Pinney, Rev. John B.-Letters from, 60, 94 Thomas, Frederic W.-Notices of,

96, 255, 288

Appointed temporary Colonial Agent, Pittsburg (Pa.) Auxiliary Society, Poetry, Poland (Ohio) Auxiliary Society, 215, 316 Population of the United States, Portland (Me.) Colonization Society, Price, James. His Statement concerning certain declarations in relation to the Colony, which had been ascribed to him,

Roberts, Joseph J.-Colonial High She-
riff, visits the United States,
His testimony concerning the Colo-
ny,
181-184, 307-309
Rockbridge (Va.) Colonization Soc'y,
Ruth, the Brig. Her arrival in the U.
States from the Colony,
Rutland (Ohio) Auxiliary Society,
Savage, A. H.-Extracts of a letter
from. to T. A. Mills,

Sehon, Rev. E. W.-Reports from, 23, 91, 186 Shephard, Moses. His new plan for settling Emigrants to Liberia,

Sierra Leone, British Colony at,

The Speech of Thomas Marshall, in the House of Delegates of Virginia, on the Abolition of Slavery. Delivered, Friday, January 20, 1832. Richmond: pp. 12.

[IT is well known that Professor DEW, of Williamsburg, Virginia, has recently published an elaborate article, entitled "A Review of the Debates on the Abolition of Slavery, in the Virginia Legislature, in the winter of 1831 and 1832," most of which first appeared in the American Quarterly Review, and was subsequently given to the public in an enlarged form. This Review abounds in sentiments which might have been tolerated a century ago, but which are at war with the humane and liberal spirit that now animates the Christian world. Against an insinuation that the Colony of Liberia may already be stained with the crime of engaging in the slave-trade, we here enter our protest, being prepared to show that there is no colour of reason for such an insinuation: nor do we believe that Sierra Leone "has frequently aided the slave-trade." We will not say that none of the "hostes humani generis" may not have crept into that Colony, and thus perpetrated, covertly, their dark and odious crimes against human liberty; but if so, it has been done without the knowledge, and in defiance of the authorities of the Colony. Of the general principles and main arguments of the Review, it is not our purpose to speak. The article which we now offer to public attention, from one of the ablest men, and best friends of the Society, shows conclusively, that Professor Dew is erroneous in his principles, and fallacious in his arguments. The moral sentiments which pervade this article, are worthy of this country and age, and will, at a time not remote, become the prevailing sentiments of all good men.]

THE debate in the Legislature of Virginia at its last session is, beyond all question, the event which most materially affects the prospects of negro slavery in the United States. Every thing tells of a spirit that is busy inspecting the very foundations of society in Virginia-a spirit new, suddenly created, and vaster in its grasp than any hitherto called forth in her history. There is a serious disposition to look the evil of slavery (nothing less!) in the face, and to cast about for some method of diminishing or extirpating it. Causes not now needful to be named, have given birth to this disposition, so little to have been anticipated two years ago. The possibility of ridding Virginia of the evil of slavery in our generation, in that of our children, or of our grand-children, is suddenly made the legitimate subject of temperate debate. We shall presume to speak of it therefore in a temper of becoming gravity, and we hope without danger of giving offence to any one.

It matters not though a majority of the people of Virginia be not, in the first moment, willing to adopt, or even to consider plans already prepared for diminishing the mischiefs of slavery. It matters not, though it were conceded, that all the plans suggested last winter in the House of Delegates, were marked with the crudeness of inexperience, and the inadvertence of haste, and would all require to be abandoned for others more mature. It matters not, though it were conceded, that a becoming regard for public decency forbade any final step on so perilous a subject in the very first year of its agitation. We fix our eyes on the single circumstance, that the public mind of Virginia permitted, nay encouraged, the open deliberations of the General Assembly, for weeks, on the momentous topic, never before thought fit to be mentioned but in a whisper. The first blow has been struck: the greatest achievement that the cause of emancipation admitted, was then effected. Le grand mot est lache-the great word is spoken out, and can never be recalled. Debate and speculation are on the instant made legitimate. The secret pulsation of so many hearts, sick with the despair of an evil they dared not propose to remedy, has now found a voice, and the wide air has rung with it.

We rejoice that we live to see this subject thrown into the vast field, in which are to be found so many of the prime interests of the human race— the same from which the ancient tragic poets derived their groundwork: the warfare between liberty and necessity; or more accurately, the sublime strife between the desirable and the actual. We rejoice, that full of doubts, embarrassments, and dangers, as is the thought of attacking the evil, as near alike to the attributes of Fate as seems its defiance of opposition, the obdurate unchangeableness of it even in degree, yet it is thrown open to speculation and experiment, and now stands fairly exposed to assault from the great Crusaders which have thus far redeemed our mortal condition from barbarism and misery-the unconquerable free will and undying hope. No mortal evil can forever withstand this open war; these its antagonist principles will be like the undercurrent at sea, "that draws a thousand waves unto itself," will strive against obstacle, repair disaster, and convert all the contemporary events into good for their cause. Recent occurrences in the political history of foreign countries abundantly exemplify this fact.

The seal is now broken. We exhort the sons of Virginia to toil for the diminution of this evil, with all the prudence, the delicacy, and gravity requisite in the application of a great public remedy to a wide-spread disease. And in the worst event, let them rest assured that history has few places more enviable than would be the lot of the last advocate, who, left without allies, should come, in the grand language of Milton's prose, "through the chance of good or of evil report, to be the SOLE ADVOCATE OF A discounteNANCED TRUTH."*

We fix not our expectations so much on legislative enactments: as far as these are compulsory, and proceed only from a division in the minds of men, we deprecate them. But we direct our anticipations to the general will of the people of the state. Let reason and persuasion be the instruments of promoting a voluntary action. Until not merely a majority, but a great majority of the freemen of Virginia be convinced, persuaded, moved to demand. liberation from the ruin that is consuming the land, there will be unworthy rudeness and indecorum in bringing in the violence of a new statute to begin the work of purification. She is now in the breathing space after the first mention of it; the spontaneous burst of agitated feeling of last winter shall either perish, or resolve itself into a wise, patient, judicious movement. The summer will have witnessed, by the temper it has matured in her, whether Virginia is capable--not of deep sensibility to supposed claims of patriotism; that the world knows her to possess-not of gusts of enthusiasm for purposes that are lifted above selfish cupidity; all, who know her, have witnessed her

* Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.

passionate attachment to abstract truth, her susceptibility of lasting emotions in its behalf, and her readiness for every mode of self-denial, of privation and self-sacrifice.-But we are to witness whether, recalling her affections from the distant objects to which they have certainly been too exclusively devoted, she is adequate to manage her own possible destiny for good; whether she is framed for that high sort of civil prudence which knows how to project a vast plan of heroic justice, that it will require generations of men of the same temper to execute. We do not hesitate to believe that the ultimate result is not dubious: we repose the fullest confidence in Virginia, the mother of so many colonized commonwealths.

Unhappy America! how portentous a fate has proved hers! It was not enough that the dowry which she brought to Europe when first discovered, the bountiful millions which her mines of gold and silver yielded in the first hundred years, served only to enable Ferdinand, Charles V., and Philip II., to establish the Inquisition, and to crush the freedom of conscience by long and bloody wars, which nothing but American gold could have supported!It was not enough that her fine race of generous barbarians (the finest the world ever saw) were to perish before the face of civilizing man! But she must suffer too, the pollution of being used as if discovered solely for the wo of Africa!— To the discovery of this continent, is due the existence in the world, to-day, of a single slave with a Christian master.

It was in 1620, thirteen years after the settlement of Jamestown, that a Dutch vessel from the Coast of Guinea sailed up James River, and brought the first slave into British America. We can almost see the hateful form of the slaver, as with her cargo of crime and misery, "rigged with curses," she bursts into the silent Chesapeake. We see her keel ploughing the pure, because yet free, waters, and now nearing the English plantations. Fatal, fatal ship!-What does she there? Can it indeed be that she comes (and so soon!) to pour the deadliest of hereditary woes into our cradle? How durst the loathsome freight she bears, the accursed shape of slavery intrude itself, of all lands on the earth, upon this vestal soil? How thrust itself among a race of Anglo-Saxon men in the seventeenth century? how bring its deformity athwart the bold and noble sweep of the common law, to mar it all? how mix its curses up (to a greater or less degree in all the British Colonies) with the mass of all our acts, at our hearths, our public councils, and our altars, and bring pollution to our childhood and decrepitude to our youth? On a land set apart by Providence for the best growth of manhood-where Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, and last, but greatest, the profession in their fulness and sincerity of the grand, transcendant rights of reason and nature, of liberty and equality, were to have their deepest roots;-a land the world's refuge and the world's hope;-how shall we not weep, when the ineradicable seeds are here planted, that shall curse with contradiction and inconsistency all the height of its pride, and make the manly and dilated heart, in the midst of its triumph at one side of its condition, faint and sick, sick to the core, with the dust and ashes of the other side!

We have put the truly statesmanlike speech of the son of the Chief Justice of the United States at the head of this article, because we believe it expresses the opinions of a majority of reflecting men in Virginia, and because it coincides more nearly with our own views than any of the other speeches in that debate. If it be inferior in fervid eloquence to some of the others, it possesses the rarer merit of coolness, impartiality, decision, and uncommon political sagacity. We cannot adequately express the satisfaction its perusal gave us, without running into panegyrick, which we are sure would be little acceptable to him. Mr. Marshall voted as well against Mr. T. J. Randolph's motion for submitting the question of abolition at once to the people, and Mr. Preston's, declaring immediate action by the legislature then sitting, to be expedient, as against Mr. Goode's motion to discharge the select committee from

the consideration of all petitions, memorials, and resolutions, which had for their object the manumission of persons held in servitude under the laws of Virginia, and thus declare it not expedient to legislate at all on the subject.As regards the first two motions, Mr. Marshall believed that the public mind was not yet prepared for the question of abolition; that the members of that ṣession were not elected in reference to it; and that there were other modes of ascertaining public sentiment on that great question, less agitating than would be the forcing it upon the people for promiscuous discussion. He objected further to Mr. Randolph's proposition (which embraced only one plan of abolition that fixing the year 1840 as the time after which all slaves born should be declared public property,) because it was too specific, and instead of merely asserting a principle, offered a peculiar plan obnoxious to many objections. But he had still greater objections to Mr. Goode's motion to dismiss the subject wholly from the consideration of the house, with the implied understanding that the legislature decidedly repelled all invitations to deliberate on the possibility of diminishing the evils of slavery. He declared himself entirely convinced that slavery was fruitful of many woes to Virginia, that a general sense of insecurity pervaded the state, and that the citizens were deeply impressed with the conviction that something must be done. He said that there were sure indications that some action is imperatively required of the legislature by the people-that the evil has attained a magnitude, which demands all the skill and energy of prompt and able legislation. He follows up this opinion with much valuable illustration and a number of useful practical suggestions. Without entirely assenting to the objections of Mr. Marshall to the first two motions above named, we are delighted with the general tone of his remarks.

Before beginning to unfold more fully our own views of the present exigency in Virginia, we take occasion to declare distinctly that our purpose is not by overcharged pictures of the iniquity of slavery, or the cruel lot of the slaves, to raise a storm of gratuitous indignation in the minds of the people of the United States against Virginia. We believe that there is not the slightest moral terpitude in holding slaves under existing circumstances in the south. We know too that the ordinary condition of slaves in Virginia is not such as to make humanity weep for his lot. Our solicitations to the slaveholders, it will be perceived, are founded but little on the miseries of the blacks. We direct ourselves almost exclusively to the injuries slavery inflicts on the whites. And of these evils suffered by the whites, the evil consequences of practising the immorality of slaveholding will not be our mark. Reproach and recrimination on such a subject would answer no good purpose; it would naturally provoke defiance from the slaveholders. All the eloquent invectives of the British abolitionists have not made one convert in the West Indies. This is no part of our humour. It is our object to lure Virginia onward in her present hopeful state of mind.. We mean to confine every word we write to Virginia. The whole scope of this article will be to show the necessity of her promptly doing something to check the palpable mischiefs her prosperity is suffering from slavery. We design to show that all her sources of economical prosperity are poisoned by slavery, and we shall hint at its moral evils only as they occasion or imply destruction to the real prosperity of a nation. Unless we first make this position impregnable, we shall ask no one to sacrifice merely to abstract humanity and justice. Nor shall we insist on Virginia's beginning action on this momentous subject, until we have shown that her genuine ultimate interests will be promoted by it. The best way of persuading men of this world to deeds which involve the sacrifice of present interests, is to convince them that a greater prospective interest may be thereby secured. We shall strive then to procure the concurrence of self-interest as well as the approbation of humanity. Hence, even should we succeed in making out our case as to Virginia, it will be instantly remarked that we have said very little that will touch South Carolina and Georgia, and