on by asking--what is the meaning of the cry raised by
the fanatics of the North--the abolition crusaders? In words, it is
freedom to the slave; in fact, it is spoliation of their neighbours. Had
the proposition come from wild Arabs who live in houses they carry on
their backs, and feed on the milk of flocks that pasture at their side,
I might have comprehended the modest proposal; but coming from those
whose energy for business is proverbial, and whose acuteness in all
matters of dollars and cents is unsurpassed, if equalled, by the
shrewdest Hebrew of the Hebrews, I confess it is beyond my puny
imagination to fathom. Were it accompanied with any pecuniary offer
adequate to the sacrifice proposed, I might be able to comprehend it:
but for those, or the descendants of those, who, as they found white
labour more profitable, sold their sable brethren to their southern
neighbours, and thus easily and profitably removed slavery from their
borders,--for those, I say, to turn round and preach a crusade for the
emancipation of the negro, in homilies of contumely, with the voice of
self-righteousness, exhibits a degree of assurance that cannot be
surpassed. Had they known as much of human nature as of the laws of
profit and loss, they might have foreseen that in every epithet heaped
upon their southern countrymen, they were riveting a fresh bolt in the
slave's fetters. On what plea did the American colony rebel? Was it not,
as a broad principle, the right of self-government? Does not their
constitution allow independent action to each State, subject only to
certain obligations, binding alike on all? If those are complied with,
on what principle of patriotism or honour do individuals or societies
hurl torches of discord among their southern co-citizens?

No person who has watched or inquired into the social state of the
slaves during the present century, can fail to have observed that much
has been done to improve their condition among the respectable holders
thereof, both as regards common education and religious instruction; at
the same time, they will perceive that the first law of
nature--self-preservation--compelled them to make common education
penal, as soon as fanatical abolitionists inundated the country with
firebrand pamphlets. No American can deny, that when an oppressed people
feel their chains galling to them, they have a right to follow the
example of the colonists, and strike for freedom. This right doubtless
bel