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Volume XVIII.
Ci mts avti %mtmd.
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Columbus, Apr I 15 1854
B. V. MARTIN. J. J. MARTIN.
MARTIN & MARTINr”
Attorneys at Law,
e.ex.TTMjrrs, Gk&.
Oflicfi on Broitd Street—OverGunby & Daniel.
Columbus, Jau. 9, 1857. w&twlv.
HAMILTON & FLAKE,
Attorneys and Counsellors at Law,
CO jUBIBUS, ga.
rpHE above firm havo renewed their Copartnership, and
1. will devote the most assiduous attention to the pro
fession in the counties of Muscogee, Harris, Talbot and
Chattahoochee, in this State,and in Russell county, Ala.
Office, front room over E. Barnard's Store.
January 28,1857. w&twtf.
M. b. wellboh J. jere.n. williams.
# WELLBORN & WILLIAMS,
ATTORNEYS AT LAW,
Clayton, Alabama,
WILL irive prompt attention to the collection of ell claims
entrusted totheircare in Barbour countv. Oct 4 wtwtim
MARION BETHUNE,
A TTO RN E Y AT LA W ,
TALEOTTON, Talbot County, Sa.
October 24th, 1856. wtwtf.
W. S. JOHNSffiN,
ATTORNEY A T LA W.
C U S S E T A,
Chattahoochee County, Ga.
dives hUentire attentionto the practice iu Chattahoochee
adjoining counties. an2t> wtwly*
BOBERT 13. HOWARD,
ATTORNEY AT LAW,
CRAWFORD, ALA.
September 8, 18.45. —twAwtl.
S. A. M’LENDQN,
ATTORNEY AT LA W,
Fort Gaines, Ga.
V 'ILL promptly attend to ail business entrusted to his
care—partlcul .rlv Collectin!?. novSwtwiy
PEYTON H. COLQUITT,
ATTOII NE ’• T LAW,
COLUMBUS, GA.
Office, up stairs,over Col. Holt’s office, Randolph st.
may 2d, 1855 wA*twtf
A Medicine that never Debilitates
DR. SAND FORD’S
INVIGORATOR,
OIL LIVER REMEDY,
18 N ARTICLE THAT EVERY BODY MEEDS WHO IS
nol in a perfect state of health, for the Liver is second only
to the heart in our uuman economy, and when that is deran
ged the whole vital machinery runs wrong. To find a medicine
peculiarly adapted to this disease has been the study of one
of ‘he proprietor, in a largo and extended practice tor
the past twenty years, and the result of his experiment is the
luvigorator, as a never-failing remedy where medicine has
any power to help. Asa liver remedy it has no equal, as ail
testify who use it.
* lady writing from Brooklyn, save: “VVou’d that I could
express- in this short letter the value your luvigorator has
been to me fn raising a large family ot children, for it lias
never failed to relieve all all affections of the stomach, bowels
or attacks of worms. If mothers had th remedy p’aced
whbin their reach,and were taught how o ue it, a tearful
and untold amount ol agony might be saved.
One of our prominent baukers says, ‘•‘Five or six years ago
1 found my sell running down with a liver difficulty; resorting
to your luvigorator, was greatly relieved, and continuing
for a season, was entirely restored.”
A clergyman called at our office the other day and said he
bad given a Dnor woman a bottle, who was suffering very bad
ly Irotu the Liver Complaint, and before she had taken the
whole of it. she was at wora earning bread for ner family.
A gentleman, recently from t e west,says, white at Chicago,
hew s att eked with a slow, lingering iever, that baffled the
sHll of physicians, but the Invigoraior cured him in a few
days.
Oneof onr city merchants said, whileon a visit'to Troy, a
few days sinee, he was attacked with boweil and st mach
disorders, so as to confine him to his room, he sent to the drug
store for a bottle of Invigoraior,took one dose, which relieved
him so that he was able to attend his business.
An acquaintance, whose business compels him to write
most of the time, says he became so weak us to be unable at
times to hold his pen, while at others sleep would overpower
him but the luvigorator cured him.
A gentleman from Brooklyn called on us a week or two
since, looking but the shadow ol a man, with hie skin yellow,
pale ana deathlike. He had een for a long time sufiering
irom Jaundice aii'i Dyspepsia, and unable to attend to his bu
siness. We saw him again to-day a changed man, and to use
his expression: In has not seen the bottom ot the first bottle,
and further adds, “it saved my life, lor I was fast going toa
consumptive’s grave.
Among the hundreds of Liver remedies now offered (to the
public, there aie none we can so fully recommend as Dr. San
tord’s luvigorator, or Liver Remedy, so generally known now
throughout the Union. This preparation yis truly a Liver In
vigorator, producing t e roost happv results on all who use
it. Almost innumerable certificates have been given of the
great virtue of this medicine by those of the highest standing
in society, and it is, without .doubt; the best preparation now 7
before the public.
SANFORD 6l CO.Proprietors, 345 New York.
8 and by Pemberton, Nuckolls & Cos. and by Danforthfc
Nagel ‘Jolumbus. inar.B—w&tw3m*
Southern Commercial Convention.
THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.
Mr. L. VV. Spratt of S. C , from the committee or
dered by the last convention “to collect facta bearing
upon the re-opening of the African Have Trade, to
be presented at the next session of the convention,”—
submitted the following report upon the subject, which
he read to the coveotion.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Southern and
Southwestern Commercial Convention.
At the last meeting of this Convention, which was
held at Knoxville, in the State of Tennessee .there were
several communications submitted with a view to elicit
an expression of feeling upon the Eubject of the foreign
slave trade, which was then attracting some attention;
and that body, unwilling to ignore the question, and
unwilling also to act in haste upon a matter of so much
importance, appointed a committee to take that subject
into consideration. They were charged to inquire into
the condition of the ualives of Africa; ro examine in
to the wants of the South in respect to population and
labor, and report upon the same to this Convention;
and that committee having had these several subjects
under consideration, during the recess, now beg leave
to offer their report.
In advance of any investigation as to the probable
effects of the foreign slave trade upon the fortunes, ei
ther of Africa or the Southern Slates of this Republic
there is the question, whether in any event, it may be
right to bring the negro by compulsion to a life of la
bor. But that question wo take to be determined by
domestic slavery.
It is obvious that two distinct and antagonistic forms
of society have met for contest upon the arena of this
Union. The one assumes that all men are equal and
that equality is right, and forming upon that theory is
straining its members to the horizontal plain of a de
mocracy. The other assumes that all men are not equal
—that equality is not right, therefore, and forming up
on triis tlieory, is taking to itself the rounded form ol a
social aristocracy. It this were a question t be deter
mined by opiuioivthere would be the room for exten
ded argument as to which may be the better. The
one embodies the popular ideal of the age, and, while
entitled therefore to presumptions in its tavor, is estab
bsheu in the common mind,by the conclusive logic of
adoption. The other departs from the ideal,and while
sentenced therefore, by popular judgment, must prove
its claims to recognition. But it has high grounds on
w hich to stand in claiming to be the embodiment of a
living social truth
Two races have concurred in union here, and these
races are unequal. That they are unequal, in charac
ter and capaci'v, is too plain, perhaps, to need an ar
gument. While the ruling race has been capable of
progress—while it has continually advanced in !aw and
arts, and is able to sustain a structure of civilization,
riot only over itself, but over the other race connected
with it—that other rat e ha-not been capable of pro
gress. It has never been able to rear a structure ofeiv
tlization in its native laud; ithasnotbeen able to sus
tain the structure prepared for it in the West indies; it
lias not been able to stand up to the structure sustain
ed over it in the Noithern States, and neither in its na
tive land, or in a foreign land, in A savage or a civil
ized condiiion, has it ever yet been able to illuminate
one living truth with the rays of genius.
Yet, while so unequal, there is no apparent reason
why these races may not come together. They arc
upon the surface of the’same earth; they both possess
powers of expansion, and the God that made them
must have foreseen, and must have intended, therefore,
that their circles of expansion should intersect; and,
unless it can be inferred that the stronger was intended
to exterminate the weaker, as it has crushed out the
Indian on this continent,and as man expelsthe untam
e.d beasts, it would seem that some form of union was
intended to take place between them.
If intended tliat a union should occur, it must have
been intended also, that it should oceur in relations of
inequality, for it is it law of the same great architect
that, il unequalled iu lact, they must be unequal in re
lations; that bodies of unequal gravity must test upon
unequal levels—-that oil and water poured into the same
vessel must settle in plains ot unequal elevation, and so
therefore, it would seem that in this form of social con
stitution there is not only no wrong, but that here, as
elsewhere, if nature be true to herself, superior power
rou t find ils office in superior position.
Nor though democracy be the ideal of the age. is
there the reason lor believing that human society was
intended to consist forever, of an unurticulated mass of
pure democracy It is to be remembered that no such
mass has ever yet commenced the march of social
movement. Whenever States havo come to greatness,
they have exhibited the condition of unequal classes—
There wete Citizens and Slaves in Greece, Patricians
and Plebians in Rome, Peers and Villains in England,
Nobles and Peasants in Central Europe, and generally
..taoict ui c .cl.UHl SOCI.iI r .J ’
there has been articulation —a riding and a subject class
if not a ruling and a subject race—an artificial if not a
natural dualism. And so, also, is it to be noticed that
no State has ever yet survived the loss ot such political
distinctions. Rome perished in a military democracy;
Franco leans on despotism, since the natural props ol
social order have been stricken down; and even now
it might be painful to consider what would be the
North without the South. It is true that these inequal
ities have been artificial, and being artificial they have
yielded to the force of social gravity. It was right, in
one sense, that the peer, being no better than the peas
ant, should come down, and that the peasant, the nat
ural equal of the peer, should arise; and there has been
the assertion of a social truth in evety step towards a
democracy, and reason, therefore, in the shouts of tri
umph which encourage masses in their march to power.
But this exhibits only'that these distinctions were un
natural, not that they were unnecessary—not that ine
quality is wrong, but only that political inequality can
notendure without the natural fitness to sustain it; and
if society, by its own spasmodic workings through hu
man history, has exhibited the great truths that to so
cial order and social progress there is the necessity for
social articulation and a ruled and ruling class, and
that without unequal races these distinctions are not to
bo perpetuated.it has demonstrated that not only is this
form of social constitution adopted by these Southern
States, no: wrong, but that in our possession of races so
unequal they can never merge, we hold the promise of
a brighter future than has ever opened to the hopes of
man.
Not are the analogies oi this great Universe against
it. We have no means of knowing what is to be the
final constitution of society; but, we havo no reason
tor assuming that it is not to have some other form
than it has ever yet achieved. As the unorganic
world has been brought to the point at which it is fit
for animal life, and, as animal life has been raised
through successive steps up to the point at which it is
fitted for society, so also is there reason for believing
that soeiety itself may be intended to progress to other
verges of creation. The physical world would seem
to be complete. Starting at the polyp—an unarticula
lated thing with its foot stalk on a rock, and capable
only of growth and reproduction, and following the
chain of animated nature up to matt —we see a grand
panorama ol creations, each order more complicated
and more perfect than the one before it. Os this great
array of physical nature, the forms are all determined
and the requisitions known. But starting at society, as
yet an unarticulated thing, with its toot-stalk on man
and pointing out toa range of social relations unac
complished, the forms are not determined and the re
quisitions are not known. It may be that this democ
racy-this tiling ot equal elements—unarticulated and
unbelieved, is all that is inteeded—that this order of
social relations is to stop at its first achievement, and
that man is to endure and nations to rise and fall, with
the ability to attain nothing more formed and moreen
during than this elementary condition; but, it may be
that it is not ail that is intended. It may be that socie
ty also is to go by regular gradations upwards,and that
it is to have form and organism, and capacities and
powers, as much above the democratic ideal of the
present age as is the vortibrate above the radiate in
animated nature.
Such are some of the grounds upon which slavery
stands to vindicate itself. It mav be that il is right.—
There is no umpire between us, at least, upon this
earth, and whether right or not, can only be determin
ed iu the great result And it is only for us, iu humble
reliance on an overruling Providence, to do our part by
slavery and tiust to Him the favorable issue. Il we af
firm this union of unequal races, we must affirm the
means to its formation. It were else as logical in those
who’avor matrimony to object to marriage; and an
affirmance of slavery, therefore, is in principle and effect
an affirmance of the foreign slave trade.
That this is so there is little room for question. It has
been attempted to distinguish between the foreign and
domestic slave trade, but there is no ground for such
distinction. There are many tender to the touch of
foreign stricture, who are conieut to say we hold ihe
negro by prescription; but there is no such refuge- If I
shall have held a negro, and that were possible, until
hts right to liberty, as against me, has been barred by
him, so has not, also, the man to whom 1 sell him ;
and he who buys a slave he never owned at home has
nothing to say to me for buying a slave I never owned
abroad.
But we go further. If there be the right to liberty in
the negro, it can never be extinguished by prescription.
That may give property as between owners, but it can
give no sanction to a wrong. It may give me the title
to property, as against another, and to a slave, therefore,
as against his master, but no right to a slave against
himself. And it were asjust to hold, that the impris
onment of a man for one year will warrant his impris
onment for another, or that we may beat a neighbor
uutil it shall be no battery to beat him, or, generally,
that the repetition of any other wrong will make it
right—as, that by holding the negro in violation of his
natural rights for so long, we have acquired the right to
hold him no longer.
Considering, then, that slavery is itself an affirmance
ol all the proper means to ils extension—lhat if the
trade be wrong, so is the condition which results from
it—and that in no way can we defend the union of un
equal races without defending also the means to its
formation, we next come to the two great practical
questions that have been submitted to our consideration,
which are : whether this trade will benefit the negroes
of Africa, and if so, whether it will also benefit the
Souih.
With respect to the African, it will first be noticed
that slavery is the common condition of mat country;
and with respect to such as ate slaves, therefor#, it were
‘‘the UNION OF THE STATES AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. 5
COLUMBUS, GEORGIA, TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 18, 1858.
a waste ot time to show that they will be beneiiued by
a ehange of masters. It is said that in some section.-
these amount to four fifths of the entire populati on—and
these would answer all the requisitions ot the slave
trade without disturbing the condition of any that are
not already slaves. So, also, is it to be noticed that
none can be sold to slavery who are not either slaves
or captives, therefore, there is but little room to doubt
but that the brightest fortune that awaits them is in a life
of service in these Southern States.
But it is assumed that the slave trade will set these
tribes to taking captives, and that for this, therefore,
and the cruelty and crimes attendant on it. this trade
will be justiy answerable. But it is notto be so assum
ed, unless il can be said that there would be no war
and bloodshed to the same extent without; and that
cannot be said. On the contrary, it may be mournful,
but it in true, that savage tribes must war upon each
other. They warred upon each other on this continent!
they war upon each other in the Southern Pacific Is
lands, and in Africa there has been one continued war
of each poor tribe upon its neighbor throughout the
whole extended period of its history. There is cessation,
but no more of peace than marks the intercourse ot hosts
that roam the desert. YVar is the condition and captives
are incidents. If there he the slave trade, they will bo
spared to slavery ; if not, to avoid the burthen ot sup
porting them or to preclude the chances ot escape, they
will he slain; and the slave trade, therefore, does more to
mitigate the barbarities of savage warfare than any oth
er institution known to history. It saves to life and
usefulness 1,000,000 to 1 that is so preserved by the as
pirations of philanthropy.
Admitting, however, that the foreign slave trade will
occasion slavery, and it is still to be considered wheth
er those who come within its influence are proper sub
jects of commiseration. tor it is certain that there are
few aspects of native life in Africa attractive.
Mr. Freeman, who visited Upper Guinea, on the west
coast, who writes to the Wesleyan Missionary Socie
ty of London in 1338, of the people of Ashantee, says:
“Wuen an Ashantee o) any description dies, several of
his slaves are sacrificed ; and as 1 walked out early in
the morning, 1 saw the mangled corpse ot a poor fe
male slavewho had been beheaded during the night,lying
in the public street. It was positively covered with a
cotton mat, and as this covering is unusual, J conclud
ed that it was thrown over it to hide it from tny view.
In the course of the day I saw groups of natives dan
cing round it with all manner ol fantastic gestures, ap
pearing to he in the very zenith of their happiness.”—
Speaking of another, he says, “The head was severed
from the body, and several turkey buzzards were ‘east
ing on the wounds, arid literally rolling the head in the
dust.”
Mr. Robert Moffat, who, for twenty years, had been
agent olthe London Missionary Society in Souih Africa,
and who wrote in 1845, ol the Bushrnen ot Zak River,
pays : “The practice is, that when a mother dies, whose
infant is unable to shift for itself, it is without ceremony
buried alive with her.” And again : “ Their huts are
formed by digging a hole in the earth about three feet
deep, and making a roof ot reeds, which, however, is
insufficient to keep off the rain. Thu- ihey lie close to
gether like pig- in a stve. They are extremely lazy, so
that nothing will nr use them but hunger. The men
have several wives. * * Hottentots seldom destroy
their children, except in a fit ol passion, but the Bu.-h
----rnen will kill their children without any remorse on
various occasions. * * ‘They know no God, know
nothing of eternity, and yet dread dc atli.”
Os the Bechuanas he says.- “They have no traditions
of religion, and do not rise even to idolatry * *
They are brought up to religious exercises by bits of to
bacco, and were attentive only so long as they had the
hope of gaining anything by it. * * They break the
legs of our cattle, they steal our tools and utensils,and
when they can make no use of them, they disfigure
them as much as possible and bring them back to trade
for something else.”
In one of his excursions he came to a deerepid Hot
tentot mother who hud been abandoned by her children
to perish in the desert, or be devoured by beasts.
Os the Boralongs, be says: “They view murder with
indifference, and he was immoderately laughed at lor
complaining to a chief that a man hud just dashed his
spear through Ids w iie.”
Rev. Mr. Bowen, who wrote in 1856, says of the
Yarouba tribe that “when a man dies the oldest son
inherits the house and ail the wives hat his own ; and
oi the Kirnmnn, ho says, “as age advances he looses
the control of his female household, most ot the mem
bers of which now tun away, unless he is wise enough
(as-usage permits) to dispose of them to his more
youthful relations.”
Lander, speaking of the Lootoo, says: “The reason
of our not meeting with a better reception was in the
want of a chief—the last having followed the old
Governorto the'grave, for he was his slave.” fle-aya
also, that “widows are clubbed or poispftfcd ,'tW“i..;iy.?
they are burned in. [tsi % ,” ire * population of ’that, and
{iie'adjaeent countries, are slaves.”
Capt. Conot, an old slaver, who was taken and con
fined by ihe Kree. Bushmen, speaks of what lie saw on
the morning after the battle: “Presently slowly ap
proached from a distance a procession ot women,
whose naked limbs were smeared with ch lk and
ochre, poured into the ‘palaver house’ to join mo
beastly rites. Fa hos these devils was armed rih a
knife, and bore in her hands some cannibal trophy.—
Jenkins’ wife, a corpulent wench of 45, dragged along
the ground by a single limb the slimy coipseolau
infant-” .....
Dr. Barth, who visited North and Central Africa un
der the auspices of Her -Brittanie Majesty’s government
in 1850, says of ihe Berber tribes, which have at least
the merit oi hereditary distinctions, that“the tew of the
ruling race live in tolerable comfort upon the plunder
of caravans and the labor ot their many subjects, and
that under the influence of those advantages they have
abandoned tents, to some extent, and live in huts made
of bushes and dry grass.”
Bruce, ihe traveller, visits Abysinnia, which has
not only a hereditary aristocracy, but some lingering
firms of the Christian religion; and, speaking ol their
habits, says of their slaughtering animals, that “two or
more of them fall to work on the hack ot the beast
while it is still alive, and stripping the skin half way
down the sides, begin to cut away irotn it. ‘The noise
made by the poor creature is the announcement that
dinner i3 ready.”
Mr. Mansfield Porkyns, who visits the same coun
try in 1850, says that “there has been much improve
inem since the time ol Bruce, and that though the bet
ter class still sle.ep naked, with a block ol wood for
a pillow,and still eat the flesh of animals while it is
yet warm and quivering, they yet, in most cases, kill
the animal before they cut it up.”
Dr. Livingstone passes from the Cape ol Good Hope
to Genital Africa, and through Central Alrica from
Loonda to the mouths ot the Gambezi, and though lie
gets up a feoling ol much regard lor the people \* bom
he met, he fails to show the reason for it. “Katama, a
naked six-foot chieftain, ol the River Luba, receives
his presents of a red baize cloak, and an iron spoon,
with great satisfaction, and then mounting on the shoul
ders ol his slender spokesman, retires with imposing
dignity. Sekeletu,the chief ot the Mokoklos, is fits
disciple and his friend.” But when the Doctor return
ed from an excursion to Loonda, he finds that the
wives of ht3 men had taken to other husbands, and
that Sekeleiu himself, his hopeiul convert, bad no.do
two excursions to depredate upon the slaves and cattle
oi his neighbors.
Os these Mokololo, whom he much admires, hesays
that “ihe rich show sindess to the poor, but only in the
hope ot service; and that the poor who have no rela
tions, will s-ldom be supplied with even water when
they are sick ; and when they die, are dragged out to
the hyenas.
At Magora, oil his way down the Gambezi he coun
ted 54 skulls aroimd on stakes, arid he learned that the
chiefs of that region vie with each other iu the number
oi skulls they can exhibit.
Such are some of the glsmpse3 exhibited of native
life in Africa. They could be extended indefiitely, but
these are perhaps sufficient for our purpose- They
seems to show that there is no class of negro life that is
not elevated in coming lo a state ol slavery at the
South. They are elevated not only to a sphere of
greater usefulness, but greater comfort and well being.
They also further show that even there slavery is an
advance upon the p-rlect barbarism of an African de
mocracy, for the Bushmen’have not the enter rse and
character even to hold slaves. And they show, also,
that the barbarities of African slavery are elevated by
the slave trade ; for in tnose tribes where there is not
the enterprise or opportunity to relieve themselves root
accumulated numbers by the slave trade, there is no al
ternative but to use the spear or axe, and travellers no
tice no progress no trace oi civilization; in fact, ex
cept among those tribes where the slave trade has been
in active operation. In view of these considerations,
it were idle to express concern about the interests oi
the African in his translatiou to a life of service in a
civilized community.
We will next consider the probable of the
foreiga slave trade upon the fortunes of the South.—
The great want of the South is of population. This
is necessary to political power, and political power is
necessary to the”preservation of liberty. The two
great sections of this couutry are distinct,land is it unrea
sonable to expect that the-e can be to either, a securi
ty lor social and political rights without the political
power to sustain them- As this Republic is at pres
ent constituted, political power is dependent upon pop
ulation. If the North shall have a larger population,
and a majority of States, the North may govern, and
it were scarcely sauity to hope that she will forbear to
do so. The North has that majority at present- She
has one Stale more than the South has, i an access of
more than 6,000,000 people. Under,these circumstan
ces she has a majority of two votes in the Senate, and
of more than fiftv in the Hou-eol Representative- ol the
Uniled.States. Nor is this all ; the States of Deleware
and Maryland have so lew slaves that it is only by
courtesy they can be called slave States, and is not cer
tain that they have not a greater interest in joining
the victorious party. Noris this all. While the South
can have butthe natural increase of 10,000,000 people,
the North has the natural increase ol 16,000,000, and
an independent increase of 350,000 per annum from
abroad. In virtue of the position of Maryland
and Delaware daily becoming inure equivocal, the
North has a political strength already greater than that
indicated by the majorities above mentioned. In virture
of the more rapid increase of hex population, she is daily
acquiring an additional increase to her political power.
With this excess of population the can readily, and
perhaps she must necessarily, preclude the South Tom
vacant territory. With this excess of political power,
she can control the fortunes of the South in Congress.
The purpose to cortrol the government and through
tiio government ti.e South, has already been expre.-sed.
It was expressed in the recent effort to elevate a miser
able instrument to the first office in this Republic.
It is expressed in the exclusion of Kansas under the
pro-slavery constitution. It is expressed in the pro
scription of men who venture to regard the obligations
of their oaths in Congress, and so, therefore, not only
is the fact of power in the hands ot the North unques
tionable, but so also in its tendencies. Patriotism af
fords no impediment. An army of martyrs might per
ish ill the track of this aggression without arresting it;
and wo have the assurance,therefore, that if the strange
spectacle of a people attaining power but forbearing
to abuse it, is ever lo be exhibited on this earth, it is
not to be exhibited in this Union.
The slave trade will give us political power. For
every five slaves that come we acquire the right to
a representation for three persons in the national
legislature, and it thus, therefore, will directly and
necessarily increase our relative representative
power. But it will do more. The labor basis at
the South is too restrictive to sustain a wider su
perstructure of direction. Ail the offices presented
by the labor of 3,500,000 slaves aro already filled
and more titan filled by the present members of the
ruling race, and all the further members of the
ruling race who come, therefore, must come into
competition with the slave for their subsistence.
But the 3,500,000 already here afford a platform,
not broad enough, perhaps, but still a platform upon
which now stand 6.500,000 white men; one thou
sand or one million more will give a proportionately
broader basis ; and every slave that comes, there
fore, may he said to bring his master with him, and
to add more than twice his political value to the
fortunes of the South.
And, still more than this, it is necessary to pow
er that we shall have not only population, hut
States, and experience has shown that there is no
way of taking slave territory without slaves. Ten
thousand Southern masters have made a noble
effort to rescue Kansas, and have failed, but so
would not have failed ten thousand slaves. Ten
thousand of ihe rudest Africans lhat ever set their
feet upon our shores, imported, as they would have
been, perhaps, in Boston shire, by Boston capita!
and under a Boston slave-driver, would have swept
(he Freesoil party from that land. There is not an
abolition emissary there who would riot have pur
chased a slave if offered at $l5O, which would give
an ample profit on the cost of importation, and
there is not an emissary there, who, purchasing a
slave at §l5O, would not become ns strong a propa
gandist of slavery as ever lived. So, taking lhat
Territory we would also have taken byr whole pop
ulation of 60,000 to the South ; so, also, would we
take ar.other Stato in Texas ; so, also, others in
Arizona, New Mexico, and Lower California ; so,
also, we might take, perhaps, Nebraska, Utah and
Oregon—and it is even possible that, with slaves at
importers’ prices, we may sop the hungry mouth of
free society in older Stales, and full it to repose as
far back as the sterile regions of New England.
It is assumed, of course, that the negro can not
endure the cold of higher latitudes, just as it is as
sumed that this institution, accursed ot Heaven, is
capable of nothing it has not accomplished. But
if the negro dies in Canada, so, also, does he die
in Domingo and Jamaica. The m e extreme of
climate is as fatal as the other, without the guards
of slavery to protect him ; hut upon the northern
boundaries of Kentucky and Virginia, the highest
points to which tl at race is taken by the disciplines
of slavery, be exhibits, perhaps, the finest develop
ments of negro character and negro form to be met
with in the world. Taken so far by slavery, it is
not to bo supposed that, he can go no farther, arid
if we had but an honest faith in the fortunes of
our institution, wc might fairly hope that it is not
to be condemned to any latitude, but that it is
catholic as humanity in its character, and is eapa
hle 9Jj,fi3\tension to the utmost limits of tire habila
rortain that the ForeTiSY’cSh&i'S'lX IfT-.ildVt
population ; that it will give us powers of extension
to vacant territory ; that it will draw foreign enter
prise to its embrace, foreign capital to its support,
and that it will furnish the commodity with which
to subsidize the emissaries of the North—to whip
the North from every field of competition.
Another great want of the South is of labor.
That is necessary both to material progress and the
value of vested interests. It is necessary to mate
rial progress, for without it there is no hope of a
more varied culture. Upon an area ol 856,000
square miles, with a laboring population of only
3,500,000, it were idle to expect a competition with
crowded countries in the realms of art. With the
liberty’ of electing the very richest spots upon such
a vast extent of vacant territory, adapted to pro
ducts the most profitable, it is idle to expect that
labor will forego these great advantages and take
to whipping labor elsewhere from those pursuits lo
which, by the misfortunes of its condition, it is
condemned. The arts are. valuable, and it is desi
rable that they shall be cultivated, and it may be
reprehensible in men that they do not forego their
interests and cultivate them. But there is this in
superable difficulty in their profitable cultivation :
The arts will pay no more for labor here than they
are forced to pay for labor elsewhere. But cotton
will, and does, pay more for labor here than the
arts will pay for labor any where, and cotton buys
up all the labor, and the man who undertakes (he
arts must take his labor, not at art, but at cotton
prices, and then commence the work of competi
tion, and, except under peculiar circumstances,
there is not the remotest hope of his success. Such
is the condition, and such must be the condition,
until there shall be sufficient labor at the South to
satiate the craving maw of cotton. When this
shall happen the excess will fall to competition
with the world in other lines of business. Ihe
price of labor elsewhere will he the [ rice of labor
here, and with abundant labor here, in such con
dition, there will be no need of post prandium
speeches in encouragement of art. 1 hat, when it
offers profit, will attract abundant capital, and with
abundant labor, therefore, enterprise will take new
lines of action, and there is the firm assurance
that the South wifi take a range of varied culture
unsurpassed by any other country of the world.
The foreign slave trade will give us that abundant
labor. It is asserted that the negro is unfitted for
the arts, but without ihe slightest ground for the
assertion. Intelligence is necessary to the con
struction of the machine, and to its regulation also,
but lai or only is necessary to its operation ; and
the negro, in his common absence from reflection,
is perhaps the bust manipulatist in the world.
80, also, is labor necessary to the value of vested
interests. In respect of such interests the South
has been singularly unfortunate. At the North
men step to opulence. The foreign population
poured upon that section has given progress to
every line of business, and value to every article of
[ roperty. Lands bought one year are worth twice
as much the next, and the people there, as values
such around them, have the comforts of wealth,
and the further satisfaction of being regarded as
the most enterprising and judicious people in ex
istence. Not so with us. Here there has been no
wave of foreign power to raise the value of our
vested interests. On the contrary the wave of la
bor is continually gliding from us, and, though our
labor has been productive, our products abundant,
there are many of us in the older sections who
would fail to sell estates to-day for as much as was
paid for them in market fifty years ago.
This state of facts would be altered by the For
eign Slave Trade. That would give population,
and populatren alone would necessarily advance
the value of vested interests. For between popu
lation and the price, of real interests, at least,
there is an intimate and necessary connexion. In
the Southern States, where there are but 13 persons
to the square mile, the average value is about $6 to
the acre. In Northern States, where there are 100
to the square mile, the average value is about §SO
to the acre. In England, where there are 333 to
the square mile, the value is about §l7O per acre.
In towns where there aro 1,000 to the square mile,
the average value is about §soo—and in cities,
where there are 50,000 to the'square mile, the av
erage value is not far from §25,000 to the acre.
And so it is that an increase in population gives a
necessary increase in the value of real property,
and so is it, also, that an increase of competitors
will give a necessary increase in the value of every
i other matter that becomes the subject of a common
[ want.
But il the foreign slave trade, while it wii give
increase of population, will also give a cheaper
form ol slave labor, it will still more advance the
vested interests of the country. For if labor goes
down, the product being the same, the subjects of
its employment must go up, and, like a see-saw,
the one end can not fall without the other’s rising.
For if we pay, say §7,000, for our slaves, and can
only make the interest and maintenance of §lO,-
000, our lands can only he worth §3,000 ; but if
we should only be compelled to pay §3,000 for our
slaves and yot make the interest and insurance on
a fund of §IO,OOO, our lands will have been raised
at once to the value of $7,000, and §4,000, there
fore, will he the measure of the gain lo such pro
prietor.
It may, perhaps, be objected to the sufficiency of
this argument, that if the slave trade shall furnish
labor cheaper, it will lower the price of slaves, and
thus, therefore, that it will injure one class of in
terests as much as it will benefit another. But
this is not tho operation. It will give a cheaper
form of slave labor. There can belittle doubt hut
that it will furnish slaves that are competent to
many of the under offices of life at a figure much
below the present range of prices, but these will
not come in competition with the slaves at present
in tile country. Those who own slaves now will
he the first, perhaps, to buy them. Though not
competent to do the business of educated slaves,
they will yet be able, under the direction of educa
ted slaves, to do the business which would else re
quire a better class of labor, and without there
should be a reduction in the pr ce of Southern sta
ples, the trained slaves can not be iess valuable
than they are, and, with this want of them to
guide and regulate the African, it is possible that
they may come to even higher value.
That there will be a material reduction : n the
price of Southern staples is not to be expected.
Cotton may come down, perhaps to a level, at least,
with other staples, and it is, perhaps, desirable that
it should come down to that position—for il is a
gtave misfortune to be dependent upon the fluctua
tions of a single product. So v. as it with the
Spanish co onics of Mexico and South America.
They had hut the single product, gold, and that
was so remunerative that no others could approach
it. I 1 Was a waste of time to plant crops, to pre
pare their food or clothing, or to practise even the
courtesies of common file, and while it loaded the
miserable miners down with metal, and gave mil
lions upon millions to the treasury of Ihe world, it
held those regions to as wild a waste as though no
human footstep had ever crossed their thrcshhold.
So, also, here, it is not considered profitable now to
raise our grain, or cultivate the arts, and, it cotton
were to range for twenty years at 20 cents per
pound, it is to he doubted whether every other cul
ture would not be driven from the field, and whether
we would not come to a weary, wide-spread, hori
zontal waste of cotton—the broad plantalton, rather
than ns now, the province of tho North.
But, while it is not desirable that cotton should
he so elevated iu value at ove the range of other
products, it is not supposahle that the foreign slave
trade will much reduce it. The South, at present,
produces only about two-thirds of tho cotton want
ed by t! e world ; the other comes from Egypt and
the East. The requisitions of the world for cot
ton increase at the rale of about 6 per cent, per
annum. An increase of our productive force will
perhaps be necessary under ordinary circumstances.
An extraordinary increase of it will only result in
driving Egypt and India from the market. In do
ing so, there would be the necessity of but a slight
reduction from its present price. And with the
whole field of cotton open to us, and with that field
expanding every hour, it is not to be supposed that
tha cultivation of that product will ever be much
less profitable than it is at present.
But, if so, the profits of cotton are not now so
much above the range of other staples—iranscend
‘ v : owns tne vines,
and Ihe arts, arc ready to our hand. It is even
now a question whether each of these may not be
rendered, by the same attention, as productive.—
Crushing cotton down, we will only find a broader
base, to start from to further operations—and as
the slave affords the most efficient form of labor
this world hus ever seen, we will find the harvest of a
monopoly in every other field on which wo may enter.
The next great want of the South is of slaves.
If a democracy—a social state in which all are ab
solutely equal—were certainly the best, we would
not only not want more slaves, but would be con
cerned to rid ourselves of those we have already.
But we have not. so thought; on the contrary there
is a growing feeling of contentment with our in
stitution, and if there were now the liberty of
choice, we believe there are few at the South—per
haps few of intelligence at the North even —who
would not industriously elect the form of society
that is here established. But whether so or not,
its existence as a great fact is unquestionable, and
it is either for us to abandon and evolve it, or to
press it onward to maturity, and to its just maturi
ty there is a necessity fora greater relative propor
tion f the subject race.
Before the suppression of the slave trade, tho
two races were nearly equal, and it is probable that
they would have so continued. Both were free to
come, and as they naturally settled in proportions
of equality, it is probable, under ordinary eirrum
tsances, that that is the due proportion between
them. But when the slave trade was cut off, the
natural tendency became disturbed. The opening
South demanded population ; the white race could
come, the color, and could not, and hence it has hap-
Jsned that they are no longer equal. To 3,500.0ii0
slaves there are 6,500,0(10 masters, and upon the
supposition that they should be at least equal, there
are 3,000,000 masters in excess, who are unfixed
therefore, and without a proper slave basis to sus
tain them. These add to the political power of the
South; they add nothing to the strength of slavery.
The form no part and parcel of ti e structure. They
do hot look at it with repugnance, perhaps, for it
is popular ot the South to admire it; tl ey would
not abolish it, for they would share in the ruin of
its loss; they wul not permit it to be disturbed by
others, for if an ‘ ulcer,” it is at best our own, and
“we will let no others scratch itand it may be
even true that those sections the most ready to re
sist aggressors —the mo-t vigilant to mark encroach
ment—will be those wt.ere there are, in proportion,
the fewest slaves, hut there is still the feeling that
we do not share directly in the institution, anil of
this feeling the indications are abundant. In Del
aware and Maryland there is scarce the effort to de
fend slavery ; in Western Virginia it has been pro
posed to plant a colony ot abolitionists;in Kentuky,
there has already been an effort at emancipation ;
in Missouri there is a freesoil pany to contend for
p. wt-r; in Tennessee, and even in Georgia, Ala
bama, Mississippi and Louisiana, there are large
classes of persons who have to make their own
bread with their own hands, and these are distinct
ly conscious that there is a difference between
white and slave labor.” They send that conscious
ness into legislatures of their sevtral States—and
n South Carolina alone, perhaps of all the South
ern States, where there is an excess of 100,000
slaves, it is sale to hold that there is and ought to
be no difference, ar.d that it is not politic and is not
proper to restrict the slave to such a range of oc
cupations as will keep him out of competition with
the white man.
This condition, painful, if it be not perilous,
would he alleviated by the Foreign Slave Trade—
That will diminish the disparity of numbers. But
it will do no more, and remove another difficulty
also. Under present circumstances, it is not only
impossible that 6,500,000 of freemen can each own
one of 3,500,000 slaves, but at present prices, it is
almost imposibie hat the mere laborer can ever do
so. It is long, under the most favorable circum
stances, before he can make one thousand dollars,
and making it, it is longer still, before he can come
to risk so much upon a single venture. However
much lie may wish a share in that desirable com
modity of slave labor, it is done up in packages
too large for common use ; and thus, therefore,
with every disposition to be a slave owner like his
neighbors, he is barred from that position. The
Foreign Slave Trade will bring slaves enough for
all, and at prices which poorer men may pur
chase. These slaves may not be so desirable, but
at prices to he paid for them they will yield abund
ant profits. It will thus render it possible for all
to become slave owners ; it will render it profitable
to become so; it will thus bring all the ru.mg race
to the same, social stand point; it will tius rein
tegrate and erect our social system; it will abolish
the odious distinction between slave-owners and
non-slave owners ; it will increase the lab ‘ring ele
ment of our population ; it will thus extend our ca
pacity for production, and, in doing all this, will
give the promise of a more abundant wealth, and
open the prospect of a broader and brighter future
than was ever yet expanded to the eye of man.
It is objected, by way of offset to these considera
tions, that savages from Africa would disturb the
peace and order of the country. But we have fail
ed to find the ground for such an apprehension. It
might he enough to say, perhaps, that the risk
would be with owners. It there would he danger
they would be tho first to feel it, and the evil, there
lore, would euro itself. For if there would be none
to purchase, there would be none to come. But we
see no reason for believing that negroes would bo
more savage now than they were atanearlier period
of our history, and in the sea-board districts of the
south, where slaves in thousands came, there is no
record of- this evil. When native Africans were
first imported, our population was scarce and the
country was covered by an almost unbroken forest.
At a later period it was overrun by a foreign enemy.
Every district, and almost every plantation was vis
ited. The slaves were offered liberty for desertion,
and rewards for the plunder of their masters. The
opportunity and inducements to disorder were most
abundant, and it must be owned that the character
of this people was fairly tried ; but the record is a
fair one. Not only was there iess disturt ancc than
is usual in a laboring population, but instances of
fidelity were singularly m rked. They resisted so
licitations to escape ; they cultivated lands aban
doned by their masters; they protected property
they were incited to destroy. And this Committee
are assured that of such savages, from the wildest
regions of Africa, there have been some of as faith
ful and efficient slaves as have ever lived. Upon
the assumption that slavery is an explosive mixture,
there might l> ■ danger in bringing, hum any soutce.
the dangerous materiil. Bus tins is not so. on lire
contrary there are securities of orJer here hich ex
ist in no other form of society.
In ali Democracies arid, m fart, in every enn.-ti
ti to nal government, ihere is Hie right ot iinlniif.
ual action, and the citizen may meet and discuss
the evils of their State and resolve, in fact, upon
the mode and measure of r. dress, before it shall be
lawful to airest him. And so, even in the despot,
isin of France, they meet and chant the Marsel
leise, and march upon tire Bosiicn before they en
counter the forces of the Empire. But not so the
slave. To him there is no liberty of .ndiviifual action.
Hard as it rnay seem, he cannot move without per
mi sion ol his master. To him, therefore, there
can he no march, no arms, no chaunt, no meeting,
even, without violation of authority. The first step
is an act of insubordination, upon the right to pun
is which, there is no restraint, and whatever may
be said of the hardship of that condition (which is
not now the question) it must be owned tiiat it is
intensely conservative of peace and order. Else
where it is legitimate to meet the process, only, hut
here it is permitted to crush the very germ of in
surrection.
Not only ho, but here, also, there is the further
security that power is distributed. In forms of
merely political despotism there is but onecenrieof
authority and that may fall, through the faithless
ness or inefficiency of its officers. H ere, however, j
there is not one centre, only, but a thousand cen
tres, and there can be no fall fiom faithless and in
sufficient officers. There call be no laithlessness,
for the master is the conservator of his own persou j
and his own power. There can he no fall from in- |
sufficiency, for with masters clothed, with respect
lo their domestics, in every attribute of sovereignty,
at every mile of space over the whole South, it is
impossible that all can be unmindful of their duty.
One Uiay t>e loose hut another holds, and thus,
ed in Us effects to that master whose heedlesSess
permits it to occur. There is the possibility of au
insurrection of children against their parents, or
wives against their husbands, for those have more
intelligence, a larger liberty, and as many motives
to disorder, hut ol the rising of slaves against their
masters, there is not the remotest possibility.
It is further objected, that if such slaves shall be
allowed to come, they will come in great numbers,
and that as the slave States will he hemmed in by
free States, they will crowd the South to a kind of
social suffocation : hut this committee see no such
cause of apprehension. They see no reason for
believing that they will come in any greater num
bers than are wanted by the South, or that it will
be profitable to bring them alter it will be danger
ous to do so—nor do we see the reason for believ
ing lhat the slave States will be hemmed In by free
States, for we believe that an importation of one or
two hundred thousand slaves will enable us take
every territory offered to tho west—it will not then
be necessary to fight, as we have had to fight for
Kansas, but mere slaves will win the battle for us.
Those, offered at paying prices, will win the heart
of even abolition emissaries and point their rifles
against the North—and with slaves, therefore, only
sufficient for the work of pioneer advancement, we
will open to tile institution of domestic slavery the
whole broad plain from the Mississippi to the Pa
cific. Nor even, without this, do we see the reason
to dread a density of population. Slaves can be
as dense aslreemen —the discipline will be greater
—the order-will be greater —the economy of resour
ces will t e greater —nor, in lact, in sections ot the
South where slaves ate densest, is there yet exhibi
ted the slightest possible approach to any evil re
sulting from an over-crowded population—and in
the Republic of Attica, where the slaves were of
the same race as their masters, and where they ex
ceeded them as 4 to 1 in number, there was a pop
ulation more than twice as dense as is that of any
State of modern Europe. Supposing, therefore,
that they are only capable ol equal condensation,
there would be space enough for all tvho by any
possibility can come. In Belgium there are 388
persons lo tile square mile, and with equal density,
Florida will held the present population of the
Union, and the slave States Without including Ter
ritories will noid one ball the present population of
the globe.
Admitting, however, as many-do that the For
eign Slave Trade will not injure the savages of
Africa, or directly injure ttie people ol rile South,
it is yet contended that it will bring the Souih in
conflict with foreign Slates, or at iea-t that in pres
sing H to adoption we wth break the Union, but to
these assumptions also, we do not assent. It is not
true, as is as.-uined, that foreign States are tender
on the score ot human rights. England crushes
India: France Algeria: Russia, Pru sia and Aus
tria, have parted Poland—all march to opportunity,
and if forced to look for European morality m the
history of Europe .n States, we will find eveiywbere
an unequivocal assertion of the one great principle,
that power is virtue, and Weakness, only, is crime.
Nor is it true, that Europeans States are hostile to
the spread of slavery at the South. They are hos
tile to the Union, perhaps, they see in it a threat
ening rival til every branch of art, and they see
that rival armed with one of the most potent pro
ductive institutions the world has ever seen—they
would crush India and Algeria, to make an equal
supply of cotton with the North ; and failing in
this, they would crush slavery to bring the North
to a footing with them ; but to slavery without the
North, they have no repugnance —on the contrary,
if it were to stand out for itself, free irom the con
trol of any other power, and were to offer to Euro
pean Slates, upon fair terms, a full supply of its
commodities, it would not only not be warred upon,
but the South would be singularly favored—Crowns
would bend before her:—Kingdoms and Empires
would break a lance to win the smile of her appro
val, and quitting her free estate it would be in her
option to become the bride of the world, rather than
as now, the miserable mistress of the North.
Nor will the Slave Trade measure surely break
the Union. It will deprive the North of her pre
ponderance of political power, and it will be oppos
ed, therefore, by political tradesmen at the North,
but to the mercantile and commercial interests of •
that section it vyill give a richer field for operi
tions than they huve ever dared to dream of. To
the manufacturing interests it will give the promise
of more abundant cotton, and of a wider market for
their fabrics. It is interest, not sentiment or opin
ion, that gives tendency to political action, and
P. H. COLQUITT, Editor.
these interests concurring, can control the North’
The people of that section love power, but only for
its profits. They will take it, scheme for it, and
steal it perhaps, hut they will not pay for it, and
if their interests lead them, as their interests will
lead them to concur with the South in re-opening
the Foreign Slave Trade, they not only will not
break the Union on that issue, but they will sub
sidize their venal representatives to press it on
ward, and not only, therefore, will it not break the
Union, but in giving the South the road to political
security, it will present the only condition upon
which the Union can be permitted to endure.
Under the influence of these considerations your
Committee are constrained to favor *he re-opening
of the Foreign Slave Trade, and they propose for
the adoption of this Convention the following reso
lutions :
1. Resolved. That Slavery is right, and that be
ing right, there can be no wrong in the natural
means to its formation
2. Resolved, That it is expedient and proper the
Foreign Slave Trade should be re opened, and that
this Convention will lend its influence to any legit
imate measure to that end.
3. Resolved. That a committee consistingof one
Irom each slave State be appointed to consider of
the means, consistent with the duty and obligations
of these Stntes, for re-opening the Foreign Slave
Trade, and that they report their plan to the next
meeting of the Convention.
Disabilities of California Bachelors—Legal Protection
to Husbands.
The Washington Globe, edited by John C-
Rives, an i“vcterale old bachelor, Ins the following
article:
An act has been introduced in the Califo nia As
sembly, to exeri pt from alt climent, execution or
garnishment, one in- nth’s wages, mo exci eding one
hundred and fifiy dollars, o! “married” media nice,
iah, rere and ciciks, and oipnxns liatinc under
ilieir c’ aige, .nd dependent on ihein lor sup-
I por', 1 ilium, moth is, mino broihers or risteis,
children of a deceased wifi*, or oilier orphan chi!—
I rfren.
Go this p-. p -ed pre'erencp • I iriar ied to single
meu, a bachelor writer. 11l :he S:m Fn ticisco Bui
tel.'n, .sorrowfully ‘ • mite nis ns f Hows :
“The \ n\> e l otion ol pit lii g ali :lie burdens
of taxation and g >v( rnmnii upon single men is
alarming'r pie'al- tit tliionghonr the whole conn
t IV, alid il won’t he long led..re tie y (die bachel
ors) will havi to or anise f r iln-ir own protection.
I lie washerwomen irnpo > upon us—ihe landla
dies tvraniseove and bully us—the married men
‘snub’os—and ihe law—mak- rs fleece us in every
way imaginable, (resides making odious exceptions
to or disadvantage. Ii a war breaks out, who so
proper a volume r for a ‘notild soger boy’ as your
bachelor? The, whole community call on him to
go to the wars, and be a candidate for glory, and
food for po tier. Il dm su’t make any difftoence,
say these kind hearted people, if he does get killed
—ihere is nobody to care for him ; never consider
ing tliat the p .or fellow might have a care for him
self. And thus they totiiinually irritate, annoy,
and badger us, like a bull in a ring, until, in
a li of desperation, the poor bachelor either throws
himself away on the first pe.ticoat that comes in
his way, or else takes to the eea, the field or—
poison.”
The credit or shame of originating a legal pre
ference of married men to bachelors does not rest
with the inventive Yankee, who have only applied
the means used by ancient nations for the promo- k
Mon of marriage. The Roman censors frequent
ly imposed fines on old bachelors. Dion. Halicar
nassus mentions an old Constitution, by which all
persons ol full age were obliged to marry. But
the most celebrated law of this kind was the Ju
lian law, which Horace mentions, made under Au
gustus, by which premiums were awarded to./pty;,
ned men, and bachelors were maue mcapJh/t <st
near relatives.’
Tho Jewish rabbis maintain that, by the laws of
Moses, ail persons, with a few exceptions, are oblig
ed in conscience to marry at twenty years of age.
One of their maxims declares bachelors to be homi
cides.
Lycurgus, the Spartan law giver, was especially
hostile to celibacy. By his laws, bachelors were
pronounced infamous, excluded from all offices,
civi-,1 and military, and even from the shows and
public sports. At certain feasts they were forced
to appear for public contempt, and to sing songs in
their own derision.
In Great Britain, taxes have been tepeatedly
levied oil the unmarried, as by the law passed in
1795, in the seventh year of the reign of William
111., which imposed a tax on bachelors, alter twen
ty-live years of age, of twelve and a half pounds
a.eriing for a duke, and one shilling for a com
s on person; ami the taxes laid on others Lave
been incensed in respect lo bachelois, as in ‘he
case ofthe duty on servants, passed in tne twenty
fitli y ar of the reign ol George 111.
But really tire California bachelors have yet no
cause of complaint; tor the proposed law, if adop
ted, will not equal in rigor any of iliote we have
just mentioned. Iri fact, it is not rigorous at all;
fir it does no impose any penalties upon bachelors
but only accords cextain privileges to married men.
For the pr toot on of the married, and of others who
endure heavy btredeus; and perhaps, incidentally,
as au inunc.ment to marriage, it exercises ihe
high legal prerogative of mercy, bin does not ex
tend to the ad Ministration cf justice, which, in
the opinion of ancient lawgivers, n quired the in
llictlon ol severe punishment upon the obstinate
Single.
I-, ns the bachelor writer of ‘he Bulletin -eems
to lii.r. tire Calif.ruii legislature intends lo turn
its aiteniiou to tire best nreans of p onionng mar
ring.-, it might be well f.r lire b clrelurs of the
Sale to unite ill a memorial lo lhat bodv, setting
fort i that the growing ex ravngain e of young ladies
has mad** nia ii ige a c -ily .oxury, nti.*mab e only
oy the rich ; that ihe cei> acy I young men, iherv
lO!-,, is iol perv -se -n and >olm tary, or caused by a
disregard of public do \, “in eompu s ir\ ud tree
essary ; ami iha: pul Lc pi Lev and justice to yo*mg
men tl tu tiot the of a law, suni re in < Ire r
acler t > the Main.* liquor iaw, pr fiibi ing he sale
if ,iry goods, i xre tut limit* and q -anl lies t* each
purchaser iuca-es ! iiee-siu. Such a statement
oflaurentnt.l he s woulii place ihe responsibility of
tire alarming increase ofcel bicy where it rightly
belongs, by Miowi g lhat tire comparative poverty,
and not h ■ will of Young America, consents to the
drear loneliness of sing e file.
The Skulem aster is Abrord.”— He ot terr
slay at home and tend terrhiz biznes. — The Vicks
burg (Mi-s) Sun is re sponsible for the following
specimen of liter. ry accomplishment:
The following petition was sent to one of the
grand jurors of Coahoma county at the sitting of
the Court, last week. We pnblish it verbatim et
literatim, et punctuatim, et spellatim. It will be
found one of the rarest .-pecimens of its kind.
The deep sympathy and interest which the writer
takes in the “terble bad treated” wife will, no doubt,
commend him to the good will of the fair sex, while
the exhibition of that discretion which is better
than valor, in withholding his name, will raise him
up in the pictures with the chivalry. Here is the
document:
Mister Felix Jones—Ser : i understand you are
a grand jury man, i think you ot to tend to keaby
case, he is treating his wife terble bad: beating and
kickeu her and pullin her liar, and don’t low hur
halt nufftu eat, u can pruv this hi wash berry and
his wife and fair and his wife, and bi cage newson,
u ot to bring up this cass and these witnessis. this
meen treetnien is comun taulk doun here She is
anxoes tu hev kirby persekewted, pleas du it, i am
won that sa he is a rascul, i wood sine this papir
but i no kerby is a littel bench leg flee and mite
want tu kic up a littel fus about it, and don’t wan
ter have any fus with him, but i rite a fact bout it
i ben thinkin i wood war him on mi self if he don’t
let her lone iam yours until death. Moress byo
april 1858.
Market Report.—“ Tin plates are flat, lead hea
vy iron dull, Can pagneis brisk,rubarb and senna
are drugs, starch is stiffening and paper is sta
tionary. There sno life in dead hogs but con6id*
erable animation in old cheess,”
Number 20