CHAPTER XLVIII. THE SLAVE-TRADE. Increased demand for slave labor. -Slave-traffic stimulated. - Revolting features. - Commercial conventions. Demands for opening the foreign slave-trade. De Bow's Review. - Utterances of Southern men. - Speech of Stephens. British cruisers. American complaints. — Call for information. — President's response. Action of the Republicans. — Extent of participation in the traffic. New York the great mart. - Statistics. Mr. Wilson's bill and speech. Testimonies. — Slaves at Key West. — Benjamin's bill. — Heartless utterances of Mason, Davis, and Toombs. - Wilson's amendment opposed by Mason and Green. His reply. No action taken. - Policy of the Republican party. -- WHILE the Slave Power had been putting forth its gigantic and too successful efforts for expansion, unlimited control, and perpetuity, the prices of slaves had largely appreciated, and the domestic slave-traffic had increased. Indeed, it was estimated that near the close of Mr. Buchanan's administration it had grown to the purchase and sale of thirty thousand slaves a year, at a market value of some thirty million dollars. This trade, with its sad aggregate of suffering and sorrow on the one part, of demoralization and guilt on the other, was carried on unblushingly. The barracoon and auction-block were objects familiar to the public gaze, and domiciled as among the recognized, if not cherished, fixtures of Southern society. Though there was a pretended disfavor shown the slave-trader, yet his business was a necessity of the system in which all were implicated, his rooms and jails were marts of an established trade in which all participated, and he was a factor of a commerce which they all defended. Nor was it easy to see how even the regular slave-trader could become more cruel, more demoralized, and more degraded than they who bought of and sold to him, breaking up thereby families, parting husbands and wives, parents and children, and selling often those, and accepting higher prices therefor, whose increased attractions and market value arose from the fact that their own or kindred blood was coursing through their veins. This growing demand for slave labor in the more Southern States increased the domestic traffic, diminished the number of emancipations, intensified the desire for cheaper labor, and turned the minds of many to the reopening of the African slave-trade. In 1857 Governor Adams of South Carolina advocated it, declaring the laws which made that traffic piracy “a fraud upon us." In the Southern commercial convention, held in Montgomery in 1858, there were two reports made, one by Spratt of South Carolina, proposing a revival of the slavetrade, and another by Yancey of Alabama, proposing a repeal of the laws making it piracy. Both reports were referred to an adjourned meeting, to be held at Vicksburg the next year. At that meeting votes were adopted for the reopening of the trade, and demanding the unconditional repeal of the law that made it piracy. De Bow's Review, a work of large influence, contained labored articles advocating the same policy, especially for the Gulf and Southwestern States. During that year, too, published letters from the South revealed this growing purpose to supply in this manner the increasing demand for slave labor. It was reported that cargoes of slaves had been landed on the Florida coast; that several vessels were engaged in the traffic; and "that, if the slave-trade is not reopened, the indications are that it soon will be." An ex-member of Congress, after a tour through the Gulf States, stated to Mr. Giddings that the people were determined, and that they would defy the federal government in any attempt to enforce the law against the traffic. Mr. Dowdell of Alabama spoke of the question as one belonging to the States whose industrial policy was to be affected by it; of the trade as "not necessarily immoral," which those laws defined to be piracy, and for which they made the penalty death,- which laws he deemed "highly offensive." Miles and Keitt of South Carolina, Seward and Crawford of Georgia, and Barksdale of Mississippi, concurred substantially in these views. During that summer De Bow and Yancey gave special attention to the subject, explaining and defending the new policy, the latter making its indorsement a test of Southern fealty, and the former recommending it alike to those who "held few slaves or none," and to "large slave-owners." Alexander H. Stephens, on the occasion of retiring from Congress, made a farewell speech to his constituents, reviewing his congressional career, the history of the government, the series of victories won by the Slave Power, and the needs of the South; the most urgent of which was, he contended, expansion. He said that, though they could "divide Texas into five slave States," and could also wrest additional territory from Mexico, "we have not the population, and might as well abandon the race with our brethren of the North in the colonization of the Territories. It is useless to wage war about abstract rights, or to quarrel and accuse each other of unsoundness, unless we get more Africans." John Forsyth, late minister to Mexico, speaking of the triumphs of the Slave Power, added: "But one stronghold remains to be carried, to complete its triumph, and that is the abrogation of the existing prohibition of the African slave-trade." ExGovernor McRae of Mississippi expressed the belief that the people of his State were in favor of it, and that, "should the South unite in so just a demand," the North would not refuse. Jefferson Davis, while doubting its desirableness for Mississippi, expressed his entire want of sympathy with those "who prate of the inhumanity and sinfulness of the trade"; and he declared that" the interest of Mississippi, not of the African, dictates my conclusion." Nor were this increasing desire and demand for the reopening of the slave-trade the only sources of new and threatening complications. A British squadron had been stationed on the coast of Cuba to intercept the slave-ships. These latter often displayed the American flag for the protection of their nefarious commerce; though, notwithstanding this precaution, these British cruisers sometimes visited suspected vessels, and, it was charged, exhibited unnecessary violence and insolence in their search. At least the slave-traders and their sympathizers were loud in their complaints. In consequence, President Buchanan sent to the coast of Cuba several war-vessels to resist all attempted searches, demanding, too, an explanation from the British government. In May, 1858, the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution calling upon the President for information. He immediately replied, warlike resolutions were reported, and defiant speeches were made. But with that insincere and equivocal policy which always marked the conduct of the dominant party when the interests of slavery were involved, as soon as it was ascertained that the Republicans were willing to unite in the vindication of the honor of the flag, the warfever abated. The latter, being anxious to put an end to the infamous traffic by more efficient legislation and the construction of vessels better fitted for the purpose, and desirous of not being placed in a false position, did join in denouncing the action of the British officers, according to a policy agreed upon before the debate commenced, and after a brief consultation between Seward, Hale, and Wilson. These tactics of the opposition soon cooled the ardor of the administration and its supporters, who cared nothing for the suppression of the slavetrade. "No forty Quakers alive," said the New York "Tribune," "could have done so much for peace in a year, as the Senators above mentioned did by their warlike talk during a single afternoon." Nor did the traffic receive moral support alone from the great Republic. American enterprise, skill, and capital were engaged in its prosecution. The yacht Wanderer landed in December, 1858, near Brunswick, Georgia, several hundred slaves; and the fact was ostentatiously paraded by a portion of the Southern press before the country. The vessel was seized and confiscated in Savannah. But when, it was to be sold at auction, the public sentiment was so little opposed to the iniquitous service in which it had been engaged, that its owner's appeal, which he brazenly urged, that those present would not "bid against" him, was successful, and he repurchased it at one quarter of its value. The slight disgrace attending it, and the comparative immunity with which the traffic could be engaged in, seemed to justify the charge of the London "Times," that New York had become the greatest slave-trading mart in the world." Indeed, the statements and figures put forth, during that and the succeeding year, are astounding and almost incredible. A list appeared in the New York "Evening Post" of "eighty-five vessels fitted out from New York, from February, 1859, to July, 1860," for the slave-trade. The New York "Leader," a Democratic organ, asserted that "an average of two vessels each week clear out of our harbor, bound for Africa and a human cargo." The "World" said "that from thirty to sixty thousand a year are taken from Africa to Cuba by vessels from the single port of New York." So deeply involved in this disgraceful and dreadful traffic were people in this nation during all, but especially the closing years, of Mr. Buchanan's administration; so undoubted, too, was the growing sympathy with it; and so unconcealed were the purposes of many to throw around it the sanction of law, or at least to remove the stigma which past legislation had placed upon it. The friends of freedom, and all who were jealous for the honor of the flag, deemed additional legislation necessary. In March, 1860, Mr. Wilson submitted to the Senate a resolution instructing the Committee on Foreign Relations to report whether the treaty with Great Britain had been executed, and whether any further legislation was necessary to insure the enforcement of the laws; and in April he introduced a bill for the more effectual suppression of the slave-trade. It provided for the construction of five steam sloops of war, better adapted for the purpose than those then in African waters, in accordance with the stipulations of the Webster-Ashburton treaty; the release of naval officers from legal responsibilities in case of mistaken capture of any suspected craft; a fourfold increase of bounty; to make the fitting-out as well as the sailing of slavers piracy; and sundry other provisions to meet existing defects, and to render more effective and sure legislation upon the subject. While the bill was pending, Commodore Foote, afterward admiral, who distinguished himself so much during the war of the Rebellion, wrote to Mr. Wilson respecting it. "I have read," he wrote, "with deep interest your bill and speech in the Senate, for the suppression of the slave-trade, |