ARTICLE IV. THE REOPENING OF THE AFRICAN

SLAVE TRADE.

An abstract of the evidence delivered before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, in the years 1790 and 1791, on the part of the petitioners for the abolition of the Slave Trade. American Reform Tract and Book Society. Cincinnati. 1855.

Africa and the American Flag. By Commander ANDREW H. FOOTE, U. S. Navy, Lieut. commanding U. S. Brig Perry, on the coast of Africa, A. D. 1850-1851. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1854.

Address of the Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS, before the Democratic State Convention, in the City of Jackson, Miss., July 6th, 1859. New York Tribune.

Modern Reform Examined, or the Union of North and South on the subject of Slavery. By JOSEPH C. STILES. Philadel phia: Lippincott & Co. 1857.

Livingstone's Travels and Researches in South Africa. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1858.

Barth's Discoveries in North and Central Africa. Harper & Brothers. 1858.

The Independent. New York.

SLIGHT observation convinces the more intelligent that there are two antagonistic principles now at work in human society, two kinds of leaven permeating the body politic of the world. One is freedom, the other is bondage. The one is equal rights, the other is oppression. The two are here in the land of the American Revolution, in the land of the Pilgrims and Puritans. Their forces, like two great armies, are moving toward each other; they dispute a common territory, and a pitched

battle, or a series of battles, must be added to the encounters already experienced, until one or the other of these two irreconcilable principles is completely and forever victorious. A new march on one side is now commencing. Whether we may interpret it as a sign of weakness and of partial defeat in past conflicts, or of courage and hope under the flush of supposed victory, it is a movement which must be met. It will be pressed to an engagement. And the issue will not leave both sides with their former advantages. We refer to the revival of the African slave trade. It is already reopened, or, if never closed, has received a prodigious increase. That which had been doomed to death under the ban of piracy has found a resurrection. Not indeed as yet with the consent of national law, but despite law. And the fear is that rulers and other men are viewing the transgressions as though the isolated statutes were, or would become, only a dead letter. This traffic winked at will reinstate itself in successful and extensive operation, as sure as two continents stand and an ocean rolls between. Once inaugurated in full career, terrible must be the conflict that can afterward destroy it.

But we may speak in advance of the queries of some of our readers. "Is the slave trade reopened? Is there danger that the laws against it may be repealed or become dead?" Others may say, "Is the slave trade certainly wrong? Is it actually contrary to justice and a violation of human rights?" Or, "Is it so enormously wrong as some represent? May it not be a mixture of good and evil, with so much of the former as to make the traffic tolerable? Ought it not to be respected as the chief act in a train of great and conspicuous missionary events?" These are questions that should be met.

"Is the slave trade reopened or of late largely augmented?" The attempt has been made to cast so much doubt over this inquiry as to give substantially a negative reply. But if we had not a single fact of detected illegal trade of this character, the evident state of public opinion at the South would at least suggest an affirmative. Why all this fever there upon that subject, if no slaves have recently been landed in the southern states from a foreign country? Are not the appetites of many

for this traffic already whetted by the taste? Are they all so law-abiding in the south as rigidly to observe all enactments that they pronounce unconstitutional? Have they suffered

the most profitable of all kinds of commerce to go untouched, while affirming that the prohibition of it is an oppression on themselves? Their state of society prepares us to learn that they have already opened their ports to slavers. The easy course of judges and juries with the "Wanderer," allowing the guilty to go unpunished, violating their solemn trusts under the laws of the land, nearly compels us to believe that this is not an isolated case, and must be followed by a throng. When some two or three years since it began to be prophesied by a few that an attempt would be made to reopen the slave trade, and that by the next Presidential election it would be a prominent topic of discussion and perhaps a plank in the platform of one of the political parties, it was regarded by most as a silly prophesy, and the men who uttered the prediction were held up to derision as fanatical alarmists. Already the facts are that vessels engaged in the slave trade have been captured, other vessels equipped for the trade have been seized by the United States Marshals, and these are enough to show that many more have escaped detection and successfully prosecuted their voyages. The most reliable evidence we have in the case is in effect that at least upwards of twenty slave-ships have safely landed their cargoes on the coast of the Southern states during a few months past. Distinguished political men of the country, not of antislavery sentiments, freely admit this. The Richmond (Texas) Reporter, of late date, contains the following advertisement:

"FOR SALE-Four hundred likely AFRICAN NEGROES, lately landed upon the coast of Texas. Said negroes will be sold upon the most reasonable terms. One-third down; the remainder in one and two years, with 8 per cent. interest. For further information inquire of C. K. C., Houston, or L. R. G., Galveston."

This advertisement shows a fact in the trade itself, and being so openly published becomes only an evident index of many similar cases. It is proved that the ship "Wanderer" brought her cargo of slaves directly from Africa, and landed it

in Georgia. A late number of the Memphis Avalanche, a southern newspaper, has the following:

"Three of the six native Africans brought here a few days since, were sold yesterday at the mart of Mr. West, and brought respectively, $750, $740, and $515. The latter sum was paid for a boy about fifteen years old, who seemed to possess more intelligence than any of the others. These negroes are a part of the cargo of the yacht Wanderer, landed some months since."

According to the most recent information, cargoes of slaves are now frequently being landed along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans papers announce the sailing of vessels for Africa, and contain accounts of the latest arrivals of Congo negroes. Advertisements offer three hundred dollars a head for every thousand negroes from Africa landed on the southern coast of the United States. An eminent and long tried missionary of the American Board affirms that there cannot be less than one hundred American vessels now on the African coast waiting to be freighted with slaves, and that at least sixty or seventy of these are destined for the American shores. Other missionaries now on the western coast of Africa write to their friends in this country that the slave trade there has greatly increased during the last twelve months. Rev. Messrs. Bushnell and Walker of the Gaboon mission agree in the statement that all the missionaries on the coast of Africa from the whole Christian world are not equal in number to the slave ships from the port of New York alone that yearly visit that coast for slaves. One city furnishes more slave ships for Africa than all Christendom does missionaries! These men say that they have seen and conversed with citizens of the United States in the Gaboon country who openly stated that their business there was to prosecute the slave trade.

But the state of public sentiment at the south is still more ominous of evil than all the facts and testimonies concerning the present existence of the slave traffic between Africa and the United States. This species of commerce is at the present moment, and has been for months, gaining favor at the south. Many of the most enthusiastic and energetic men and politi

cians there are its friends. Many of these intend to secure the full resumption of the slave trade, either by the acquiescence of our country in the violation of the laws against it, or by the abolition of those laws. It is to be made, and is now made, a political question at the South. Candidates for high offices are to be tested as to their slave orthodoxy on this subject. They must in some way favor this commerce, now deemed so essential to the highest prosperity of a large part of the Southern states, or receive the opposition of the most determined and fearless politicians of the whole South. There is no probability that they would long be satisfied with the quiet permission to prosecute the trade while a statute existed against them. Why should not those who have a Dred Scott decision obtain also the voice of the Supreme Court of the United States pronouncing the prohibition of the slave trade by our national laws unconstitutional? Our readers are

aware that there is now in full operation at the South an "African Labor-supply Association," of which the Hon. J. B. D. De Bow is president. Mr. DeBow openly declares that one object of the Association is to effect, at the earliest possible moment, the abolition of the national laws prohibit ing the slave trade.

The Hon. W. L. Yancey, writing for the press from Montgomery, Alabama, after some introductory remarks, says:

"Further reflection has but confirmed me in the opinion then expressed, that the Federal laws prohibiting the African slave trade, and punishing it as piracy, are unconstitutional, and are at war with the fundamental policy of the South, and, therefore, ought to be repealed.

"I am further satisfied that the agitation of this question is beneficial. It has already served to develop (not to create) much unsoundness in our midst upon the question of slavery; and one of the advantages of discussion would be to correct these erroneous views, and to warn our people of those among us who are radically unsound upon the principles which underlie that institution. It is wisdom to ascertain wherein we are weak, that we may fortify our position upon that point, and use extra vigilance.

"Until within the last twenty-five or thirty years, there had prevailed an unbroken calm in the South upon the moral aspect of the slavery question. Taking its rise in the wild and reckless radicalism of the Red Republican French school, the opinion had rooted itself in Virginia, and thence had spread over the whole South-and was taught in its religion-that slavery was morally wrong, was