ommerce, manufactures and
mechanical pursuits, occupy them exclusively, and these promise better
results under the new order of things than under the old. As to
patriotism or public spirit, the North have neither. The people do not
even resent a personal affront, much less will they go to war for an
idea.'

So reasoned the South.

'It is not possible those fellows down yonder can be in earnest. They
are only playing the game of "brag." In their hearts they are really
devoted to the Union. They have not the least idea of separating from
us.'

So reasoned the North.

Neither side thought the other in earnest. Both were mistaken.

Negro slaves were introduced into Virginia as early as 1620. In the year
1786 England employed in the slave-trade 130 ships, and that year alone
seized and carried from their homes into slavery 42,000 blacks.
Wilberforce experienced many defeats through the influence of the
slave-trade interest, but at length carried his point, and the trade was
finally abolished in England in 1807,--not a very remote period
certainly. The same year witnessed the suppression of the slave-trade in
our own country; but, unfortunately, not the abolition of
slave-_holding_. All our readers understand how, when the Constitution
of the United States was adopted, slavery was regarded entirely as a
domestic matter, left to each of the States to manage and dispose of as
each saw fit. But at that period there was no dissenting voice to the
proposition, that, abstractly considered, slave-holding was wrong; yet
the owner of a large number of negroes could honestly declare he was
himself innocent of the first transgression, and ignorant of any
practicable way to get rid of the evil,--for it was counted an evil.
When the rice, cotton and sugar fields demanded larger developments, it
was counted a _necessary_ evil. Congress was called on for more guards
and pledges, and gave them freely. It disclaimed any power to interfere
with what had now become an institution; it had no power to do so. It
went further, and by legislation sought fully to protect the
slave-holding States in the perfect enjoyment of their rights under the
Constitution.

Meanwhile many wise and good men, North and South, who regarded slavery
as a blight and a curse upon the States where it existed, endeavored by
all the means in their power to prepare the way for gradual
emancipation. It seemed at one time that they would succeed in Delaware,
Maryland,