the Union. May such character and such talent, never | condition with respect to female virtue. Here, there is be wanting to South Carolina.

that certain and marked line, above which there is no toleration or allowance for any approach to license of manners or conduct, and she who falls below it, will fall far below even the slave. How many will incur this penalty?

And permit me to say that this elevation of the female character is no less important and essential to us, than the moral and intellectual cultivation of the other sex. It would indeed be intolerable, if, when one class of society is necessarily degraded in this respect, no compen

the other. Not only essential purity of conduct, but the utmost purity of manners, and I will add, though it may incur the formidable charge of affectation or prudery,— a greater severity of decorum than is required elsewhere, is necessary among us. Always should be strenuously resisted the attempts which have been sometimes made to introduce among us the freedom of foreign or European, and especially of continental manners. This freedom, the remotest in the world from that which sometimes springs from simplicity of manners, is calculated and commonly intended to confound the outward distinctions of virtue and vice. It is to

I am sure that it is unnecessary to say to an assembly like this, that the conduct of the master to his slave should be distinguished by the utmost humanity. That we should indeed regard them as wards and dependants on our kindness, for whose well being in every way we are deeply responsible. This is no less the dictate of wisdom and just policy, than of right feeling. It is wise with respect to the services to be expected from them. I have never heard of an owner whose conduct in their management was distinguished by undue seve-sation were made by the superior elevation and purity of rity, whose slaves were not in a great degree worthless to him. A cheerful and kindly demeanor, with the expression of interest in themselves and their affairs, is, perhaps, calculated to have a better effect on them, than what might be esteemed more substantial favors and indulgencies. Throughout nature, attachment is the reward of attachment. It is wise too in relation to the civilized world around us, to avoid giving occasion to the odium which is so industriously excited against ourselves and our institutions. For this reason, public opinion should, if possible, bear even more strongly and indignantly than it does at present, on masters who practise any wanton cruelty on their slaves. The mis-prepare the way for licentiousness-to produce this creant who is guilty of this, not only violates the law effect-that if those who are clothed with the outward of God and of humanity, but as far as in him lies, by color and garb of vice, may be well received by society, bringing odium upon, endangers the institutions of his those who are actually guilty may hope to be so too. It country, and the safety of his countrymen. He casts may be said, that there is often perfect purity where a shade upon the character of every individual of his there is very great freedom of manners. And, I have fellow-citizens, and does every one of them a personal no doubt, this may be true in particular instances, but injury. So of him who indulges in any odious excess it is never true of any society in which this is the geneof intemperate or licentious passion. It is detached ral state of manners. What guards can there be to instances of this sort, of which the existence is, per-purity, when every thing that may possibly be done inhaps, hardly known among ourselves, that, collected with pertinacious and malevolent industry, afford the most formidable weapons to the mischievous zealots, who array them as being characteristic of our general manners and state of society.

I would by no means be understood to intimate, that a vigorous, as well as just government, should not be exercised over slaves. This is part of our duty towards them, no less obligatory than any other duty, and no less necessary towards their well being than to ours. I believe that at least as much injury has been done and suffering inflicted by weak and injudicious indulgence, as by inordinate severity. He whose business is to labor, should be made to labor, and that with due diligence, and should be vigorously restrained from excess or vice. This is no less necessary to his happiness than to his usefulness. The master who neglects this, not only makes his slaves unprofitable to himself, but discontented and wretched-a nuisance to his neighbors and to society.

I have said that the tendency of our institution is to elevate the female character, as well as that of the other sex, and for similar reasons. In other states of society, there is no well defined limit to separate virtue and vice. There are degrees of vice from the most flagrant and odious, to that which scarcely incurs the censure of society. Many individuals occupy an unequivocal position; and as society becomes accustomed to this, there will be a less peremptory requirement of purity in female manners and conduct; and often the whole of the society will be in a tainted and uncertain

nocently, is habitually practised; when there can be no impropriety which is not vice? And what must be the depth of the depravity when there is a departure from that which they admit as principle? Besides, things which may perhaps be practised innocently where they are familiar, produce a moral dilaceration in the course of their being introduced where they are new. Let us say, we will not have the manners of South Carolina changed.

I have before said that free labor is cheaper than the labor of slaves, and so far as it is so, the condition of the free laborer is worse. But I think President Dew has sufficiently shown that this is only true of northern countries. It is matter of familiar remark that the tendency of warm climates is to relax the human constitution and indispose to labor. The earth yields abundantly-in some regions almost spontaneously-under the influence of the sun, and the means of supporting life are obtained with but slight exertion and men will use no greater exertion than is necessary to the purpose. This very luxuriance of vegetation, where no other cause concurs, renders the air less salubrious, and even when positive malady does not exist, the health is habitually impaired. Indolence renders the constitution more liable to these effects of the atmosphere, and these again aggravate the indolence. Nothing but the coercion of slavery can overcome the repugnance to labor under these circumstances, and by subduing the soil, improve and render wholesome the climate.

It is worthy of remark that there does not now exist on the face of the earth, a people in a tropical climate, or

one approaching to it, where slavery does not exist, that is in a state of high civilization, or exhibits the energies which mark the progress towards it. Mexico and the South American republics,* starting on their new career of independence, and having gone through a farce of abolishing slavery, are rapidly degenerating, even from semi-barbarism. The only portion of the South American continent which seems to be making any favorable progress, in spite of a weak and arbitrary civil government, is Brazil, in which slavery has been retained. Cuba, of the same race with the continental republics, is daily and rapidly advancing in industry and civilization; and this is owing exclusively to her slaves. St. Domingo is struck out of the map of civilized existence, and the British West Indies will shortly be so. On the other continent, Spain and Portugal are degenerate, and their rapid progress is downward. Their southern coast is infested by disease, arising from causes which industry might readily overcome, but that industry they will never exert. Greece is still barbarous and scantily peopled. The work of an English physician, distinguished by strong sense and power of observation, gives a most affecting picture of the condition of Italy-especially south of the Appennines. With the decay of industry, the climate has degenerated towards the condition from which it was first rescued by the labor of slaves. There is poison in every man's veins, affecting the very springs of life, dulling or extinguishing, with the energies of the body, all energy of mind, and often exhibiting itself in the most appalling forms of disease. From year to year the pestilential atmosphere creeps forward, narrowing the circles within which it is possible to sustain human life. With disease and misery, industry still more rapidly decays, and if the process goes on, it seems that Italy too will soon be ready for another experiment in colonization.

soil; rolled the tide of conquest, not as in later times,
from the south to the north; extended their laws and
their civilization, and created them lords of the earth.
"What conflux issuing forth or entering in ;
Prætors, pro-consuls to their provinces,
Hasting, or on return in robes of state.
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings:
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits, on the Appian road,
Or on th' Emilian; some from fartherest south,
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroe, Nilotic isle, and more to West,
The realms of Bacchus to the Blackmoor sea;
From th' Asian kings, and Parthian among these ;
From India and the golden Chersonese,
And utmost Indian isle, Taprobane,

Dusk faces, with white silken turbans wreathed;
From Gallia, Gades and the British West;
Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, North
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric Pool!

All nations now to Rome obedience pay."

Such was and such is the picture of Italy. Greece presents a contrast not less striking. What is the cause of the great change? Many causes, no doubt, have occurred; but though

"War, famine, pestilence, and flood and fire

Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride,"

I will venture to say that nothing has dealt upon it more heavily than the loss of domestic slavery. Is not this evident? If they had slaves, with an energetic civil government, would the deadly miasma be permitted to overspread the Campagna and invade Rome herself? Would not the soil be cultivated, and the wastes reclaimed? A late traveller* mentions a canal, cut for miles through rock and mountain, for the purpose of carrying off the waters of the lake of Celano, on which thirty thousand Roman slaves were employed for eleven years, and which remains almost perfect to the present day. This, the government of Naples was ten years in repairing with an hundred workmen. The imperishable works of Rome which remain to the present day, were for the most part executed by slaves. How different would be the condition of Naples, if for her *The author of England and America thus speaks of the Co-wretched lazzaroni were substituted negro slaves, emlombian republic:

Yet once it was not so, when Italy was possessed by the masters of slaves; when Rome contained her millions, and Italy was a garden; when their iron energies of body corresponded with the energies of mind which made them conquerors in every climate and on every

"During some years, this colony has been an independent state; but the people dispersed over those vast and fertile plains, have almost ceased to cultivate the good land at their disposal; they subsist principally, many of them entirely, on the flesh of wild cattle; they have lost most of the arts of civilized life; not

a few of them are in a state of deplorable misery; and if they

should continue, as it seems probable they will, to retrograde as at present, the beautiful pampas of Buenos Ayres will soon be fit for another experiment in colonization. Slaves, black or yellow, would have cultivated those plains, would have kept together, would have been made to assist each other; would, by keeping together and assisting each other, have raised a surplus produce exchangeable in distant markets; would have kept their masters together for the sake of markets; would, by combination of labor, have preserved among their masters the arts and habits of civilized life." Yet this writer, the whole practical effect of whose work, whatever he may have thought or intended, is to show the absolute necessity, and immense be nefits of slavery, finds it necessary to add, I suppose, in deference to the general sentiment of his countrymen, "that slavery might have done all this, seems not more plain, than that so much good would have been bought too dear, if its price had

been slavery." Well may we say that the word makes men mad.

Johnson on Change of Air.

ployed in rendering productive the plains whose fertility now serves only to infect the air!

To us, on whom this institution is fastened, and who could not shake it off, even if we desired to do so, the great republics of antiquity offer instruction of inestimable value. They teach us that slavery is compatible with the freedom, stability and long duration of civil government, with denseness of population, great power, and the highest civilization. And in what respect does this modern Europe, which claims to give opinions to the world, so far excel them—notwithstanding the immense advantages of the christian religion and the discovery of the art of printing? They are not more free, nor have performed more glorious actions, nor dis played more exalted virtue. In the higher departments of intellect-in all that relates to taste and imagination-they will hardly venture to claim equality. Where they have gone beyond them in the results of mechanical philosophy, or discoveries which contribute

* Eight days in the Abruzzi.-Blackwood's Magazine, Novem ber, 1935.

which our country can supply. Are these regions of fertility to be abandoned at once and forever to the alligator and tortoise-with here and there perhaps a miserable, shivering, crouching free black savage? Does not the finger of heaven itself seem to point to a race of men-not to be enslaved by us but already enslaved, and who will be in every way benefitted by the change of masters--to whom such climate is not uncon⚫ genial, who though disposed to indolence are yet patient and capable of labor; on whose whole features, mind and character, nature has indelibly written-slave;— and indicate that we should avail ourselves of these in fulfilling the first great command to subdue and replenish the earth?

to the wants and enjoyments of physical life, they have | tions, which demand all and more than all the labor done so by the help of means with which they were furnished by the Grecian mind-the mother of civilization-and only pursued a little further the track which that had already pointed out. In the development of intellectual power, they will hardly bear comparison. Those noble republics in the pride of their strength and greatness, may have anticipated for themselves-as some of their poets did for them—an everlasting duration and predominance. But they could not have anticipated, that when they had fallen under barbarous arms, that when arts and civilization were lost, and the whole earth involved in darkness-the first light should break from their tombs-that in a renewed world, unconnected with them by ties of locality, language or descent, they should still be held the models of all that is profound It is true that this labor will be dearer than that of in science, or elegant in literature,-all that is great in northern countries, where under the name of freedom, character, or elevated in imagination. And perhaps they obtain cheaper and perhaps better slaves. Yet when England herself, who now leads the war with it is the best we can have, and this too has its compenwhich we are on all sides threatened, shall have fulfil-sation. We see it compensated at present by the supeled her mission, and like the other glorious things of the rior value of our agricultural products. And this suearth, shall have passed away; when she shall have perior value they must probably always have. The diffused her noble race and noble language, her laws, southern climate admits of a greater variety of producher literature and her civilization, over all quarters of the tions. Whatever is produced in northern climates, the earth, and shall perhaps be overrun by some northern same thing, or something equivalent, may be produced horde-sunk into an ignoble and anarchical democra- in the southern. But the northern have no equivalent cy, or subdued to the dominion of some Cæsar,for the products of southern climates. The conse, demagogue and despot,-then, in southern regions, quence will be, that the products of southern regions there may be found many republics, triumphing in will be demanded all over the civilized world. The Grecian arts and civilization, and worthy of British agricultural products of northern regions are chiefly for descent and Roman institutions. their own consumption. They must therefore apply themselves to the manufacturing of articles of luxury, elegance, convenience or necessity,--which requires cheap labor-for the purpose of exchanging them with their southern neighbors. Thus nature herself indicates that agriculture should be the predominating employment in southern countries, and manufactures in north

If after a time, when the mind and almost the memory of the republic were lost, Romans degenerated, they furnish conclusive evidence that this was owing not to their domestic, but to their political slavery. The same thing is observed over all the eastern monarchies; and so it must be, wherever property is insecure; and it is dangerous for a man to raise himself to such emi-ern. Commerce is necessary to both-but less indispennence, by intellectual or moral excellence, as would sable to the southern, which produce within themselves give him influence over his society. So it is in Egypt, a greater variety of things desirable to life. They will and the other regions bordering the Mediterranean, therefore have somewhat less of the commercial spirit. which once comprehended the civilization of the world; We must avail ourselves of such labor as we can comwhere Carthage, Tyre and Phonecia flourished. In mand. The slave must labor and is inured to it; while short, the uncontradicted experience of the world is, the necessity of energy in his government, of watchfulthat in southern States where good government and ness, and of preparation and power to suppress insurpredial and domestic slavery are found, there are pros-rection, added to the moral force derived from the habit perity and greatness; where either of these conditions of command, may help to prevent the degeneracy of is wanting, degeneracy and barbarism. The former however is equally essential in all climates and under all institutions. And can we suppose it to be the design of the Creator, that these regions, constituting half of the earth's surface, and the more fertile half, and more capable of sustaining life, should be abandoned forever to depopulation and barbarism? Certain it is that they will never be reclaimed by the labor of free-own observation and experience; fears have been enmen. In our own country, look at the lower valley of the Mississippi, which is capable of being made a far greater Egypt. In our own State, there are extensive tracts of the most fertile soil, which are capable of being made to swarm with life. These are at present pestilential swamps, and valueless, because there is abundance of other fertile soil in more favorable situa

*I do not use the word democracy in the Athenian sense, but to describe the government in which the slave and his master have an equal voice in public affairs.

the master.

The task of keeping down insurrection is commonly supposed, by those who are strangers to our institutions, to be a very formidable one. Even among ourselves, accustomed as we have been to take our opinions on this as on every other subject, ready formed from those whom we regarded as instructors, in the teeth of our

tertained which are absolutely ludicrous. We have been supposed to be nightly reposing over a mine, which may at any instant explode to our destruction. The first thought of a foreigner sojourning in one of our cities, who is awakened by any nightly alarm, is of servile insurrection and massacre. Yet if any thing is certain in human affairs, it is certain and from the most obvious considerations, that we are more secure in this respect than any civilized and fully peopled society upon the face of the earth. In every such society,

there is a much larger proportion than with us, of per- especially when unfavorably distinguished by outward sons who have more to gain than to lose by the over- circumstances, is not ready to give credit when he is throw of government, and the embroiling of social told that he is the victim of injustice and oppression? order. It is in such a state of things that those who In effect, if not in terms, they have been continually were before at the bottom of society, rise to the surface. exhorted to insurrection. The master has been painted From causes already considered, they are peculiarly a criminal, tyrant and robber, justly obnoxious to the apt to consider their sufferings the result of injustice vengeance of God and man, and they have been asand misgovernment, and to be rancorous and embittered sured of the countenance and sympathy, if not of the accordingly. They have every excitement therefore of active assistance of all the rest of the world. We ourresentful passion, and every temptation which the hope selves have in some measure pleaded guilty to the imof increased opulence, or power or consideration can peachment. It is not long since a great majority of hold out, to urge them to innovation and revolt. Sup-our free population, servile to the opinions of those posing the same disposition to exist in equal degree among our slaves, what are their comparative means or prospect of gratifying it? The poor of other countries are called free. They have, at least, no one interested to exercise a daily and nightly superintendence and control over their conduct and actions. Emissaries of their class may traverse, unchecked, every portion of the country, for the purpose of organizing insurrection. From their greater intelligence, they have greater means of communicating with each other. They may procure and secrete arms. It is not alone the ignorant, or those who are commonly called the poor, that will be tempted to revolution. There will be many disappointed men, and men of desperate fortune-men perhaps of talent and daring to combine with them and direct their energies. Even those in the higher ranks of society, who contemplate no such result, will contribute to it, by declaiming on their hardships and rights.

whose opinions they had been accustomed to follow, would have admitted slavery to be a great evil, unjust and indefensible in principle, and only to be vindicated by the stern necessity which was imposed upon us. Thus stimulated by every motive and passion which ordinarily actuate human beings-not as to a criminal enterprise, but as to something generous and heroicwhat has been the result? A few imbecile and uncombined plots-in every instance detected before they broke out into action, and which perhaps if undetected would never have broken into action. One or two sudden, unpremeditated attempts, frantic in their character, if not prompted by actual insanity, and these instantly crushed. As it is, we are not less assured of safety, order and internal peace, than any other people; and but for the pertinacious and fanatical agitation of the subject, would be much more so.

This experience of security, however, should admoWith us, it is almost physically impossible, that there │nish us of the folly and wickedness of those who have should be any very extensive combination among the sometimes taken upon themselves to supersede the reslaves. It is absolutely impossible that they should gular course of law, and by rash and violent acts to procure and conceal efficient arms. Their emissaries punish supposed disturbers of the peace of society. traversing the country, would carry their commission This can admit of no justification or palliation whaton their foreheads. If we suppose among them an in-ever. Burke I think somewhere remarks something to dividual of sufficient talent and energy to qualify him this effect,-that when society is in the last stage of for a revolutionary leader, he could not be so exten-depravity-when all parties are alike corrupt, and alike sively known as to command the confidence, which wicked and unjustifiable in their measures and objects, would be necessary to enable him to combine and di- a good man may content himself with standing neuter, rect them. Of the class of freemen, there would be a sad and disheartened spectator of the conflict between no individual so poor or degraded (with the exception the rival vices. But are we in this wretched condition? perhaps of here and there a reckless and desperate It is fearful to see with what avidity the worst and most outlaw and felon) who would not have much to lose by dangerous characters of society seize on the occasion of the success of such an attempt; every one therefore obtaining the countenance of better men, for the purwould be vigilant and active to detect and suppress it. pose of throwing off the restraints of the law. It is Of all impossible things, one of the most impossible always these who are most zealous and forward in would be a successful insurrection of our slaves, ori- constituting themselves the protectors of the public ginating with themselves. peace. To such men-men without reputation or prin

Attempts at insurrection have indeed been made-ciple, or stake in society-disorder is the natural eleexcited, as we believe, by the agitation of the abolitionists and declaimers on slavery ; but these have been in every instance promptly suppressed. We fear not to compare the riots, disorder, revolt and bloodshed which have been committed in our own, with those of any other civilized communities, during the same lapse of time. And let it be observed under what extraordinary circumstances our peace has been preserved. For the last half century, one half of our population has been admonished in terms the most calculated to madden and excite, that they are the victims of the most grinding and cruel injustice and oppression. We know that these exhortations continually reach them, through a thousand channels which we cannot detect, as if carried by the birds of the air-and what human being,

ment. In that, desperate fortunes and the want of all moral principle and moral feeling constitute power. They are eager to avenge themselves upon society. Anarchy is not so much the absence of government as the government of the worst-not aristocracy but kakistocracy—a state of things, which to the honor of our nature, has seldom obtained amongst men, and which perhaps was only fully exemplified during the worst times of the French revolution, when that horrid hell burnt with its most lurid flame. In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned-to protect the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of guilt and violence.