and have a more threatening prospect, than the
more southern staples of cotton and rice. The case is believed to
be the same with her landed property. That it is so with her
slaves is proved by the purchases made here for the market there.

The reflections suggested by this aspect of things will be more
appropriate in your hands than in mine. They are also beyond the
tether of my subject, which I fear I have already overstrained. I
hasten, therefore, to conclude, with a tender of the high respect
and cordial regards which I pray you to accept.[22]

TO HENRY CLAY

June, 1833.

It is painful to observe the unceasing efforts to alarm the South
by imputations against the North of unconstitutional designs on
the subject of the slaves. You are right, I have no doubt, in
believing that no such intermeddling disposition exists in the
body of our Northern brethren. Their good faith is sufficiently
guarantied by the interest they have as merchants, as
ship-owners, and as manufacturers, in preserving a union with the
slaveholding States. On the other hand, what _madness_ in the
South to look for greater safety in disunion. It would be worse
than jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire; it would be
jumping into the fire for fear of the frying-pan. The danger
from the alarm is, that the pride and resentment exerted by them
may be an overmatch for the dictates of prudence, and favor the
project of a Southern Convention, insidiously revived, as
promising, by its councils, the best securities against
grievances of every sort from the North.[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 138.

[2] _Ibid._, 170.

[3] _Ibid._, 239.

[4] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 168.

[5] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, I, 542-543.

[6] _Ibid._, III, 121.

[7] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 122-124.

[8] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 133-138.

[9] _Ibid._, III, 170.

[10] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 190.

[11] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 193-194.

[12] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 239, 240.

[13] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 310-31