dly on other subjects, should deduce the
feasibility of gradual emancipation in the slave states--in some of
which the slaves outnumber the free--from the fact of the like
emancipation of the comparative handful of slaves in New York and
Pennsylvania!

You say, "_It is frequently asked, what will become of the African race
among us? Are they forever to remain in bondage? That question was asked
more than half a century ago. It has been answered by fifty years of
prosperity_."

The wicked man, "spreading himself like the green bay tree," would
answer this question, as you have. They, who "walk after their own
lusts, saying, where is the promise of his coming--for since the fathers
fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation?" would answer it, as you have. They, whose "heart is fully set
in them to do evil, because sentence against an evil work is not
executed speedily," would answer it, as you have. But, however you or
they may answer it, and although God may delay his "coming" and the
execution of his "sentence," it, nevertheless, remains true, that "it
shall be well with them that fear God, but it shall not be well with
the wicked."

"Fifty years of prosperity!" On whose testimony do we learn, that the
last "fifty years" have been "years of prosperity" to the South?--on the
testimony of oppressors or on that of the oppressed?--on that of her two
hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders--for this is the sum total of
the tyrants, who rule the South and rule this nation--or on that of her
two millions and three quarters of bleeding and crushed slaves? It may
well be, that those of the South, who "have lived in pleasure on the
earth and been wanton and have nourished their hearts as in a day of
slaughter," should speak of "prosperity:" but, before we admit, that the
"prosperity," of which they speak, is that of the South, instead of
themselves merely, we must turn our weeping eyes to the "laborers, who
have reaped down" their oppressors' "fields without wages," and the
"cries" of whom "are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth;" and
we must also take into the account the tears, and sweat, and groans, and
blood, of the millions of similar laborers, whom, during the last "fifty
years," death has mercifully released from Southern bondage. Talks the
slaveholder of the "prosperity" of the South? It is but his own
"prosperity"--and a "prosperity," such as the wolf may boast, when
gor