The Slave Power: Its Character, Career, and Probable Designs: Being an Attempt to Explain the Real Issues Involved in the American ContestJohn Elliot Cairnes (1823-1875) was one of the leading economists of his day, holding professorships at Trinity College Dublin, University College, Galway, and University College, London. He gained an international reputation with The Slave Power, first published in 1862, and enlarged and reissued the following year. His analysis of the economic and social system of the Confederate states in America did much to influence British support for the Union in the United States' Civil War. He argued that the course of history was influenced most of all by economic causes. Although he had begun his study of the slave trade on a theoretical basis, the outbreak of civil war had given it a more immediate and practical application. His case is very clearly and impartially argued. While being opposed to slavery on moral grounds, he fairly states the arguments on both sides, and refutes some of the Confederate propaganda. |
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Common terms and phrases
African slave trade aggressive agriculture ambition American American Anti-Slavery Society annexation anti-slavery become career carried cause character circumstances civilization colonization commerce condition Confederacy confined Congress connexion consequences considerable Constitution contest cotton crops cultivation democratic districts economic effect emancipation equal established existence extension of slavery fact favour fertile force Free and Slave free labour freedom freesoilers Fugitive Slave Law future ground human increase independence influence interests Kansas land less mean whites ment Mexico Missouri Compromise mode moral Morrill tariff motive nations natural necessity negro North America Northern Olmsted's once passion peculiar persons planters political portion position present principle profit progress proprietors question race result secession Senate settlement settlers slave institutions slave labour Slave party slave population Slave Power slave societies slaveholders social soil South Southern Southern party tariff of 1832 territory territory of Kansas Texas tion Union United Virginia wealth whole
Popular passages
Page 216 - They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.
Page 220 - That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends.
Page 57 - ... that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas...
Page 195 - Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void : it being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States...
Page 155 - The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal.
Page 56 - In traversing that county, one will discover numerous farm-houses, once the abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted and dilapidated ; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, abandoned, and covered with those evil harbingers, fox-tail and broomsedge ; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering walls oftmce thrifty villages, and will find ' one only master grasps the whole domain,' that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white...
Page 195 - Nebraska bill declared, in so many words, that it was the true intent and meaning of the act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.
Page 144 - Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. "This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Page 53 - So, too, when I ask why mules are so universally substituted for horses on the farm, the first reason given, and confessedly the most conclusive one, is, that horses cannot bear the treatment that they always must get from negroes; horses are always soon foundered or crippled by them, while mules will bear cudgeling, and lose a meal or two now and then, and not be materially injured, and they do not take cold or get sick if neglected or overworked.
Page 268 - To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject. A violation of great principles of morality it may easily be ; but barbarians have no rights as a nation, except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one. The only moral laws for the relation between a civilized and a barbarous government, are the universal rules of morality between...