CHAPTER IX 

 Shadows of Coming Troubles 



Though Maury emerged with victory perched upon 

 his banners from his bitter conflict with the "Retiring 

 Board", yet he was not to enjoy again the peaceful 

 pursuit of scientific and philosophical researches. His 

 mind was to be distracted by the consideration of a 

 question which was before long to rend the country in 

 twain and incidentally cause the wreck of his scientific 

 ambitions. 



Maury had always been distinctively a sympathizer 

 in all the hopes and ambitions of the South, but he had 

 early recognized the dangerous political potentialities 

 in the slavery problem. As far back as 1850 he had set 

 forth the free navigation of the Amazon River as a novel 

 remedy for the preservation of the Union. According 

 to his plan, Brazil was to become a country for the dis- 

 posal of the surplus slaves of the South, and he hoped 

 that in time by act of law slavery and involuntary servi- 

 tude might be completely removed from the South. 

 "The Southern states", he wrote, "may emancipate just 

 as New York, Massachusetts, etc. emancipated their 

 slaves — large numbers of them were not set free; they, 

 after the acts of prospective emancipation became laws, 

 were sold at the South ; and so the South may sell to the 

 Amazon and so get clear of them. In no other way can 

 I see a chance for it, — the slaves of the South are worth 

 about fifteen hundred million. Their value is increasing 

 at the rate of thirty or forty million a year. It is the 

 industrial capital of the South. Did ever a people con- 

 ns 



