The National Era

THE SOUTHERN PRESS.

From the South Side Democrat, of April 24.

THE CHARLESTON MERCURY AND SLAVERY IN VIRGINIA

A few weeks since, the Charleston Mercury in some articles that, to be frank, did but little credit to the intelligence of the writer, under took the gratuitous task of showing that Slavery, sooner or later, would gradually die out in Virginia, and the State itself become indifferent to the fate of the institution. The avowed object of the Mercury was to demonstrate that it was time for the cotton States to prepare by themselves alone to defend their rights through a separate organization, looking directly to a separate confederacy: arguing that it was idle longer to rely upon Virginia, and those of her sisters out of the cotton belt, to act with the cotton States in any great emergency that might arise.

We reiterate, such articles not only fail to compliment the intelligence of our contemporary, but expose a profound ignorance of the real questions involved, not simply in Virginia, but throughout the South.

It may be that, in the progress of time, Slavery will run out in Virginia. We are not prepared to say, in advance, what effect a very thickly settled and overgrown population may have on her institutions. We will not anticipate the effect the rapid increase of the 25,000,000 of white inhabitants in this Confederacy may have on the 3,500,000 slaves, when they all become pressed down into the different strata of society by a very dense population in the future.

We know it is a law of population, that where two races are thrown together in the same country, and when the increase becomes so great as to make food the absorbing interest of society, then the weaker is eaten out by the stronger, and gradually disappears. If there be any social arrangement, where two such races can co-exist and be preserved, each discharging its separate functions, it is where domestic Slavery exists, and where the distinction is plain and sharply defined, as in the case of the African race in servitude.

It is the only race that can bear the pressure of labor in contact with the white man, and yet multiply and improve in the comforts of civilization. All other people in Slavery have become by degrees extinct, or have perished in amalgamation. These are points arrived at in the march of the two races on this continent--- points to which we barely direct attention.

But we will say to the Mercury, that when Virginia becomes indifferent to the institution of domestic Slavery, then will South Carolina be taking a similar direction. Virginia has within her limits 500,000 slaves-more far than any other State in the Union--and will continue to own more, unless in time Texas may rival her.

Nor are the net profits from slave labor in Virginia less than in South Carolina. In the culture of wheat and tobacco, at present prices, the Virginia farmer makes, per hand, quite as much as the cultivator of sugar or cotton in the South. Our railroads have very recently opened up some of the richest valleys in the country; and the effect has been to carry Slavery with great rapidity into our mountain regions-- thus directly and more deeply interesting all our people in the maintenance of the institution. The fact is, slave labor is now more profitable in Virginia than it ever has been, and our men of intelligence see that it is a far safer investment in Virginia than in the more uncertain and inconvenient regions of the South and Southwest.

Not only have the increased profits resulting from the employment of the institution more identified Virginia with Slavery than she ever has been, but the discussions for the last twenty years have turned the attention of our thinking people to the moral and political view of the subject, and satisfied them that it has not only the sanction of Bible revelation for its moral legitimacy, but that it is eminently conducive to a development of individual character, high social cultivation, and public integrity and patriotism.

Virginia has been styled the mother of States-she is not less the mother of domestic Slavery, as antagonized to political Slavery. And to talk about any portion of the slave States separating from Virginia, is to talk of divisions in an entrenched camp, and to open our breastworks to the approach of the conquering foe.

Virginia to become indifferent and to abandon the institutions of her first and favorite children!! Go first and strike from the records of time all that has made her glorious in the past-chill and turn back the life-blood that still runs warm from her heart, and force it into new channels make of her another State- raise up in her midst new idols of fanaticism and abolitionism, and make her fall down and worship at their unhallowed shrine-then, and not until then, can the Old Dominion ever be separated from the South and a common and united destiny.

We are at an important juncture of our confederated affairs,

There is now but a trifling
division of parties in the South. We are a
united people for the first time in many years.
Let no State and no party take any position
that shall furnish a pretext for division in the
South.

Ultraism, under existing circumstances, will
produce division, and will result precisely as
submission itself. We want enlarged states-
manship and steady nerve for the future.

The final destiny of the slaveholding race is
the greatest problem to be worked out under
our complicated system. Union amongst our
selves will save us-it will give us power to
save the Constitution, and control the Union
under it. Let us keep cool, and keep united.