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NOVEMBER, 1861.      DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.      553

assistance of the Federal arms the co-operation of the whole colored population of the Union, but would secure us, what we now lack, the sympathy and moral aid of the whole civilized world, and remove all danger of our coming into conflict with either France or England.  The war would be seen then likely to effect a result with which Englishmen and Frenchmen could sympathize, and, instead of wishing for the success of the Southern Confederacy, they would wish with all their hearts for the success of the Federal arms.  It would be more than this.  It would bring to the aid of our volunteer force from one hundred to two hundred thousand brave and stalwart volunteers from the free States, aye, and even many from the slave States themselves, who will not and cannot be induced to volunteer their services in a war which, even if successful, promises to leave the institution of slavery not only existing, but more firmly established than ever.  Everybody knows that slavery is at the bottom of the whole controversy, and that the real object of the Southern leaders is not simply to protect slavery against Abolition movements where it exists, but to extend it over the whole Union, and make the American republic a great slaveholding republic.  And there are men in large numbers amongst us——men who have had no sympathy with Abolitionists, who see and understand very well that, even were we successful in putting down the present rebellion, no real Union between the North and the South could be restored, and that no durable peace between them could be re-established, if slavery continued to exist.  These men enter not, and will not enter heartily into the war, unless they see clearly and feel fully assured that it will result in the final and total extinction of slavery throughout the Union, and all the territory it may now possess or hereafter acquire.

SLAVE LABOR AND FREE LABOR.

The present rebellion proves, what we thoughtful and far-seeing men in all sections of the Union have long seen and said, that the preservation of the Union with the slave system of labor extending over one-half of it, is, in the ordinary course of human affairs, an impossibility.  Senator Seward, or rather Mein Herr Dietenbach in our Review before him, was right in saying there is an 'irrepressible conflict' between the two systems.  They cannot long co-exist together in peace and harmony; there is an irrepressible tendency in each to exclude the other; and no possible wisdom or prudence on the part of any administration can harmonize their co-existence under one and the same government.  You must make your election between the systems and adopt for the whole country either the slave system or the free labor system; and the real significance of the contest in which we are now engages is, as to which of these systems shall be the American system.

However homogeneous in race or character, habits or manners, may be the people a country in the outset, they separate and grow gradually into two distinct peoples, with almost entirely different ideas, habits, and customs, if one half of them in the one section adopt the slave system, and the other half, in the other, the free labor system.  We have already in the United States, notwithstanding our common origin, our common language, the similarity of our laws, and our habitual intercourse, grown almost into two distinct nations.  The Confederate are Americans indeed, for they have been born and bred on American soil; but they no longer retain the original American character; while in the free States, bating the alterations effected by foreign emigration, that character is substantially preserved.  We of the North are the same people that made the Revolution, won American Independence, and established the Federal Government.  This divergence showed itself even at the time of the Revolution; and it has been growing greater and greater from the beginning of the present century; and if the two systems of labor are continued on American soil, must continue to be still greater and greater, till the people of the two sections grow up into two absolutely distinct and mutually hostile nations, no longer capable, but by the subjugation of the one by the other, of existing under one and the same government.  The only way this divergence can be checked, the unity and homogeneousness of the whole American people recovered and preserved, is by the assimilation of the labor systems of the North and the South.
 
We of the North cannot and ought not to accept the labor system of the South.——But the slave States, by their unprovoked rebellion, have given us an opportunity of performing an act of long delayed justice to the negro population of the Union, and of assimilating the Southern labor system to ours.——This assimilation is at the bottom of the Southern rebellion, and the South has risen in arms against the Union chiefly for the purpose of extending her labor system over all the free States.  In doing so she gives us the right, in our own self defence, to extend our free labor system over all the slave States——a right which, but for her rebellion, we sho'd not have had under the Constitution.

THE GAIN OF LIBERTY.

If this prove a disadvantage to the Southern States, owing to the peculiar character of their laboring population, they have no right to complain, for it is a disadvantage they have brought upon themselves.  But this will be a disadvantage only as compared with us of the North; for it will be better for the South herself to have her negro population free laborers than it is to have them slaves.  In counting the population of the South, we must not count merely her white, but also her black and colored population.  The moral, spiritual and material well-being of her four million of black and colored people must be considered, as well as the moral, spiritual and material well-being of her eight million of whites.  These black and colored people are as much human beings, whose welfare is as important and as necessary to be consulted by the statesman, the political economist, the moralist, and the Christian, as that of any other portion of her population; and what they would gain by their emancipation should be thrown into the balance against what might be lost by their former owners.  But even the three hundred and forty-seven thousand slaves proprietors would, in reality, lose nothing, or gain in moral more than they would lose in material prosperity.  We do not believe Southern society would, in case of emancipation, be equal to what it would be if the whole population were of the white race.  The negro element would remain in that society, and, wherever it remains, it will be an inferior element; but far less so as free than as enslaved.  The white population of the South must always suffer this drawback for having collected, or submitted to the collection of a large African population on their soil, and they have no right to complain if obliged to make expiation, as long as the world stands, for having introduced and sustained the institution of negro slavery.  But, aside from the disadvantage of having its laboring population of a race with which the white race will not mingle, the South would gain by the assimilation of her labor system to that of the North.

EMANCIPATION POSSIBLE WITHOUT INDUSTRIAL RUIN.

Mr. Augustin Cochin has proved, in the work before us, that slavery can be abolished, and the slaves converted into free laborers, without any serious detriment, even to the former slave proprietors.  We all know that free labor is more economical than slave labor, and, therefore that a freeman is worth more, under the point of view of national wealth, than a slave.  The conversion of the four million of slaves now in the Southern States into freemen would very much increase instead of diminish the aggregate wealth of those States; and if a portion of this increased aggregate wealth should pass from the hands of a few slave proprietors, and into the hands of those who have heretofore been allowed to hold no propertry, the aggregate well-being of the whole community would also be augmented instead of diminished, and therefore the South, regarded as a whole, or looking to her whole population, would be unquestionably a great gainer by the change.  It would not in any respect be depopulated or impoverished, but would be in the way of a more rapid increase of its population, and of that wealth which constitutes the real strength and prosperity of a State.  What we propose, then, would in no respect be ruinous, or even injurious, to the Southern States themselves, but would be a real advantage to them, and secure them after the peace all the greatness, strength, and prosperity States with a mixed population are capable of.  The proposition, then, involves no wrong, no injustice, no injury to the white population of the Southern States; while it would be an act of justice, though tardy justice, to the negro race, so long held in bondage, and forced to forego all their own rights and interests for the pride, wealth, and pleasure of their white masters.

It seems to us, then, highly important, in every possible view of the case, that the Federal Government should avail itself of the opportunity given it by the Southern rebellion to perform this act of justice to the negro race:  to assimilate the fabor [sic] system of the South to that of the North; to remove a great moral and political wrong; and to wipe out the foul stain of slavery, which has hitherto sullied the otherwise bright escutcheon of our republic.  We are no fanatics on the subject of slavery, as is well known to our readers, and we make no extraordinary pretensions to modern philanthropy; but we cannot help fearing that, if the Government lets slip the present opportunity of doing justice to the negro race, and of placing our republic throughout in harmony with modern civilization, God, who is especially the God of the poor and the oppressed, will never give victory to our arms, or suffer us to succeed in our efforts to suppress rebellion, and restore peace and integrity to the Union.  We have too long turned a deaf ear to the cry of the enslaved; we have too long suffered our hearts to grow callous to the wrongs of the downtrodden in our own country; we have too long been willing to grow rich, to erect our palaces, and gather luxuries around us by the toil, the sweat, and the blood of our enslaved brethren.  May it not be that the cry of these brethren has already entered the ear of Heaven, and that He has taken up their cause, and determined that, if we refuse any longer to break their chains, to set them free, and to treat them as our brothers and fellow-citizens, we shall no longer exist as a nation?  May it not be that, in this matter, we have Him to reckon with, and that the first step toward success is justice to the wronged?  We confess that we fear, and deeply fear, if we let slip the opportunity which the Southern rebellion gives us to do justice to the slave, or to make his cause ours, in vain shall we have gathered our forces and gone forth to battle.  We fear God may be using the rebels as instruments of our punishment——instruments themselves to be destroyed, when through them our own destruction has been effected.  We speak solemnly and in deep earnest; for he fights at terrible odds who has the infinite and just God against him.  It may be that an all-wise Providence has suffered this rebellion for the purpose of giving us an opportunity of emancipating rightfully, without destroying, but as a means of preserving, the Union, the men, women, and children now held in bondage, and of redeeming our past offences.  If so, most fearful will be His judgments upon us, if we neglect the opportunity, and fail to avail ourselves of the right.  Now is our day of grace.  This opportunity neglected, our day of grace may be over, and our republic follow the fate of all others, and become a hissing and a by-word in all the earth.  Which may God in His infinite mercy avert.


Our readers will be pleased to learn that the Rev. Abram Pyrne has secured the nomination for Assembly by the Republican and People's Conventions of Wayne County.