The Conservative Principle; or, Social Evils and Their Remedies [pp. 419-431]

THE CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLE, ETC.
cumber these finfe islands; but that somebody or other will,
one of these days, set him to work, and make him produce
sugar, coffee, and the like things, which Providence seems to
have intended these islands to yield for the benefit of mankind.
At least, Cuffee's title to obstruct a proper use of these West
Indies is not better than was that of the original savages and
wolves to hold, against our present system of civilization, these
banks of the Potomac, on which our magnificent Capitol now
stands.
TI[E CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLE; OR, SOCIAL EVILS AND THEIR
REMEDIES.
The author of the following article has prepared and published several valu-,a
able works, among them a late one entitled "Cannibals all, or Slaves without
Masters," which have for their aim a defence of slavery from a higher stand.point, and a refutation of those who claim what is called free society to be a,!
panacea for every ill. Without assenting or dissenting, we shall give wit!
pleasure his views in this and the next number of the Review.
The Republican majority in the House of Representatives,
and the large sectional vote obtained by Fremont, are facts
which, taken alone, suffice to show that our Union is imperiled.
As the danger becomes more imminent, the thoughtful, the
prudent, and the patriotic, should combine more closely, and
redouble their efforts to avert it-for none but the rash, the
thoughtless, and the wicked, can look with indifference to an
event so pregnant with consequences, for weal or woe, not
only to Americans, but to all civilized mankind.
Our Union is the great asylum for the starving millions of
Europe who have got the means to emigrate, and largely helps
to feed and clothe those who are too poor to remove.
The civilized world is now, and has been for years, suffering from the insufficient production of food and clothing, the
essential necessaries of life. Get up civil war and disunion in
America, and subtract thereby the present American surplus
from this already insufficient supply, and hunger and nakedness would afflict and decimate a large portion of mankindat least until new agricultural regions were developed, and
large accessions to agricultural labor obtained from some
quarter. Much time would be required to effect such sanitary results; and, in the interim, the amount of human suffering likely to ensue, appals the imagination. A famine in
Ireland carries off in a single season three hundred thousand
souls, and expels three millions from their homes. A civil
war in America would be a potatoe-rot for Christendom. HIer
419