90. Attitude of the Southern Confederacy. The attempt, initiated by the constitutional fathers, to separate the problem of slavery from that of the slave-trade had, after a trial of half a century, signally failed, and for well-defined economic reasons.  The nation had at last come to the parting of the ways, one of which led to a free-labor system, the other to a slave system fed by the slave-trade.  Both sections of the country naturally hesitated at the cross-roads:  the North clung to the delusion that a territorially limited system of slavery, without a slave-trade, was still possible in the South; the South hesitated to fight for her logical object—­slavery and free trade in Negroes—­and, in her moral and economic dilemma, sought to make autonomy and the Constitution her object.  The real line of contention was, however, fixed by years of development, and was unalterable by the present whims or wishes of the contestants, no matter how important or interesting these might be:  the triumph of the North meant free labor; the triumph of the South meant slavery and the slave-trade.

It is doubtful if many of the Southern leaders ever deceived themselves by thinking that Southern slavery, as it then was, could long be maintained without a general or a partial reopening of the slave-trade.  Many had openly declared this a few years before, and there was no reason for a change of opinion.  Nevertheless, at the outbreak of actual war and secession, there were powerful and decisive reasons for relegating the question temporarily to the rear.  In the first place, only by this means could the adherence of important Border States be secured, without the aid of which secession was folly.  Secondly, while it did no harm to laud the independence of the South and the kingship of cotton in “stump” speeches and conventions, yet, when it came to actual hostilities, the South sorely needed the aid of Europe; and this a nation fighting for slavery and the slave-trade stood poor chance of getting.  Consequently, after attacking the slave-trade laws for a decade, and their execution for a quarter-century, we find the Southern leaders inserting, in both the provisional and the permanent Constitutions of the Confederate States, the following article:—­

The importation of negroes of the African race, from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

    Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of
    slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not
    belonging to, this Confederacy.[87]

The attitude of the Confederate government toward this article is best illustrated by its circular of instructions to its foreign ministers:—­