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CHAPTER XVIII.

Observations mainly upon the Facts recited in the preceding Chapters.

I PROPOSE now to bring this volume to a conclusion with the presentation of a few additional observations, having reference, either direct or indirect, to facts already brought to notice, or to others too obvious and familiar to have required an earlier specification.

1. No clearer proposition could, in my judgment, be possibly stated than the one insisted on so emphatically in all that I have heretofore written, that the war, from the devastation and suffering of which the country is now slowly emerging, did not necessarily grow out of the fact that African slavery existed in the South, and did not exist in the North, and that there was not really any thing worthy the notice of a philosophic mind in the fact that, while white men and white women in the North performed the greater part of all the rougher physical labor, and voluntarily, this was done in the South chiefly by persons of a black or brown complexion, and after the manner that has been called involuntary. The truth is, that the opposition to the continuance of African slavery in the region wherein it has just become extinct, as the inevitable result of the war that has been for four years. raging, was confined in the North to, comparatively speaking, a very small number of persons, and still fewer of these were, until very recently at least, possessed of

NO IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

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any large amount of influence over the general public mind of the country. Outside of small fanatical and political cliques, there was not, even as late as five years ago, any strong antagonism of sentiment between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding sections of the republic. As for any antagonism of pecuniary interest in connection with Southern slaveholding, the ascertained existence of which, as a source of large pecuniary gain, if believed also to be permanent, might, in an age so mercenary as ours, prove, perhaps, to some extent, productive of a sort of reciprocal rivalry of feeling, this is the merest phantom that ever vexed the over-fevered brain of a fanciful visionary. The pecuniary interests of the North and South, in connection with slaveholding, it is true, were not identical, but so far were they also from being conflicting and irreconcilable, that they were positively in perfect accord with each other, and were, anterior to the war, constantly multiplying and intensifying ties of sympathetic kindness between the two sections. There is no necessary antagonism between the blacksmith and the miller, the fisherman and the hunter of game, the cultivator of the land and the mariner who plows the fields of ocean. On the contrary, all of them, and a thousand diverse but not necessarily hostile classes besides, may not only subsist in quiet as members of the same community, but their very differences of employment, leading them naturally into the interested reciprocation of the respective products of their labor, must necessarily generate amity instead of hostility. It is quite safe to affirm that, anterior to the war, there was more capital in the North than in the South dependent for its profitable employment

upon the African slaveholding system. The growers of cotton, sugar, tobacco, and other slave-raised products in the South, though their multiplied responsibilities, moral as well as physical, were indeed most burdensome, derived far less of clear profit from the outlay of their capi tal than did the merchants and manufacturers of the North, and the other numerous classes dependent upon them. The truth of this statement was alike, manifest in innumerable instances of individual fortune in the North, arising, directly or indirectly, from the slaveholding system-in the rapid and unprecedented growth of large commercial marts, and in the innumerous ramifications of manufacturing industry. It is said in Holy Writ that "where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also," and thus it undoubtedly was in the case under consideration. It was not in nature for those who were, daily and hourly, over the whole North, becoming richer and richer from the cultivation of Southern soil by the sons and daughters of Africa, to cherish feelings of illiberal hatred for those whose skillful and vigilant administration of a system to them so productive of gain was constantly increasing the aggregate quantity of their wealth, and with it the means of luxurious accommodation, of extended influence, and of magnificent liberality There are many who write and speak on this subject, and who speak and write, too, most flippantly and plausibly, who really imagine because they, before the war, hated the slaveholding system of the South, the whole people of the North did the same thing. There never was a greater mistake committed. I have had in my time much interest in looking into the truth of this matter, and have

CORRECTION OF A SERIOUS ERROR.

421

enjoyed good opportunities too of finding out actual facts, and I aver now that it is my solemn and fixed conviction that there were not, five years ago two twentieths of the whole Northern population who would not have greatly preferred slavery to continue in the South for an indefinite period, to participating, in the least degree, in its sudden extinction. It is, indeed, not at all important to discuss this matter at present with a view to the possible revival of African slavery in the South at any future time. The man any where who calculates upon such a revival is not far from being a fit subject for some insane asylum. African slavery in the South is indeed gone forever, and I am confident that there are not one thousand intelligent persons in that region, of all the former slaveholding class, who would now resuscitate this defunct system if they had it ever so much in their power to do So. But it is important that the large and influential class in the South who were former owners of slaves, and who for many years to come will undoubtedly exercise a most potential influence there, should be assured, in an authentic and satisfactory manner, that the destruction of their property was not deliberately sought by a majority of their Northern fellow-citizens, but that their present condition-so far, at least, as any one in the North is responsible for it is the result of influences originally very feeble and limited in their scope of operation, and whose capacity for mischief has been supplied in a great degree by the indiscretion and overweening ambition of individuals holding high official position among themselves. Secession is chiefly accountable for the destruction of African slavery. The combined action of extremists of the North

and of the South brought on the war, which a few feeble abolitionists could never have created; and, in a moment of unparalleled folly, the only solid guarantee that it was possible in the nature of things that this anomalous and world-hated system could possess, viz., the Constitution of the United States, with the consent of the slaveholding class themselves, was cast aside, and is now lost to it forever! This result though, should not now, and I am well assured it will not be hereafter, a source of permanent regret to the white population of the South. They will, indeed, be far better off in time to come without slavery than with it. They will be relieved from a most painful and perplexing responsibility. If the new system of agricultural labor shall succeed (and all good. citizens must earnestly desire that it should), the whole Southern people will be far more prosperous hereafter than they have been heretofore. Labor in the South will be more diversified, and be likely to yield more solid benefits of every kind. Manufacturing and mineral industry too will be now seen to flourish, for the first time, in that great and prolific region, and even Southern commerce may hereafter attain a more healthful and self-supporting existence. But no man need expect less antagonisms of interest hereafter to be manifested between the North and the South than have heretofore prevailed; and if certain people who are now making a great noise in particular Northern vicinages can have their own way, in spite of all that the beneficent wisdom of government can do, it is to be feared that antagonisms of feeling, "imbedded" in the moral constitutions of bigoted and narrow-minded zealots, may breed new and fatal discords and conten

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