are
mine; and I am sorry to add that I have occasionally, though not often,
been compelled to make _them_ feel the _impression_ of that ownership.
I would not touch a hair on the head of the gentleman's slave, any sooner
than I would a hair in the _mane of his horse_."

Mr. Roane likewise remarked, "I think slavery as much a correlative of
liberty as cold is of heat. History, experience, observation and reason,
have taught me that the torch of liberty has ever burned brighter when
surrounded by the dark and filthy, yet _nutritious_ atmosphere of
slavery! I do not believe in the fanfaronade that all men are by nature
equal. But these abstract speculations have nothing to do with the
question, which I am willing to view as one of cold, sheer state policy,
in which the safety, prosperity, and happiness of the _whites alone_
are concerned."

Would Mr. Roane carry out his logic into all its details? Would he
cherish intemperance, that sobriety might shine the brighter? Would he
encourage theft, in order to throw additional lustre upon honesty? Yet
there seems to be precisely the same relation between these things that
there is between slavery and freedom. Such sentiments sound oddly enough
in the mouth of a republican of the nineteenth century!

When Mr. Wirt, before the Supreme Federal Court, said that slavery was
contrary to the laws of nature and of nations, and that the law of South
Carolina concerning seizing colored seamen, was unconstitutional, the
Governor directed several reproofs at him. In 1825, Mr. King laid on
the table of the United States Senate a resolution to appropriate the
proceeds of the public lands to the emancipation of slaves, and the
removal of free negroes, provided the same could be done under and
agreeable to, the laws of the respective States. He said he did not wish
it to be debated, but considered at some future time. Yet kindly and
cautiously as this movement was made, the whole South resented it, and
Governor Troup called to the Legislature and people of Georgia, to
"stand to their arms." In 1827, the people of Baltimore presented a
memorial to Congress, praying that slaves born in the District of
Columbia after a given time, specified by law, might become free on
arriving at a certain age. A famous member from South Carolina called
this an "impertinent interference, and a violation of the principles of
_liberty_," and the petition was not even _committed_. Another southern
gentleman in C