The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet ItHelper, Hinton Rowan
History
The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It
Helper, Hinton Rowan
Slavery -- United States
It is much to be regretted that the slavocrats look at but one side of the
question. Of all the fanatics in the country, they have, of late, become
the most unreasonable and ridiculous. Let them deliberately view the
subject of slavery in all its aspects and bearings, and if they are
possessed of honest hearts and convincible minds, they will readily
perceive the grossness of their past errors, renounce their allegiance to
a cause so unjust and disgraceful, and at once enroll themselves among the
hosts of Freedom and the friends of universal Liberty. There are
thirty-one States in the Union; let them drop California, or any other new
free State, and then institute fifteen comparisons, first comparing
New-York with Virginia, Pennsylvania with Carolina, Massachusetts with
Georgia, and so on, until they have exhausted the catalogue. Then, for
once, let them be bold enough to listen to the admonitions of their own
souls, and if they do not soon start to their feet _demanding_ the
abolition of slavery, it will only be because they have reasons for
suppressing their inmost sentiments. Whether we compare the old free
States with the old slave States, or the new free States with the new
slave States, the difference, unmistakable and astounding, is
substantially the same. All the free States are alike, and all the slave
States are alike. In the former, wealth, intelligence, power, progress,
and prosperity, are the prominent characteristics; in the latter, poverty,
ignorance, imbecility, inertia, and extravagance, are the distinguishing
features. To be convinced, it is only necessary for us to open our eyes
and look at facts--to examine the _statistics_ of the country, to free
ourselves from obstinacy and prejudice, and to unbar our minds to
convictions of truth. Let figures be the umpire. Close attention to the
preceding and subsequent tables is all we ask; so soon as they shall be
duly considered and understood, the primary object of this work will have
been accomplished.
Not content with eating out the vitals of the South, slavery, true to the
character which it has acquired for insatiety and rapine, is beginning to
make rapid encroachments on new territory; and as a basis for a few
remarks on the blasting influence which it is shedding over the broad and
fertile domains of the West, which in accordance with the views and
resolutions offered by the immortal Jefferson, should have been
irrevocably dedicated to freedom, we beg leave to call the attention of
the reader to another presentation of the philosophy of free and slave
labor. Says the _North American and United States Gazette_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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