They are well aware that the ugly edifice is built of rotten timbers, and stands on slippery sands-if the loud voice of public opinion could be made to reverberate through its dreary chambers, the unsightly frame would fall, never to rise again.

Since so many of their own citizens admit that the policy of this system is unsound, and its effects injurious, it is wonderful that they do not begin to destroy the "costly iniquity" in good earnest. But long-continued habit is very powerful; and in the habit of slavery are concentrated the strongest evils of human nature-vanity, pride, love of power, licentiousness, and indolence.

There is a minority, particularly in Virginia and Kentucky, who sincerely wish a change for the better; but they are overpowered, and have not even ventured to speak, except in the great Virginia debate of 1832. In the course of that debate, the spirit of slavery showed itself without disguise. The members talked of emancipation; but with one or two exceptions, they merely wanted to emancipate, or rather to send away, the surplus population, which they could neither keep nor sell, and which might prove dangerous. They wished to get rid of the consequences of the evil, but were determined to keep the evil itself. Some members from Western Virginia, who spoke in a better spirit, and founded their arguments on the broad principles of justice, not on the mere convenience of a certain class, were repelled with angry excitement. The eastern districts threatened to separate from the western, if the latter persisted in expressing opinions opposed to the continuance of slavery. From what I have uniformly heard of the comparative prosperity of Eastern and Western Virginia, I should think this was very much like the town's poor threatening to separate from the

town.

The mere circumstance of daring to debate on the subject was loudly reprimanded; and there was a good deal of indignation expressed that "reckless editors, and imprudent correspondents, had presumed so far as to allude to it in the columns of a newspaper." Discussion in the Legislature was strongly deprecated until a plan had been formed; yet they must have known that no plan could be formed, in a republican government, without previous discussion. proposal contained within itself that self-perpetuating power, for which the schemes of slave-owners are so remarkable.

The

Mr. Gholson sarcastically rebuked the restless spirit of improvement, by saying "he really had been under the impression that he owned his slaves. He had lately pur chased four women and ten children, in whom he thought he had obtained a great bargain; for he supposed they were his own property, as were his brood mares." To which Mr. Roane replied, "I own a considerable number of slaves, and am perfectly sure they are mine; and I am sorry to add that I have occasionally, though not often, been compelled to make them feel the impression of that ownership. I would not touch a hair on the head of the gentleman's slave, any sooner than I would a hair in the mane of his horse.”

Mr. Roane likewise remarked, "I think slavery as much a correlative of liberty as cold is of heat. History, experience, observation and reason, have taught me that the torch of liberty has ever burned brighter when surrounded by the dark and filthy, yet nutritious atmosphere of slavery! I do not believe in the fanfaronade that all men are by nature equal. But these abstract speculations have nothing to do with the question, which I am willing to view as one of cold, sheer state policy, in which the safety, prosperity, and happiness of the whites alone are concerned.

Would Mr. Roane carry out his logic into all its details? Would he cherish intemperance, that sobriety might shine the brighter? Would he encourage theft, in order to throw additional lustre upon honesty? Yet there seems to be precisely the same relation between these things that there is between slavery and freedom. Such sentiments sound oddly enough in the mouth of a republican of the nineteenth century!

When Mr. Wirt, before the Supreme Federal Court, said that slavery was contrary to the laws of nature and of nations, and that the law of South Carolina concerning seizing colored seamen, was unconstitutional, the Governor directed several reproofs at him. In 1825, Mr. King laid on the table of the United States Senate a resolution to appropriate the proceeds of the public lands to the emancipation of slaves, and the removal of free negroes, provided the same could be done under and agreeable to, the laws of the respective States. He said he did not wish it to be debated, but considered at some future time. Yet kindly and cautiously as this movement was made, the whole South resented it, and Governor Troup called to the Legislature and people of Georgia, to" stand to their arms." In 1827, the people

of Baltimore presented a memorial to Congress, praying that slaves born in the District of Columbia after a given time, specified by law, might become free on arriving at a certain age. A famous member from South Carolina called this an "impertinent interference, and a violation of the principles of liberty," and the petition was not even committed. Another southern gentleman in Congress objected to the Panama mission because Bolivar had proclaimed liberty t the slaves.

Mr. Hayne, in his reply to Mr. Webster, says: "There is a spirit, which, like the father of evil, is constantly walking to and fro about the earth, seeking whom it may devour; it is the spirit of false philanthropy. When this is infused into the bosom of a statesman (if one so possessed can be called a statesman) it converts him at once into a visionary enthusiast. Then he indulges in golden dreams of national greatness and prosperity. He discovers that liberty is power,' and not content with vast schemes of improvement at home, which it would bankrupt the treasury of the world to execute, he flies to foreign lands to fulfil 'obligations to the human race, by inculcating the principles of civil and religious liberty,' &c. This spirit had long been busy with the slaves of the South; and it is even now displaying itself in vain efforts to drive the government from its wise policy in relation to the Indians."

Governor Miller, of South Carolina, speaking of the tariff and "the remedy," asserted that slave labor was preferable to free, and challenged the free States to competition on fair terms. Governor Hamilton, of the same State, in delivering an address on the same subject, uttered a eulogy upon slavery; concluding as usual that nothing but the tariffnothing but the rapacity of Northerners, could have nullified such great blessings of Providence, as the cheap labor and fertile soil of Carolina. Mr. Calhoun, in his late speech in the Senate, alludes in a tone of strong disapprobation, and almost of reprimand, to the remarkable debate in the Virginia Legislature; the occurrence of which offence he charges to the opinions and policy of the north.

If these things evince any real desire to do away the evil, I cannot discover it. There are many who inherit the misfortune of slavery, and would gladly renounce the miserable birthright if they could; for their sakes, I wish the majority were guided by a better spirit and a wiser policy.

But this

state of things cannot last. The operations of Divine Prov. idence are hastening the crisis, and move which way we will, it must come in some form or other; if we take warning in time, it may come as a blessing. The spirit of philan thropy, which Mr. Hayne calls 'false,' is walking to and fro in the earth; and it will not pause, or turn back, till it has fastened the golden band of love and peace around a sinful world. The sun of knowledge and liberty is already high in the heavens-it is peeping into every dark nook and corner of the earth-and the African cannot be always excluded from its beams.

The advocates of slavery remind me of a comparison I once heard differently applied: Even thus does a dog, unwilling to follow his master's carriage, bite the wheels, in a vain effort to stop its progress.

CHAPTER IV.

INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON THE POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Casca. I believe these are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

Cicero. Indeed it is a strange disposed time:
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

JULIUS CESAE.

WHEN slave representation was admitted into the Constitution of the United States, a wedge was introduced, which has ever since effectually sundered the sympathies and interests of different portions of the country. By this step, the slave States acquired an undue advantage, which they have maintained with anxious jealousy, and in which the free States have never perfectly acquiesced. The latter would probably never have made the concession, so contrary to their principles, and the express provisions of their State constitutions, if powerful motives had not been offered by the South. These consisted, first, in taking upon themselves a proportion of direct taxes, increased in the same ratio as their representation was increased by the concession to their slaves.

Second. In conceding to the small States an entire equality in the Senate. This was not indeed proposed as an item of the adjustment, but it operated as such; for the small States, with the exception of Georgia, (which in fact expected to become one of the largest,) lay in the North, and were either free, or likely soon to become so.

During most of the contest, Massachusetts, then one of the large States, voted with Virginia and Pennsylvania for unequal representation in the Senate; but on the final question she was divided, and gavo no voto. There was prob. ably an increasing tondency to view this part of the compromise, not merely as a concession of the large to the small States, but also of the largely slaveholding, to the free, or