of the enjoyment of any natural
right_. It merely requires them to perform a natural duty.

This cannot be denied. It has been, as we have shown, admitted both by
Dr. Wayland and Dr. Channing.[195] But while the _end_ is approved, the
_means_ are not liked. Few of the abolitionists are disposed to offer
any substitute for our method. They are satisfied merely to pull down
and destroy, without the least thought or care in regard to
consequences. Dr. Channing has, however, been pleased to propose another
method, for securing the industry of the black and the prosperity of the
State. Let us then, for a moment, look at this scheme.

The black man, says he, should not be owned. He should work, but not
under the control of a master. His overseer should be appointed by the
State, and be amenable to the State for the proper exercise of his
authority. Now, if this learned and eloquent orator had only looked one
inch beneath the surface of his own scheme, he would have seen that it
is fraught with the most insuperable difficulties, and that its
execution must needs be attended with the most ruinous consequences.

Emancipate the blacks, then, and let the State undertake to work them.
In the first place, we must ignore every principle of political economy,
and consent to the wildest and most reckless of experiments, ere we can
agree that the State should superintend and carry on the agricultural
interests of the country. But suppose this difficulty out of the way, on
what land would the State cause _its slaves_ to be worked? It would
scarcely take possession of the plantations now under improvements; and,
setting aside the owners, proceed to cultivate the land. But it must
either do this, or else leave these plantations to become worthless for
the want of laborers, and open new ones for the benefit of the State! In
no point of view could a more utterly chimerical or foolish scheme be
well conceived. If we may not be allowed to adhere to our own plan, we
beg that some substitute may be proposed which is not fraught with such
inevitable destruction to the whole South. Otherwise, we shall fear
that these self-styled friends of humanity are more bent on carrying out
their own designs than they are on promoting our good.

But what is meant by the freedom of the emancipated slaves, on which so
many exalted eulogies have been pronounced? Its first element, it is
plain, is a freedom from labor[196]--freedom from the very first law of
n