The majority regarded slavery as a necessary
evil; and, if they deplored the reproach to the Republic, they made
little parade of their sentiments. A large number of Southerners
believed it to be the happiest condition for the African race; but
the best men, especially in the border States, of which Virginia was
the principal, would have welcomed emancipation. But neither
Northerner nor Southerner saw a practicable method of giving freedom
to the negro. Such a measure, if carried out in its entirety, meant
ruin to the South. Cotton and tobacco, the principal and most
lucrative crops, required an immense number of hands, and in those
hands--his negro slaves--the capital of the planter was locked up.
Emancipation would have swept the whole of this capital away.
Compensation, the remedy applied by England to Jamaica and South
Africa, was hardly to be thought of. Instead of twenty millions
sterling, it would have cost four hundred millions. It was doubtful,
too, if compensation would have staved off the ruin of the planters.
The labour of the free negro, naturally indolent and improvident, was
well known to be most inefficient as compared with that of the slave.
For some years, to say the least, after emancipation it would have
been impossible to work the plantations except at a heavy loss.
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