acquired by natural increase or from those home sources which have hitherto yielded but a sparse supply.”
The price of slaves was increasing rapidly, the writer continues. Quotations from reports of auction sales showed that "the price has already reached that point which is beyond the means of small planters.” Able men sold as high as 31,835 cash. The lowest price for an adult at a sale quoted was “Olivia, $1,140." There was, of course, but one remedy — the reopening of the African slave-trade.
This is a fair sample of many similar appeals in periodicals. Pamphlets were printed and circulated. One of them made a most potent appeal to all the merchants and manufacturers having trade with slaveowners. The character of the appeal appears from its title, "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits.” It may be found in the libraries.
Meantime conventions were called wherein orators could proclaim views which were, of course, printed afterward in the newspapers. It was "a campaign of education.”
For instance, there was the convention of May 10, 1858, held at Montgomery, Ala. Spratt, of South Carolina, from the committee on the slave-trade, introduced the following resolutions (quoted in Du Bois):
Resolved, That slavery is right, and that, being right, there can be no wrong in the natural means to its formation.
Resolved, That it is expedient and proper that the foreign slave-trade should be reopened, and that this convention will lend its influence to any legitimate measure to that end.”
When some of the more conservative men present mildly objected, Yancey declared that “if it is right
