to labour at the point of the sword- -a country desolate, and almost savage; its agriculture abandoned; its commerce annihilated-bowed down with debt, and yet without resources. Is there anything in the spectacle to encourage the wild hopes or mad designs of the abolitionist?

CHAPTER XXII.

WE have referred, in a former chapter, to the consequences of abolition, even if the slave-holders sanctioned the scheme; and have shown that, with every obstacle and opposition removed, the emancipation of the southern slaves cannot be effected without the most desolating consequences. But we all know, that the opposition thus gratuitously evaded, will not be withdrawn, and cannot be avoided; and it becomes proper that we should consider the subject with that difficulty involved.

That the South is opposed to abolition, no one will deny. She is opposed to it from principle, feeling, and interest; and will not only maintain her institutions at every hazard, but regard as her enemies, all who openly or insidiously assail them.

It must not be supposed, that it can be assailed by the North, only through their authorities, by their legislatures, or by Congress. Against such opposition the South would interpose the shield of her sovereignty, and laugh the malice of her foes to scorn. The more dangerous, the more practicable mode of opposition, is the one chosen by the Abolitionists-individual agitation. For this, wealth alone is required; and that can be furnished to any amount by the Abolitionists themselves, or by their English allies and coadjutors. They do not need numbers, influence, or power; the press and the pulpit are engines of agitation, by which, without real respectability, they can effect incalculable mischief. They

can thus render the tranquillity, the very existence of the slave-holders insecure; they can excite strong and general prejudices at the North, and hot and angry resentments at the South. Can any man be ignorant of the inevitable consequences?

Mankind are strongly prone to blind themselves to approaching ills. We are seldom willing to cloud the enjoyment of the present, with fears for the future; and often would, like the Romans in their degeneracy, rather perish by our fire sides, and in the midst of our festivities, than meet the enemy at the borders, and defeat the threatened evil, before accumulated conquests render it irresistible. It was from this strange and slothful pusillanimity, that the Persian continued his riot when the Greek was within his borders; that the Parisians revelled when the allies were thundering at their gates; and that the Americans now affect a security they do not feel, and shrink from the realization of the perils that surround and menace them, from the distracting and treasonable activity of the Abolitionists. The miners are at work beneath the temple of union. We know it: we know what the consequences must be; yet they continue at their labours unmolested, unchecked. Let it not be said that they have been rebuked, put down by public opinion. Our cities have, it is true, been shaken by mobs, and the quiet of our people disturbed. This is what the Abolitionists seek, But are their steam-presses stopped? are their huge and various engines of agitation chained or checked? Is the mischief restrained? or are they, on the contrary, more active and more dangerous than before? If the people of the North wish them put down—if they would save the Union-let them, through their legislatures, denounce and punish the treason and the traitors.

The consequences of continued agitation are appa

rent. It will produce, nay it has already produced, dangerous party excitement. It has given, to the political discussions of the country, an aspect of menace and asperity, which they never before assumed. In the North, it has excited riots and disorders in all the principal cities; and in the South kindled in the minds of the people the hottest indignation. The whole land is heaving with excitement. The laws have been suspended, and revolutionary remedies adopted in many sections of the country, both north and south. Blood has already flowed; and should the agitation be continued, the excitement thus kindled, will leap over every barrier, and overturn every obstacle in its progress.

Are the patriots of the North willing to witness these consequences? Are they willing to see the popular rage which, in the North, manifested itself in burning the houses of the negroes, and even destroying their lives, heightened to its utmost pitch? It need not be supposed, that the South will find no champions in the North. The earthquake, when it does burst, will prove nearly as desolating here as in the slave-holding states. The lower classes of our people would be found prepared to sacrifice their lives for the Union; and once excited, where will their indignation pause? Let the friends of the coloured man in the North think of this. Let the friends of peace and order ponder on it; for a war between the two races could not be confined to the South, and once commenced, would probably be prosecuted with all the horrible cruelty which marked the revolution in Hayti.

But must we think only of ourselves, in weighing the consequences of emancipation? Shall we bestow no thought on our brethren and sisters of the South? Must the most horrible species of warfare desolate that portion of our common country? Must the brave

and the fair, the helpless and the innocent, our own kindred too, be offered up to glut the lust and revenge of the brutal negro-and we be indifferent spectators of the scene? The consequences of agitation at the South are not merely the rage of the slave-holder-not merely the terror and wretchedness of the shrinking females thus exposed to the most awful perils-but inevitable insurrection. It is impossible that the South can be inundated with incendiary publications, and preserve her tranquillity. Already one extensive scheme of insurrection, thus fomented, has been discovered and prostrated. It is not in reason to suppose, that the same exertions, continued and extended, will not produce, still further, the same results. There is but one remedy-and that remedy, if forced to it, the South will assuredly adopt.

It is impossible that this Union can survive the period when it has ceased to be an advantage to those embraced in it. When the South is constrained to regard her northern sisters with distrust and terror, no earthly power can long prevent her from sundering the bond which unites us. The Union must be a fraternal and kindly one; and when perverted into a source of animosity and danger, it will lose its power. If the South were a separate nation, she could not only guard her territory from the machinations of the abolitionists, but she could demand those who endangered her peace for punishment. If then our federal conjunction is made the engine of an agitation which endangers the life of every man, woman, and child, in the slave-holding states; if her worst foes stand behind the pillars of the Union to stab the South to the heart; if, in short, it becomes the source of the most awful perils and evils to the people of that section of our country-can we doubt the eventual result? The people of the South are