The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/Slavery in Illinois

Slavery in Illinois.

Some of the Democrats of Illinois have already commenced advocating the introduction of slavery into that State. The Mattoon Gazette, published in Southern Illinois, urges arguments for the measure as follows:—

‘We are one of those that utterly discredit the idea that the presence of slaves works an injury to the whites, or that the presence of free negroes, enjoying political and social privileges, is at all beneficial. We candidly and firmly believe to-day, that if Illinois were a slave State, the best men of Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and even States further South, would be here as soon as they could remove their families, and the prairies of Illinois would be made to smile as a lovely garden. We have seen the best class of men come to our State, admire it with enthusiasm, but return to their homes because they could not bring their whole families with them.

‘The question comes up squarely to every business man in Illinois: Which would you rather do, make slaves of your family, or provide a comfortable home for some of the enslaved African race? It is a clear case, that when Illinois voted slave labor out of her limits, she voluntarily voted upon the white females of Illinois a life of unmitigated drudgery, unsuited to the tastes and physical capacity of a large majority of them, and drove from our midst a people peculiarly adapted to such services, without benefitting them in the slightest degree. When will the day of practical benevolence arrive, when we shall have done with this eternal empty profession of mock philanthropy, when it will not be called emancipation to offer inducements to the slave-traders of the South to buy the negroes of Missouri and send them South in chain gangs!’