mentality of the laws:-Having selected a suitable free colored person to make a pitch upon, the kidnapper employs a confederate, to ascertain the distinguishing marks of his body; he then claims and obtains him as a slave, before a magistrate, by describing those marks, and proving the truth of his assertions by his well-instructed accomplice.

From the best information that I have had opportunities to collect, in travelling by various routes through the states of Delaware and Maryland, I am fully convinced that there are, at this time, within the jurisdiction of the United States, several thousands of legally free people of color, toiling under the yoke of involuntary servitude, and transmitting the same fate to their posterity! If the probability of this fact could be authenticated to the recognition of the congress of the United States, it is presumed that its members, as agents of the constitution, and guardians of the public liberty, would, without hesitation, devise means for the restoration of those unhappy victims of violence and avarice, to their freedom and constitutional personal rights. The work, both from its nature and magnitude, is impracticable to individuals, or benevolent societies; besides, it is perfectly a national business, and claims national interference, equally with the captivity of our sailors in Algiers.-Domestic Slavery and Kidnapping.

JOHN KENRICK.

"The Horrors of Slavery."-To invite attention to this melancholy subject, and to excite sympathy for the suffering, is the object. of this publication. The compiler firmly believes that his countrymen stand exposed to the righteous rebukes of Providence for this glaring inconsistency and inhumanity; that whether they shall be tried at the bar of reason, the bar of conscience, or the bar of GOD, they may justly be condemned out of their own mouths; and that all their arguments, and all their fightings for liberty, may be produced as evidence, that as a people, they do unto others as they would not that others should do unto them. The suffering and degraded sons of Africa are groaning under bondage in a land of boasted freedom,-nay, groaning under oppression from the hands of men who would probably involve a whole nation in war and bloodshed-or even set the world on fire, rather than submit to a fiftieth part of the violation of natural rights which they inflict on the African race.

Whenever the government of the United States shall come to the righteous and consistent determination, that all the inhabitants shall be free, it is believed that no insurmountable obstacles will be found in the way of its accomplishment. Whether it would be just, and equal, and eligible, to take money from the public treasury to redeem African slaves, may possibly become a question for the consideration of congress. It may not, however, be amiss for the people to inquire whether it would be more just and equitable to continue to withhold

from more than a million (now two millions) of our fellow beings those essential blessings, without which we ourselves should consider life insupportable.

If it should be pleaded, that the powers of the general government are too limited to ensure the personal, civil, and religious liberties of all; can a doubt be entertained of the readiness of the people, when they fairly understand the subject, to enlarge those powers to any extent necessary for the attainment of an object of such transcendant importance? To say "they would not," would be to utter a most shameful libel against a majority of the freemen of the United States. -The Horrors of Slavery.

THE SLAVE-TRADE.

The 128th number of the Edinburgh Review contains an article on this subject, of more than ordinary interest. In 1831, a convention was concluded between the governments of England and France for the more effectual suppression of the slave-trade; in furtherance of which object, the two contracting parties agreed to the mutual right of search, within certain geographical limits. They moreover covenanted to use their best endeavors, and mutually to aid each other, to induce all the maritime powers to agree to the terms of their convention. The fact that such overtures had been made to some nations has occasionally been hinted at, but the results we have now for the first time learned.

Prior to the convention with France, Great Britain had formed treaties to nearly the same effect with Brazil, the Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, and Spain. All, therefore, that remained in regard to those nations, was to induce them to agree with France to all the articles of the convention, and with Great Britain to such of them as were not already incorporated in her treaties with them respectively. To all the other powers of Europe, says the Review, and to the United States, France and England conjointly have made the strongest representations on the subject, and urged them by every consideration of justice, humanity, and policy, to make a combined and simultaneous effort for at once annihilating what they themselves had, twenty years before, denounced as the curse of Africa and the disgrace of Europe. Orders were also sent to the British minister at Buenos Ayres, to induce the government there, as well as that of Monte Video, to enter into an effective treaty for the abolition of the trade. The results of these various applications may be thus briefly stated,-Denmark and Sardinia promptly sent in their adhesion to the new convention. From Austria, the Netherlands, and Sweden, no answer has yet been received. Prussia, Russia, and Naples, under different pretexts, demur; Prussia and Naples declaring that they have no vessels at all in the African seas, and Russia evading the proposition by offering to "take up the thread of the negotiations as left by former congresses, and to open fresh conferences for the purpose of seeking out the most effectual means of preventing the slave-trade;" that is, as Lord Palmerston expresses it, of going backward instead of forward in the matter. The answer of the Brazilian government is, that as soon as the Portuguese trade in slaves is stopped, there will be none carried on between Africa and Brazil. Portugal evades the question; the minister replying, after three months' delay, that his loss of time from attending the chambers, has prevented his coming to any resolution on the subject. "We much mistake," says the reviewer, "the firmness as well as zeal in this cause, that will be shown by any man that we are likely to have at the head of foreign affairs, if such conduct be tamely submitted to from a country bound to us for services in time past, and in an especial manner at the present moment, and when not only honor and good faith, but mere honesty, are concerned in the fulfilment of her engagements. We must, when other means have failed, just take the matter into our own hands..... Let England say the Portuguese slave-trade shall cease, as Portugal has engaged to us that it shall, and who will, or ought to gainsay us?" Between.

EDINBURGH REVIEW.

91 Great Britain and Spain, during the late ministry of Martinez de la Rosa, after continued efforts on the part of the former for eighteen months, a treaty was formed, containing not only a stipulation for the capture of vessels equipped for the slavetrade, but providing for the penal castigation of the owners, captains, and supercargoes, for the breaking up of the condemned vessels,-and for the delivery of the captives to British authorities. The geographical limits, also, within which the right of search is allowed, are far more extensive than those specified in the French convention. The immediate motive with Spain in subscribing to this treaty, was the expectation of assistance from England in carrying on the war against the Carlists: but the treaty itself is not the less valuable on that account. The great and essential difference between the present treaty and all previous ones concluded with Spain, for the suppression of the slave-trade, is this, that it does not depend for its fulfilment upon Spanish co-operation. All is left to the regulation of the British government, and the activity of British cruisers. The good effects of the arrangement are already seen. A vessel which arrived in England on the 16th of May, from the African station, reported that nineteen Spanish vessels, captured under the new treaty, were waiting at Sierra Leone, when she left, for adjudication; whereas the whole number of such vessels captured under the former treaties, had not, for several years, averaged more than six per annum."

We come now to our own country, the United States. And what shall we say? What must we say? What does the truth compel us to say? Why, that of all the countries appealed to by Great Britain and France on this momentous subject, the United States is the only one which has returned a decided negative. We neither do any thing ourselves to put down the accursed traffic, nor afford any facilities to enable others to put it down. Nay, rather, we stand between the slave and his deliverer. We are a drawback-a dead weight on the cause of bleeding humanity. How long shall this shameful apathy continue? How long shall we, who call ourselves the champions of freedom, close our ears to the groans, and our eyes to the tears and blood, and our hearts to the untold anguish of thousands and tens of thousands who are every year torn from home and friends and bosom companions, and sold into hopeless bondage, or perish amid the horrors of the "middle passage"? From the shores of bleeding Africa, and from the channels of the deep, from Brazil and from Cuba, Echo answers, "How long?"-N. Y. Journal of Commerce, Sept., 1835.

EDINBURGH REVIEW.

We have, however, to record one instance of positive refusal to our request of accession to these conventions, and that, we grieve to say, comes from the United States of America-the first nation that, by its statute law, branded the slave-trade with the name of piracy. The conduct, moreover, of the President, does not appear to have been perfectly candid and ingenuous. There appears to have been delay in returning any answer, and when returned, it seems to have been of an evasive character. In the month of August, 1833, the English and French minis ters jointly sent in copies of the recent conventions, and requested the accession of the United States. At the end of March following, seven months afterwards, an answer is returned, which, though certainly not of a favorable character in other respects, yet brings so prominently into view, as the insuperable objection, that the mutual right of search of suspected vessels was to be extended to the shores of the United States, (though we permitted it to American cruisers off the coast of our West Indian colonies,) that Lord Palmerston was naturally led to suppose that the other objections were superable. He, therefore, though aware how much the whole efficiency of the agreement will be impaired, consents to waive that part of it, in accordance with the wishes of the President, and in the earnest hope that he will, in return, make some concessions of feeling or opinion to the wishes of England and France, and to the necessities of a great and holy cause. The final answer, however, is, that under no condition, in no form, and with no restrictions, will the United States enter into any convention or treaty, or make combined efforts of any sort or kind, with other nations, for the suppression of the trade. We much mistake the state of public opinion in the United States, if its government will not find

itself under the necessity of changing this resolution. The slave-trade will hence forth, we have little doubt, be carried on under that flag of freedom; but as in no country, after our own, have such persevering efforts for its suppression been made, by men the most distinguished for goodness, wisdom, and eloquence, as in the United States, we cannot believe that their flag will long be prostituted to such vile purposes; and either they must combine with other nations, or they must increase the number and efficiency of their naval forces on the coast of Africa and elsewhere, and do their work single handed. We say this the more, because the motives which have actuated the government of the United States in this refusal, clearly have reference to the words, "right of search." They will not choose to see that this is a mutual restricted right, effected by convention, strictly guarded by stipulations for one definite object, and confined in its operations within narrow geographical limits; a right, moreover, which England and France have accorded to each other without derogating from the national honor of either. If we are right in our conjecture of the motive, and there is evidence to support us, we must consider that the President and his ministers have been, in this instance, actuated by a narrow provincial jealousy, and totally unworthy of a great and independent nation.

ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER.

The Domestic Slave-trade.—This is the most indefensible, as well as the most detestable feature in the system of slavery. It will not admit of even an attempt at justification. There are many who profess to deplore the existence of slavery, who yet consider its abolition impracticable, or unjust to the owners of the slaves, or dangerous to the community. Others again, will descant largely on the blessings and advantages of slavery to those who are favored with the enjoyment of its benefits, ending with a declaration that their situation, if restored to freedom, would be infinitely more deplorable. But none

It

If

of these reasons can be urged in behalf of this shameful traffic. is a guilt and an infamy for which our country has no excuse. her slave population was entailed upon her against her will, and cannot now be got rid of, she is at least, under no compulsion to permit herself to be disgraced by this infamous traffic. If the state of the slaves is a happy one, their happiness cannot possibly be increased by their being torn from their homes and friends, manacled and driven in gangs across the country, exposed to the gaze and insults of an unfeeling rabble, or hurried on board a slave-ship, and conveyed they know not whither, save that it is far from all they have ever known or loved. If they are unfit for the station of freemen, it does not necessarily follow that they should be treated as brutes; now, though there may be dangerous consequences to be feared from their emancipation, can the security of the present state of things be in any wise increased by goading them to madness with excessive cruelty? Hard as the lot of the slave is, and ever must be, still while he is surrounded by those he loves, with the security that this blessing, at least, will be spared to him to soothe the darkness of his lot, and while the familiar faces and scenery which he has been accustomed to gaze on from childhood are still before him, he will probably indulge in an apathetic acquiescence with his fate, nor risk his present enjoyments for a doubtful future. But he who feels that

ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER.

93

his dearest ties of life are broken, never more to be united, and is driven by anguish and a sense of injustice, into an utter recklessness of his fate, is a fit instrument to plan desperate deeds, and to infuse into the bosoms of others a portion of his own spirit. Thus should we allow entire validity, which we do not, to all the arguments that are urged in favor of the continuance of slavery, no one of them affords the slightest plea for this unchristian practice. It is utterly at variance with every law of humanity and religion, and in its very existence is a curse to the land in which it is tolerated.

Slave produce. That, if there were no consumers of slave produce, there would be no slaves, is an axiom too self-evident to the meanest capacity, to require us to use a single argument in its demonstration. But that the class of consumers share equally in the guilt of slavery with those who are the more immediate upholders of the system, will not probably, by the multitude, be so readily admitted. Even while they acknowledge themselves to be the main supporters of this scheme of oppression, they would exonerate themselves from any portion of its turpitude; as if it were possible for them to be innocent of a crime of which they are wilfully the cause! Can they employ another in the commission of evil, enjoy the advantage of his villany, and yet suppose that the stain of iniquity clings only to him who was but the agent of their will? Were they disinterested reasoners, we think such would not be their decision. Their own hands do not, it is true, wield the blood-extorting lash, or rivet the fetter, but they know that it is done by others, in order to afford at the cheapest rate the luxuries which they will neither resign, nor make one exertion to obtain from the hands of freemen. They have no hesitation in branding the trafficker in human flesh with the stigma of shame and cruelty, but while they would not for the universe engage personally in the exercise of so much barbarity, they will not relinquish one single iota of the comforts it procures for them. Is this consistency? Is such fastidiousness the result of humanity! or has it not rather, if fairly examined, its root in mere selfishness? Their education has unfitted them for mingling actively in scenes of cruelty, they would sicken and shudder at the sight of wantonly shed blood, and the agonizing cries of a breaking heart would frighten sleep from their pillows, or were like a haunting spirit to their dreams. Is it so vastly meritorious, then, to consign to other hands what would be revolting to their feelings? Or may such sensibility claim its spring from the nobler principles of beneficence and justice, while they unhesitatingly receive from the hands of another, that which they have not nerve enough to obtain for themselves? Let them remember when they execrate the enormities of the slave system, that it is themselves who hold out the inducements for their perpetration. Guilty as the slaveholder may be, let them not flatter themselves that he alone is guilty. To them the criminality and hideousness of slavery are clearly discernible. But he is mentally benighted. The bribe which they have given him, the unrighteous mammon, hath "perverted his judg