CHAPTER VIII.

THE WALKER ADMINISTRATION.

Necessity for Social Re-organization—Difference of Language—Decree of Forfeited Estates—The Registry Decree—The Slavery Decree—Colonial Systems of Spain and England—Anti-Slavery Feeling in Europe and America—How Produced—Effects on Spanish American States—The Negro in Tropical America—Policy of the Decree—Its Relations to Parties in the United States—The Anti-Annexation Character of the Decree—M. Ange de St. Priest—Interest of Continental Powers—Interest of England—Feeling against the Slave Trade—True Character of the Commerce—Africa and America—Experiments of Hayti and Jamaica—Position of the Slave States—Their Apathy—The Course of the South—Her Proper Policy—Efforts of the Anti-Slavery Parties and Powers—Southern Interest in Nicaragua PAGE 251