him; capturing and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel Powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." The like to this was expressed by most of the Southern States, in one form and another. The general feeling on the subject of slavery at that time, is fully disclosed in the Declaration of Independence at the outset; see p. 57 above. This Declaration has the broad basis of loving our neighbor as ourselves, and of doing as we would be done by a truly Christian and gospel principle. It is the unquestionable index of all but universal American feeling in 1776. - The Hon. Mr. Chase, in a historical development of slavery in the early part of the United States' career, has exhibited, in his recent, courteous, valuable, and able speech, documents which show that there never was a vote by any Southern State, in favor of slavery, until after the famous Territorial Ordinance of 1787. Indeed, I have repeatedly heard it from the lips of some of the Framers and Signers of the Constitution of the United States, that it was then universally understood among all the States who formed it, that slavery was to be got rid of, just as soon as it could be done peaceably and with safety. All the public documents of that period do in fact testify to this. What has made the astounding change? I do not feel myself to be sufficiently cognizant of facts and occurrences at the South, to decide this question; but one thing, I believe may be safely said, viz. that no enlightened Christian people would ever admit or foster slavery, unless they were tempted to it by great prospects of gain. There could be no other efficient induce ment. But there slavery now is, spread over almost one half of the States in number, although not in point of population. THREE MILLIONS OF SLAVES! Who are accountable for this? On whom does the guilt fall? for in the sight of God there must be guilt somewhere, if the declarations or commands of the New Test. are to be our rule of moral appreciation and judgment. Do not we of the North, often speak on the subject of Southern slavery, just as if the present owners of slaves there, were impli cated in the guilt of bringing them there, and placing them in their present condition? Nothing is more common than such declarations. But are they just? Surely they are not. Few indeed in those States have been concerned in foreign importation; and what has been done in that way by smuggling slaves in, has been done more by New England Vessels than by any other. So it was in the Colonial times. Several towns in New England were built up, as every one knows, by the Guinea trade. I doubt not, that there are vessels now employed in carrying slaves to Brazil and to Cuba, whose real owners are New England men. A sham sale and a foreign flag protects them. In the South only a few have been directly concerned in that iniquitous traffic. What then has the South of the present day done, to increase the number of their Slaves? Nothing, if we speak of the mass, nothing but omitting to free them, and of course they have multiplied by natural increase. If we then of the North are to tax them with sin, as to this matter, we ought, in all fairness, to place the matter on its true basis. Thousands of slave-owners have never trafficked in them; and I apprehend, that the mass of respectable men in the South regard this traffic with abhorrence. Most of the Southern States have prohibited by law the introduction of slaves from other States, although such laws are often evaded. If we tax our Southern brethren with sin, (and I think we have good reason for so doing, provided we speak to them kindly and respectfully), it must be on this specific point, viz. that they have neglected to carry out the design of the framers of our Constitution; neglected to fulfil their implied pledges to the North, in regard to this subject; and neglected to make any provision for the future abolition of slavery. Nay many of their statesmen have recently declared that slavery is an important, if not a necessary, ingredient in the Constitution and prosperity of a republic. Of course, everything remains in statu quo, excepting that the State laws of late have become far more rigorous than before. May I, with all due kindness and respect, speak a word here in their hearing? Are not the principles of the Gospel, in regard to loving our neighbor as ourselves, and doing as we would be done by, of high and sacred obligation, universal, irrepealable? I believe every impartial Christian on earth must think and say so. Will it be a satisfactory plea, in the High Court of Equity in heaven, for disobedience to these requisitions, that this disobedience was profitable to your worldly interests? O never, never! Will it satisfy that Court, when you offer the plea of great inconvenience and much perplexity in accomplishing the desired liberation? I do not think a Christian conscience can be quieted with this. It ought not to be. There is something to be actually done, and done without delay, if you desire to wash off the stain which slavery now attaches to our nation. What then shall we do? you ask. It is a fair question, and I would God I could answer it, to my own or to your satisfaction. It is immeasurably the most difficult problem ever before this great nation. Universal and immediate emancipation would be little short of insanity. The blacks themselves would be the first and most miserable victims. Stealing, robbery, rapine, and other evils, would inevitably follow in the train of liberation, and thousands of ignorant and starving men would seek their sustenance in preying upon their former masters and upon the community. They could not all be hired, at the prices which they would demand. The ruin of the planters would be inevitable, if high wages for labor must be given. Does not Jamaica tell that tale in deplorable accents? Many an estate has been abandoned. Others, worth £30,000 or £40,000, before the liberation, will now fetch no more than £3,000 or £4,000. Indeed, sales can be made only at prices ruinous to the propertyholder. And then, when our slave-holders are thus impoverished, who is to pay the enormous rates necessary to the maintenance of paupers? Plainly, the thing in this shape is an impossible mea sure. What then is to be done? Examine, I would say, and weigh well, the plan of gradual abolition, recommended by that great orator and statesman, Mr. Canning, when he was prime minister. Had his advice been followed, I doubt not that Jamaica would now be in a flourishing condition. Begin the great work on some such ground as his. Educate the young blacks, and let them acquire a moral sense, and become enlightened as to the ways and means of industry. This would be doing something, yea very much. Make the prospect of eventual emancipation certain. Then your consciences will be at peace, and the nations abroad and the North at home, will cease to reproach you. In the meantime, let the rising African Republic be enlarged, until it lines the whole coast of Africa, and thus puts a final end to the increase of slaves by importation. I am astonished beyond measure, when I hear Abolitionists decrying the Colonization Society. In what other way is the slave trade to be stopped, and Africa Christianized? All the ships in the British and American navies could not stop the slave trade; and nothing but the Christian possession of the maritime coasts of Africa can ever achieve the desired end. The great wrong of our Southern brethren I think is this, that they have not taken, and do not seem disposed to take, even initiative measures to get rid of slavery, but legislate in order to establish and perpetuate it. But it is too late to accomplish this. The spirit of freedom is waking the world to new life. A new order of things must be near. Shall American Republicans be the last to yield to their fellow men the inalienable rights which their God and Redeemer has bestowed upon them? May Heaven forbid ! I am, I think, pretty fully aware of the great difficulties that lie in the way. Suppose the black population are made free; then what is to be done with them after this, specially in those States, or parts of States, where they are more numerous than the whites; how are they going to live and. prosper? They have no money to buy land; and if they could buy it, or have it given to them, most of them are too ignorant, and shiftless, and averse to labor, to manage land with any success. Few of them are artificers; and but few such could find employment. What then I ask the Abolitionists, (and I insist on some plain and direct answer) - what is to be done with such a population? If you say: 'Let their masters pay them for past labor, and furnish them with the means of living;' I ask again : How long would these wages (more or less) last them? As a body, they would never do any more work, until this sum was expended. Then what next? Their masters have been, in the case supposed, already impoverished by dividing among them their property. These cannot, with their habits, carry on plantations at the expense of hired labor. It would reduce them speedily to absolute poverty. And then, what is the next step, either for them or for the free blacks? I insist upon it, now, that the Abolitionists shall give a sober, rational, practical answer to these questions. This would be worth ten thousand times more than all their outcries about the sin of bondage, and their demands of immediate and universal emancipation. In such a great movement, where the very frame-work of the government and the State is to be taken to pieces and receive a new shape, there must be foresight, and caution, and prudence. One would be apt to think when he hears the clamor for the negroes on all sides, that the rights and interest of the white population are matters of little or no consideration or importance. But this must not so be. At all events, if this movement should be successful, and the blacks be all liberated at once, it would not be long before the fair provinces of the South would be a desolate waste; and the blacks would be by far the greatest sufferers. Gradual freedom is the only possible practical measure. Three millions of people cannot be disposed of and provided for, by an Abolition diatribe and decree on paper. In a northern closet, we can sit down, and coolly legislate for the South, on matters that must tear in pieces the very frame-work of their society. We are not affected by any of the proposed measures, and then we coolly wonder why they are so concerned about them. Is this prudence, is it justice, is it kindness, is it loving our neighbor as ourselves? But I must stop, and leave the plan for remedying the evils in question to wiser heads than mine. It is plain enough, that Colonization, unless sustained by the United States Government at the rate of at least $2,000,000 in a year, can be nothing more than a little canal to empty out the Atlantic Ocean. This work must go on with great power and efficiency, to do anything adequate to our necessities. A noble work has the Society begun; and may heaven grant that the whole country may sustain it and carry it rapidly on. Why not appropriate two millions a year to such a humane, laudable, Christian purpose? It would be but a drop in the bucket. The sale of our new lands would more than furnish the requisite sum. Can any patriotic and humane man object to such an appropriation ? The Abolitionists are continually bringing before us the noble example of Great Britain, as to freeing slaves. It is well. But let us have the whole of it. She gave to the masters one hundred millions of dollars, to buy off some 700,000 slaves. At this rate, our slaves would cost the United States $400,000,000. Do the Abolitionists ever say a word about this part of England's example? I have never heard one. No; they flout at the idea of any compen |