them. I iiiuet buy his whent or cotton on ds terms. If he chooses to ask pay in advnnce, one or two yrars, I must give it, or go without my coat, and my wife must go without her silk gown. He conlrols th e foreign exchavges of the country, because he has the only ibing by which they can be made. And then, [ must pay him for his cotton or wheat in pork, or shoes, or any thing he wants; and I must tnist him, till his cotton s sold in Europe, ond the money for it comes back in the shupe óf silk, or iron, or glass, or whatever I may wish to buy. So thcn,he lms the control of the domesticas well as the forrign oxchanges. Henee, this man can command as much credit as he wants, botter than any body else, because heraises the real money, (the wheat or cotton,) that must be used to buy foreign goods with, and which lies at the bottom of all business. (2.) This shows the reason why slaveholders havaalways bcenanxious to have nothing but the producís of sluve labor exported from the country. They could then control the business of the country, establish an unlimited credit lor themselves,at the North, run in debt from 2 to 400 ir.iliions beyoud thcir means, and either plunder us 25 to 40 millions yeur, in the shape of bad debts, or rob us ofthe whole, once in every tliree to five years by a general bankruptcy, as they have done,' ever since 1312. (3.) Now look at the followmg facts, By 1 1 years struggle the s?at of Government was placed between two slave States, where freedom of speech and of the press might be cruehed, and the Government corrupted and controlled by the slave power to suit its interests. By the purchase of Florida and Louisiana, and the violent and cruel romoval of the Jndans, the richest lands on jhe continent was thrown open to slave kbor. By the war of 1812 nnd its connected measures, the North was deprived of the carrying trade of Europe, its commerce crippled, and its industry half paralyzed. By the Tariff of 1317, the burden of paying 7-8 of the National debt was thrown on the Northern consumer of foreign goods, while foreign nations wero excited to shut out Northern products from their markets. And finally, by the disgraceful Missouri compromise,the control over Congress and the Executive was secured to slavery, if its supporters could have wit enough to bribe or frighten one-fiftli 'of the Northern Representatives into supporting their measures. (4.) What was the result? In 1817, the total exports of the United States were over &G0, 000,000. Of this, over $4V 000,000 consisted of the wheat, flour, pot and i pearl ashes, lumber, beef, pork, hams, cheese, and other products of the free States. In 1852 - and so on, till now, - when the population of the free States had risen from 4 to 10 millions, tho entire exports of the North amounted to barely 10 or 11 millions, while those of the South had risen from 15 to over 80 millions! Th e little Northern produce exported went chietiy to South America, or countries more remote, being shut out from all the great markets ef Europe, where we bought our imported goods; while the products of slave labor foundyree access to all these markets, and were alone used in paying for them. (5.) How did it happen? Í reply, the entire power of our Government, by whichever party it has been wielded, has been constanlly employed to bring it about, from 1816 to this hour, Four out of five of the Presidents, Cabinet Ministers, Ambassadors, and other public officers, who have shoped our laws and treaties have been slaveholders,and they have shaped them lo make slave labor as profitable as they could; and then, to enable itto plunáf&gífe aenfl?i fi3$ÍTrSY-oflhVrfluág interest of the North, at the expense of all the rest, and by the bribe of office, the slave power bas made Northern Federalista and Republicans, Democratsand Wbig6 - all parhes that numbered slaveholders among their numbers - consent to such a shameless subserviency to the interest? of despotism. Lookat a iew iacts. in laao, mere were iüo iNorthem vessels employed in trnde with the British West Indies, (which were the enierports of a va6t commerce with other nalions.) The goods sent them were chiefly the producís of New England, New York , New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The slaveholders led en by Calhoun, complained that their sugar, rice, molassess and rum (or slavery) were not protected, and by changes in the Tarifffrom 1823 to 1426, the North was almost wholJy cut off from those markets for its goods; the number of vessels employed in the trade reduced from 1325 down to less than 450: and we obliged to pay for our West India goods by bilis of exchange drawn against Southern cotton, sent toEurope! Again. In 1820. over 350 sa il of Ainerican vessels were employed in the trade with Ireland,carrying the producís of the free States, (chiefly provisious,) to her people. and bringing back Irish" linene, kerseys, and other goods. By similar changes in our Tariff, directed by the South, this vhole trade toas destroyed ! Daniel O'Conneli, stated, at a Repeal meeting at Belfast, in 1841, that it turned 320,000 Irishmen out of employment and covered the most flourishing part of the 'Green Isle' with desolation. Wc know that fouryears afler not an American vessel entered an Irish port, and not a dollar's worlh of our provisions or other goods entered an Irishman's home. What say you, sons of Ireland, to the curses American fslavery has brought on your native land? (6.) Since 1316, there have been obout 163 treaties made by our Government to regúlate our trade nnd intercourse with foreign nations. Thirteen ut of every 17 of our ambs.ssadors nnd others who made them have been slaveholders, and they have s'oaped them to their liking. Consequently, not one of them of any importance has hnd any reference to the interests of th North, or of free labor. They hiive all, o neariy all , had for their sole subject the en largement of free markets 'm all the workl, fo cotton, rice, sugar and tobáceo, the product of slave labor, and the exrlvsion of Norther producís from those markets, and the destruc tion of Northern commerce, so as to bring lli 1 price of the wages of free labor down to 't Ji level with slave labor. For this our Govcrn i ment has strained every nerve. For this i now has 2-1 diplomatic ngents n Europe,whi! , not one line has ever been written, not an am r bassador sent out, since 150G or 7, 'to an; 5 country, to get a mnrkct for any article raise f by a Northern farmer, or made in a Norlherworkshop or factory. (7.) The last trcaty { ] ever made for the benefit of J 'ree labor, was ( negotiated by Hon. Mr. HUI, of Buffalo, with Don John , of Portigal, at the time that monarch held his Court in Brazil, in 1807 or 8. - Under that treaty a vast and very profitable trade grew up between Brazil and the free States. Weeentnearly 810,000,000 worth of grain, flour.pot and pearl ashes, lumber and manufactures to Brazil, in exchange for lier sugars, rice, coffee, etc. Either party could terminale the treaty by a year's notice. Who gave it? The United States! At whose bidding? John C. Calhoun's! What for?- The result shows. The market for Northern goods was immediately deetroyed, by discricriminating duties. The price of grain, flour, lumber,pot and pearl ashes,land and labor was lowered 20 per 'cent. One manufacturer of pot and oearls at Lockporl told me it destroyed his entire business. Hundreds of merchanta in Me, Massachusetts and New York were ruined,and their losses thrown back on the farmers and mechanics who had trusted them. Who cared? Slavery got its ends. llenceforward, we must pay for our Brazil sugar,cofFee and hides with cotton, sent to Europe, and exchanged for British and French goods, sent to Brazil in British and French vessels. The American farmer, mechanic and ship owner might complain of the loss of bread. But slavery willed it! Shall the "white slave" dare assail his 'master?' Take one more example. A long series of treaties has eecured the admission of slave labor cotton into England and France - and through France, into nearly all Continental markets. The last was that of 1831 with France, the real object of which was covered up by the paltry indemnity' of 5 millions. which gave it a name. What were ts terms? Ve agreed to take off our duties on French ines,brandics and silks. (Intemperance came n upon us like a flood, and the country was rained of its resources to pay for silks and tlier luxuries.) France in return, took off ïerdutiea on slave labor cotton. The coton sent to France increased ninefold m three years! The news of the treaty raised the price of cotton S cents a pound, in one hour, raised he value of slaves in the breeding States 3 to 400 dollars apiece; Btopped the abolition debate in the Virginia and Kentucky legislatures; revived the intemal slave trade, led to ánü WgTi1af K'Sn$Q&X'irdi: ïêüirQ,Mb'pkLd ed through the National Slave Markets at Washington) lo the cotton growing States, between 18S2 and 18S8,accompanied by all the horrors ofsundered families,broken hearts,and bodily sufforings, that mark ihis infernal trafficevery where on earth. To meet the necessities of the slave traders and cotton growers a horde of new banks were created, (on Northern capital, chiefly:) vast tracts of tand were thrown into market; the fever of over credit and speculation encouraged to its utmost extent. Cotton rose to 18 cents a pound. Slaves were worth 12 to $1800 a piece in the shambles. The banks loaned their entire resorces, and private men their hoarded treasures to negro traders and cotton and land speculators: the South run in debt more than $400,000,000 to the North. States lent their credit to get money from Europe for the same dark business, and the nation rejoiced in its 'prosperity,' - a bloated prosperity based on the groans and sweat and tears and blood of S50,000 victims of the intemal traffic in men's bodies and souls, and 1,500,000 more compelled to ceaseless toil in the cotton and sugar fields of the South. When was avarice ever glutted? Greedy of more gain, slavery stretched its credit to the utmost, when, in 18S7, thecottons of India, Egypt and Brazil begon to compete with our American blood produce, the price feil suddenly 100 per cent. the buble of our prosperity burst, slaveyswallovved up in its bankrupteies the'rcsources of the nation, and such dcsolation filled the land as war, even, with all its horrors, never wrought. Yet who did not applaud the French treaty of 1831? So it is with all our treaties, all our tariffs and other laws. Slavery is aiways the only gainer, free labor the only loser. Search and see! Take a few connected facts . The largest and oldest Book seller now living told me that his average losses, ip Soulhern trade for 40 years, had exceeded 20 per cent. on his sales. The loss in his Northern business was less than 2 per cent. ! One of the oldest living importers o dry goods stated his Soul hem losses at 25 to 30 per cent; his Northern and Western losses at 5. Tlns is the experience af all classes of business men, The aggregate, in any ten years, thus plundered Trom the peoplo of the free labor States is not less than $300,000,000, all of which goes to make up for the pauperism of slave labor. This is a sample of only one or ttco of the many modes in which slavery maltes il-s control over the Gov eminent a blessing to itself, and a curso to the peoplc who live by honesty, by the swea of their brows, and labor of their our own hands. 'Democr.icy,' ever prating of 'humai rights' and 'Whigism.'cver loud in profession of 'move favorable' views in respect to th slave and his friends,couibine in unholy league with slavery, to plunder the froeman of lmïard earnings! The tree States, Ireland, all ountriea, are made to contnbute, in tears and loody sweat to build up the bloody throne, f this Moloch, to whom we and ourchildren mr inlereets and our rights, the freedom of he presa and of speech, our personal sufeíy, nd the purity of our churches alike are made he costly sacrifice . Ho w long shall it be so? re you a sJave, &on of New York, Bon of reland, son of freedom, that you will cling 0 elavery secta that barter religión in its ruth, Chriat in his membere, for a Jittle of he gold stolen from the slave? That you 'ote for men, for public office, who for pow:r wül barter your interests and rights? Oh :ease to sacrifice yourself, your country, your eligion,to the tyrants who have already made ne half the laboring men of the nation ignoant, sensual, brutish slaves, and who exultngly proclaim the coming of the day whert he same accu rsed sj stem shall spread over til the land! flnswer them with the might of 1 freeman's arm, with the lightning of a freenan's flashing eye and indignant voice, with he sword of a freeman's power, the iullot 5OX!

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Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News