fitable, they are also more hazardous and more laborious.

When the demand for agricultural labor shall be fully supplied, then of
course the labor of slaves will be directed to other employment and
enterprises. Already it begins to be found, that in some instances it
may be used as profitably in works of public improvement. As it becomes
cheaper and cheaper, it will be applied to more various purposes and
combined in larger masses. It may be commanded and combined with more
facility than any other sort of labor; and the laborer, kept in stricter
subordination, will be less dangerous to the security of society than in
any other country, which is crowded and overstocked with a class of what
are called free laborers. Let it be remembered that all the great and
enduring monuments of human art and industry--the wonders of Egypt--the
everlasting works of Rome--were created by the labor of slaves. There
will come a stage in our progress when we shall have facilities for
executing works as great as any of these--more useful than the
pyramids--not less magnificent than the sea of Moeris. What the end of
all is to be; what mutations lie hid in the womb of the distant future;
to what convulsions our societies may be exposed--whether the master,
finding it impossible to live with his slaves, may not be compelled to
abandon the country to them--of all this it were presumptuous and vain
to speculate.

I have hitherto, as I proposed, considered it as a naked, abstract
question of the comparative good and evil of the institution of slavery.
Very far different indeed is the practical question presented to us,
when it is proposed to get rid of an institution which has interwoven
itself with every fibre of the body politic; which has formed the habits
of our society, and is consecrated by the usage of generations. If this
be not a vicious prescription, which the laws of God forbid to ripen
into right, it has a just claim to be respected by all tribunals of man.
If the negroes were now free, and it were proposed to enslave them, then
it would be incumbent on those who proposed the measure to show clearly
that their liberty was incompatible with the public security. When it is
proposed to innovate on the established state of things, the burden is
on those who propose the innovation, to show that advantage will be
gained from it. There is no reform, however necessary, wholesome or
moderate, which will not be accompanied with some degree of