THE PURITAN.

No. 56.

It is clearly demonstrable, that the production of cotton depends not so much on soil and climate, as on the existence of domestic slavery. In the relaxing latitudes where it grows, not one half the quantity would be produced, but for the existence of this institution; and every practical planter will concur in the opinion, that if all the slaves in these States were now emancipated, the American crop will be reduced, the very next year, from 1,200,000 to 600,000 bales. No great skill in political economy will be required to estimate how enormously the price of cotton would be increased by this change, and no one who will consider how largely this staple contributes to the wealth of manufacturing nations, and to the necessaries and comforts of the poorer classes all over the world, can fail to perceive the disastrous effects of so great a reduction in the quantity, and so great an enhancement in the price of it. In Great Britain, France and the United States, the catastrophe would be overwhelming; and it is not extravagant to say, that for little more than two millions of negro slaves, cut loose from their tranquil moorings and set adrift upon the untried ocean of at least a doubtful experiment, ten millions of poor white people would be reduced to destitution, pauperism and starvation. An anxious desire to avoid the last sad alternative of an injured community, prompts this final appeal to the interests and enlightened philanthropy of our confederate States. And we cannot permit ourselves to believe, that our just demands, thus supported by every consideration of humanity and duty, will be rejected by States who are united to us by so many social and political ties, and who have so deep an interest in the preservation of that union.-Gov. McDuffie's Message to South Carolina Legislature, 1835.

I HAVE placed this motto at the head of my paper as an absolute curiosity. It is impossible for bur

lesque to go beyond it. Indeed, it is precisely the instance which Montesquieu brings, in that sarcastic chapter which he has written on the origin of slavery. What the theoretic Frenchman says, as bitter, biting irony, our republican governor brings forward as sober, political truth. Le sucre seroit trop cher si l'on ne faisoit, travailler la plante qui le produit par des esclaves.* So we must trample on the laws of God, and violate the rights of humanity, because, if we should attempt to respect them, sugar and cotton would become too dear.

I have hitherto avoided taking any part in the temporary questions which are now agitating the country throughout all its borders; because I wish my book to be the repository, only of those truths which are permanent, and which the mind of the reader may receive with the least prejudice and objection. But this motto contains a principle, (carried to be sure to its highest extreme, and therefore more proper to be made a monument,) which must prove the bane of all free government. It is setting expediency higher than moral principle; or rather it is bringing an argument from expediency, not to modify but to overthrow the highest rule of righteousness. This is the great error of our land; this is the bane of republicanism. For, as in a Russian house made for winter, you can only throw up the windows and diminish the battlements in safety, by increasing

* De L'Esprit Des Lois Livre xv. c. v.

the general mildness of the atmosphere; so with respect to government, you can only throw off the restraints of external power, by increasing the prevalence of deep principle in voluntary hearts. When interest is the criterion of wisdom, liberty will degenerate into despotism.

It has been observed by lord Coke, that corporations have no souls; and it would seem in all collective bodies, from the parish to the nation, that in most of their deliberations, the immortal nature of man, with all its wants and wishes, is forgotten. Man, in his private capacity, has a body and a spirit; and the sensualities of the first are infinitely inferior to the everlasting wants of the last. But when men are associated in political bodies, the high principles of a deathless spirit, seem to be lost in the transient regulations of a material life; and there seems to be a total divorce between politics and principle.

There is no science for which I feel a greater distrust, as to its details, and a deeper abhorrence, as to its general principles, than that of political economy -the great idol of the age. Nebuchadnezzar the king, made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: and he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations and languages, that, at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and

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all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up; and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, shall in the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Yet in despite of all the charms of this united music, and all the terrors of this flaming furnace, I must hesitate to fall before this golden image, more dazzling to the imagination, than conducive to the well-being of man.

In the first place, as to its induction-Is it so perfect as to lay the foundation of much certain knowledge? We will suppose, to please the modern politician, that trade is the great channel of public duty, and that beef and pudding are the supreme objects of national felicity. Still the investigations of the political economist, run into such an infinite number of infinitesimal items, as to elude the comprehension of the most careful mind in its most patient investigation. He will find his regulations have touched but the smaller part of the springs which move the wheels of the complex machine. There is a wisdom in nature, which any partial interference of man only disturbs and deteriorates; and as the water, dropped from the clouds, finds its way over the mountains, to the brooks and springs which conduct it over the earth, in obedience to pre-established laws, which the wisdom of man would in vain attempt to improve or destroy; so, I suspect, the interests of men, in marts and cities, in towns and nations, are balanced by a

wisdom, which we only disturb when we touch it. What should we say to a college of physicians, collected to devise means to keep up an equality in the birth of the sexes?

The uncertainty of the science, the differences amongst the highest authorities, increases the suspicion, that the inductions must be very imperfect among millions of facts where thousands of causes meet and mingle.

But it is the spirit of the science which is most deleterious. Its assumptions are not grounded on the true nature of man. It is not true that man becomes a sensual being as soon as he joins the body politic, and delegates his representatives in congress to take care of his sensual interests alone. The soul is the creature of principle; and there are principles never to be violated, however great the loss or the gain. In the scramble for wealth and power, which is daily increasing in some high quarters, and flowing like lava-torrents from the top of some ignited mountain to every quarter of the land, he is the valuable politician, who will dare to avow his reverence and respect for ETERNAL RIGHTEOUSNESS; and will own that expediency is not the predominating object in the code of a politician.

Republicanism has its tendencies; and one of them is to leap over the rules of right, for accomplishing gain. The only antagonist power to this dangerous propensity, is a reverence for justice to the