all. Every master or overseer, although he may know nothing of the law
above mentioned, discovered by Cuvier, may soon learn from experience
the important fact, that there is no other alternative than to let their
negroes assume, _by their own instincts_, the natural gait or movement
peculiar to them, and then, like Washington, observe what can be
effected in a given time by that given gait or movement, and to ask for
nor expect more. In vol. ii, pages 511 to 512, (Washington's Writings,
published by Jared Sparks) are recorded a few of the observations made
by the father of his country on his own slaves, as an illustration of
the preceding remarks. It is to be regretted that Mr. Sparks, out of
deference to a modern species of idolatry (all fanaticism is idolatry,)
which has taken deep root in Great Britain and despotic Europe, and has
from thence been transplanted into our republic, particularly in the
Northern portion of it, should have suppressed so much of the valuable
observations of Washington on the negro race, as only to publish a small
fragment of the extensive knowledge his comprehensive mind had stored
up on this important subject, well known to his neighbors. The fragment
informs us, that on a certain day he visited his plantations, and found
that certain negro slaves there mentioned, by the names of George, Tom
and Mike, had only hewed a certain number of feet--whereupon Washington
sat down and observed their motions, letting them proceed their own
way," and ascertained how many feet each hewed in one hour and a
quarter. He also made observations on his sawyers at the same time and
in the same manner. From the data thus acquired he ascertained, in the
short space of an hour and a quarter, how many feet would be a day's
work for hewing, and how many for sawing, under their usual slow gait or
movement. This hewing and sawing were of poplar. "What may be the
difference, therefore," says Washington, "between the working of this
wood and other, some future observations must make known." But Mr.
Sparks, out of deference to the new school of idolatry, having its head
quarters in Exeter Hall, omitted, almost entirely, the publication of
any more observations on the subject. It is no less idolatry to set up
an anti-scriptural dogma and to make it a rule of action, than to
worship a block or a graven image in the place of the true God. The true
God has said in the Pentateuch, the most authentic books of the Bible,
"_And