present to advocate slavery and to maintain it, he knows that the world awards the sufferance on the condition of his good behaviour.

It is also to be considered, that the chances of the African race for improvement and happiness, temporal and eternal, in the condition of American servitude, are better than have ever yet been offered to their ancestors and collateral descendants in the continent of Africa, so far as history goeth to show. After all the evils of American slavery have been summed up, as comprised of the domestic slavetrade, in selling men as cattle, in separating husbands and wives, parents and children, and multiplying the sacred ties of matrimony-the natural results of this traffic, and which are too often exhibited, when exhibited at all-and it cannot be denied that such things are ;-after taking into the account all the cruelties of the lash and the inhumanities of overtoil, the discipline of overseers, and sundry other disadvantages and sufferings necessarily incident to a state of bondage, where a portion of mankind are doomed to live for others, and are subject to the will of others;-yet, in view of all these facts, in the worst forms, and to the greatest amount known to exist in the great mass, and over the wide extent of American slavery, the race, even in this condition, are better off, as a whole, than is to be collected from any accounts we are accustomed to receive of African barbarism. There is not one of these evils that has not a greater evil in

Africa to set over against it; and many others

there of a horrible nature, not to be found here. Besides, there is civilisation in their bondage; many of them are made comfortable, and even happy; no small portion are raised to high degrees of improvement; the preaching of the Gospel is enjoyed among them, probably to as great an extent as men that are free to choose to avail themselves of; and the great mass are as certain to rise and advance in general improvement, as that Christian civilisation progresses around them, when uninterrupted by the interferences of fanatical crusaders. In a word, it cannot be deemed that the condition of American slaves is better than that of African barbarians-better for this life, and more hopeful for the life to come.*

Not forgetting, therefore, the value of those rights of man which give him the control of his own destiny, their value for the general purposes of human society, as well as for individual happiness; not attempting to palliate the horrible attrocities of the slave-trade, which tore the African from his home, his kindred, and his country; not withholding our sympathy from the long-protracted wrongs done to that suffering race, during the ages of involuntary servitude and painful toil to which they have been wickedly doomed; not denying the right of the African to freedom, or the wrong of holding him in bondage; it may yet be true, that

*Note M.

the overruling providence of God should bring good, even to that unfortunate race, out of the incalculable and amazing evil they have suffered; it may yet be true, that it is better to be a slave in America, than a free man in Africa; and in the end, it may yet all be overruled to reinstate him in the rights of man, and to raise him to the most valuable immunities and privileges of human kind. It may be the means which God has ordained for sending back the lights of civilisation and the blessings of Christianity to the benighted continent of Africa. Indeed, this very work has already obtained a footing, and is in a state of interesting and hopeful progress, as a result of American slavery.

True, the nations that have done such wrongs to Africa, may not make a virtue of their fault-of their crimes. But, since the conscience of the world is aroused from its slumbers in regard to this subject, it is suitable to inquire in what way atonement can best be made, and by what means these wrongs can be most happily redressed. Finding the race in such a condition, it is proper to take the most enlarged view of the case, of the causes still in operation that make it what it is, of the degrees of liberty they are capable of enjoying and using to their own advantage, and which would not be incompatible with the general welfare of society. If, indeed, they are found so low in the scale of intellectual and moral being as to be incapable of using freedom in its widest scope with safety, or profit to

themselves or the public,-incapable of self-government, or of sharing in the government of the communities where they are, it is, at least, a relief to that sympathy which is felt for them, that they are better off than their brethren in their father-land. These, with many other considerations, are among the estimates that go to determine the merits of this mighty theme; and it is false or defective reasoning that leaves them out of view.

He who would attempt immediate abolition in America, is not simply a fanatic, but a madman. The world may be assured, that abolition there, in a gradual course to secure the result, as soon as the race can well be prepared for it, can no more be stayed than the sun in the heavens. Come it must; and come it will.

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CHAPTER XI.

HOW CAN AMERICAN SLAVERY BE DISPOSED OF?

A GREAT question, indeed; a question that might well puzzle the brains and baffle the wisdom of the most renowned sages. The number of slaves in America at this time is probably but little less than 3,000,000, increasing with a rapidity in excess of the whites in the same States, as 112 per cent. is to 80 per cent. in the term of forty years, and constituting about one-third of the population of the slave-holding States, besides about 400,000 free blacks scattered over the Union, all whose sympathies will be on the same side with their common kindred.

With all the prejudices and aversions of the two races of whites and blacks, one against the other, in consequence of the relations they have so long sustained-not taking into account the moral effects of a difference of physical constitution, from which they can never emerge to have lost them, but are more likely to have them confirmed and augmented -how can they ever live together as equals under the same jurisdiction? And how can the whites do