ANTISLAVERY LITERATURE. 59 number of them who survived were finally ransomed. There must be persons living in one of our seaport towns, who can recollect the obloquy to which a merchant had subjected himself, by refusing, or neglecting to furnish a ransom for his son, a slave among the Barbary powers. The incident itself occurred not far from the beginning of the present century. In the same work, designed for the education of youth, besides a versified remonstrance, by Merry, against slavery, as authorized and kept up by the British Government in this country before the Revolution, there is a poetical piece by Mrs. Morton, entitled "The African Chief.” In order to move the admiration of the reader for his dignity, as well as to excite compassion for the sufferings of the character eulogized, he is styled "The Princely Slave," and a single stanza will give at least some idea of the imaginative power of the poet: "A Chief of Gambia's golden shore, Whose arm the band of warriors led, By whom the foodless poor were fed." Leaving this sonorous verse without other literary criticism than of the image presented, it must be admitted that the picture is extremely fanciful. A lord of boundless power, in Africa, if there were any such to be found, was certainly a person as little likely to become a slave as the King of Spain. He, and every inferior "princely " chief, were always ready to take advantage of any opportunity to make a ready penny, by the capture and sale to white men, and to one another, of every one of their colored brethren upon whom they could safely lay their hands. Not the sons of Jacob had less scruple in selling Joseph to the merchant men of Midian, for twenty pieces of silver, than they about traffick ing in their own flesh and blood. It is equally certain that "the foodless poor" would have been much more likely to be eaten up themselves, in many parts of Africa, if not, at a season of scarcity, on Gambia's golden shore, than to be partakers of any of that bounty which the benevolent author supposed her chief was in the habit of providing for their sustenance. By such sentimental effusions, in the school-book cited, and others, of the same period, and too often by exaggerated descriptions of Southern slavery in the Northern newspaper press, the minds of ingenuous youth were moulded. The latter teaching was prompted by political motives, as the former, doubtless, often was by ill-instructed considerations of humanity. But in this way it happened, and, to a certain extent, by the influence of the pulpit, also, that the people of New England, especially, were educated in a system of prejudices against those who tolerated an institution, which seemed abominable to such as heard only about its worst features. At a much later period, when this sort of literature had become more telling in its effect, a highly popular writer gave to the world a series of poems, devoted to the special purpose of uplifting the negro in the general scale, and of exciting express and active sympathy in his behalf, as a slave. One of these pieces, which sets forth the interesting qualities of a venerable colored person, begins by bringing him at once within the range of our religious associations: "Loud he sang the Psalms of David, But while this performance reminds one of Sir Piercie Shafton's remorseless chant of five hundred love verses, at the tower of Glendearg, the reference to the minstrel king in the couplet was, perhaps, introduced for the sake of the awkward rhyme; since, proverbially vocal as the race is, the Psalms in question, either wholly or in part, must be supposed to have been sung only in the admirable paraphrases of Dr. Watts, or those of the Wesleys and others. Afterwards, was produced by a lady, who even surpassed Mrs. Morton in imaginative faculty, that highly sensational romance, in which the vicious incidents, which may have been spread over the surface of a generation, were collected and brought into the compass of a brief experience; and then, A POLITICAL CALM. 61 mixed up with absurdities and impossibilities, were exhibited as a picture of the effect of slaveholding upon the superior race in the South, on the one hand; while on the other, the worthy and pious black man, whose name and dwellingplace give the title to the work, was represented as the type of all those virtuous and noble qualities which have graced the lives and dignified the last hours of the most illustrious heroes and martyrs. If these exaggerated and distorted delineations were to be taken as true, it would seem that, whatever other objections might be urged with justice against Southern slavery, it was a condition by no means inconsistent with a manifestation of the highest human characteristics. But after the arrangement of the Missouri question, a considerable period had elapsed, and a great deal of training had been undergone, before the public mind of the North was prepared to give writings of the latter description, the enthusiastic welcome which at length they actually received. After the culmination of that controversy, the topic of slavery, in most of its aspects, ceased, for a series of years, to excite any particular interest in the popular mind.' Sectional sentiment, so far as it entered into the consideration of politics, had been thus far superficial and temporary in its influence among the masses of the people. 1 1 Enlightened philanthropists devoted themselves to the colonization of negroes in their native country, under continual opprobrium from the abolitionists, and the respectable and flourishing Republic of Liberia was the fruit of their thoughtful and liberal care. CHAPTER III. The former "Federalist" and "Republican" Parties.-Political Questions during Mr. Monroe's Administration, and that of Mr. Adams and General Jackson.-Certain Sources of Good Feeling between the Sections.-West Indian Emancipation.-George Thompson.-Anti-Abolition Meeting in Boston.-John Henry.-Great Britain and the United States.-Washington's Advice.—Mr. Roebuck's Speech at Sheffield, June 10th, 1865.-Progress of Abolition.-Views of President Jackson, Governor Marcy, Governor Everett, and Mr. Clay. THE old party lines of Federalists and Republicans had become almost obliterated by the general fusion of both, at the election of Mr. Monroe for President, in the year 1816. On that occasion, this slaveholding successor of Jefferson and Madison received the electoral suffrage of sixteen States, amounting in all to one hundred and eighty-three votes, against thirty-four given to his Federal rival, Mr. King of New York, by Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maryland. Mr. Monroe was chosen for his second term of office in 1820, by an electoral ballot lacking only one vote to make it entirely unanimous. The elements and the political tendencies of the former parties remained, indeed, distributed throughout all the several States, without essential change in the comparative numbers of the advocates of old opinions. France, in the mean time, had finally emerged from the vortex of revolution, had been an empire instead of a republic, and was now a monarchy under the rule of its ancient line of kings. The long European struggle had enlisted the feelings of the two parties in this country, in correspondence with their earlier prepossessions. The war of the United States with Great Britain had still further widened this division of sentiment. The occasion and the foundation of POLITICAL QUESTIONS. 63 this diversity of opinion, however, had now passed away; and it is probable that the popular feeling, which had been wrought upon until it led to the free-soil demonstration of 1820, was very much owing to the want of any other absorbing subject of national difference to engage the attention of political parties. During the course of Mr. Monroe's administration, however, the several subjects of the Tariff, the United States Bank, of Internal Improvements and the Navy, had undergone thorough discussion, and had finally awakened the eager interest of the nation. The first named, though obviously national in its general results, by promoting the revenues of the Federal Government, yet, in its specific operation, affected the two sections in different ways. If the protection afforded by it added to the value of the manufactures of the North, the tariff also furnished the South a nearer market for its chief productions, to be distributed among fellow-citizens, and to be procured at a lower rate of transportation. If the competition between the foreign and the domestic manufacturer brought down the price of the article, that evil would be partially cured at least, whenever the latter should be able to measure strength successfully with his foreign rival. As soon as it becomes no longer advantageous to the foreigner to export manufactured goods into the country which produces the raw material, the price of that material to the home manufacturer becomes, to a considerable extent, within the control of its producer. By adhering judiciously and systematically to such a policy, as was originally proposed by the South and finally assented to by the North-but which was deviated from, upon political considerations totally apart from the interests actually at stake, and therefore substantially without regard to them-incalculable benefits would have accrued to the common country, and a closer bond of union would have been maintained.' The discussion of the other topics of national 1 On the other hand, it should be remarked that, upon constitutional principles, such a restriction of trade, or forced diversion of it from any of its |