Security of slave property.
It is commonly alleged that slave property would be more secure in the
Union, even under a Black Republican
President, than in a Southern Confederacy; or, in other words, that other people — and those, enemies — can take care of a man's rights and property better than he can himself.
So far as fugitive slaves are concerned, it is rare that a slaveholder can retake his fugitive now, except at a greater cost than it is worth.
With some exceptions a successful escape is final, unless, as is sometimes the case, the fugitive, discovering that his new lot is full of hardships, chooses himself to return.
In regard to the suppression of insurrections, no such assistance is necessary, nor, if it were, could it be rendered.
The Army of the United States, small at best, is scattered over an immense extent of territory, and cannot be concentrated in time to be of service in any such emergency.
We have all seen how long a time it requires for
Gen.Scott to collect one thousand regulars in
Washington, and may judge from that example, where the
General Government was working in good faith and with a hearty good will, of what practical avail for the suppression of servile disturbances would be an army thus situated, and in the hands of an abolition Administration.
Moreover, the history of the world affords few examples of successful insurrections.
The present generation has before its own eyes the instructive instance of the manner in which a few thousand Englishmen held all
India in subjection, and of the thorough and complete triumph, in the late memorable
India mutiny, of 20,000 English soldiers over an admirably disciplined army of 200,000 Sepoys, abundantly supplied with arms and munitions of war, and backed by the moral, if not material, aid and comfort of 150,000,000 of subject people.
It is absurd, therefore, to talk of the dominant race in the
Southern States, dominant in numbers as well as blood, and all accustomed to the use of arms, being dependent for their safety upon the army of any Government.
Moreover, the inferior race in the
Southern States are, in general, contented and loyal, and, as we see in
South Carolina, not only faithful to their masters, but absolutely aiding to fight against the enemy.
The intelligent among their number fully understand that the real object of the abolitionists is not to help the negroes, but to drive them out, and put white men in their places.
The cause of abolition is known by them as well as anybody to be what the Washington
Star has unguardedly admitted, "the Future of White Labor in
Virginia." Besides, if military protection were necessary, an army in the Southern Confederacy is already established, which will soon be as large as that of the
United States, and will always be at the command of a slaveholding
President.
In regard to fugitive slaves, there will no more be an inducement to agitate the subject in the
Northern States; because, having no longer any connection with slavery, the politicians cannot use abolition for their advancement.
Moreover, when men talk of bringing a Canada down to our borders by disunion, they forget that the
North has no more desire to be made a Canada of, a
Botany Bay for free negroes, than the
South has that she should become so. In not a few of the free States there are already laws forbidding free negroes to settle among them, and this would be the case with all if threatened with such an influx of pauperism and crime as would follow the wholesale escape of fugitive slaves into their borders.
It is very convenient for them now to run off fugitive slaves to
Canada, but when the question is, Whether they shall stop in the
North instead of going to
Canada?
the practical
Yankees would pitch them out at the point of the bayonet.
Is it likely that a people who are laboring new to displace the slave population of the
Border States, for the purpose of introducing their own surplus white labor, would be willing, at any time, and especially after they are deprived of that outlet, to displace their own white labor by hordes of free negroes?
The truth is, the interests of the
North, as well as the removal of the agitating cause of slavery from Northern politics, would, in the event of secession, render slave property safer in the
Border States than it has been for the last quarter of a century.
Besides all this, the custom officers who would be stationed on the border and on the seaboard, could at the same time act as a line of police to protect this property, an expense which would be supported by the whole of the Southern Confederacy.-- It should also be remembered that there are few slaves now in any of the counties which immediately border the free States, (why is that, if slave property is safe in the
Union?) and that these border counties would continue, as at present, a bulwark for the more inland tier, with the additional safeguard of a vigilant police.
In fine, disunion, instead of endangering slave property, would present no increased facilities for escape, and would provide additional securities for its safety.
