must even now be
influenced by the same motives to continue it. If any of those disorders
still exist, which it was their intention to cure, they cannot (if these
are curable) retire from the course and say--there is now no further
need of our interference.

The first step then to be taken by the Abolitionists is to attempt to
introduce an _entire new code of laws_ into our colonies. The treatment
of the Negroes there must no longer be made to depend upon _the presumed
effects_ of the abolition of the slave trade. Indeed there were persons
well acquainted with Colonial concerns, who called the abolition _but a
half measure_ at the time when it was first publicly talked of. They
were sure, that it would never _of itself_ answer the end proposed. Mr.
Steele also confessed in his letter to Dr. Dickson[1] (of both of whom
more by and by), that "the abolition of the stave trade would _be
useless_, unless at the same time the infamous laws, which he had
pointed out, _were repealed_." Neither must the treatment of the Negroes
be made to depend upon what may be called _contingent humanity_. We now
leave in this country neither the horse, nor the ass, nor oxen, nor
sheep, to the contingent humanity even of _British bosoms_;--and shall
we leave those, whom we have proved to be _men_, to the contingent
humanity of a _slave colony_, where the eye is familiarized with cruel
sights, and where we have seen a constant exposure to oppression without
the possibility of redress? No. The treatment of the Negroes must be
made to depend _upon law_; and unless this be done, we shall look in
vain for any real amelioration of their condition. In the first place,
all those old laws, which are repugnant to humanity and justice, must be
done away. There must also be new laws, positive, certain, easy of
execution, binding upon all, by means of which the Negroes in our
islands shall have speedy and substantial redress in real cases of
ill-usage, whether by starvation, over-work, or acts of personal
violence, or otherwise. There must be new laws again more akin to the
principle of _reward_ than of _punishment_, of _privilege_ than of
_privation_, and which shall, have a tendency to raise or elevate their
condition, so as to fit them by degrees to sustain the rank of free men.

But if a new Code of Laws be indispensably necessary in our colonies in
order to secure a better treatment to the slaves, to whom must we look
for it? I answer, that we must n