Daily National Intelligencer

WASHINGTON :

THURSDAY. AUGUST 14.

The President arrived at Sackett's Harbor on the evening of the 4th inst.

We copy from a well conducted paper lately established at Petersburg, the paragraph which is inserted below. It remarks with deserved severity, on an instance of a certain species of injustice which we are sorry to see very often exhibited by the eastern prints against our fellow-citizens south of the Delaware. The subject we refer to is unpleasant to dwell upon at all, and particularly disagreeable, if not improper, for newspaper discussion; but a few words may not be amiss, and we hope, will not be thrown away upon it.

It cannot be an ignorance of the facts which induces those prints to treat with scurrilous reprehension that portion of our country in which slavery is still permitted, as though it were an illegal and voluntary exercise of power. They certainly must know that it is a species of property guaranteed by the constitution and laws. But this is not the apology which we would allege or which ought to excuse its toleration. Its only defence is the strong necessity that imposes its continuance, and which alone has prevented its abolition long ago. So far from being considered a benefit, the possession of this property is viewed generally by those who hold it, as a national and a domestic curse; and even those who descend to a sordid calculation of its profits, find them more than counterbalanced by the evils, real and apprehended, from which it is inseparable. Our southern citizens not only feel the evil, but they are fully aware of the moral view of the subject. They are not behind any people in intelligence, or in generous and humane feelings ; and to devise means to obey those feelings in relation to the subject we are speaking of, has often employed the private deliberations of some at least, of their Legislative councils. But the remedy is beyond their reach as yet; and we fear it must remain so until some adequate means are provided to get clear of the emancipated population as fast as it shall be freed. Until this shall take place, the strongest of all motives, that of self-security, will oppose an object so just and so desirable.

All that can now be done for the unfortunate race in question, is to render them as happy as their degraded state will admit of; and this, we believe, is nearly the case. Ever since we have been capable of observing, we have witnessed a gradual and steady amelioration in their treatment, honorable to the character of those upon whom the duty is imposed. Except the hardships of separation which they suffer in the course of that traffic from one state to another, tolerated now but by one or two, and which we hope soon to see wholly cut up, instances of cruelty to them are rare ; and when they occur. are as strongly condemned in this community as they could be in any other.

As the case is,—where the blacks that are free, bear a proportion so extremely small to those that are not,—every negro must be presumed a slave until the reverse is proved. This principle, repugnant as it may seem, is one of absolute self-defence, and is as essential to the well being of society, as it is necessary to the preservation of what the laws guarantee as property. Let us, then, hear no more affected railings when a fugitive is arrested, and public notice is given of the fact. The free rarely, if ever, suffer— the document necessary to establish their freedom, is extremely simple, and is too necessary to be parted with by those entitled to it.

We wish our remarks to be taken in their spirit. We speak of things as they are, and as, under present circumstances, they must be—not as they ought to be. Individually we are not participators in this kind of property, and are no apologists for its voluntary possession—but we know the feelings with which it is held by others—we know that its general liberation would be productive of a state of society too calamitous to be justified by a partial good, or to be willingly incurred.

Under existing circumstances, then, whilst there is no option between the present state of things and a worse; whilst a certain portion of beings must be held as property (for under no other relation to each other, we repeat, could the two classes, to any great extent exist together) it is unjust, contemptible and wicked to make it a reproach. It is wicked, because the object and effect are to make one portion of our people odious to the other, by denouncing as criminal that which is their greatest misfortune : and holding up to detestation as a voluntary injustice an evil entailed on them by the bad policy of the mother country and the cupidity of former generations. In this country, where public opinion controls the public weal, the press is an engine of great power, and its conductors ought to be aware of the responsibility of their vocation. It can be employed in no cause more baneful than in sowing the seeds of aversion or jealousy between different sections of the union. Every good man and every patriot would rather strive to conceal from one part of our political family the defects which he might perceive in another, and promote amongst its members a mutual esteem, as the strongest bond of that union which is the soul of our national happiness and prosperity.