y fairly represent the produce of the white
man's labour.]

[Footnote BX: _Vide_ ch. xii., "The Queen of the Antilles."]

CHAPTER XXVI.

_Hints for Master--Hopes for Slave._

I will now suggest certain proposals,[BY] in the hope that while they
can do no harm, they may by chance lead to some good result. The first
proposal is a very old one, and only made by me now, because I consider
it of primary importance--I mean a "Free-Soil" bill. I advocate it upon
two distinct grounds--the one affecting the Republic, the other the
slave. The Republic sanctions and carries on the slave-trade by
introducing the institution into land hitherto free, and the slave
throughout the Union has his fetters tightened by the enhancement of his
value; but the great Channing has so fully and ably argued the truth of
these evils, when treating of the annexation of Texas, that none but the
wilfully blind can fail to be convinced; in short, if Slavery is to be
introduced into land hitherto free, it is perhaps questionable if it be
not better to send for the ill-used and degraded slave from Africa, and
leave the more elevated slave in his comparatively happy home in the Old
Slave States; the plea may be used for bettering the condition of the
former, but that plea cannot be used for the latter.

The next proposal is one which, if it came from the South, would, I
suppose, have the support of all the kind masters in those States, and
most assuredly would find no opposition in the North,--I mean the
expulsion from the Constitution of that law by which fugitive slaves are
forced to be given up. If the proposal came from the North, it would
naturally excite ill-feeling in the South, after all the angry passions
which abolition crusading has set in action; but the South might easily
propose it: and when we see the accounts of the affectionate attachment
of the slaves to their masters, and of the kindness with which they are
treated, in proportion, as such statements are correct, so will it
follow as a consequence, that none but those who are driven to it by
cruelty will wish to leave their snug homes and families, to seek for
peace in the chilly winters of the North. And surely the slaves who are
victims of cruelty, every kind-hearted slave-master would rejoice to see
escaping; it would only be the compulsory giving up of fugitives, except
for criminal offences, which would be expunged; each individual State
would be able, if desirous, to e