THIRD CONDITION OF INDEPENDENCE. 137 in Texas and New Mexico; the South would be out-colonized by its rival, and the goal would appear in no distant view. There would be but one escape from this fate-such a rapid increase of its disposable slave population as would supply the defect from which it suffered in its former attempts; and this increase could only be accomplished in one way-a revival of the African slave trade. The revival of this trade would, accordingly, in the event we are considering, become a vital question for the South. Whether the measure would really prove effectual for the purpose designed is a question which I do not think we have sufficient data to resolve; but that such would be the case is undoubtedly the opinion of the Southern leaders. "We can divide Texas into five slave states," says the Vicepresident of the Southern Confederation, "and get Chihuahua and Sonora, if we have the slave population; but unless the number of the African stock be increased we have not the population, and might as well abandon the race with our brethren of the North in the colonization of the Territories. Slave states cannot be made without Africans." "Take off," says Mr. Gaulden of Georgia, "the ruthless restrictions which cut off the supply of slaves from foreign lands take off the restrictions against the African slave trade, and we should then want no protection, and I would be willing to let you have as much squatter sovereignty as you wish. Give us an equal chance, and I tell you the institution of slavery will take care of itself." From all this it seems to follow-assuming a separation on the terms of an open field for free and slave colonizatin over the still unsettled districts that the only chance of permanently establishing the Southern Republic on that "corner stone" which its builders have chosen, would lie in reopening the African slave trade, and rapidly increasing the supply of slaves; and that the Southern leaders would, in the contingency supposed, at once adopt this expedient I cannot for a moment doubt. As we have seen in a former chapter, the trade had actually been commenced on an extensive scale before the breaking out of the civil war; and, with vastly more urgent reasons for reviving it, while there would be entire freedom from the restraints of Federal legislation, it is difficult to believe that there would be any hesitation about recurring to the same course. ... But there is yet another condition under which the independence of the South may be regarded. We may suppose that the Union is dissolved on the terms of an equal division of the unsettled districts between the contending parties. This arrangement would probably satisfy the utmost aspirations of the 138 GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS 1GNORED. Southern party. It would probably also so far as any distinct ideas on the subject exist-fall in with the conception of an independent South which for the most part rises before those who in this country take the Southern side, including, it may be observed, some whose sincerity in disclaiming all sympathy with slavery it is impossible to doubt. It becomes, therefore, of importance that the consequences involved in this mode of establishing Southern independence be carefully examined. The argument by which the support of the Southern cause, understood as I have just stated it, is reconciled with the avowal of anti-slavery opinions, is one with the basis of which the reader is now familiar. It is this, that under the proposed arrangement the limits of slavery would be fixed; and that, this point being attained, the downfall of the system would in due time follow. "The Southern Confederacy, hemmed in between two free and jealous neighbours [the Northern States and Mexico] will henceforth see its boundaries, and comprehend and accommodate itself to its future conditions of national existence. The moment slavery is confined definitively with its present limits, according to the best opinions, its character becomes modified and its doom is sealed, though the execution of the sentence may seem to be relegated to a very distant day."* This theory, it will be remarked, involves a suspicious paradox. It supposes that the most complete success which the South can hope for in the present war would effectually defeat the precise object for which the South has engaged in war. It supposes that Englishmen know more of the real necessities of slavery than the men whose lives have been spent in working the system, and who have now staked them on an attempt to establish it upon firm foundations. Before accepting so improbable a doctrine, it would be worth considering whether there may not be more to be said for the wisdom of Mr. Jefferson Davis and his friends, than those would have us think who in this country favour their cause. It seems difficult to believe that those who speculate on the prospects of slavery in the manner of the writer from whom I have quoted, have attended to the geographical conditions under which, in the case supposed, the institution would be placed. The South is described as "hemmed in" between Mexico and the North. The expression implies ideas of magnitude truly American; for the Power thus "hemmed in" would be master of a space as large as all Europe west of the Vistula, and would have at its disposal a region, still unsettled and * North British Review for February, 1862, p. 269. NORTHERN JEALOUSY NOT A SUFFICIENT SAFEGUARD. 139 available for slave colonization, little less extensive than the whole area of the present Slave States.* Under an arrangement which professes to provide for the extinction of slavery a new field would be thus secured for its extension, equal to that which now employs 4,000,000 slaves. But it will perhaps be said that, whatever might be the immediate effects of Southern independence established upon these terms, still, the bounds of slavery being absolutely fixed, provision would be made for its ultimate extinction. Those opponents of slavery who find comfort in this view of the case must possess more far-reaching sympathies than I can pretend to. It may be worth their while, however, to consider whether even their longanimity may not in the end be balked of its reward. For, ere the time would arrive when the Slave Power, having occupied the vast regions thus secured for it, would begin to feel the restraints of its spacious prison, at least a quarter of a century would have elapsed, and at least two million slaves would be added to the present number. With this increase in the area of its dominion and in the number of its slave population, and with the time thus allowed it for consolidating its strength and maturing its plans, it cannot be doubted that the power of the South would have become indefinitely more formidable than it has ever yet shown itself. And as little, I think, can it be doubted that its audacity would have grown with its strength; for it would now, by actual trial, have proved its prowess against the only antagonist whom it has really to dread, and it would enter on its career of independence amid all the éclat of victory. In the mood of mind produced by the contemplation of its achievements and the sense of its supremacy, is it likely that the South would be content to bridle its ambition, much less to accept a lot, acquiesence in which would be tantamount to signing its own doom? It will be said that the Slave Power, severed from the Union, would find itself on all sides surrounded by watchful and jealous neighbours, whose office it would be to counteract its intrigues and to hold its ambition in check; and that, in discharging this office, the free communities of America would be sustained by the moral, and, if need were, by the physical, support of the Great Powers of Europe. It cannot be denied that there is much weight in this consideration; yet its importance may easily be over-rated. The Northern States, once shut out from Mexico * That is to say, the whole of those of them which are actually settled under slavery-a description which would exclude nearly the whole of Texas, Florida, and Arkansas, of which three states the aggregate slave population is less than 150,000. 140 EUROPEAN INTERVENTION and Central America by the vast range of territory which, under this determination of the quarrel, would be alienated from their confederacy, would have little object in staying the progress of the South in that direction. It is, moreover, important to observe that one of the most popular projects among all sections of the Northern people, for some years past, has been the providing of railway communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific States* -a project which, so soon as the re-establishment of peace shall allow time for the prosecution of industrial schemes, will doubtless be resumed. Now, this idea once carried into effect, the chief reason with the Northern people for desiring influence in the Gulf of Mexico would be removed. Again, it is not impossible that, before the time should arrive when intervention might be required, the position of affairs among the Northern States might be considerably altered. Although I am quite unable to see the ground for the apprehension now so prevalent, and apparently so influential, in the North, that, a severance of the Union once effected, the process of disintegration would go forward till society should be reduced to its primary elements; still I think it cannot be doubted that the example would be contagious ; and thus it is no violent supposition, that, as in course of time a difference of external conditions among several groups of the Northern States resulted in the growth of different interests and different modes of regarding political questions, the present would be followed by future secessions, until, in the end, several communities should take the place of the existing Confederation. Now it is obvious to reflect that, were such an order of political relations once established, the Northern States would find, in the clashing interests and mutual jealousies developed among themselves, more tempting matter for diplomatic activity than in counteracting the designs of Southern ambition in a part of the world from which their connexion, alike commercial and political, had been almost wholly cut off. And still less is European intervention to be relied upon. The powers of Europe have doubtless strong reasons that Central America should be held by hands which they can trust; and they would naturally be disposed to offer obstacles to the progress of a Slave Power. But Europe is far removed from the scene of Mexican intrigue; and a European war, or even a serious complication in European politics, might easily relax their vigilance. Taking into consi * On this point at least the Republican and Democratic parties are one. See their respective platforms. NOT TO BE RELIED ON. 141 deration all the circumstances of the case-the period which would elapse before the new lands could be occupied, a period during which the Slave Power would have time to organize its forces and to study the weakness of its opponents-the chances that in the interval disunion in the North, or complications of policy in Europe, would produce contingencies favourable to its designs-the persistency of aristocracies in pushing schemes on which they have once entered the eminent examples of this quality which the South has already furnished-the passion, amounting to fanaticism, with which it has long cherished this particular scheme-above all, the absolute necessity under which it would in the end find itself of extending its domain-who, I say, with all these circumstances in view, can feel assured that, once established on the broad basis of an empire reaching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, the Slave Power would not hold out a serious menace of realizing the vast projects of its ambition; and that the world might not one day be appalled by the spectacle of a great slaveholding confederacy erecting itself in Central America, encircling the Gulf of Mexico, absorbing the West Indies, and finally including under its sway the whole tropical region of the New World ?* If there be any force in these speculations, it will be seen that Mr. Jefferson Davis and his associates were not so widely * "Vers le milieu de l'année 1859, il se forma dans les états qui cultivent le coton, et spécialement dans la Louisiane et le Mississipi, une association mystériesue, dont les statuts étaient couvert d'un secret inviolable, et dont les membres s'intitulaient les chevaliers du cercle d'or. Ces chevaliers appartenaient exclusivement aux classes aisées; ils avaient une organisation toute militaire et devaient être pourvus d'armes. Les progrès rapides de cette association attirèrent quelque attention; mais comme Walker parcourait à ce moment le sud et commençait les préparatifs de l'expédition dans laquelle il devait perdre la vie, on crut qu'il se méditait un nouveau coup de main contre le Nicaragua on contre quelqu'une des provinces du Mexique, que l'objet de l'association était de recueillir de l'argent et de recruter des hommes pour le compte du célèbre flibustier. D'autres pensèrent que le succès qui avait couronné les tentatives faites pour introduire des nègres d'Afrique par les bouches du Mississipi avait donné naissance à de vastes opérations de traite. Comme il s'agissait, dans les deux cas, de violer les lois et de déjouer la surveillance des autorités fédérales, le mystère dont s'entourait l'association s'expliquait tout naturellement. Les projets des chevaliers étaient beaucoup plus ambitieux cependant: ils tendaient à détacher de la confédération les états qui cultivent le coton pour en former une république nouvelle, dont l'esclavage serait l'institution fondamentale, et qui puiserait dans le rétablissement de la traite les élémens d'une rapide prospérité. Dès que sa force d'expansion ne serait plus arrêtée par la cherté de la main-d'œuvre, la nouvelle république ne pouvait manquer d'absorber en quelques années le Mexique, le Nicaragua et la Bolivie; elle acquerrait de gré ou de force toutes les Antilles, et fonderait au centre du continent américain l'état le plus riche et le plus puissant du monde. Le cercle d'or, c'étaient donc les pays et les îles qui forment autour du golfe du Mexique une ceinture d'une incomparable fécondité." -Annuaire des deux Mondes, 1860, p. 602. |