d as we are to the future, we can
rarely, very rarely indeed, be justified in producing considerable
present evil or suffering, in the expectation of remote future good--if
indeed this can ever be justified.

In considering this subject, I shall not regard it in the first instance
in reference to the present position of the slaveholding States, or the
difficulties which lie in the way of their emancipating their slaves,
but as a naked, abstract question--whether it is better that the
institution of praedial and domestic slavery should, or should not,
exist in civilized society. And though some of my remarks may seem to
have such a tendency, let me not be understood as taking upon myself to
determine that it is better that it should exist. God forbid that the
responsibility of deciding such a question should ever be thrown on me
or my countrymen. But this I will say, and not without confidence, that
it is in the power of no human intellect to establish the contrary
proposition--that it is better it should not exist. This is probably
known but to one being, and concealed from human sagacity.

There have existed in various ages, and we now see existing in the
world, people in every stage of civilization, from the most barbarous to
the most refined. Man, as I have said, is not born to civilization. He
is born rude and ignorant. But it will be, I suppose, admitted that it
is the design of his Creator that he should attain to civilization: that
religion should be known, that the comforts and elegancies of life
should be enjoyed, that letters and arts should be cultivated; in short,
that there should be the greatest possible development of moral and
intellectual excellence. It can hardly be necessary to say any thing of
those who have extolled the superior virtues and enjoyments of savage
life--a life of physical wants and sufferings, of continual insecurity,
of furious passions and depraved vices. Those who have praised savage
life, are those who have known nothing of it, or who have become savages
themselves. But as I have said, so far as reason or universal experience
instruct us, the institution of slavery is an essential process in
emerging from savage life. It must then produce good, and promote the
designs of the Creator.

I add further, _that slavery anticipates the benefits of civilization,
and retards the evils of civilization_. The former part of this
proposition has been so fully established by a writer of great