dance of other fertile soil in more favorable situations,
which demand all and more than all the labor which our country can
supply. Are these regions of fertility to be abandoned at once and
forever to the alligator and tortoise--with here and there perhaps a
miserable, shivering, crouching _free_ black savage? Does not the finger
of heaven itself seem to point to a race of men--not to be enslaved by
us, but already enslaved, and who will be in every way benefited by the
change of masters--to whom such climate is not uncongenial, who, though
disposed to indolence, are yet patient and capable of labor, on whose
whole features, mind and character, nature has indelibly
written--slave;--and indicate that we should avail ourselves of these in
fulfilling the first great command to subdue and replenish the earth.

It is true that this labor will be dearer than that of Northern
countries, where, under the name of freedom, they obtain cheaper and
perhaps better slaves. Yet it is the best we can have, and this too has
its compensation. We see it compensated at present by the superior value
of our agricultural products. And this superior value they must probably
always have. The Southern climate admits of a greater variety of
productions. Whatever is produced in Northern climates, the same thing,
or something equivalent, may be produced in the Southern. But the
Northern have no equivalent for the products of Southern climates. The
consequence will be, that the products of Southern regions will be
demanded all over the civilized world. The agricultural products of
Northern regions are chiefly for their own consumption. They must
therefore apply themselves to the manufacturing of articles of luxury,
elegance, convenience, or necessity,--which requires cheap labor--for
the purpose of exchanging them with their Southern neighbors. Thus
nature herself indicates that agriculture should be the predominating
employment in Southern countries, and manufactures in Northern. Commerce
is necessary to both--but less indispensable to the Southern, which
produce within themselves a greater variety of things desirable to life.
They will therefore have somewhat less of the commercial spirit. We must
avail ourselves of such labor as we can command. The slave must labor,
and is inured to it; while the necessity of energy in his government, of
watchfulness, and of preparation and power to suppress insurrection,
added to the moral force derived from th