WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
347
Trade. Though that question was laid upon the table from mo- tives·of policy, the sentiments of the Convention were too plainly developed for any to be deceived as to its character. Resolutions providing for the agitation of the subject were introduced, and the uncontradicted declaration made that they contained the senti- ments of the Convention, and it has since been declared that nine- teen twentieths of the delegates were in favor of them. What will be the result of this? Reopen the African Slave Trade and the South will be deluged with barbarians. Your present stock of negroes would fall in value, and recede in point of intelligence. Not a poor man would be able to stay in the country, because Labor would. be so cheap that he would not be able to get bread for himselt and his family. The Labor market would be over- done.• The vast army of slaves would be put to work in your cotton fields, and the vast crop would glut the market beyond all reasonable demand. Prices would fall to four or five cents per pound, and even then, when the demand was supplied, the greater portion of your crop would lie upon your hands for want of a purchaser. Freight would advance to an enormous price, because every sail that the Yankees could raise-these dear Abolitionist gentlemen who love the negro so well-would be engaged in the traffic. Each vessel that could be bought or pressed into the service would be upon the coast of Africa. It would be more profitable than the carrying trade. Your cotton would lie and rot upon your wharves or in your gin-houses, because transporta- tion will not pay, and ruin to your financial interests will be the consequence. If negroes would be cheaper, money would be dearer. It is easier now to buy a negro at $1500 than it was 20 years ago at $500. Increase the production of cotton at once tenfold, as it would be, and the demand falls off in porportion. The yankees would then get your cotton at four cents per pound, and make it into calico and red handkerchiefs to buy negroes with on the coast of Africa, which they will bring South to sell for your hard dollars. To such a ruinous policy I am opposed. I do not go to the results that will accrue to the African. I will not discuss its morality. That ·is a question with which I have nothing to do. Its practical effects upon us and our posterity are what we are first to look at. It may be that the African will be benefitted; but it will be death to the Whites. These men would bait the South on to hasten a dissolution of the Union. Since 1835 the struggle for disunion has been going on. That is what this means. The moment you ask the North
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