Paris, and then to educate them with books and travel on the continent and in England. He went to New Orleans, where he hoped to gather his boys together, and to sail from that port. On arriving in New Orleans, however, he found himself welcomed almost as cordially as he had been in Lexington some ten years before. He was offered the presidency of the reorganized College of New Orleans, and he at once accepted it, abandoning his idea for the sons of the planters at the same time. The Louisianians exhibited unlimited faith in the late president of Transylvania, practically agreeing to build him a university, and then if he would only accept it, ultimately to present it to him. He acceded to their wishes and at once set the wheels of regeneration into motion.

But the summer wore on apace, and it is a deal warmer on Canal Street in New Orleans than it is on Market Street in Lexington. Holley, exhausted with work and overcome with lassitude, finally decided to drop the rein for a while and take a long rest. Passage on the packet "Louisiana" was engaged, and the tedious trip to New York City was begun. For the first few days all went well, and then, "yellow fever aboard!" was the awful cry. Holley was stricken, and on the last day of July, 1827, he died. His body was consigned to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico; but the flight of years seem to serve as guardians of a memory perennially green.

Such is the imperfect tale of the years of Horace Holley, the famous, the much-maligned president of old Transylvania.

THE AFRICAN APPRENTICE BILL

BY STELLA HERRON

That those interested in the political welfare of Louisiana looked not to the territories of the United States but to the countries southward for additional strength was shown not only by newspaper editorials, but also by the proceedings of the session of the Louisiana legislature in 1858. The defeat and arrest of General Walker in Nicaragua had brought disappointment to those whose hopes for one reason or another were centered in Central America. On January 20 Senator Henry St. Paul of New Orleans introduced resolutions in reference to the action of Paulding in Nicaragua. They declared that as the Americans had gone to Nicaragua in good faith, at the instigation of and from the inducements held out by the people and government of Nicaragua, had acquired certain rights, and as they had suffered great and grievous wrongs in not being permitted to enjoy their property in that country, and in being denied the right of living there, that full investigation should be made, and their losses repaired as far as possible. The following was the conclusion:

Resolved, That the course of the Federal Government in authorizing the armed intervention of the United States Navy in the domestic affairs of a foreign nation, is contrary to every principle of international law, and that, in the opinion of this body, the present administration of the United States by the course it has pursued in overstepping its obligations to the civilized world in the enforcement of the neutrality law, has manifested a settled hostility to American progress and Southern enterprise, contrary to the fundamental spirit of the Cincinnati convention, adverse to the hopes which the people of the

South had a right to entertain from the pledges and antecedents of its Executive.

The resolutions passed the first and second readings and were ordered printed.

On the same day Delony of East Feliciana introduced a joint resolution affirming the principle of the Monroe Doctrine and sympathizing with the attempts to regenerate Central America. In regard to the arrest of Walker he said:

The recent arrest by Paulding of Walker and his followers in the territory of the Nicaraguan Republic constitutes a gross and unparalleled outrage on the law of nations and individual liberty, and a disgrace to the name and character of the American people; is a flagrant departure from the spirit and pledges of the Cincinnati resolutions and reveals a manifest intent or tendency to restrain or stifle the legitimate aspirations of the South and crush out what may still remain in Southern hearts of spirit and resolution.

The Committee on Federal Relations to whom the resolutions were referred reported them back with some modifications. On February 26 they were laid on the table subject to call. No more mention was made of them.

Governor Wickliffe's message was received on January 30. In it he took a very decided position on the rights of the South. The President received praise for having in his "recommendations to Congress gone far to do us justice in a matter most concerning our future growth." The abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was earnestly to be desired, for then the Monroe Doctrine could be applied and European despots excluded from interfering in matters exclusively affecting the interests of the people and the government. He maintained that:

It is clearly manifest that the Southern States of this Union must look Southward for that expansion of the slavery area, so necessary for the maintenance of the equilibrium of

the United States Senate and for the future progress of their agricultural prosperity. It is just and right that the Federal Government and the Northern States bow to the immutable decrees of a natural law and not resist the South in the spread of her institution to regions so palpably pointed to by the finger of destiny for her occupation.

The state right's theory was especially emphasized.1 In this plan for expansion as outlined by the governor and the resolutions, there was no hint of secession. It was assumed that the North would acquiesce; the application of the Monroe Doctrine would render England powerless and so the South could develop.

There was another phase of the question that received the attention of the Louisiana legislature. The principle of nonintervention by Congress had been secured but in order to reap any benefit from this, it was necessary to increase the supply of slaves. More than one in the South had come to realize the danger of removing slaves from the border states. To continue doing this would be merely playing into the hands of the Abolitionists; for free labor would come in to take the place of the slaves and these states would no longer have a common interest with the slaveholding states. Realizing this, many came to feel that in agreeing to the prohibition of the African slave trade, the South had injured herself.

South Carolina was the first state in which it was suggested that Congress should repeal the law. The growth of public opinion in regard to this question is seen in the discussions of the southern commercial conventions. In the 1855 convention, which met at New Orleans, Dr. McGimsey of Louisiana introduced a resolution recommending the senators and representatives in Congress to introduce a bill to repeal all laws suppressing the slave trade. It was referred to the general com

1 Resolution and Message in Louisiana Senate Journal, session of 1858.

2

mittee but no report was made upon it so there was no discussion. In the Savannah convention of 1856 considerable time was devoted to the discussion of the measure. A resolution was introduced which suggested the appointment of a committee to make a thorough investigation of slavery in all its bearings, and also of the propriety of reopening the African slave trade. After full discussion this was rejected. When this same question was brought up in the Knoxville convention in 1857 it met with better success, for the committee was appointed.

The question of reopening the slave trade was introduced in Congress but failed to pass, although “fiftyseven Southern congressmen refused to declare a reopening of the slave trade shocking to the moral sentiment of the enlightened portion of mankind and eight refused to call the reopening unwise and inexpedient."4

As this plan had failed, another scheme was evolved by which to gain a labor supply. The movement was first set on foot in Mississippi, when on Nov. 19, 1857, Senator Hughes introduced into the legislature a bill for the charter of the African Immigration Company. The session closed the next day, so no action was taken.

In Louisiana, January 28, Henry St. Paul of New Orleans gave notice of a bill to authorize the governor of the state to contract for the introduction of 2,500 free black laborers from the coast of Africa; and providing for the government and redemption of said free blacks. An account of the impression that this created in the Senate was given by the Baton Rouge correspondent of the Daily Delta:

The Hotspur of the Senate, Henry St. Paul of New Orleans, today went through the preliminary form of initiating the boldest stroke of State policy known in the annals of South

2 De Bow's Review, XVIII, 628.

3 Ibid., XXII, 92.

4 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870.