hbors.

_Mr. F._ Granted they call it a curse, but assuredly they bring
forward a defence.

_Mrs. G._ Yes, they defend the Constitution; they defend the rights of
the south; they advocate Colonization, or point out the errors of
Abolitionists, but what one in word or in effect advocates the
principles of human Slavery? The truth is, brother, the system has the
literature of the world against it; and the south ought to see in this
reading age an infallible sign that the days of its cherished
institutions are numbered. Does thee not perceive that every novel and
every poem carries to the parlor, or, if it please thee, to the
theatre, an influence which will eventually re-act on the ballot-box.

_Frank._ Do you mean, mother, to include in your remarks the
discourses of Reverend Divines upon the Patriarchal Institution?

_Mrs. G._ I cannot except even these; for they acknowledge it an evil,
though they contend it exists by divine ordination, just as they
assert Original Sin to be the offspring of Eternal Decrees; but they
no more convince the Slaveholder, that he loves his bondman as
himself, than they convict him of the guilt of Adam's transgression.

_Mr. F._ What do you say to Webster's great speech on the compromise
measure?

_Mrs. G._ (_Pleasantly._) Is not the moral view of a question, about
as far as a woman's instinct ought to go?

_Mr. F._ Oh, no; go on, your strictures are quite amusing.

_Mrs. G._ Well, then, since _we_ have taken the position of a
reviewer, _we_ must confess that the last effort of the great Daniel
appears to us to be _on an Act of Congress_.

_Mr. D._ And _at_ the Presidential chair.

_Mrs. G._ (_Continuing._) It did not touch the merits of slavery at
all. Webster knew the feelings of the constituents too well to attempt
such a task. He therefore skilfully diverted their attention from his
real issue, to the glorious Union, and its danger from agitators, and
he thus carried with him the sympathies of many honest haters of
oppression.

_Mr. F._ Well, sister, I do not know but you will prove that there is
not an advocate for slavery on the face of the earth.

_Mrs. G._ Only such advocates as there is for robbery and war. Those
who find it for their interest to practice these crimes condemn them
in the abstract, or at most only apologize for them, as necessary and
expedient, under peculiar circumstances.

_Frank._ (_Laughing._) Why, mother, I shall certainly subscribe for
your "No