Indeed, on the contrary, there was never a time when temptation to
slaveholding was a third part what it is to-day, aside from the threat
of danger hanging over it from the continuance of the war, and the
supposed determination of the Northern conquerors to put an end to it.
The vital principle of Slavery which overrides every other
consideration, is the extra-profitable nature and state of slave-labor
products. The writer has himself seen Slavery firmly seated in the
saddle and unassailable in an exposed region of the South, with cotton
at from eight to twelve cents on the pound, and the same institution
trembling toward its downfall when cotton fell to four and a half and
five cents on the plantation. What must then be its hold on the cupidity
of Southern men when the condition of Slavery, by virtue of the same
state of war which threatens its existence on the one hand, has caused
the price of cotton to rule, on the other hand, from twenty-five to
seventy-five cents a pound, and has affected, in a somewhat similar way,
every other product of the sort! An immense premium is thus offered for
the continuance of the institution, and the danger is not slight that
our own Northern men, thrown into the South, would be seduced, in great
numbers, by the temptation, into becoming themselves slavery
propagandists, unless the exigencies of the war, the _esprit du corps_,
and the solidarity of interests springing up between them and the negro
soldiers, and the prompt and energetic activity of the Government in
behalf of an emancipation policy were all to combine to prevent it.
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