Slave labor has ever been found wasteful and exhaustive of the soil from which it has taken the crops. Therefore, it used to be a common saying, “the Southern planter needs all the lands that join his estate.” Ample as was the territory of that portion of the United States in which slavery was established, the “barons of the South” early looked beyond their borders for new acquisitions of land. Partly to gratify their cupidity, the immense tract of land between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the valley of the Columbia River, was purchased by our Federal Government in 1803. Sixteen years afterwards Florida was given them. And then they began to turn their desiring eyes upon the rich and fertile plains of Texas. They gained admission to these by an artifice worthy of men who were accustomed to set at naught all the rights of humanity. In 1819 a man named Austin, then living in Missouri, went to Spain, represented to the King that the Roman Catholics in the United States were subjected to grievous persecutions, and supplicated for them an asylum in Mexico. His pious Majesty, deeply moved by this appeal, made a very large and gratuitous grant of land of the finest quality to Austin and his associates on this one condition, that they should introduce within a limited time a certain number of Roman Catholic settlers “of good moral character.” This condition was complied with, and thus our Southern slaveholders gained a foothold in Texas. They were diligent to confirm and extend their possession by the sale of immense quantities of land to intended settlers and to land jobbers throughout the Southern States. Thus commenced what erelong became “one of the most stupendous systems of bribery and corruption ever devised by man.” In 1821 Mexico became independent of the Spanish crown, and soon after confirmed the royal grant to the settlers in her province of Texas. In 1824 the Mexican Government adopted some measures preparatory to the manumission of slaves, and in 1829 decreed the complete and immediate emancipation of all in bonds throughout their borders.