slaves, but also with that important element of population which reaps no profit from the good behaviour of the slaves.
In De Bow's "Review" for January, 1850, will be found the following passage in an article discussing the practicability of employing the non-slaveholding whites in factories, the argument being that there will be less danger of their becoming "Abolitionists" under such circumstances than at present exists:-
"The great mass of our poor white population begin to understand
that they have rights, and that they, too, are entitled to some of the
sympathy which falls upon the suffering. They are fast learning that
there is an almost infinite world of industry opening before them by
which they can elevate themselves and their families from wretchedness
and ignorance to competence and intelligence. It is this great upheaving
of our masses that we have to fear, so far as our institutions are
concerned."
It is, in the nature of things, while slaveholders refuse the
slightest concession to the spirit of the age—while, in their
legislation, they refuse to recognize, in the slightest degree,
the principles of social science under which we live, and must
live, and which every civilized people has fully adopted, that
they should endeavour to make it appear the fault of others
that they do not feel assured of safety and at ease with themselves;
that they should try to make their own ignorant
people believe that it is from without all danger is to be
apprehended—all assurance of safety to be clamoured for—that
they should endeavour to make themselves believe it.[1]is remote. We believe we have
most to fear from the organized action upon the consciences and fears of the slaveholders
themselves; from the insinuation of their dangerous heresies into our
schools, our pulpits, and our domestic circles. It is only by alarming the consciences
of the weak and feeble, and diffusing among our people a morbid sensibility
on the question of slavery, that the Abolitionists can accomplish their object."]
- ↑ The real object of the systematic mail robbery which is maintained throughout the South, and of the censorship of the press which is otherwise attempted, was once betrayed by a somewhat distinguished Southern editor, Duff Green, in the United States Telegraph, in the following words:— "The real danger of this [slave insurrection
