lation to each other, a right
to walk off at pleasure.'

"The company agreed in this, though the physician made no remark. We
conversed further on the antipathy of the Free States to a large
increase among them of the colored population, ungrateful and perfidious
Kansas, even, withholding civil and political equality from them; their
condition in Canada; their relation to the whites in every state where
they have gone to reside; and we concluded that the South was the best
home for the black man,--that home to become better and better in
proportion as the law of Christian benevolence prevailed. We agreed that
if the South could be relieved of Northern interference, the condition
of the colored people would be greatly improved, in many respects;
especially, we regretted that now we did not have an enlightened public
sentiment at the North to help the best part of the Southern people in
effecting reformations and improving the laws and regulations. Now, the
Northern influence is wholly nugatory, or positively adverse. The
opinions and feelings of calm and candid neighbors and friends have
great influence. This the South does not enjoy. The North is her
passionate reprover; she is held to be, by many, her avowed enemy. In
resistance, and in retaliation, compromises are broken, and every
political advantage is grasped at in self-defence, by the South.
Recrimination ensues, and civil war is threatened. The only remedy is
the entire abandonment by the North of interference with this subject;
but this cannot take place so long as the Northern people labor under
their doctrinal error that it is a sin to hold property in man. Here is
the root of the difficulty. We agreed that if reflecting people at the
North would adopt Scriptural views on that point, peace would soon
ensue; for all the discussions of the supposed or real evils in
slavery, which would then be the sole objects of animadversion, would
elicit truth, and tend to good. If the South felt that the North were
truly her friend, they would both be found cooperating for the
improvement and elevation of the colored race. Every form of oppression
and selfishness would feel the withering rebuke of a just and
enlightened universal public sentiment. But now that the quarrel runs
high as to the sinfulness and wrongfulness of the relation itself, there
is nothing for the South to do but to stand by their arms.

"One gentleman made some remarks which interested and instructed me