A distinguished foreigner, after travelling in the Southern States, remarked that the very aspect of the country bore testimony to the temerity of the nullifiers, who, defenceless and exposed as they are, could not dare to hazard a civil war; and surely no people in the world have more cause to shrink from an appeal to arms. We find at the South no one element of military strength. Slavery, as we have seen, checks the progress of population, of the arts, of enterprise, and of industry. But above all, the laboring class, which in other countries affords the materials of which armies are composed, is regarded among you as your most deadly foe; and the sight of a thousand negroes with arms in their hands, would send a thrill of terror through the stoutest hearts, and excite a panic which no number of the veteran troops of Europe could produce. Even now, laws are in force to keep arms out of the hands of a population which ought to be your reliance in danger, but which is your dread by day and night, in peace and war.

During our revolutionary war, when the idea of negro emancipation had scarcely entered the imagination of any of our citizens—when there were no "fanatic abolitionists," no "incendiary publications," no "treasonable" anti-slavery associations; in those palmy days of slavery, no small portion of the Southern militia were withdrawn from the defence of the country to protect the slaveholders from the vengeance of their own bondmen! This you would be assured was abolition slander, were not the fact recorded in the national archives. The Secret Journal of Congress (Vol. I., p. 105) contains the following remarkable and instructive record:—

"March 29th, 1779.—The Committee appointed to take into consideration the circumstances of the Southern States, and the ways and means for their safety and defence, report, That the State of South Carolina (as represented by the delegates of the said State, and by Mr. Huger, who has come hither at the request of the Governor of said State, on purpose to explain the particular circumstances thereof,) is unable to make any effectual efforts with militia, by reason of the great proportion of citizens necessary to remain at home, to prevent insurrection among the negroes, and to prevent the desertion of them to the enemy. That the state of the country, and the great number of these people among them, expose the inhabitants to great danger, from the endeavors of the enemy to excite them to revolt or desert."

At the first census, in 1790, eleven years after this report, and when the slaves had unquestionably greatly increased their numbers, they were only 107,094 fewer than the whites. If, then, these slaves exposed their masters "to great danger," and the militia of South Carolina were obliged to stay at home to protect their families, not from the foreign invaders, but the domestic enemies, what would be the condition of the little blustering nullifying State, with a foreign army on her shores, and 335,000 slaves ready to aid it, while her own white population, militia and all, is but as two whites to three blacks?

You well know that slaveholders, in answer to the abolitionists, are wont to boast of the fidelity and attachment of their slaves; and you also well know, that among themselves they freely avow their dread of these same faithful and attached slaves, and are fertile in expedients to guard against their vengeance.

It is natural that we should fear those whom we are conscious of having deeply injured, and all history and experience testify that fear is a cruel passion. Hence the shocking severity with which, in all slave countries, attempts to shake off an unrighteous yoke are punished. So late even as 1822, certain slaves in Charleston were suspected of an intention to rise and assert their freedom. No overt act was committed, but certain blacks were found who professed to testify against their fellows, and some, it is said, confessed their intentions.

On this ensued one of the most horrible judicial butcheries on record. It is not deemed necessary, in the chivalrous Palmetto State, to give grand and petit juries the trouble of indicting and trying slaves, even when their lives are at stake. A court, consisting of two Justices of the Peace and five freeholders, was convened for the trial of the accused, and the following were the results of their labors:—

Now, let it be remembered, that this sacrifice of human life was made by one of the lowest tribunals in the State; a tribunal consisting of two petty magistrates and five freeholders, appointed for the occasion, not possessing a judicial rank, nor professing to be learned in the law; in short, a tribunal which would not be trusted to decide the title to an acre of ground—we refer not to the individuals composing the court, but to the court itself;—a court which has not power to take away the land of a white man, hangs black men by dozens!

Listen to the confessions of the slaveholders with regard to their happy dependents; the men who are so contented under the patriarchal system, and whose condition might well excite the envy of northern laborers, "the great democratic rabble."

Governor Hayne, in his message of 1833, warned the South Carolina Legislature, that "a state of military preparation must always be with us a state of perfect domestic security. A profound peace, and consequent apathy, may expose us to the danger of domestic insurrection." So it seems the happy slaves are to be kept from insurrection by a state of military preparation. We have seen that, during the revolutionary war, the Carolina militia were kept at home watching the slaves, instead of meeting the British in the field; but now it seems the same task awaits the militia in a season of profound peace. Another South Carolinian [12] admonishes his countrymen thus: "Let it never be forgotten that our negroes are truly the Jacobins of the country; that they are the anarchists, and the domestic enemy, the common enemy of civilized society, and the barbarians who would, if they could, become the destroyers of our race."

Again, "Hatred to the whites, with the exception, in some cases, of attachment to the person and family of the master, is nearly universal among the black population. We have then a foe, cherished in our very bosoms—a foe willing to draw our life-blood whenever the opportunity is offered; in the mean time intent on doing us all the mischief in his power."—Southern Religious Telegraph.

In a debate in the Kentucky Legislature, in 1841, Mr. Harding, opposing the repeal of the law prohibiting the importation of slaves from other States, and looking forward to the time when the blacks would greatly out-number the whites, exclaimed:

"In such a state of things, suppose an insurrection of the slaves to take place. The master has become timid and fearful, the slave bold and daring—the white men, overpowered with a sense of superior numbers on the part of the slaves, cannot be embodied together; every man must guard his own hearth and fireside. No man would even dare for an hour to leave his own habitation; if he did, he would expect on his return to find his wife and children massacred. But the slaves, with but little more than the shadow of opposition before them, armed with the consciousness of superior force and superior numbers on their side, animated with the hope of liberty, and maddened with the spirit of revenge, embody themselves in every neighborhood, and furiously march over the country, visiting every neighborhood with all the horrors of civil war and bloodshed. And thus the yoke would be transferred from the black to the white man, and the master fall a bleeding victim to his own slave."

Such are the terrific visions which are constantly presenting themselves to the affrighted imaginations of the slaveholders; such the character which, among themselves, they attribute to their own domestics.

Attend to one more, and that one an extraordinary confession:

"We, of the South, are emphatically surrounded by a dangerous class of beings—degraded and stupid savages, who, if they could but once entertain the idea, that immediate and unconditional death would not be their portion, would re-act the St. Domingo tragedy. But a consciousness, with all their stupidity, that a ten-fold force, superior in discipline, if not in barbarity, would gather from the four corners of the United States, and slaughter them, keeps them in subjection. But to the non-slaveholding States particularly, are we indebted for a permanent safeguard against insurrection. Without their assistance, the white population of the South would be too weak to quiet the innate desire for liberty, which is ever ready to act itself out with every rational creature."—Maysville Intelligencer.

And now we ask you, fellow-citizens, if all these declarations and confessions be true—and who can doubt it—what must be your inevitable condition, should your soil be invaded by a foreign foe, bearing the standard of emancipation?

In perfect accordance with the above confession, that to the non-slaveholding States the South is indebted for a permanent safeguard against insurrection, Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, uttered these pregnant words in a debate, in 1842, in Congress, "The dissolution of the Union will be the dissolution of slavery."

The action of the Federal Government is, we know, controlled by the slave interest; and what testimony does that action bear to the military weakness of the South? Let the reports of its high functionaries answer.

The Secretary of War, in his report for 1842, remarked, "The works intended for the more remote Southern portion of our territory, particularly require attention. Indications are already made of designs of the worst character against that region, in the event of hostilities from a certain quarter, to which we cannot be insensible." The Secretary's fears had been evidently excited by the organization of black regiments in the British West Indies, and the threats of certain English writers, that a war between the two countries would result in the liberation of the slaves. The report from the Quarter-Master, General Jessup, a Southern man, betrays the same anxiety, and in less ambiguous terms: "In the event of a war," says he, "with either of the great European powers possessing colonies in the West Indies, there will be danger of the peninsula of Florida being occupied by BLACKS from the Islands. A proper regard for the security of our Southern States requires, that prompt and efficient measures be adopted to prevent such a state of things." The Secretary of the Navy, a slaveholder, hints his fears in cautious circumlocution. Speaking of the event of a war with any considerable maritime power, he says, "It would be a war of incursions aimed at revolution. The first blow would be struck at us through our institutions;" he means, of course, "the peculiar institution." He then proceeds to show that the enemy would seek success "in arraying, what are supposed to be, the hostile elements of our social system against each other;" and he admits, that "even in the best event, war on our own soil would be the more expensive, the more embarrassing, and the more horrible in its effects, by compelling us at the same time to oppose an enemy in the field, and to guard against all attempts to subvert our social system." In plain language, an invading enemy would strike the first blow at the slave system, and thus aim at revolution,—a revolution that would give liberty to two and a half millions of human beings; and that such a war would be very embarrassing to the slaveholders, and the more horrible, because, as formerly in South Carolina, a large share of their military force would necessarily be employed, not in fighting the enemy, but in guarding the social, that is, the "patriarchal system."

No persons are more sensible of their hazardous situation than the slaveholders themselves, and hence, as is common with people who are secretly conscious of their own weakness, they attempt to supply the want of strength by a bullying insolence, hoping to effect by intimidation what they well know can be effected in no other way. This game has long been played, and with great success, in Congress. It has been attempted in our negotiations with Great Britain, and has signally failed.

Your aristocracy, whatever may be their vaunts, are conscious of their military weakness, and shrink from any contest which may cause a foreign army to plant the standard of emancipation upon their soil. The very idea of an armed negro startles their fearful imaginations. This is disclosed on innumerable occasions, but was conspicuously manifested in a debate in the Senate. In July, 1842, a Bill to regulate enlistments in the naval service being under consideration, Mr. Calhoun proposed an amendment, that negroes should be enlisted only as cooks and stewards. He thought it a matter of great consequence not to admit blacks into our vessels of national defence. Mr. Benton thought all arms, whether on land or sea, ought to be borne by the white race.

Mr. Bagby. "In the Southern portion of the Union, the great object was to keep arms and a knowledge of arms out of the hands of the blacks. The subject addressed itself to every Southern heart. Self-preservation was the first law of nature, and the South must look to that."

On the motion of Mr. Preston, the bill was so amended as to include the army.

And think you that men, thus in awe of their own dependents, shuddering at a musket in the hands of a black, and with a population of two millions and a half of these dreaded slaves, will expose themselves to the tremendous consequences of a union between their domestic and foreign enemies? Of the four who voted against the British treaty, probably not one would have given the vote he did, had he not known to a certainty that the treaty would be ratified.

Think not we are disposed to ridicule the fears of the slaveholders, or to question their personal courage. God knows their perils are real, and not imaginary: and who can question, that with a hostile British army in the heart of Virginia or Alabama, the whole slave region would presently become one vast scene of horror and desolation? Heretofore the invaders of our soil were themselves interested in slave property: now they would be zealous emancipationists, and they would be accompanied by the most terrific vision which could meet the eye of a slaveholder, regiments of black troops, fully equipped and disciplined. Surely such a state of things might well appal the bravest heart, and palsy the stoutest arm. But, fellow-citizens, what, in such a catastrophe, would be your condition? Your fate and that of your wives and children would then be linked to that of your lordly neighbors. One indiscriminate ruin would await you all. But you may avert these accumulated horrors. You may change two and a half millions of domestic and implacable enemies into faithful friends and generous protectors. No sooner shall the negroes cease to be oppressed, than they will cease to hate. The planters of Jamaica were formerly as much afraid of their slaves, as your planters now are of theirs. But the Jamaica slaves, now freemen, are no long dreaded; on the contrary, they form the chief military force of the island; and should a foreign foe attack it, would be found its willing and devoted defenders. It rests with you to relieve your country of its most dangerous enemy, to render it invulnerable to foreign assaults, and to dissipate that fearful anticipation of wrath and tribulation, which now broods over and oppresses the mind of every white who resides in a slave country.

We have called your attention to the practical influence of slavery on various points deeply affecting your prosperity and happiness. These are:

You will surely agree with us, that in many of these particulars, the States to which you belong are sunk far below the ordinary condition of civilized nations. The slaveholders, in their listlessness and idleness, in their contempt for the laws, in their submission to illegal and ferocious violence, in their voluntary surrender of their constitutional rights, and above all in their disregard for human life, and their cruelty in taking it, are, as a civilized and professedly a Christian community, without a parallel, unless possibly among some of the anarchical States of South America.

When compelled to acknowledge the superior prosperity of the free States, the slaveholders are fond of imputing the difference to tariffs, or to government patronage, or to any other than the true cause.

Let us then inquire, whether the inferior and unhappy condition of the slave States can indeed be ascribed to any natural disadvantage under which they are laboring, or to any partial or unjust legislation by the Federal Government?

In the first place, the slave States cannot pretend that they have not received their full share of the national domain, and that the narrowness of their territorial limits have retarded the development of their enterprise and resources. The area of the slave States is nearly double that of the free. New York has acquired the title of the Empire State; yet she is inferior in size to Virginia, Missouri, Georgia, Louisiana, or North Carolina.

Nor can it be maintained that the free States are in advance of the slave States, because from an earlier settlement they had the start in the race of improvement. Virginia is not only the largest, but the oldest settled State in the confederacy. She, together with Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina, were all settled before Pennsylvania.

Nor will any slaveholder admit, for a moment, that Providence has scattered his gifts with a more sparing hand at the South than at the North. The richness of their soil, the salubrity of their climate, the number and magnitude of their rivers, are themes on which they delight to dwell; and not unfrequent is the contrast they draw between their own fair and sunny land, and the ungenial climate and sterile soil of the Northern and Eastern States. Hence the moral difference between the two sections of our republic must arise from other than natural causes. It appears also that this difference is becoming wider and wider. Of this fact we could give various proofs; but let one suffice.

Thus it appears that in 1790 the free population of the South was 72 per cent. of that of the North, and that in 1840 it was only 49 per cent.; while the difference in 1840 is more than nine times as great as it was in 1790.

Thus you perceive how unequal is the race in which you are contending. Fifty years have given the North an increased preponderance of about four and a half millions of free citizens. Another fifty years will increase this preponderance in a vastly augmented ratio. And now we ask you, why this downward course? Why this continually increasing disparity between you and your Northern brethren? Is it because the interests of the slaveholders are not represented in the national councils? Let us see. We have already shown you that your free population is only 49 per cent. of that of the Northern States; that is, the inhabitants of the free States are more than double the free inhabitants of the slave States. Now, what is the proportion of members of Congress from the two sections?

In the Senate, the slave States have precisely as many as the free; and in the lower House, their members are 65 per cent. of those from the free States. [13]

The Senate has a veto on every law; and as one half of that body are slaveholders, it follows, of course, that no law can be passed without their consent. Nor has any bill passed the Senate, since the organization of the government, but by the votes of slaveholders. It is idle, therefore, for them to impute their depressed condition to unjust and partial legislation, since they have from the very first controlled the action of Congress. Not a law has been passed, not a treaty ratified, but by their votes.

Nor is this all. Appointments under the federal government are made by the President, with the consent of the Senate, and of course the slaveholders have, and always have had, a veto on every appointment. There is not an officer of the federal government to whose appointment slaveholding members of the Senate have not consented. Yet all this gives but an inadequate idea of the political influence exercised by the people of the slave States in the election of President, and consequently over the policy of his administration. In consequence of the peculiar apportionment of Presidential Electors among the States, and the operation of the rule of federal numbers—whereby, for the purpose of estimating the representative population, five slaves are counted as three white men—most extraordinary results are exhibited at every election of President. In the election of 1848, the Electors chosen were 290: of these 169 were from the free, and 121 from the slave States.

Even this disproportion, enormous as it is, is greatly aggravated in regard to particular States.

These facts address themselves to the understanding of all, and prove, beyond cavil, that the slave States have a most unfair and unreasonable representation in Congress, and a very disproportionate share in the election of President.

Nor can these States complain that they are stinted in the distribution of the patronage of the national government. The rule of federal numbers, confined by the Constitution to the apportionment of representatives, has been extended, by the influence of the slaveholders, to other and very different subjects. Thus, the distribution among the States of the surplus revenue, and of the proceeds of the public lands, was made according to this same iniquitous rule.

It is not to be supposed that the slaveholders have failed to avail themselves of their influence in the federal government. A very brief statement will convince you, that if they are now feeble and emaciated, it is not because they have been deprived of their share of the loaves and fishes.

By law, midshipmen and cadets, at West Point, are appointed according to the Federal ratio; thus have the slaveholders secured to themselves an additional number of officers in the Army and Navy, on account of their slaves.

Reflect for a moment on the vast patronage wielded by the President of the United States, and then recollect, that should the present incumbent (General Taylor) serve his full term, the office will have been filled no less than fifty-two years out of sixty-four by slaveholders! [15]

Of 21 Secretaries of State, appointed up to 5th March, 1849, only six have been taken from the free States.

For 37 years out of 60, the chair of the House of Representatives has been filled and its Committees appointed by slaveholders.

Of the Judges of the Supreme Court, 18 have been taken from the slave, and but 14 from the free States.

In 1842, the United States were represented at foreign Courts by 19 Ministers and Charges d'Affaires. Of these fat Offices, no less than 13 were assigned to slaveholders!

Surely, surely, if the South be wanting in every element of prosperity—if ignorance, barbarity and poverty be her characteristics, it is not because she has not exercised her due influence in the general government, or received her share of its honors and emoluments.