imes produced on the minds of slaveholders, by the
publications of the self-styled philanthropists, and their judgments
staggered and consciences alarmed. It is natural that the oppressed
should hate the oppressor. It is still more natural that the oppressor
should hate his victim. Convince the master that he is doing injustice
to his slave, and he at once begins to regard him with distrust and
malignity. It is a part of the constitution of the human mind, that when
circumstances of necessity or temptation induce men to continue in the
practice of what they believe to be wrong, they become desperate and
reckless of the degree of wrong. I have formerly heard of a master who
accounted for his practicing much severity upon his slaves, and exacting
from them an unusual degree of labor, by saying that the thing (slavery)
was altogether wrong, and therefore it was well to make the greatest
possible advantage out of it. This agitation occasions some slaveholders
to hang more loosely on their country. Regarding the institution as of
questionable character, condemned by the general opinion of the world,
and one which must shortly come to an end, they hold themselves in
readiness to make their escape from the evil which they anticipate. Some
sell their slaves to new masters (always a misfortune to the slave) and
remove themselves to other societies, of manners and habits uncongenial
to their own. And though we may suppose that it is only the weak and the
timid who are liable to be thus affected, still it is no less an injury
and public misfortune. Society is kept in an unquiet and restless state,
and every sort of improvement is retarded.

Some projectors suggest the education of slaves, with a view to prepare
them for freedom--as if there were any method of a man's being educated
to freedom, but by himself. The truth is, however, that supposing that
they are shortly to be emancipated, and that they have the capacities of
any other race, they are undergoing the very best education which it is
possible to give. They are in the course of being taught habits of
regular and patient industry, and this is the first lesson which is
required. I suppose that their most zealous advocates would not desire
that they should be placed in the high places of society immediately
upon their emancipation, but that they should begin their course of
freedom as laborers, and raise themselves afterward as their capacities
and characters might enable the