'I don't know. Is it not a little worse on the man himself? Does it not
sort of harden you--blunt your better feelings, to be always buying and
selling people that do not want to be bought and sold?'

'Well, p'raps it do; it's a cussed business ony how. But thar's my hand,
Mr. Kirke. Yer a gentleman, I swar, if ye _hev_ come it over me, ha! ha!
How slick you done it! I likes ye the better fur it; and if Jake Larkin
kin ever do ye a good turn, he'll do it. I allers takes ter a man thet's
smarter nor I am, I do,' and he gave my hand another of his powerful
shakes.

'I thank you, Larkin; and if I can ever serve you, it will give me great
pleasure to do so.'

'I doan't doubt it, Mr. Kirke, I doan't; and I'll call on ye, sure, if
ye ever kin do me ony good. Good-by; ye want ter be with the Squire;
good-by;' and giving my hand another shake, he left the cabin.

Which was the worse--that coarse, hardened man, or the institution which
had made him what he was?

It was many years before the trader and I met again. When we did, he
kept his word!

THE UNION.

II.

Having stated the course of England on the slavery question and the
rebellion, gladly would I rest here; but, as a Northern man, by
parentage, birth, and education, always devoted to the Union, twice
elected by Mississippi to the Senate of the United States, as the ardent
opponent of nullification and secession, and, _upon that very question_,
having announced in my first address, of January, 1833, the right and
duty of the Government, by "_coercion_," if necessary, to suppress
rebellion or secession by any State, truth and justice compel me to say,
that we of the North, next to England, are responsible for the
introduction of slavery into the South. Upon a much smaller scale than
England, but, under her flag, which was then ours, and the force of
colonial tradition, we followed the wretched example of England, and
Northern vessels, sailing from Northern ports, and owned by Northern
merchants, brought back to our shores from Africa their living cargoes.

Small numbers only of these slaves were brought from their tropical
African homes to the colder North, where their labor was unprofitable,
but, were taken to the South, and against their earnest protest, forced
upon them. It was not the South that engaged in the African slave trade.
It was not the South that brought slavery into America. No, it was
forced upon the South, against their protest, mainl