the great subject, all tending to the bettering
of the slave's condition, and, as was supposed, to his ultimate
emancipation. Before this agitation commenced, this subject, in all its
aspects and bearings, might be discussed as freely at the South as
anywhere; but now, not a word can be said. It has kindled a sleepless
jealousy in the South toward the North, and made the slave-holders feel
as if all the rest of the world were their enemies, and that they must
depend upon themselves for the maintenance of their political rights.
We say rights, because they regard them as such; and so long as they do
so, it is all the same in their feelings, whether the rest of the world
acknowledge them or not. And they are, in fact, _political_ rights,
guaranteed to them by the constitution of the United States."

It is not, however, impossible that the abolition party in the Eastern
and Northern states may be gradually checked by the citizens of those
very states. Their zeal may be as warm as ever; but public opinion will
compel them, at the risk of their lives, to hold their tongues. This
possibility can, however, only arise from the Northern and Eastern
states becoming manufacturing states, as they are most anxious to be.
Should this happen, the raw cotton grown by slave labour will employ the
looms of Massachusetts; and then, as the Quarterly Review very correctly
observes, "by a cycle of commercial benefits, the Northern and Eastern
states will feel that there is some material compensation for the moral
turpitude of the system of slavery."

The slave proprietors in these states are as well aware as any political
economist can be, that slavery is a loss instead of a gain, and that no
state can arrive at that degree of prosperity under a state of slavery
which it would under free labour. The case is simple. In free labour,
where there is competition, you exact the greatest possible returns for
the least possible expenditure; a man is worked as a machine; he is paid
for what he produces, and nothing more. By slave labour, you receive
the least possible return for the greatest possible expense, for the
slave is better fed and clothed than the freeman, and does as little
work as he can. The slave-holders in the eastern states are well aware
of this, and are as anxious to be rid of slavery as are the
abolitionists; but the time is not yet come, nor will it come until the
country shall have so filled up as to render white labour