ton, Jefferson, Madison, Munroe, Jackson, Marshall, Clay, Calhoun, Scott, and Maury, are all names of Southern men. No equal list can be produced out of the Northern ranks. Hence it is fair to suppose that a community of which such men were, or now are, citizens, is not so entirely barbarous as to be void of feelings common to the rest of mankind. If they do possess them, what must be the effect upon those feelings of a gnawing agitation, which not only aims at the destruction of their property, accompanied by the jeopardy of their existence, but which holds them up to scorn in the press, in the pulpit, in society, as men of no principle, of no humanity; which depicts them as monsters in novels, and denounces them as reprobates in sermons? Is any people to be found so utterly phlegmatic, as to be exposed to this year after year-to hear their own fellowcitizens rebuking them as criminal, and striving to destroy the system on which their property and existence depend, without being roused at last to some strong degree of impatience? And when we know that they are naturally a proud and sensitive race, we cannot but expect that these things have sunk deep into their minds.

The Southerner is conscious that the rising generation in the North is being educated to look upon him as one of a lower order of civilization : as a culprit and a sinner, whom it is a religious duty to reclaim from the error of his ways, or to punish for his wickedness. Now if all this be

ever so true, it is not the less galling to the spirit of a powerful people. It was no part of the terms on which the sovereign States of the South entered into the federal compact, that others of the contracting States should assume a right of moral superiority, or adopt a practice of teaching and preaching against them. They simply continue what they were when the compact was framed; they act in the spirit and under the terms of the Constitution. They were slave-owners then, as we were as the North was; they are so still. There was no bargain that one section should change its moral standard, and enforce its altered views upon another. Any American has a clear right to urge the abolition of Slavery in his own State, amongst his own people, and to use such form of persuasion as may seem best to him. But it becomes a very different thing when one section assumes this right against another section, each of them guaranteed by the Constitution, that its social polity shall stand intact, under the control of its own people. Hence this agitation not only embitters the feelings of the Southerner, but appears to him utterly unjust, as a direct violation of the whole scope and spirit of the federal compact.

There are also some passages of history that are deeply impressed upon the Southern mind. The insurrections that have several times occurred in America and in the West Indies, and the rising of the Blacks in Hayti, dwell constantly upon his memory; and when he reads some abolitionist

incitement to revolt, and when, recollecting what every negro revolt has been, he casts his eye upon his children, upon his daughters, and his wife, he must be more or less than man if there stir not up some strong and bitter feeling within him. The treatment of Abolitionists in the Southern States has been one result of this-is it very surprising to find as another-a desire to depart from the Union, and to be "let alone ?"

Having before us these views of the South upon this subject, and the enormous amount of the interests at stake, let us see by what means and manner of persuasion the Abolitionists have attempted to deal with so difficult and so vast a subject. They have adopted but one methodabuse. Speeches, novels, sermons, pamphlets, but all the same thing, a repetition of words, without a plan, and without one serious practical effort. It is plain that to overturn the framework of society, suddenly to cast adrift four millions of human beings, and jeopardize interests amounting to seven hundred millions sterling-without welldigested precautions-would produce no other result than desolation and woe. Yet this is the proposal of the leading Abolitionists.

It may be said that the subject is so vast as to render it hopeless to approach it in any practical spirit; but there are branches of it within the reach of direct action-some, indeed, requiring no Not one of these has been supreme exertion. seriously undertaken. It is a cheap matter for

those gifted with powers of speech, to denounce the errors of other people. Liberty is a favourite subject for declamation, and slavery affords an inexhaustible text for sermons. But where are the solid, practical, business-like measures of thoughtful and earnest men? The district of Columbia is under the absolute control of Congress, and is a slave district, unshielded by the Constitution. There is no compact in the way. There are strong and peculiar motives for action : for here slavery degrades the metropolis of the land, invades the temple of the national liberties, and desecrates the home of all that is most sacred to the nation. Here, too, it is a duty, not under the responsibility of others at a distance - it belongs to themselves. None can urge the plea that it lies beyond reach, obscure, or remote; it is there visible, palpable, every hour of every day. The number of slaves, too, is small; by the last census but 3181. Yet there it remains to this day. It is true that just as there is a special incentive to the one party to desire its removal from the capital of the Union, so there will be equal eagerness with the other to defend it. But if the whole power of the abolitionism of the North has not sufficed to effect so small a matter as this, if it cannot master a number of 3181, what shall we say to the judgment or common sense, that undertakes to deal with four millions in number, and seven hundred millions sterling in value?

If the power of resistance would be great in the

Yet

district of Columbia, there is a position, not far distant, where it would be feeble. The little State of Delaware has long been hovering on the verge of freedom. It has no industry in which the employment of slaves offers any advantage, and their number is but 1798-a mere handful. in the Senate, the two members for this little community are of equal power with those of the greatest State in the Union. The change would reverse their position, and have the effect of four votes on a division. This measure, so important in practical result, and so easy of accomplishment, so sensible and useful a step, is not attempted. It is too narrow a field for enthusiasts; it would be descending from the oratorical to the useful, from profession to real work.

There are other directions, too, in which we should expect to see the fruits of a real desire for the benefit of the black. There are considerable numbers in the Northern States, under the immediate eye of the Abolitionists, so eager for the welfare of all those who are distant. Large numbers of these are in a state of deplorable poverty and degradation, excluded from all but the lowest pursuits, treated on all hands with aversion and contempt. Charity begins at home. The benevolence that takes no heed of suffering within its reach, in order to occupy itself with distant and unattainable objects, may spring from a pure impulse, but it takes a very questionable direction.