d league.

Sec. V. _The consequences of abolition to the South._

"We have had experience enough in our own colonies," says the
_Prospective Review_, for November, 1852, "not to wish to see the
experiment tried elsewhere on a larger scale." Now this, though it comes
to us from across the Atlantic, really sounds like the voice of genuine
philanthropy. Nor do we wish to see the experiment, which has brought
down such wide-spread ruin on all the great interests of St. Domingo and
the British colonies, tried in this prosperous and now beautiful land of
ours. It requires no prophet to foresee the awful consequences of such
an experiment on the lives, the liberties, the fortunes, and the morals,
of the people of the Southern States. Let us briefly notice some of
these consequences.

Consider, in the first place, the vast amount of property which would be
destroyed by the madness of such an experiment. According to the
estimate of Mr. Clay, "the total value of the slave property in the
United States is twelve hundred millions of dollars," all of which the
people of the South are expected to sacrifice on the altar of
abolitionism. It only moves the indignation of the abolitionist that we
should for one moment hesitate. "I see," he exclaims, "in the
immenseness of the value of the slaves, the enormous amount of the
robbery committed on them. I see 'twelve hundred millions of dollars'
seized, extorted by unrighteous force."[206] But, unfortunately, his
passions are so furious, that his mind no sooner comes into contact with
any branch of the subject of slavery, than instantly, as if by a flash
of lightning, his opinion is formed, and he begins to declaim and
denounce as if reason should have nothing to do with the question. He
does not even allow himself time for a single moment's serious
reflection. Nay, resenting the opinion of the most sagacious of our
statesmen as an insult to his understanding, he deems it beneath his
dignity even to make an attempt to look beneath the surface of the great
problem on which he condescends to pour the illuminations of his genius.
Ere we accept his oracles as inspired, we beg leave to think a little,
and consider their intrinsic value.

Twelve hundred millions of dollars extorted by unrighteous force! What
enormous robbery! Now, let it be borne in mind, that this is the
language of a man who, as we have seen, has--in one of his lucid
intervals--admitted that _it is right to apply force_ t