ty," ""that a cargo of African slaves is expected in the ship Island Harbor the latter part of the present month. They will, if they arrive safe, be landed without any attempt at secrecy; the consignees trusting to the sentiment predominant in Mississippi as to the necessity of increasing the number of laborers for a triumphant acquittal, in the event of a government prosecution."

The Southern Citizen, a leading paper in the interests of the slaveholders at the South, and representing the sentiments of a large portion of the people there, indulges in the following. We copy it both as an indication of Southern sentiment on this subject, and by way of helping the New York Tract Society to a polished mirror into which they would do well to look. The Citizen says:

"The Tract Society in New York, as we have already recorded, being wholesomely mindful of the profits of Southern trade, lately refused to embody in the scheme of its publications a system of tracts against slavery, or even against the African slave trade. Not that the members approve of the institution or of the trade-not that they feel anything less than righteous abhorrence for Southern life and conversation and man's property in man, and 'traffic in human flesh,' etc. etc.; but only that they consider it politic (they, a Christian society, instituted for the promotion of religion and virtue) to let that particular class of sins go unscathed-to rail furiously against all sorts of sins except only that sin; for in fact that sin pays. Now we wish Southern readers to fully appreciate the value of this forbearance. Even those journals in the North which approved the action (or non-action) of the Tract Society, took care to let us know that it was not because any member of that Society North approved of slavery or the slave trade."

Ex-Governor Adams, of South Carolina, in a letter read on the occasion of a dinner given to Senator Chesnut, lays down the three following propositions as "undeniable truths:

"First, that the acts of Congress against the slave trade are a brand upon us, and ought to be repealed. Second, that if slavery is right, the traffic in slaves ought not to be confined by degrees of latitude and longitude. And third, that if it is right to hold in servitude the slaves we now have, it is right to procure as many more as our necessities require."

We have deemed it best to give thus much evidence concerning the slave trade party at the South, in order to show

that it is by no means insignificant, and that it has already assumed a formidable bearing, being most fully determined to make this a political question and to try their strength in the legislative, judicial and even executive departments of the government. When this party shall need a demonstration of strength at the North it will have it. They have hitherto never failed to find as many friends as they have needed in the Northern states. Witness the Fugitive Slave Law, the Nebraska Act and the Kansas history. This party at the South is on the increase, and the increase is well accounted for. On Southern ground they have by far the best of the argument. Indeed, with the general Southern principles there is no possibility of standing against them. For, admit the right of one man to hold another as a slave, and you cannot successfully deny the right of traffic in slaves. The right of property implies the right of sale and purchase.

And further, if the right of traffic in this species of property exists among the citizens of a state, and among the various slave states, then who can tell how it is that it is justly esteemed piracy when the trade is simply changed so as to be between citizens of America and citizens or hunters in Africa?

Mr. McRae, a Mississippian, says, "I am in favor of reopening the trade in slaves with Africa. I see no difference, morally, socially, or politically, in buying a slave in Africa, the original source of our supply, and buying one in the home-market of our slave-holding states." This man is logical and consistent.

As to any right to slaves born in America essentially dif ferent from that to those born in Africa it does not exist. The first right to slaves is founded in robbery, and all other rights are necessarily traceable to the same. If a horse is stolen its progeny cannot lawfully be owned by the thief, or by any one who purchases or inherits the thief's right, though he be a thousand persons removed from the original robber. The system of slavery-the holding of a fellow man as property is a system of robbery. Masters who are really slaveholders, in this sense, in heart, are every hour guilty of robbing parents of their children, and parents and children of

themselves. Whoso justifies real slavery may in perfect consistency justify the slave traffic-nay, he is very inconsistent if he does not justify it, and whoso justifies that in America, or anywhere, may consistently justify the resumption of the slave trade between Africa and America. Hence it is that on Southern principles the slave trade party have all the advantage of argument and are rapidly gaining ground. No proslavery men can stand against them. He who attempts it will destroy himself. And all who oppose the slave trade have a further business, or they drive themselves backward. They must oppose slavery itself.

But it may be that we have some readers who doubt whether the slave trade is actually wrong, and a gross abomination, if properly conducted; that is, on the principles of the highest humanity consistent with the trade itself.

The African slave trade, then, consists in going with vessels to the African coast, and there, or in the interior, purchasing or stealing men, women and children, binding them in fetters, stowing them away in secure holds of the ship, and then sailing to a port of some slave land, and disposing of the victims as commodities or property in the market. The slaves are gathered from various sources in their native land, and disposed of, not as colonists in some one locality, but by being scattered abroad at the will of their purchasers in the slave land to which they are brought. They are not persuaded voluntarily to leave their original homes as emigrants for a foreigu clime, with the bright pictures of a sunny land and of golden gains or comforts before them; they are taken away by compulsion, at the option of the conqueror or purchaser, and borne away to involuntary servitude in the strange country of their enemies. Their toils there are not with the hope of enjoying the comforts and gains of their industry and labor; nothing is before them but to serve a master for his profit, and at his caprice or will. The day of their deliverance from bondage will be the day of their death.

But is it in human beings, even the most lost and degraded, to desire such a heritage? Do the native Africans run to the

embrace of slave traders, and crowd their vessels for America or other slave marts? Whom do they esteem as nearest to loving them as himself,-the slave trader, or the missionary? It is notorious that in the full tide of the traffic, the hundreds or thousands of petty tribes in Western Africa are engaged to a wide extent in warfare with each other to supply the material of the slave trade. With slave traders visiting their coast, and creating a vastly greater demand for slaves than exists there for any other articles of commerce, the cupidity of the native. tribes, especially of the chiefs, suffers high excitement, and the demand is met. There is no other way to accomplish it but by kidnapping or warfare. None are found ready to volunteer to be sold for the market in far off slave lands. Parents there will not sell their children into slavery, and the trade cannot depend on that mode for victims. Dr. Livingstone says that he has "never known in Africa an instance of a parent selling his own offspring." But he and other trav elers and missionaries in that country tell us of numerous instances where warfare was originated and carried forward with the sole object of obtaining slaves for the home or foreign market; chiefly for the latter. The most of their warfare is solely for this object. "The wars," says Dr. Livingstone, "in the center of the country, where no slave trade existed, have seldom been about anything else but cattle. I have heard of but one war having occurred from another cause." Speaking of the half-caste slave-dealers, he says, "The usual course which the slave traders adopt is to take a part in the political affairs of each tribe, and, siding with the strongest, get well paid by captures made from the weaker party." In another place, speaking of the trade, carried on by some of the natives, of slaves for "old guns," he says of the slaves, "These are not their own children, but captives of the black races they had conquered." The wars for this purpose extend more or less for thousands of miles along the western coast and far into the interior. Sometimes those having slaves for sale drive them in chain-gangs to the market; but generally, the slave traders resident there, travel into the country, visiting the various tribes in their reach, and purchase the war-cap

tives, and often the members of tribes whose chiefs have devoted them, on some pretext, to slavery. Dr. Livingstone, in speaking of one chief, who may stand as the representative of many, says: "I suspect that offenses of the slightest character, among the poor, are made the pretext for selling them or their children to the Mambari." Again, he mentions this characteristic incident: "Two children of seven or eight years old, went out to collect firewood, a short distance from their parents' home, which was a quarter of a mile from the village, and were kidnapped; the distracted parents could find no trace of them." Another of his descriptive sentences is: "The frequent kidnapping from outlying hamlets explains the stockades we saw around them; the parents have no redress." The kidnappers "can sell them [the stolen children] by night." Describing another tribe, he says, "The demand for domestic servants must be met by forays on tribes which have good supplies of cattle;" the cattle being afterward exchanged for slaves. In mentioning the fact that a Bechuana chief would not sell any of his people, nor a Bechuana man his child, he says, "Hence the necessity for a foray to seize children."

If we turn now to the testimony of Mr. Barth, given in his "Discoveries in North and Central Africa," we shall find a substantial agreement with that of Dr. Livingstone. The only difference relates to the difference in circumstances and tribes in the two sections of the continent visited. A single sentence of his is indicative on this point. "In the regions of Central Africa there exists not one and the same stock, as in South Africa, but the greatest diversity of tribes, or rather, nations, prevails, with idioms entirely distinct." It appears that while Dr. Livingstone found but limited evidence of slave hunting, and warfare for slaves, except for the foreign slave trade, Mr. Barth found more for the home trade and domestic slavery, although a great amount for the foreign trade also. The testimony of such an able and learned man, and observing and skillful traveler, who ventured into and explored regions hitherto untrodden by civilized man, must be regarded by all candid persons as of very great weight on this subject. Some of our readers may need the statement that Mr. Barth