Summary

The proslavery argument is invoked in this reprint from the Catholic Mirror to describe slavery not only as a humane system of labor but as a form of social welfare as well. The Northern Democratic editors consider slavery a positive good, stressing that the issue is not political.

EXCERPT:

"The South does not ask of the North to approve of slavery, does not even ask any of her own denizens to approve of it. Every man who has traveled through the South has heard the free expression of southern sentiment in regard to slavery. It is generally spoken of as an inherited evil, not a crime, however, that must be borne until such time as the people concerned can manage without violence, or shock, to rid themselves of it."

"It is madness, or worse than madness, for outsiders to attempt to put down the institution of slavery in the Southern States."

Full-text web version of newspaper

"In the first half of 1860 Democratic editors in Franklin County emphasized slavery's compatibility with the Northern economy and society and Northern complicity in the South's institution."