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    Untitled Article

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    RE-ENSLAVEMENT.

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    Untitled Article

    84 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Jan . 2 S , 1860

    Untitled Article

    Bui ; man was then a savage , and the use of luxuries is one attribute of civilization . To impede the use of them is to check progress . A tax on wine is not quite as bad as a tax on bread , but very nearly ; and when imposed or maintained to keep alive political enmities , is as detestable as a corn Jaw . From the earliest ages till now wine has been , and wherever it can be obtained , still is in common use , and is only a luxury if clothing be a luxury . It gives enjoyment , and , used with discrimination , prolongs life .

    If the reduction of our wine duties be one part of a general remodification of our taxation , so much the better . It will equally let in the wines of all countries , arid negative completely the idea of subserviency to Prance . There are other things Wsides Avine which should be released from the tax collector ' s grip . Our cumbrous and complicated system needs simplifying as well as reducing ; but the task of making it what it ought to be seems gigantic to the dwarfs who are paid for managing the affairs of the nation . We must be content , tliereforey we are afraid , with siich a reduction of the wine duties as will be acceptable to the French , rather than seek for such a reform of bur system as would be just to ourselves . The wants of the State are said to stand in the way ; but the State exists only for the people ,.

    and the revenue , which crushes -enjoyment , impedes progress or cuts short life , is utterly at variance with the sole purpose for which the State exists and revenue is levied . Vast quantities of stuff manufactured out of apples , rhubarb , gooseberries , whisky , &c . are sold for wine , and therefore we decline to believe that a considerable reduction of the duty will injure the revenue . When it is cheaper to import wine than to mamifacture it , the fraudulent manufacture will be given up , and no wine willbe drunk which has not paid duty . The instant the reduction of the diity is announced , too , preparations will be made to meet the expected consequences . More goods will be manufactured for the foreign market , more will be exported , and there will be increased importation . There will he more revenue from Other sources . But if the fear of loss

    to the revenue be not unfounded * the high . ground on which alone this commercial treaty can be jus ' tified puts an end to the pi-etext "for levying our wine . duties . ^ They stand in the way of peace and of progress ; and are contrary to the welfare of society . . ¦ Undoubtedly it would be preferable to get rid of them for our own sakes without any commercial treaty . Every nation , like every individual , must take care of itself . To make its policy dependant on the policy of another nation is to sacrifice independence . But all . treaties equally do this , and free-trade politicians ,

    in making a commercial treaty , only conform to an old custom . It binds contracting nations by other , obligations than those of trade , which arise at all times from , and are always enforced by , their mutual interests . At present , there is a tendency to union between nations—rubbing off-their political peculiarities . Trade makes them averse from angry contests , and unites them in one common community . This is a natural progress which the treaty may promote . Strange to say , the present general armament of our people , from a resolution to resist all attijck from abroad , has the same tendency : it ke , eps brutal force in awe , and keeps the paths of trade and amity open .

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    \/ i / iS see no reason to question the authenticity ot the curious \ V document which has lately been , published as a memorial addressed to the [ Legislature of ^ Maryland . On the contrary ; its insolent inconsistencies and absurd injustice reproduce with photographic fidelity the present feelings and temper of the South . JSn non 6 vero e ban trovato will scarcely apply to it . It is much too truthful to have been invented ; and those who doubt its genuineness can have little knowledge ' of the attitude which { Slavery has now assumed in the Unitod States . The logic of the memorialists is not one whit more halting and monstrous than that employed by all the other defenders of Slavery , even by politicians who aspire to the Presidency ; nnd the measures it clomnnds have been already oarried out in more than one Slave

    State . It is , of course , a stupid contradiction to complain » . that the free negro population is oi' " idle and depraved habits , " and immediately afterwards denounce jit bittorly as doing the work which tho " poor but worthy white oitizens" are entitled to ; but nil this preamble of reasoning is merely the compliance with Ainoricnn custom , which requires a wordy " . whereas" before each 'ix's . olut ' ion ^ and no more needs to bo based upon rcrfson and justice than did tho arguments of the wolf who intended to devour the luokless lamb . Tho whites have the powor in Marylaud , and can as well get rid of free negroes as their brethren in Arkansas , who , by a law passod in the last session of their L . ogislaturo , gave the poor creatures the option of emigrating before , the 1 st January , 1800 , or of becoming slaves . Any diversity of

    action will arise from the difference in the relative position and strength of the .-two States ; Maryland is small , and borders upoii ° free States ; its free population is also larger than that of Arkansas , and , in the present temper of the public mind , an \ r measure of this kind might lead to a serious collision . If tliisapprehension does not act upon the : Legislature , we entertain little doubt—the more especially as the governor of the State has in his recent message recommended legislation with respect to the coloured popidation—that the prayer of the memorialists , will be granted so far as to give the free negroes the option of emigrating or becoming slaves . At present , the poor whites of Maryland , even rejoicing ; as they do , in the support of the farfamed Baltimore " rowdies / ' cannot hope to find representativesprepared to prevent the free negroes from quitting the State ,, reduce them to slavery , and divide them amongst the worthiest claimants . If similar measures are not asked in the other Slave States it is from no repugnance to the injustice involved in them . The ? whole of the Southern States are now in a condition in which no > proposition intended for the defence of their pretended rightsappears absurd , much less unjust . We have the legislatures of nearly all of them passing most stringent laws against the free coloured population , and voting the most outrageous resolutions against their Northern confederates . We have the Governors , the legal representatives of their States , writing messages almost diabolical in their character , and then we have speeches outcapping . the wildest flights American oratory ever before attained . Nothing is too wild-or ridiculous for the " Southern " gentlemen . " The Virginian students at the Medical College in Philadelphia lately held a meeting , at which , they resolved that their duty to their native State required them to eschew Free State teaching , and went back in pomp to Richmond , where the Governor received them , and delivered an oration to the crowd gathered to receivejhem , which although superlatively ridiculous , is . yet bepraised throughout the whole South , and even by its partisansin the North , as a magnificent oration , thegenuiiie emanation of a statesman ' s mind . Governor WisE started then Avhat has now become a great " craze" of the South ^ -isolation from , and independence of the North . No more Northern manufactures or Northern teachers ' ¦ ¦ ¦ for him . The South is to use only manufactures of her own make , including philosophy , medicine , and religion . And this stupid idea is _ seriously taken up , so far at . least , that it has been solemnly determined in some places that only those New York merchants and bankers should be dealt with who are thoroughly sound upon the " goose " question . There is another Southern " craze" which affects us more particularly , although we can well afford to laugh at it . England , which in the eyes of a genuine Continental politician is always engaged in stirring up peoples against their rightful masters , and provoking squabbles from which she makes a large profit , is almost as useful a bugbear to the , American politician . She has by her infernal arts provoked the " irrepressible conflict , " Canada is the seat of a plot against Southern pence , and it is only by completely crushing , her that the gentlemen of the South will be able to live in comfort , and thrash their niggers just as they please . So a war with England is preached , and the cry is" caught up with avidity by the democratic newspapers of the North , which have Irish readers to tickle . The Southerners , however , wild as they now are , are too wide awake to quarrel with us . If it is important for us to get their cotton , our purchase of it is absolutely essential to them . If we left them one year ' s stock on hand , . one half the planters would be bankrupt . But that , knowing this so well , the South , should now , for the first time , preach war % with England , proves the state of excitement to which , it has been lashed . It must recover speedily from its frenzy , or its ruin is sealed . Passive resistance is the only way to prolong the maintenance of the "domestic institution , " and a sensible , gradual manumission alone will avert its violent overthrow . Slavery propogandism , or even the effort to vindicate the justice and legitimacy of the institution , is a gross absurdity . The only justification of Slaveryis force , and / that is not proved by blasphemous perversions of Scripture , or historical sophistrios , but by a quiet determined attitude . When tho force departs , the poor justification it gave goes too , and slavery itself ceases . No sophistry would ever persuade a man of sound mind to' become a slave himself , nnd none , therefore , can make him admit tho justice of slavery , unless he is already a slave-ownor in possession , or one in liourt . The " poor whites , " the great , curse of . the South , require no arguments ' to induce them to believe in Slavery , beoause the groat object of their lives is" to have a couple of blaoks to work for them , and allow them to lead in comfort a lazy , useless life , shared : between bar-rooms and political " caucuses j" and tho Irish believers of the North aro so readily convinced , only because they are jeolous of tho free negroes , who are much bettor workmen nnd sorvants , and would themselves like to have niggers to knook about ,

    Re-Enslavement.

    RE-ENSLAVEMENT .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 28, 1860, page 84, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2331/page/8/