our own continent, but on
the other, it has given existence to hundreds of thousands, and the
means of comfortable subsistence to millions. A distinguished citizen of
our own State, than whom none can be better qualified to form an
opinion, has lately stated that our great staple, cotton, has
contributed more than any thing else of later times to the progress of
civilization. By enabling the poor to obtain cheap and becoming
clothing, it has inspired a taste for comfort, the first stimulus to
civilization. Does not _self-defense_, then, demand of us steadily to
resist the abrogation of that which is productive of so much good? It is
more than self-defense. It is to defend millions of human beings, who
are far removed from us, from the intensest suffering, if not from being
struck out of existence. It is the defense of human civilization.

But this is but a small part of the evil which would be occasioned.
After President Dew, it is unnecessary to say a single word on the
practicability of colonizing our slaves. The two races, so widely
separated from each other by the impress of nature, must remain together
in the same country. Whether it be accounted the result of prejudice or
reason, it is certain that the two races will not be blended together so
as to form a homogenous population. To one who knows any thing of the
nature of man and human society, it would be unnecessary to argue that
this state of things can not continue; but that one race must be driven
out by the other, or exterminated, or again enslaved. I have argued on
the supposition that the emancipated negroes would be as efficient as
other free laborers. But whatever theorists, who know nothing of the
matter, may think proper to assume, we well know that this would not be
so. We know that nothing but the coercion of slavery can overcome their
propensity to indolence, and that not one in ten would be an efficient
laborer. Even if this disposition were not grounded in their nature, it
would be a result of their position. I have somewhere seen it observed,
that to be degraded by opinion, is a thousand fold worse, so far as the
feelings of the individuals are concerned, than to be degraded by the
laws. _They_ would be thus degraded, and this feeling is incompatible
with habits of order and industry. Half our population would at once be
paupers. Let an inhabitant of New-York or Philadelphia conceive of the
situation of their respective States, if one-half of thei