Anti Slavery Bugle

PROGRESS OF SLAVERY.—Harriet Martineau, in her 'Survey from the Mountain,' in 'The People's Journal,' says:

In the midst of the vigorous beating-up for troops in the United States for the Mexican war, the most war like city, New Orleans, puts forth a caution against all talk of employing free people of color in a war of invasion, though these people be patriotic and substantial citizens. The objection is that if men of African complexion are employed as soldiers now, the Americans would have no plea against the employment of a similar force by Great Britain, in case of a war between the two countries. "It is distinctly understood," says the newspaper, "that if ever the English land a regiment of blacks in this country, we can grant no quarter to prisoners. It will be a war of extermination, marked with blood at every step. And we must be careful how we set the precedent when we march into the territory of another power." Here is the downward course of error and sin marked with a clearness not to be mistaken.

There was first the crime of transporting men from their natural circumstances for the convenience of men more powerful: then slavery becoming more aggravated with the advance of time and civilization: then of the necessity of a tyranny at first unthought of: then the natural consequence—fear: and from fear a contemplated cruelty and savagery under which society dissolves itself into its elements, and States become the lair of ferocious beasts. The first step in wrong should be dreaded as fatal as much by society as individuals.