as
subsistence can be obtained. This view of the subject is truly
alarming; but when we consider the extent of territory which is
overspread by this foul blot on the map of our beloved country, the
heart sickens at the prospect.

To behold 600,000 square miles of the best land in North America,
teeming with slaves,--a surface greater, than that of many European
kingdoms, held too by men who are constantly boasting of their love of
liberty; sending up daily to Heaven, the sighs and groans of millions
of broken hearts, while the sweat and tears and even the blood of
thousands moisten its soil, must excite deep emotion in every breast,
not dead to those feelings which become the patriot, or animate the
Christian. But furthermore your committee are of opinion that if the
scheme, of adding a large portion of Mexican territory, to our
south-western border, should be consummated, the price of slaves will
be so enhanced and the facilities of smuggling so much increased, that
the African slave trade will be greatly augmented, as well as the
practice of kidnapping in the more eastern parts of our own country.
So that upon the whole, your committee are of opinion, that slavery is
fearfully on the increase, and that every effort is making, by many of
those interested in its continuance, to multiply its victims and
extend its influence. This state of things calls loudly on every
friend of his country, on every friend of man, to use every effort in
his power, to arrest the torrent of misery and crime.

Secondly. On the treatment of slaves,--your committee have long
indulged an opinion which they believe is common with their
fellow-citizens, that slaves in this country are somewhat better
treated than formerly. This opinion seems to prevail to an extent
which your committee fear, is not sustained by facts. A writer in
Niles's Register for 1818, says, speaking on this subject, "The
favourable change which has occurred in the treatment of negro slaves
in this state (Maryland) since the revolution, must be to every
benevolent mind a source of very agreeable reflections, our oldest
citizens well remember when it was very customary to inflict on the
manacled and naked person of the slave, the most intolerable
punishments for very trivial offences. _Within the last twenty years_
it has been the practice to muster all the slaves on a farm once a
week, and distribute to each his peck of corn, leaving him to walk
several miles, to some nei