574 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



fNo.9 



mesne servitude which exists in all other commu- 

 nities. 



In a word, our slaves are cheerful, contented 

 and happy, much beyond the general condition of 

 the human race, except where those foreign intru- 

 ders and fatal ministers of mischief, the emancipa- 

 tionists, like their arch-prototype in the garden of 

 Eden, and actuated by no less envy, have tempt- 

 ed them to aspire above the condition to which 

 they have been assigned in the order of provi- 

 dence. 



Nor can it be admitted, as some of our states- 

 men have affirmed, in a mischievous and misguided 

 spirit of sickly sentimentality, that our system of 

 domestic slavery is a curse to the white popula- 

 tion — a moral and political evil, much to be de- 

 plored, but incapable of being eradicated. Let the 

 tree be judged by its fruit. More than half a cen- 

 tury ago, one of the most enlightened statesmen 

 who ever illustrated the parliamentary annals of 

 Great Britain, looking unto political causes, with 

 an eye of profound philosophy, ascribed the high 

 and indomitable spirit of liberty which distinguish- 

 ed the southern colonies, to the existence of do- 

 mestic slavery; referring to the example of the 

 free states of antiquity as a confirmation of his 

 theory. Since those colonies have become inde- 

 pendent states, they have amply sustained the glo- 

 ry of their primitive character. There is no co- 

 loring of national vanity in the assertion, which 

 impartial history will not ratify, that the principles 

 of rational liberty arc not less thoroughly under- 

 stood, and have been more vigilantly, resolutely 

 and effectively defended against all the encroach- 

 ments of power, by the slave-holding states, than 

 by any other members of the confederacy. In 

 which of our great political conflicts is it, that they 

 have not been arrayed against every form of usur- 

 pation, and fighting under the flag of liberty? In- 

 deed, it is a fact of historical notoriety, that those 

 great whig principles of liberty, by which go- 

 vernment is restrained within constitutional limits, 

 have had their origin, and for a long time had 

 their only abiding-place, in the slave-holding 

 states. 



# * # * # 



Though the right to emancipate our slaves, by 

 coercive legislation, has been very generally dis- 

 claimed by popular assemblages in the non-slave- 

 holding states, it is nevertheless important, that 

 each of those states should give this disclaimer the 

 authentic and authoritative form of a legislative 

 declaration, to be preserved as a permanent record 

 for our future security. Our right to demand of 

 those states the enactment of laws for the punish- 

 ment of those enemies of our peace, who avail 

 themselves of the sanctuary of their sovereign 

 jurisdiction to wage a war of extermination against 

 us, is founded on one of the most salutary and 

 conservative principles of international law. Eve- 

 ry state is under the most sacred obligations, not 

 only to abstain from all such interferance with the 

 institutions of another as is calculated to disturb 

 its tranquility or endanger its safety, but to pre- 

 vent its citizens or subjects from such interference, 

 either by inflicting condign punishment itself, or 

 by delivering them up to the justice of the offend- 

 ed community. As between separate and inde- 

 pendent, nations, the refusal of a state to punish 

 these offensive proceedings against another, by its 

 cilizens or subjects, makes the state so refusing an 



accomplice in the outrage, and furnishes a just 

 cause of war. These principles of international 

 law are universally admitted, and none have been 

 more sacredly observed by just and enlightened 

 nations. The obligations of the non-slave-hold- 

 ing states to punish and repress the hostile pro- 

 ceedings of their citizens against, our domestic in- 

 stitutions and tranquility, are greatly increased 

 both b)- the nature of those proceedings, and the 

 fraternal relation which subsists between the states 

 of this confederacy. For no outrage against any 

 community can be greater than to stir up the ele- 

 ments of servile insuirection, and no obligation to 

 repress it can be more sacred than that which adds 

 to the sanctions of international law the so- 

 lemn guarantee of a constitutional compact, which 

 is at once the bond and the condition of our union. 

 The liberal, enlighted and magnanimous conduct 

 of the people in many portions of the non-slave- 

 holding states, forbids us to anticipate a refusal on 

 the part of those states to fulfil these high obliga- 

 tions of national faith and duty. And we have 

 the less reason to look forward to this inauspicious 

 result, from considering the necessary consequen- 

 ces which would follow, to the people of those 

 states and of the whole commercial world, from 

 the general emancipation of our slaves. These 

 consequences may be presenled, as an irresistable 

 appeal, to every rational philanthropist in Europe 

 or America. It is clearly demonstrable, that, the 

 production of cotton depends not so much on soil 

 and climate as on the existence of domestic slave- 

 ry. In relaxing latitudes, where it grows, not one 

 half the quantity would be produced, but for the 

 existence of this institution, and every practical 

 planter will concur in the opinon, that if all the 

 slaves in these states were now emancipated, the 

 American crop would be reduced, the very next 

 year, from one million two hundred thousand, to 

 six hundred thousand bales. No great skill in po- 

 litical economy will be required to estimate how 

 enormously the price of cotton would be increased 

 ; by this change, and no one who will consider how 

 largely this staple contributes to the wealth 01 

 manufacturing nations, and to the. necessaries and 

 I comforts of the poorer classes all over the world, 

 can fail to perceive the disastrous effects of so 

 great a reduction in the quantity and so great an 

 enhancement in the price of it. In Great Britain, 

 , France, and the United States, the catastrophe 

 I would be overwhelming; and it is not extravagant 

 ! to say, that for little more than two millions of ne- 

 j gro slaves cut loose from their tranquil moorings 

 [ and set adrift upon the untried ocean of at. least a 

 i doubtful experiment, ten millions of poor white peo- 

 ple would be reduced to destitution, pauperism 

 I and starvation. An anxious desire to avoid the 

 last sad alternative of an injured community, 

 : prompts this final appeal to the interests and cn- 

 | lightened philanthrophy of our confederate states. 

 j And we cannot permit ourselves to believe, that 

 our just demands, thus supported by every consid- 

 eration of humanity and duty, will be rejected by 

 states, who are united to us by so many social and 

 political ties, and who have so deep an interest in 

 the preservation of that union. 



From the Richmond Whig. 

 KXTRAORDTXARY CROP OF CORN. 



Mr. Robert Ship, the manager of the plantation 

 of Mr. Tarlton Fleming, Goochland county, haa 



