"Plus un peuple nombreux se rapproche, moins le gouvernement peut usurper sur le Souverain. L'avantage d'un gouvernement tyrannique est donc en ceci, d'agir À grandes distances. A l'aide des points d'appui qu'il se donne, sa force augmente au loin, comme celle des lÉviers. Celle du peuple, au contraire, n'agit que concentrÉe: elle s'Évapore et se perd en s'Étendant, comme l'effet de la poudre Éparse À terre, et qui ne prend feu que grain À grain. Les pays les moins peuplÉs sont ainsi les plus propres À la tyrannie. Les bÊtes fÉroces ne rÈgnent que dans les dÉserts."

Rousseau.

The pride and delight of Americans is in their quantity of land. I do not remember meeting with one to whom it had occurred that they had too much. Among the many complaints of the minority, this was never one. I saw a gentleman strike his fist on the table in an agony at the country being so "confoundedly prosperous:" I heard lamentations over the spirit of speculation; the migration of young men to the back country; the fluctuating state of society from the incessant movement westwards; the immigration of labourers from Europe; and the ignorance of the sparse population. All these grievances I heard perpetually complained of; but in the same breath I was told in triumph of the rapid sales of land; of the glorious additions which had been made by the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, and of the probable gain of Texas. Land was spoken of as the unfailing resource against over manufacture; the great wealth of the nation; the grand security of every man in it.

On this head, the two political parties seem to be more agreed than on any other. The federalists are the great patrons of commerce; but they are as proud of the national lands as the broadest of the democrats. The democrats, however, may be regarded as the patrons of agriculture, out of the slave States. There seems to be a natural relation between the independence of property and occupation enjoyed by the agriculturist, and his watchfulness over State Rights and the political importance of individuals. The simplicity of country life, too, appears more congenial with the workings of democratic institutions, than the complex arrangements of commerce and manufactures.

The possession of land is the aim of all action, generally speaking, and the cure for all social evils, among men in the United States. If a man is disappointed in politics or love, he goes and buys land. If he disgraces himself, he betakes himself to a lot in the west. If the demand for any article of manufacture slackens, the operatives drop into the unsettled lands. If a citizen's neighbours rise above him in the towns, he betakes himself where he can be monarch of all he surveys. An artisan works, that he may die on land of his own. He is frugal, that he may enable his son to be a landowner. Farmers' daughters go into factories that they may clear off the mortgage from their fathers' farms; that they may be independent landowners again. All this is natural enough in a country colonised from an old one, where land is so restricted in quantity as to be apparently the same thing as wealth. It is natural enough in a young republic, where independence is of the highest political value. It is natural enough in a country where political economy has never been taught by its only effectual propounder—social adversity. And, finally, it falls out well for the old world, in prospect of the time when the new world must be its granary.

The democratic party are fond of saying that the United States are intended to be an agricultural country. It seems to me that they are intended to be everything. The Niagara basin, the Mississippi valley, and the South, will be able to furnish the trading world with agricultural products for ever,—for aught we can see. But it is clear that there are other parts of the country which must have recourse to manufactures and commerce.

The first settlers in New England got land, and thought themselves rich. Their descendants have gone on to do the same; and they now find themselves poor. With the exception of some Southerners, ruined by slavery, who cannot live within their incomes, I met with no class in the United States so anxious about the means of living as the farmers of New England. In the seventeenth century, curious purchases of land were made, and the fathers were wealthy. In those days, a certain farmer Dexter bought the promontory of Nahant, which stretches out into Massachusetts Bay, of Black Willey, an Indian chief, for a suit of clothes; the part of the promontory called Great Nahant measuring a mile and a half in circuit. Others, who held land in similar or larger quantities, divided it equally among their children, whose portions had not been subdivided below the point of comfort, when the great west on the one hand, and the commerce of the seas on the other, opened new resources. From this time, the consolidation of estates has gone on, nearly as fast as the previous division. The members of a family dispose of their portions of land to one, and go to seek better fortunes elsewhere than the rocky soil of New England can afford. Still, while the population of Massachusetts is scarcely above half that of London, its number of landowners is greater than that of all England.

The Massachusetts farmers were the first to decline; but now the comparative adversity of agriculture has extended even into Vermont. A few years ago, lenders of money into Vermont received thirty per cent. interest from farmers: now they are glad to get six per cent.; and this does not arise from the farmers having saved capital of their own. They have but little property besides their land. Their daughters, and even their sons, resort to domestic service in Boston for a living. Boston used to be supplied from Vermont with fowls, butter, and eggs: but the supply has nearly ceased. This is partly owing to an increased attention to the growth of wool for the manufacturers; but partly also to the decrease of capital and enterprise among the farmers.

In Massachusetts the farmers have so little property besides their land, that they are obliged to mortgage when they want to settle a son or daughter, or make up for a deficient crop. The great Insurance Company at Boston is the formidable creditor to many. This Company will not wait a day for the interest. If it is not ready, loss or ruin ensues. Many circumstances are now unfavourable to the old-fashioned Massachusetts farmer. Domestic manufactures, which used to employ the daughters, are no longer worth while, in the presence of the factories. The young men, who should be the daughters' husbands, go off to the west. The idea of domestic service is not liked. There is an expensive family at home, without sufficient employment; and they may be considered poor. These are evils which may be shaken off any day. I speak of them, not as demanding much compassion, but as indicating a change in the state of affairs; and especially that New England is designed to be a manufacturing and commercial region. It is already common to see agriculture joined with other employments. The farmers of the coast are, naturally, fishermen also. They bring home fish, manure their land with the offal; sow their seed, and go out again to fish while it is growing. Shoemaking is now joined with farming. In the long winter evenings, all the farmers' families around Lynn are busy shoe-making; and in the spring, they turn out into the fields again. The largest proportion of factory girls too is furnished by country families.

The traveller may see, by merely passing through the country, without asking information, how far New England ought to be an agricultural country, if the object of its society be to secure the comfort of its members, rather than the continuance of old customs. The valleys, like that of the Connecticut river, whose soil is kept rich by annual inundations, and whose fields have no fences, gladden the eye of the observer. So it is with particular spots elsewhere, where, it may be remarked, the fences are of the ordinary, slovenly kind, and too much care does not seem to have been bestowed on the arrangements and economy of the estate. Elsewhere, may be seen stony fields, plots of the greenest pasture, with grey rocks standing up in the midst, and barberry bushes sprinkled all about: trim orchards, and fences on which a great deal of spare time must have been bestowed. Instead of the ugly, hasty snake-fence, there is a neatly built wall, composed of the stones which had strewed the fields: sometimes the neatest fence of all; a wall of stones and sods, regularly laid, with a single rail along the top: sometimes a singular fence, which would be perfect, but for the expense of labour required; roots of trees, washed from the soil, and turned side upwards, presenting a complete chevaux-de-frise, needing no mending, and lasting the "for ever" of this world. About these farm-houses, a profusion of mignonette may be seen; and in the season, the rich major convolvulus, or scarlet runners, climbing up to the higher windows. The dove-cotes are well looked to. There has evidently been time and thought for everything. This is all very pretty to look at,—even bewitching to those who do not see beneath the surface, nor know that hearts may be aching within doors about perilous mortgages, and the fate of single daughters; but, it being known that such worldly anxieties do exist, it is not difficult to perceive that these are the places in which they abide.

There is, of course, a knowledge of the difficulty on the spot; but not always a clear view of coming events, which include a remedy. The commonest way of venting any painful sensibility on the subject, is declamation against luxury; or rather, against the desire for it in those who are supposed unable to afford it. This will do no good. If the Pilgrim Fathers themselves had had luxury before their eyes, they would have desired to have it; and they would have been right. Luxury is, in itself, a great good. Luxury is delicious fare,—of any and every kind: and He who bestowed it meant all men to have it. The evil of luxury is in its restriction; in its being made a cause of separation between men, and a means of encroachment by some on the rights of others. Frugality is a virtue only when it is required by justice and charity. Luxury is vicious only when it is obtained by injustice, and carried on into intemperance. It is a bad thing that a Massachusetts farmer should mortgage his farm, in order that his wife and daughters may dress like the ladies of Boston; but the evil is not in the dress; it is rather in his clinging to a mode of life which does not enable him to pay his debts. The women desire dress, not only because it is becoming, but because they revolt from sinking, even outwardly, into a lower station of life than they once held: and this is more than harmless; it is honourable. What they have to do is to make up their minds to be consistent. They must either go down with their farm, for love of it, and the ways which belong to it: or they must make a better living in some other manner. They cannot have the old farm and its ways, and luxury too. Nobody has a right to decide for them which they ought to choose; and declaiming against luxury will therefore do no good. It is, however, pretty clear which they will choose, while luxury and manufactures are growing before their eyes; and, in that case, declaiming against luxury can do little but harm: it will only destroy sympathy between the declaimers and those who may find the cap fit.

One benevolent lady strongly desires and advises that manufactures should be put down; and the increased population all sent away somewhere, that New England may be as primitive and sparsely peopled as in days when it was, as she supposes, more virtuous than now. Whenever she can make out what virtue is, so as to prove that New England was ever more virtuous than now, her plans may find hearers; but not till then. I mention these things merely to show how confirmed is the tendency of New England to manufactures, in preference to agriculture.

There is one certain test of the permanent fitness of any district of country for agricultural purposes; the settlement of any large number of Germans in it. The Germans give any price for good land, and use it all. They are much smiled at by the vivacious and enterprising Americans for their plodding, their attachment to their own methods, and the odd direction taken by their pride.[12] The part of Pennsylvania where they abound is called the Boeotia of America. There is a story current against them that they were seen to parade with a banner, on which was inscribed "No schools," when the State legislature was about establishing a school system. On the other hand, it is certain that they have good German newspapers prepared among themselves: that their politics do them high honour, considering the very short political education they have had: and that they know more of political economy than their native neighbours. They show by their votes that they understand the tariff and bank questions; and they are staunch supporters of democratic principles.

Nothing can be more thriving than the settlements of Germans, when they have once been brought into order. Their fields are well fenced; their implements of the most substantial make; and their barns a real curiosity. While the family of the farmer is living in a poor log-house, or a shabby, unpainted frame-house, the barn has all the pains of its owner lavished upon it. I saw several, freshly painted with red, with eleven glass windows, with venetian blinds, at each end, and twelve in front. They keep up the profitable customs of their country. The German women are the only women seen in the fields and gardens in America, except a very few Dutch, and the slaves in the south. The stores of pumpkins, apples, and onions in the stoup (piazza) are edifying to behold. Under them sits the old dame of the house, spinning at her large wheel; and her grand-children, all in grey homespun, look as busy as herself.

The German settlers always contrive to have a market, either by placing themselves near one, or bestirring themselves to make one. They have no idea of sitting down in a wilderness, and growing wild in it. A great many of them are market-gardeners near the towns.[13]

It is scarcely possible to foresee, with distinctness, the destination of the southern States, east of the Alleghanies, when the curse of slavery shall be removed. Up to that period, continual deterioration is unavoidable. Efforts are being made to compensate for the decline of agriculture by pushing the interests of commerce. This is well; for the "opening" of every new rail-road, of every new pier, is another blow given to slavery. The agriculture of Virginia continues to decline; and her revenue is chiefly derived from the rearing of slaves as stock for the southern market. In the north and west parts of this State, where there is more farming than planting, it has long been found that slavery is ruinous; and when I passed through, in the summer of 1835, I saw scarcely any but whites, for some hundreds of miles along the road, except where a slave trader was carrying down to the south the remains that he had bought up. Unless some new resource is introduced, Virginia will be almost impoverished when the traffic in slaves comes to an end; which, I have a strong persuasion, will be the case before very long. The Virginians themselves are, it seems, aware of their case. I saw a factory at Richmond, worked by black labour, which was found, to the surprise of those who tried the experiment, to be of very good quality.

The shores of the south, low and shoaly, are unfavourable to foreign commerce. The want of a sufficiency of good harbours will probably impel the inhabitants of the southern States to renew their agricultural pursuits, and merely confine themselves to internal commerce. The depression of agriculture is only temporary, I believe. It began from slavery, and is aggravated by the opening of the rich virgin soils of the south-west. But the time will come when improved methods of tillage, with the advantage of free labour, will renew the prosperity of Virginia, and North and South Carolina.

No mismanagement short of employing slaves will account for the deterioration of the agricultural wealth of these States. When the traveller observes the quality of some of the land now under cultivation, he wonders how other estates could have been rendered so unprofitable as they are. The rich Congaree bottoms, in South Carolina, look inexhaustible; but some estates, once as fine, now lie barren and deserted. I went over a plantation, near Columbia, South Carolina, where there were four thousand acres within one fence, each acre worth fifteen hundred dollars. This land has been cropped yearly with cotton since 1794, and is now becoming less productive; but it is still very fine. The cotton seed is occasionally returned to the soil; and this is the only means of renovation used. Four hundred negroes work this estate. We saw the field trenched, ready for sowing. The sowing is done by hand, thick, and afterwards thinned. I saw the cotton elsewhere, growing like twigs. I saw also some in pod. There are three or four pickings of pods in a season; of which the first gathering is the best. Each estate has its cotton press. In the gin, the seed is separated from the cotton; and the latter is pressed and packed for sale.

There seems nothing to prevent the continuance or renovation of the growth of this product, under more favourable circumstances. Whether the rice swamps will have to be given up, or whether they may be tilled by free black labour, remains to be seen. The Chinese grow rice; and so do the Italians, without the advantage of free black labour. If, in the worst case, the rice swamps should have to be relinquished, the loss would be more than compensated by the improvement which would take place in the farming districts; land too high for planting. The western, mountainous parts of these States would thus become the most valuable.

It was amusing to hear the praises of corn (Indian corn) in the midst of the richest cotton, rice, and tobacco districts. The Indian looks with silent wonder upon the settler, who becomes visibly a capitalist in nine months, on the same spot where the red man has remained equally poor, all his life. In February, both are alike bare of all but land, and a few utensils. By the end of the next November, the white settler has his harvest of corn; more valuable to him than gold and silver. It will procure him many things which they could not. A man who has corn, may have everything. He can sow his land with it; and, for the rest, everything eats corn, from slave to chick. Yet, in the midst of so much praise of corn, I found that it cost a dollar a bushel; that every one was complaining of the expenses of living; that, so far from mutton being despised, as we have been told, it was much desired, but not to be had; and that milk was a great rarity. Two of us, in travelling, asked for a draught of milk. We had each a very small tumbler-full, and were charged a quarter-dollar. The cultivation of land is as exclusively for exportable products, as in the West Indies, in the worst days of their slavery; when food, and even bricks for building, were imported from England. The total absence of wise rural economy, under the present system, opens great hope of future improvement. The forsaken plantations are not so exhausted of their resources as it is supposed, from their producing little cotton, that they must be. The deserted fields may yet be seen, some day, again fruitful in cotton, with corn-fields, pasturage, and stock, (not human,) flourishing in appropriate spots.

Adversity is the best teacher of economy here, as elsewhere. In the first flush of prosperity, when a proprietor sits down on a rich virgin soil, and the price of cotton is rising, he buys bacon and corn for his negroes, and other provisions for his family, and devotes every rod of his land to cotton-growing. I knew of one in Alabama, who, like his neighbours, paid for his land and the maintenance of his slaves with the first crop, and had a large sum over, wherewith to buy more slaves and more land. He paid eight thousand dollars for his land, and all the expenses of the establishment, and had, at the end of the season, eleven thousand dollars in the bank. It was thought, by a wise friend of this gentleman's, that it was a great injury, instead of benefit to his fortune, that his labourers were not free. To use this wise man's expression, "it takes two white men to make a black man work;" and he was confident that it was not necessary, on any pretence whatever, to have a single slave in Alabama. Where all the other elements of prosperity exist, as they do in that rich new State, any quality and amount of labour might be obtained, and the permanent prosperity of the country might be secured. If matters go on as they are, Alabama will in time follow the course of the south-eastern States, and find her production of cotton declining; and she will have to learn a wiser husbandry by vicissitude. But matters will not go on as they are to that point. Cotton-growing is advancing rapidly in other parts of the world where there is the advantage of cheap, free labour; and the southern States of America will find themselves unable to withstand the competition of rivals whom they now despise, but by the use of free labour, and of the improved management which will accompany it. There is already a great importation of mules for field work from the higher western States. Who knows but that in time there may be cattle-shows, (like those of the more prosperous rural districts of the north,) where there are now slave markets; or at least agricultural societies, whereby the inhabitants may be put in the way of obtaining tender "sheep's meat," while cotton may be grown more plentifully than even at present?

I saw at Charleston the first great overt act of improvement that I am aware of in South Carolina. One step has been taken upwards; and when I saw it, I could only wish that the slaves in the neighbourhood could see, as clearly as a stranger could, the good it portended to them. It is nothing more than that an enterprising gentleman has set up a rice-mill, and that he avails himself to the utmost of its capabilities; but this is made much of in that land of small improvement; as it ought to be. The chaff is used to enrich the soil: and the proprietor has made lot after lot of bad land very profitable for sale with it, and is thus growing rapidly rich. The sweet flour, which lies between the husk and the grain, is used for fattening cattle. The broken rice is sold cheap; and the rest finds a good market. There are nine persons employed in the mill, some white and some black; and many more are busy in preparing the lots of land, and in building on them. Clusters of houses have risen up around the mill.

Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, present the extreme case of the fertility of the soil, the prosperity of proprietors, and the woes of slaves. I found the Virginians spoke with sorrow and contempt of the treatment of slaves in North and South Carolina: South Carolina and Georgia, of the treatment of slaves in the richer States to the west: and, in these last, I found the case too bad to admit of aggravation. It was in these last that the most heart-rending disclosures were made to me by the ladies, heads of families, of the state of society, and of their own intolerable sufferings in it. As I went further north again, I found an improvement. There was less wealth in the hands of individuals, a better economy, more intelligent slaves, and more discussion how to get rid of slavery. Tennessee is, in some sort, naturally divided on the question. The eastern part of the State is hilly, and fit for farming; for which slave labour does not answer. The western part is used for cotton-planting; and the planters will not yet hear of free labour. The magnificent State of Kentucky has no other drawback to its prosperity than slavery; and its inhabitants are so far convinced of this that they will, no doubt, soon free themselves from it. They cannot look across the river, and witness the prosperity of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, without being aware that, with their own unequalled natural advantages, they could not be so backward as they are, from any other cause.

Kentucky is equally adapted for agriculture and commerce. She may have ports on the rivers, along her whole northern and western boundary; and she has already roads superior to almost any in the United States. She is rich in stone, and many other minerals; in mineral waters, and in a soil of unsurpassed fertility. The State is more thickly settled than is evident to the passing traveller; and the effect will appear when more markets, or roads to existing markets, are opened. In one small county which I visited, my host and his brother had farms of fifteen hundred acres each; and there were two hundred and fifty other farms in the county. Sometimes these farms are divided among the children. More commonly, all the sons but one go elsewhere to settle. In this case, the homestead is usually left to the youngest son, who is supposed likely to be the most attached to the surviving parent.

The estates of the two brothers, mentioned above, comprising three thousand acres, were bought of the Indians for a rifle. We passed a morning in surveying the one which is a grazing farm. There is a good red-brick house for the family: and the slave-quarter is large. Nothing can be more beautiful than the aspect of the estate, from the richness of its vegetation, and the droves of fine cattle that were to be seen everywhere. I never saw finer cattle. The owner had just refused sixty dollars apiece for fourteen of them. Fifteen acres of the forest are left for shade; and there, and under single oaks in the cleared pasture, were herds of horses and mules, and three donkeys; the only ones I saw in the United States.

We passed an unshaded meadow, where the grass had caught fire every day at eleven o'clock, the preceding summer. This demonstrates the necessity of shade.

We passed "a spontaneous rye-field." I asked what "spontaneous" meant here; and found that a fine crop of rye had been cut the year before; and that the nearly equally fine one now before us had grown up from the dropped seed.

We enjoyed the thought of the abundance of milk here, after the dearth we had suffered in the South. Forty cows are milked for the use of the family and the negroes, and are under the care of seven women. The proprietor declared to me that he believed his slaves would drive him mad. Planters, who grow but one product, suffer much less from the incapacity and perverse will of their negroes: the care of stock is quite another matter; and for any responsible service, slaves are totally unfit.

Instead of living being cheaper on country estates, from the necessaries of life being raised on them, it appears to be much more expensive. This is partly owing to the prevailing pride of having negroes to show. One family, of four persons, of my acquaintance, in South Carolina, whose style of living might be called homely, cannot manage to live for less than three thousand dollars a year. They have a carriage and eleven negroes. It is cheaper in Kentucky. In the towns, a family may live in good style for two thousand five hundred dollars a year; and for no great deal more in the country. A family entered upon a good house, near a town, with one hundred and twenty acres of land, a few years ago, at a rent of three hundred dollars. They bought house and land, and brought their slaves, and now live, exclusive of rent and hire of servants, for two thousand dollars a year, in greater numbers and much higher style than the South Carolina family.

The prospects of agriculture in the States north-west of the Ohio are brilliant. The stranger who looks upon the fertile prairies of Illinois and Indiana, and the rich alluvions of Ohio, feels the iniquity of the English corn laws as strongly as in the alleys of Sheffield and Manchester. The inhuman perverseness of taxing food is there evident in all its enormity. The world ought never to hear of a want of food,—no one of the inhabitants of its civilised portions ought ever to be without the means of obtaining his fill, while the mighty western valley smiles in its fertility. If the aristocracy of England, for whom those laws were made, and by whom they are sustained, could be transported to travel, in open wagons, the boundless prairies, and the shores of the great rivers which would bring down the produce, they would groan to see from what their petty, selfish interests had shut out the thousands of half-starved labourers at home. If they could not be convinced of the very plain truth, of how their own fortunes would be benefited by allowing the supply and demand of food to take their natural course, they would, for the moment, wish their rent-rolls at the bottom of the sea, rather than that they should stand between the crowd of labourers and the supply of food which God has offered them. The landlords of England do not go and see the great western valley; but, happily, some of the labourers of England do. Far off as that valley is, those labourers will make themselves heard from thence, by those who have driven them there; and will teach the brethren whom they have left behind where the blame of their hunger lies. Every British settler who ploughs a furrow in the prairie, helps to plough up the foundations of the British Corn Laws.

There is a prospect, not very uncertain or remote, of these prairie lands bringing relief to a yet more suffering class than either English labourers or landlords; the sugar-growing slaves of the south. Rumours of the progress of sugar-making from beet in France have, for some time past, been interesting many persons in the United States; especially capitalists inclined to speculate, and the vigilant friends of the slave. Information has been obtained, and some trials made. Individuals have sown ten acres and upwards each, and manufactured sugar with a small apparatus. The result has been encouraging; and a large manufactory was to be opened in Philadelphia on the 1st of November last. Two large joint-stock companies have been founded, one in New Jersey and the other in Illinois. Their proceedings have been quickened by the frosts of several successive seasons, which have so cut off the canes in the south, as that it cannot supply one quarter of the domestic consumption: whereas it had previously supplied half. Some of the southern newspapers have recommended the substitution of beet for canes. However soon this may be done, the northern sugar planters, with their free labour, will surely overpower the south in the competition. This is on the supposition that beet will answer as well as canes; a supposition which will have Bern granted whenever the south begins to grow beet in preference to canes.

A heavy blow would be inflicted on slavery by the success of the beet companies. The condition of the cane-growing slaves cannot be made worse than it is. I believe that even in the West Indies it has never been so dreadful as at present in some parts of Louisiana. A planter stated to a sugar-refiner in New York, that it was found the best economy to work off the stock of negroes once in seven years.

The interest excited by this subject of beet-growing is very strong throughout the United States. Some result must ensue which will be an instigation to further action. The most important would be the inducing in the south either the use of free labour in sugar-growing, or the surrender of an object so fatal to decent humanity.

The prettiest amateur farm I saw was that of the late Dr. Hosack, at Hyde Park, on the Hudson. Dr. Hosack had spared no pains to improve his stock, and his methods of farming, as well as the beauty of his pleasure-grounds. His merits in the former departments the agricultural societies in England are much better qualified to appreciate than I; and they seem to have valued his exertions; to judge by the medals and other honourable testimonials from them which he showed to me. As for his pleasure-grounds, little was left for the hand of art to do. The natural terrace above the river, green, sweeping, and undulating, is surpassingly beautiful. Dr. Hosack's good taste led him to leave it alone, and to spend his pains on the gardens and conservatory behind. Of all the beautiful country-seats on the Hudson, none can, I think, equal Hyde Park; though many bear a more imposing appearance from the river.

Though I twice traversed the western part of the State of New York, I did not see the celebrated farm of Mr. Wadsworth; the finest, by all accounts, in the United States. The next best thing to seeing it was hearing Mr. Wadsworth talk about it,—especially of its hospitable capabilities. This only increased my regret at being unable to visit it.

The most remarkable order of land-owners that I saw in the United States was that of the Shakers and the Rappites; both holding all their property in common, and both enforcing celibacy. The interest which would be felt by the whole of society in watching the results of a community of property is utterly destroyed by the presence of the other distinction; or rather of the ignorance and superstition of which it is the sign.

The moral and economical principles of these societies ought to be most carefully distinguished by the observer. This being done, I believe it will be found that whatever they have peculiarly good among them is owing to the soundness of their economical principles; whatever they have that excites compassion, is owing to the badness of their moral arrangements.

I visited two Shaker communities in Massachusetts. The first was at Hancock, consisting of three hundred persons, in the neighbourhood of another at Lebanon, consisting of seven hundred persons. There are fifteen Shaker establishments or "families" in the United States, and their total number is between five and six thousand. There is no question of their entire success, as far as wealth is concerned. A very moderate amount of labour has secured to them in perfection all the comforts of life that they know how to enjoy, and as much wealth besides as would command the intellectual luxuries of which they do not dream. The earth does not show more flourishing fields, gardens, and orchards, than theirs. The houses are spacious, and in all respects unexceptionable. The finish of every external thing testifies to their wealth, both of material and leisure. The floor of their place of worship, (the scene of their peculiar exercises,) the roofs of their houses, their stair-carpets, the feet of their chairs, the springs of their gates, and their spitting-boxes,—for even these neat people have spitting-boxes—show a nicety which is rare in America. Their table fare is of the very best quality. We had depended on a luncheon among them, and were rather alarmed at the refusal we met, when we pleaded our long ride and the many hours that we should have to wait for refreshment, if they would not furnish us with some. They urged, reasonably enough, that a steady rule was necessary, subject as the community was to visits from the company at Lebanon Springs. They did not want to make money by furnishing refreshments, and did not desire the trouble. For once, however, they kindly gave way; and we were provided with delicious bread, molasses, butter, cheese and wine; all homemade, of course. If happiness lay in bread and butter, and such things, these people have attained the summum bonum. Their store shows what they can produce for sale. A great variety of simples, of which they sell large quantities to London; linen-drapery, knitted wares, sieves, baskets, boxes, and confectionary; palm and feather fans, pin-cushions, and other such trifles; all these may be had in some variety, and of the best quality. If such external provision, with a great amount of accumulated wealth besides, is the result of co-operation and community of property among an ignorant, conceited, inert society like this, what might not the same principles of association achieve among a more intelligent set of people, stimulated by education, and exhilarated by the enjoyment of all the blessings which Providence has placed within the reach of man?

The wealth of the Shakers is not to be attributed to their celibacy. They are receiving a perpetual accession to their numbers from among the "world's people," and these accessions are usually of the most unprofitable kind. Widows with large families of young children, are perpetually joining the community, with the view of obtaining a plentiful subsistence with very moderate labour. The increase of their numbers does not lead to the purchase of more land. They supply their enlarged wants by the high cultivation of the land they have long possessed; and the superfluity of capital is so great that it is difficult to conceive what will be done with it by a people so nearly dead to intellectual enjoyments. If there had been no celibacy among them, they would probably have been far more wealthy than they are; the expenses of living in community being so much less, and the produce of co-operative labour being so much greater than in a state of division into families. The truth of these last positions can be denied by none who have witnessed the working of a co-operative system. The problem is to find the principle by which all shall be induced to labour their share. Any such principle being found, the wealth of the community follows of course.

Whether any principle to this effect can be brought to bear upon any large class of society in the old world, is at present the most important dispute, perhaps, that is agitating society. It will never now rest till it has been made matter of experiment. If a very low principle has served the purpose, for a time at least, in the new world, there seems much ground for expectation that a far higher one may be found to work as well in the more complicated case of English society. There is, at least, every encouragement to try. While there are large classes of people here whose condition can hardly be made worse; while the present system (if such it may be called) imposes care on the rich, excessive anxiety on the middle classes, and desperation on the poor: while the powerful are thus, as it were, fated to oppress; the strivers after power to circumvent and counteract; and the powerless to injure, it seems only reasonable that some section, at least, of this warring population should make trial of the peaceful principles which are working successfully elsewhere. The co-operative methods of the Shakers and Rappites might be tried without any adoption of their spiritual pride and cruel superstition. These are so far from telling against the system, that they prompt the observer to remark how much has been done in spite of such obstacles.

There must be something sound in the principles on which these people differ from the rest of the world, or they would not work at all; but the little that is vital is dreadfully encumbered with that which is dead. Like all religious persuasions from which one differs, that of the Shakers appears more reasonable in conversation, and in their daily actions, than on paper and at a distance. In actual life, the absurd and peculiar recedes before the true and universal; but, I own, I have never witnessed more visible absurdity than in the way of life of the Shakers. The sound part of their principle is the same as that which has sustained all devotees; and with it is joined a spirit of fellowship which makes them more in the right than the anchorites and friars of old. This is all. Their spiritual pride, their insane vanity, their intellectual torpor, their mental grossness, are melancholy to witness. Reading is discouraged among them. Their thoughts are full of the one subject of celibacy: with what effect, may be easily imagined. Their religious exercises are disgustingly full of it. It cannot be otherwise: for they have no other interesting subject of thought beyond their daily routine of business; no objects in life, no wants, no hopes, no novelty of experience whatever. Their life is all dull work and no play.

The women, in their frightful costume, close opaque caps, and drab gowns of the last degree of tightness and scantiness, are nothing short of disgusting. They are averse to the open air and exercise; they are pallid and spiritless. They look far more forlorn and unnatural than the men. Their soulless stare at us, before their worship began, was almost as afflicting as that of the lowest order of slaves; and, when they danced, they were like so many galvanised corpses. I had been rather afraid of not being able to keep my countenance during this part of their worship; but there was no temptation to laugh. It was too shocking for ridicule. Three men stood up, shouting a monotonous tune, and dangling their crossed hands, with a pawing motion, to keep time, while the rest danced, except some old women and young children, who sat out. The men stamped, and the women jerked, with their arms hanging by their sides; they described perpetually the figure of a square; the men and boys on one side, the women and girls on the other. There were prayers besides, and singing, and a sermon. This last was of a better quality than usual, I understood. It was (of all improbable subjects) on religious liberty, and contained nothing outrageously uncommon, except the proposition that the American revolution had drawn the last of the teeth of the red dragon.

It is not to be supposed that the children who are carried in by their widowed, or indolent, or poor, or superstitious parents, are always acquiescent in their destination. I saw many a bright face within the prim cap-border, which bore a prophecy of a return to the world; and two of the boys stamped so vigorously in the dance, that it was impossible to imagine their feelings to be very devotional. The story of one often serves as an index to the hearts of many. I knew of a girl who was carried into a Shaker community by her widowed mother, and subjected early to its discipline. It was hateful to her. One Sunday, when she was, I believe, about sixteen, she feigned illness, to avoid going to worship. When she believed every one else gone, she jumped out of a low window, and upon the back of a pony which happened to be in the field. She rode round and round the enclosure, without saddle or bridle, and then re-entered the house. She had been observed, and was duly reprimanded. She left the community in utter weariness and disgust. A friend of mine, in a neighbouring village, took the girl into her service. She never settled well in service, being too proud for the occupation; and she actually went back to the same community, and is there still, for no better reason than the saving of her pride. Her old teachers had, it thus appeared, obtained an influence over her, notwithstanding the tyranny of their discipline; and it had not been of a wholesome moral nature. But no more words are necessary to show how pride, and all other selfishness, must flourish in a community which religiously banishes all the tenderest charities of life.

The followers of Mr. Rapp are settled at Economy, on the Ohio, eighteen miles below Pittsburgh. Their number was five hundred when I was there; and they owned three thousand acres of land. Much of their attention seems to be given to manufactures. They rear silkworms, and were the earliest silk-weavers in the United States. At my first visit they were weaving only a flimsy kind of silk handkerchief; last summer I brought away a piece of substantial, handsome black satin. They have sheep-walks, and a large woollen manufactory. Their factory was burnt down in 1834; the fire occasioning a loss of sixty thousand dollars; a mere trifle to this wealthy community. Their vineyards, corn-fields, orchards, and gardens gladden the eye. There is an abundance so much beyond their need that it is surprising that they work; except for want of something else to do. The Dutch love of flowers was visible in the plants that were to be seen in the windows, and the rich carnations and other sweets that bloomed in the garden and green-house. The whole place has a superior air to that of either of the Shaker "families" that I saw. The women were better dressed; more lively, less pallid; but, I fear, not much wiser. Mr. Rapp exercises an unbounded influence over his people. They are prevented learning any language but German, and are not allowed to converse with strangers. The superintendent keeps a close watch over them in this respect. Probationers must serve a year before they can be admitted: and the managers own that they dread the entrance of young people, who might be "unsettled;" that is, not sufficiently subservient.

I was curious to learn how five hundred persons could be kept in the necessary subjection by one. Mr. Rapp's means are such that his task is not very difficult. He keeps his people ignorant; and he makes them vain. He preaches to them their own superiority over the rest of the world so incessantly that they fully believe it; and are persuaded that their salvation is in his hands. At first I felt, with regard both to them and the Shakers, a strong respect for the self-conquest which could enable them to endure the singularity,—the one community, of its non-intercourse with strangers; the other, of its dancing exhibitions; but I soon found that my respect was misplaced. One and all, they glory in the singularity. They feel no awkwardness in it, from first to last. This vanity is the handle by which they are worked.

Mr. Rapp is now very old. His son is dead. It remains to be seen what will become of his community, with its immense accumulation of wealth, when it has lost its dictator. It does not appear that they can go on in their present state without a dictator. They smile superciliously upon Mr. Owen's plan, as admitting "a wrong principle,"—marriage. The best hope for them is that they will change their minds on this point, admitting the educational improvements which will arise out of the change, and remaining in community with regard to property. This is the process now in action among the seceders from their body, settled on the opposite bank of the river, a short distance below Economy.

These seceders were beguiled by Count Leon, a stranger, who told the people a great deal that was true about Mr. Rapp, and a great deal that was false about himself. It is a great pity that Count Leon was a swindler; for he certainly opened the eyes of the Economy people to many truths, and might have done all that was wanted, if he had himself been honest. He drew away seventy of the people, and instigated them to demand of Mr. Rapp their share of the accumulated property. It was refused: and a suit was instituted against Mr. Rapp, in whose name the whole is invested. The lawyers compromised the affair, and Mr. Rapp disbursed 120,000 dollars. Count Leon obtained, and absconded with almost the whole, and died in Texas; the burial-place of many more such men. With the remnant of their funds, the seventy seceders purchased land, and settled themselves opposite to Beaver, on the Ohio. They live in community, but abjuring celibacy; and have been joined by some thorough-bred Americans. It will be seen how they prosper.

Though the members of these remarkable communities are far from being the only agriculturists in whom the functions of proprietor and labourer are joined, the junction is in them so peculiar as to make them a separate class, holding a place between the landowners of whom I have before spoken, and the labourers of whom I shall have to treat.

SECTION I.
DISPOSAL OF LAND.

The political economists of England have long wondered why the Americans have not done what older nations would be glad to do, if the opportunity had not gone by;—reserved government lands, which, as it is the tendency of rent to rise, might obviate any future increase of taxation. There are more good reasons than one why this cannot be done in America.

The expenses of the general government are so small that the present difficulty is to reduce the taxation so as to leave no more than a safe surplus revenue in the treasury; and there is no prospect of any increase of taxation; as the taxpayers are likely to grow much faster than the expenses of the government.

The people of the United States choose to be proprietors of land, not tenants. No one can yet foresee the time when the relation of landlord and tenant (except in regard to house property) will be extensively established in America. More than a billion of acres remain to be disposed of first.

The weightiest reason of all is that, in the United States, the people of to-day are the government of to-day; the people of fifty years hence will be the government of fifty years hence; and it would not suit the people of to-day to sequestrate their property for the benefit of their successors, any better than it would suit the people of fifty years hence to be legislated for by those of to-day. A democratic government must always be left free to be operated upon by the will of the majority of the time being. All that the government of the day can do is to ascertain what now appears to be the best principle by which to regulate the disposal of land, and then to let the demand and supply take their natural course.

The methods according to which the disposal of land is carried on are as good as the methods of government almost invariably are in America. The deficiency is in the knowledge of the relation which land bears to other capital and to labour.[14] A few clear-headed men have foreseen the evil of so great a dispersion of the people as has taken place, and have consistently advocated a higher price being set upon land than that at which it is at present sold. Such men are now convinced that evils which seem to bear no more relation to the price of land than the fall of an apple to the motions of the planets, are attributable to the reduction in the price of government lots: that much political blundering, and religious animosity; much of the illegal violence, and much of the popular apathy on the slave question, which have disgraced the country, are owing to the public lands being sold at a minimum price of a dollar and a-quarter per acre. Many excellent leaders of the democratic party think the people at large less fit to govern themselves wisely than they were five-and-twenty years ago. This seems to me improbable; but I believe there is no doubt that the dispersion has hitherto been too great; and that the intellectual and moral, and, of course, the political condition of the people has thereby suffered.

The price of the public lands was formerly two dollars per acre, with credit. It was found to be a bad plan for the constituents of a government to be its debtors; and there was a reduction of the price to a dollar and a quarter, without credit. In forty years, above forty millions of acres have been sold. The government cannot arbitrarily raise the price. If any check is given to the process of dispersion, it must arise from the people perceiving the true state of their own case, and acting accordingly.

Some circumstances seem at present to favour the process of enlightenment; others are adverse to it. Those which are favourable are, the high prosperity of manufactures and commerce, the essential requisite of which is the concentration of labourers: the increasing immigration of labourers from Europe, and the happy experience which they force upon the back settler of the advantage of an increased proportion of labour to land; and the approaching crisis of the slavery question; when every one will see the necessity of measures which will keep the slaves where they are. Of the extraordinary, and I must think, often wilful error of taking for granted that all the slaves must be removed, in order to the abolition of slavery, I shall have to speak elsewhere.

The circumstances unfavourable to an understanding of the true state of the case about the disposal of land are, the deep-rooted persuasion that land itself is the most valuable wealth, in all places, and under all circumstances: and the complication of interests connected with the late acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, and the present usurpation of Texas.

Louisiana was obtained from the French, not on account of the fertile new land which it comprehended, but because it was essential to the very existence of the United States that the mouth of the Mississippi should not be in the possession of another people. The Americans obtained the mouth of the Mississippi; and with it, unfortunately, large tracts of the richest virgin soil, on which slavery started into new life, and on which "the perspiration of the eastern States" (as I have heard the settlers of the west called) rested, and grew barbarous while they grew rich. A fact has lately transpired in the northern States which was already well known in the south,—that the purchase of Florida was effected for the sake of the slave-holders. It is now known that the President was overwhelmed with letters from slave-owners, complaining that Florida was the refuge of their runaways; and demanding that this retreat should be put within their power. Florida was purchased. Many and great evils have already arisen out of its acquisition. To cover these, and blind the people to the particular and iniquitous interests engaged in the affair, the sordid faction benefited raises a perpetual boast in the ears of the people about their gain of new territory, and the glory and profit of having added so many square miles to their already vast possessions.

In the eyes of those of the people who do not yet see the whole case, the only evil which has arisen out of the possession of Florida, is the Seminole warfare. They breathe an intense hatred against the Seminole Indians; and many fine young men have gone down into Florida, and lost their lives in battle, without being aware that they were fighting for oppressors against the oppressed. Probably few of the United States troops who fell in the late Seminole war knew how the strife arose. According to the laws of the slave States, the children of the slaves follow the fortunes of the mother. It will be seen, at a glance, what consequences follow from this; how it operates as a premium upon licentiousness among white men; how it prevents any but mock marriages among slaves; and also what effect it must have upon any Indians with whom slave women have taken refuge. The late Seminole war arose out of this law. The escaped slaves had intermarried with the Indians. The masters claimed the children. The Seminole fathers would not deliver them up. Force was used to tear the children from their parents' arms, and the Indians began their desperate, but very natural work of extermination. They have carried on the war with eminent success, St. Augustine, the capital, being now the only place in Florida where the whites can set their foot. Of course, the poor Indians will ultimately succumb, however long they may maintain the struggle: but, before that, the American people may possibly have learned enough of the facts of the case to silence those who boast of the acquisition of Florida, as an increase of the national glory.

It would be a happy thing for them if they should know all soon enough to direct their national reprobation upon the Texan adventurers, and wash their hands of the iniquity of that business. This would soon be done, if they could look upon the whole affair from a distance, and see how the fair fame of their country is compromised by the avarice and craft of a faction. The probity of their people, their magnanimity in money matters, have always been conspicuous, from the time of the cession of their lands by the States to the General Government, till now: and, now they seem in danger of forfeiting their high character through the art of the few, and the ignorance of the many. The few are obtaining their end by flattering the passion of the many for new territory, as well as by engaging their best feelings on behalf of those who are supposed to be fighting for their rights against oppressors. There is yet hope. The knowledge of the real state of the case is spreading; and, if only time can be gained, the Americans will yet be saved from the eternal disgrace of adding Texas to their honourable Union.

The brief account which I shall give of what is prematurely called the acquisition of Texas, is grounded partly on historical facts, open to the knowledge of all; and partly on what I had the opportunity of learning at New Orleans, from some leaders and agents in the Texan cause, who did what they could to enlist my judgment and sympathies on behalf of their party. I went in entire ignorance of the whole matter. My first knowledge of it was derived from the persons above-mentioned, whose objects were to obtain the good-will of such English as they could win over; to have their affairs well spoken of in London; and to get the tide of respectable English emigration turned in their direction. With me they did not succeed: with some others they did. Several English are already buried in Texas; and there are others whose repentance that they ever were beguiled into aiding such a cause will be far worse than death. The more I heard of the case from the lips of its advocates, the worse I thought of it: and my reprobation of the whole scheme has grown with every fact which has come out since.

Texas, late a province of Mexico, and then one of its confederated States, lies adjacent to Louisiana. The old Spanish government seem to have had some foresight as to what might happen, to judge by the jealousy with which they guarded this part of their country from intrusion by the Americans. The Spanish Captain-general of the internal provinces, Don Nemisio Salcedo, used to say that he would, if he could, stop the birds from flying over the boundary between Texas and the United States. Prior to 1820, however, a few adventurers, chiefly Indian traders, had dropped over the boundary line and remained unmolested in the eastern corner of Texas. In 1820, Moses Austin, of Missouri, was privileged by the Spanish authorities to introduce three hundred orderly, industrious families, professing the Catholic religion, as settlers into Texas. Moses Austin died; and his son Stephen prosecuted the scheme. Before possession of the land was obtained, the Mexican Revolution occurred; but the new government confirmed the privilege granted by the old one, with some modifications. The chief of the settlers and his followers were liberally enriched with lands, gratis; on the conditions of their occupying them; of their professing the Catholic religion; and of their being obedient to the laws of the country.

Other persons were tempted by Austin's success to apply for grants. Many obtained them, and disposed of their grants to joint stock companies; so that Texas became the scene of much land-speculation. The companies began to be busy about "stock" and "scrip," which they proffered as preparatory titles to land; and a crowd of ignorant and credulous persons, and of gamblers, thus became greedy after lands which no more belonged to any Americans than Ireland.

Leave was given to the actual settlers by the Mexican Government to introduce, for ten years, duty free, all articles, not contraband, that were necessary for their use and comfort. Under this permission, much smuggling went on: and many adventurers settled in Texas for the very purpose of supplying the neighbouring Indian tribes with contraband articles. Arms and ammunition were plentifully furnished to the savages; and slaves to the settlers; though slavery had been abolished in the country, by whose laws the settlers had engaged to live.

The next step was, an offer on the part of the United States Government to purchase Texas, in order to incorporate it with the Union. The offer was instantly and indignantly rejected by the Mexicans. It may seem surprising that even with the passion for territory that the people of the United States have, they should desire to purchase Texas, while above a billion of acres of land at home were still unoccupied. Slavery is found to be the solution of this, as of almost every other absurdity and unpleasant mystery there. Slavery answers only on a virgin soil, and under certain conditions of the supply of labour. It is destined to die out of the States which it has impoverished, and which come most closely into contrast with those which are flourishing under free labour. It is evidently destined soon to be relinquished by Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware; and not very long afterwards, by the Carolinas, and perhaps Tennessee. The proprietors of slaves have a double purpose in acquiring new territory: to obtain a fresh field for the labour of the slaves they possess; and, (what is at least as important,) to keep up the equality of the representation of the slave and free States in Congress. We have before seen that there is a provision against the introduction of slavery into the lands north-west of the Ohio. When to the representation of the new States of this region, shall be joined that of the old States which relinquish slavery, the remaining slave States will be in a hopeless minority in Congress, unless a representation from new slave regions can be provided. Texas is to be obtained first; and, if desirable, to be divided into several States; and afterwards, the aggressions on the Mexican territory will doubtless be repeated, as often as a new area for slave labour is wanted; and an accession of representation, for the support of slavery, is needed in Congress. Thus it happens that a host of land-speculators, adventurers and slave-owners have, for a long series of years, been interested in the acquisition of Texas.

On the refusal of the Mexican Government to sell Texas, the newspapers of the slave-holding portion of the United States began to indicate methods of obtaining the territory, and to advocate the use of any means for so desirable an object. The agent of the United States at the Mexican capital is believed to have been instigated by his government to intrigue for the purpose which could not be obtained by negotiation. The settlers in Texas made it known along the Mississippi that they might soon be strong enough to establish slavery openly, in defiance of Mexico. This brought in an accession of slave-holding settlers, who evaded the Mexican laws, by calling their slaves "apprentices for ninety-nine years." The Mexicans took alarm; decreed in the State Legislature of Texas that no apprenticeship should, on any pretence, be for a longer term than ten years; forbade further immigration from the United States; and sent a small body of troops to enforce the prohibition. This was in 1829 and 1830.

In 1832, the Mexican troops were unfortunately wanted near the capital, and called in from the frontiers and colonies. The settlers shut up the custom-houses in their part of the country, and defied the laws as much as they pleased. Then a great number of restless, bad spirits began to pour into Texas from the whole of the United States; men who had to fly from their creditors, or from the pursuit of justice. There was probably never seen a more ferocious company of ruffians than Texas contains at this moment. These men, who had nothing to lose, now set to work to wrench the territory from the hands of the Mexicans. They actually proceeded, in 1833, to organize a State Government; opposed earnestly but feebly by the honest, original settlers, who were satisfied with the contract under which they had settled, and had everything to lose by the breach of it. A Convention was called, to prepare a State Constitution, which Stephen Austin had the audacity to carry to the Mexican capital, to pray for its ratification by the Mexican Congress. After some time, he was committed to prison on a charge of treasonable conspiracy. He was still in prison when I was at New Orleans, in May, 1835; and no one of the persons who conversed with me on Texan affairs alluded to the fact. They spoke of him as if living and acting among the settlers. He wrote to the colonists from his prison, advising strict obedience to the Mexican laws; and, finally, gave his promise to the government to promote order in the colonies; and was dismissed, by the clemency of the administration, without further punishment than an imprisonment of nearly two years.

The wilder adventurers among the settlers had chafed at his advice, but found it necessary to be quiet for a time. The Mexican government put too much trust in them on this account, and restored, during Austin's imprisonment, the freedom of immigration, on the old conditions. The liberty was again shamelessly abused. Slaves were imported from Africa, via Cuba, and illegal land speculations were carried on with more vigour than ever. Troops were again sent from the capital to re-open the custom-houses, and enforce their regulations. But it was now too late.

It had long been a settled agreement between the Texan adventurers and many slave-holders of the south, that if slavery could no otherwise be perpetuated in Texas, it should be done by the seizure of that province; all possible aid being given by the residents in the United States, who were a party to the agreement. This was avowed by the adventurers in Texas; and the avowal has been justified by the subscriptions of money, arms, and stores, which have been sent through New Orleans; the companies of volunteers that have given their strength to the bad cause; and the efforts of members of Congress from the south to hurry on the recognition of the independence of Texas by the United States Government. It was with shame and grief that I heard, while I was in New York, last spring, of the public meeting there, which had been got up by men who should have put the influence of their names to a better use,—a public meeting in behalf of the Texan adventurers, where high-sounding common-places had been played off about patriotism, fighting for the dearest rights of man, and so forth. The purpose was, I believe, answered for the time. The price of stock rose; and subscriptions were obtained. The Texan cause was then in the lowest state of depression. It soon revived, in consequence of an unfortunate defeat of the Mexicans, and the capture of the President of their republic, Santa Anna. This, again, was made to serve as the occasion of a public dinner at New York, when some eminent members of Congress were passing through, to the Springs, in the summer. The time will come when those gentlemen will look back upon their speeches at that dinner as among the deeds which, dying, they would most wish to blot. By this time, however, the true character of the struggle was beginning to be extensively recognised: and, day by day, the people of the United States have been since awakening to the knowledge of how they have been cheated in having their best sympathies called forth in behalf of the worst of causes. The great fear is, lest this should prove to be too late; lest, the United States having furnished the means by which the usurpation of Texas has been achieved, the people of the Union should be persuaded that they must follow their common, and otherwise fair rule, of acknowledging the independence of all States that are de facto independent, without having anything to do with the question de jure.

What has been the national conduct of the United States on this great question? The government has been very nearly impartial. It must be allowed that factions and individuals were already doing so much that, if the government wished all possible success to the Texans, it could hardly do better than be quiet while they were receiving the aid of its constituents. While the theft of Texas has been achieved, (if it be achieved,) by United States men, money and arms, the general government has been officially regarding it as ostensibly and actually a foreign affair. However much may be true of the general belief in the interest of its members in the success of the Texan aggression, the government has preserved a cool and guarded tone throughout; and the only act that I know of for which it can be blamed is for not removing General Gaines from his command on the frontier, on his manifestation of partisanship on the Texan side. General Gaines was ordered to protect the settlers on the south-western frontier, who might be in danger from the Mexicans, and from the fierce Indians who were engaged on the Mexican side of the quarrel. General Gaines wrote to head quarters of his intentions of crossing, to attack the Mexicans, not only the inner bounds of the United States territory, but the disputed boundary, claimed by the United States, and disallowed by Mexico. Immediate orders were despatched to him to do no such thing; to confine himself, except in a strong emergency, to the inner boundary; and on no account whatever to cross the disputed line. This was not enough. An officer who had shown himself so indisposed to the neutrality professed by his government, should have been sent where he could indulge his partialities with less hazard to the national honour.

Some senators from the south pressed, last session, with indecent haste, for the recognition of the independence of Texas. The speech of Ex-President Adams remains as an eternal rebuke to such.[15] This speech was the most remarkable individual act of the session; and no session has been distinguished by one more honourable. There was no attempt at a reply to it, in or out of either House. Mr. Adams left no resource to the advocates of the Texan cause but abuse of himself: the philosophy of which he, no doubt, understood as well as other people. Various public men, in various public assemblies, have declared their desire for the success of the Texans; and have joined with this the avowal that the value of slaves will rise fifty per cent, as soon as the independence of Texas is acknowledged.

The war is not yet over. The vicissitudes have been so great,—each party has appeared at times in so hopeless a condition, that the friends of American honour, and the foes of slavery, do not yet despair of the ultimate expulsion of the aggressors, and the restoration of Texas to Mexico. If these hopes must be surrendered,—if slavery is to be re-established on a constitutional basis, in a vast territory where it had been actually abolished,—if a new impulse is thus to be given to the traffic in native Africans,[16]—if the fair fame of the Anglo-Americans is to be thus early, and thus deeply stained, good men must rouse themselves the more to enlighten the ignorance through which the misfortune has happened. They must labour to exhibit the truth, keeping unshaken their faith in the theory of their constitution that "the majority will be in the right."

It is much to be feared that, even if Texas were acknowledged to-morrow to be a Mexican State, an injury would be found to have been done to the American people, which it will take a long time and much experience to repair. No pains have been spared to confirm the delusion, that the possession of more and more land is the only thing to be desired, alike by the selfish and the patriotic; by those who would hastily build up their own fortunes, and by those who desire the aggrandisement of their country. No one mourned with me more earnestly over this popular delusion than a member of Congress, who has since been one of the most vehement advocates of the Texan cause, and has thereby done his best to foster the delusion. He told me that the metaphysics of society in the south afford a curious study to the observer; and that they are humbling to a resident. He told me that, so far from the honour and happiness of any region being supposed to lie in the pursuit of the higher objects of life, any man would be pronounced "imbecile" who, having enough for his moderate wants, should prefer the enjoyment of his patrimony, his family relations, and intercourse with the society in which he was brought up, to wandering away in pursuit of more land. He complained that he was heart-sick when he heard of American books: that there was no character of permanence in anything;—all was fluctuation, except the passion for land, which, under the name of enterprise, or patriotism; or something else that was creditable, would last till his countrymen had pushed their out-posts to the Pacific. He insisted that the only consolation arose from what was to be hoped when pioneering must, perforce, come to a stop. He told me of one and another of his intelligent and pleasant young neighbours, who were quitting their homes and civilised life, and carrying their brides "as bondwomen" into the wilderness, because fine land was cheap there. If all this be true of the young gentry of the south, as I believe it is, what hope is there that the delusion will not long remain among those who have no other guides than Experience;—that slowest of all teachers?

The people of the United States have, however, kept their eyes open to one great danger, arising from this love of land. They have always had in view the disadvantage of rich men purchasing tracts larger than they could cultivate. They saw that it was contrary to the public interest that individuals should be allowed to interpose a desert between other settlers whose welfare depends much on their having means of free communication, and a peopled neighbourhood; and that it is inconsistent with republican modes that overgrown fortunes should arise by means of an early grasping of large quantities of a cheap kind of property, which must inevitably become of the highest value in course of time. The reduction in the price of land would probably have been greater, but for the temptation which the cheapening would hold out to capitalists. Another reason assigned for not still further lowering the price is, the danger of depreciating a kind of property held by the largest proportion of the people. This is obviously unsound; since the property held by this large proportion of the people is improved land, whose relation in value to other kinds of property is determined by quite other circumstances than the amount of the original purchase-money. The number of people who sell again unimproved land is so small as not to be worthy to enter into the account.

Large grants of land have been made to schools and colleges. Upwards of eight millions of acres have, I believe, been thus disposed of. There seems no objection to this, at the time it was done; as there can be no doubt that grants will be cultivated that have such an interest hanging on their cultivation. These grants were made while there was a national debt. Now, there is a surplus revenue; and appropriations of this kind had better be made henceforth from the money which has arisen from the sale of land than in a way which would force more land into the market. It is to be hoped, too, that no more recompenses for public service will be offered in land, like the large grants which were made to soldiers after the revolutionary war. The soldiers have disposed of their lands much under the governmental price, in order to obtain a sale; and the hurtful dispersion of settlers, and the sale of tracts too large to be well-cultivated, have been thereby assisted.

The great question incessantly repeated throughout the United States is, what is to be done with the immense amount of land remaining unsold; and with the perpetually increasing revenue arising from the sale, as it proceeds? Various propositions are afloat,—none of which appear to me so wise as some which remain to be offered. One proposition is to divide the lands again among the States, apportioning the amount according to the representation in Congress, or to the population as given by the last census. Besides the difficulty of making the apportionment fairly, this plan would afford fatal inducements to a greater dispersion of people than has yet taken place. It is also argued that no constitutional power exists by which the cession of 1787 can be reversed.

Another proposition is, to let the sale of lands go on as it does now, and divide the proceeds among the several States, for purposes of Education, Colonisation of the coloured race, and Internal Improvements. Under such a plan, there would be endless disputes about the amounts to be paid over to the different States. The general government would have a new and dangerous function assigned to it. Besides, as much of the surplus revenue is derived from duties, it seems a shorter and more natural method to leave off levying money that is not wanted, than to levy it, use it, and make a distribution of other funds among the States. This subject will, however, come under consideration hereafter.

Others propose that nothing should be done: that the lands should go on being sold according to the present demand, and the proceeds to accumulate, till some accident happens,—a war, or other expensive adventure,—to help to dissipate them. The first part of the proposition will probably stand good: for it seems a difficult thing to raise the price of land again:—an impossible thing, till the people shall show that they understand the case by demanding an increase of price: but the second part of the proposition cannot be acceded to. It is inconsistent with the first principles of democracy that large sums of money should accumulate in the hands of the general government. The accumulation must be disposed of, and the sources of revenue restrained.

There are modes of advantageously disposing of the surplus revenue which are obvious to those whose economical experience is precisely the reverse of that of the people of the United States. They are not likely to be at present assented to,—perhaps even to be tolerated by the inhabitants of the new world. Such as they are, they will be presented in the next section.

The lowest price given of late for land, that I heard of, was a quarter-dollar per acre; (for these are not times when three thousand acres are to be had for a rifle; and a whole promontory for a suit of clothes.) Some good land may be still had, at a distance from roads and markets, from those who want to turn their surplus land into money, for a quarter-dollar per acre. Some that I saw in New Hampshire under these circumstances has advanced in five years to a dollar and a half per acre: and some of about equal quality, about fifteen miles nearer to a market, sold at the same time for ten dollars per acre. I saw some low land, on the banks of the river, near Pittsburg, which would not sell at any price a few years ago, when salt was brought over the mountains on pack-horses, and sold at a dollar a quart. Now salt is obtained in any quantity by digging near this land; and the meadow is parted into lots of ten acres each, which sell at the rate of one thousand dollars per acre. This is, no doubt, in prospect of the salt-works which are destined to flourish here. The highest price I heard of being given (unless in a similar case in New York) was for street lots in Mobile; one hundred and ten dollars per foot frontage.

For agricultural purposes, the price of land varies, according to its fertility, and, much more, to its vicinity to a market, in a manner which cannot easily be specified. I think the highest price I heard of was fifteen hundred dollars per acre. This was in the south. In the north and west, I heard of prices varying from thirty to one hundred dollars, even in somewhat retired situations. One thing seems to be granted on all hands: that a settler cannot fail of success, if he takes good land, in a healthy situation, at the government price. If he bestows moderate pains on his lot, he may confidently reckon on its being worth at least double at the end of the year: much more, if there are growing probabilities of a market.

The methods according to which the sales of the public lands in the United States are conducted are excellent. The lots are so divided as to preclude all doubt and litigation about boundaries. There is a general land-office at Washington, and a subordinate one in each district, where all business can be transacted with readiness and exactitude. Periodical sales are made of lands which it is desirable to bring into the market. These are disposed of to the highest bidder. The advance of the population into the wilderness is thus made more regular than it would be if there were not a rendezvous in each district, where it could be ascertained how the settlement of the neighbouring country was going on; titles are made more secure; and less impunity is allowed to fraud.

The pre-emption laws, originally designed for the benefit of poor settlers, have been the greatest provocatives to fraud. It seemed hard that a squatter, who had settled himself on unoccupied land, and done it nothing but good, should be turned off without remuneration, or compelled to purchase his own improvements; and in 1830, a bill was therefore passed, granting a pre-emption right to squatters who had taken such possession of unsold lands. It provided that when two individuals had cultivated a quarter section of land, (one hundred and sixty acres,) each should have a pre-emption right with regard to half the cultivated portion: and each also to a pre-emption of eighty acres anywhere else in the same land district. Of course, abundance of persons took advantage of this law to get the best land very cheap. Two men, by merely cutting down, or blazing a few trees, or "camping out" for a night or two, on a good quarter-section, have secured it at the minimum price. A Report to Congress states that there is reason to believe that "large companies have been founded, who procure affidavits of improvements to be made, get the warrants issued upon them, and whenever a good tract of land is ready for sale, cover it over with their floats, (warrants of the required habitation,) and thus put down competition. The frauds upon the public, within the past year, (1835,) from this single source, have arisen to many millions of dollars." Such errors in matters of detail are sure to be corrected soon after being discovered. The means will speedily be found of showing a due regard to the claims of squatters, without precipitating the settlement of land by unfairly reducing its price in the market. Whatever methods may tend to lessen rather than to increase the facilities for occupying new land, must, on the whole, be an advantage, while the disproportion between land and labour is so great as it now is in the western regions of the United States.

SECTION II.
RURAL LABOUR.

English farmers settling in the United States used to be a joke to their native neighbours. The Englishman began with laughing, or being shocked, at the slovenly methods of cultivation employed by the American settlers: he was next seen to look grave on his own account; and ended by following the American plan.

The American ploughs round the stumps of the trees he has felled, and is not very careful to measure the area he ploughs, and the seed he sows. The Englishman clears half the quantity of land,—clears it very thoroughly; ploughs deep, sows thick, raises twice the quantity of grain on half the area of land, and points proudly to his crop. But the American has, meantime, fenced, cleared, and sown more land, improved his house and stock, and kept his money in his pocket. The Englishman has paid for the labour bestowed on his beautiful fields more than his fine crop repays him. When he has done thus for a few seasons, till his money is gone, he learns that he has got to a place where it answers to spend land to save labour; the reverse of his experience in England; and he soon becomes as slovenly a farmer as the American, and begins immediately to grow rich.

It would puzzle a philosopher to compute how long some prejudices will subsist in defiance of, not only evidence, but personal experience. These same Americans, who laugh (reasonably enough) at the prejudiced English farmer, seem themselves incapable of being convinced on a point quite as plain as that between him and themselves. The very ground of their triumph over him is their knowledge of the much smaller value of land, and greater value of labour, in America than in England: and yet there is no one subject on which so many complaints are to be heard from every class of American society as the immigration of foreigners. The incapacity of men to recognise blessings in disguise has been the theme of moralists in all ages: but it might be expected that the Americans, in this case, would be an exception. It is wonderful, to a stranger, to see how they fret and toil, and scheme and invent, to supply the deficiency of help, and all the time quarrel with the one means by which labour is brought to their door. The immigration of foreigners was the one complaint by which I was met in every corner of the free States; and I really believe I did not converse with a dozen persons who saw the ultimate good through the present apparent evil.

It is not much to be wondered at that gentlemen and ladies, living in Boston and New York, and seeing, for the first time in their lives, half-naked and squalid persons in the street, should ask where they come from, and fear lest they should infect others with their squalor, and wish they would keep away. It is not much to be wondered at that the managers of charitable institutions in the maritime cities should be weary of the claims advanced by indigent foreigners: but it is surprising that these gentlemen and ladies should not learn by experience that all this ends well, and that matters are taking their natural course. It would certainly be better that the emigrants should be well clothed, educated, respectable people; (except that, in that case, they would probably never arrive;) but the blame of their bad condition rests elsewhere, while their arrival is, generally speaking, almost a pure benefit. Some are intemperate and profligate; and such are, no doubt, a great injury to the cities where they harbour; but the greater number show themselves decent and hardworking enough, when put into employment. Every American acknowledges that few or no canals or railroads would be in existence now, in the United States, but for the Irish labour by which they have been completed: and the best cultivation that is to be seen in the land is owing to the Dutch and Germans it contains. What would housekeepers do for domestic service without foreigners? If the American ports had been barred against immigration, and the sixty thousand foreigners per annum, with all their progeny, had been excluded, where would now have been the public works of the United States, the agriculture, the shipping?

The most emphatic complainers of the immigration of foreigners are those who imagine that the morals of society suffer thereby. My own conviction is that the morals of society are, on the whole, thereby much improved. It is candidly allowed, on all hands, that the passion of the Irish for the education of their children is a great set-off against the bad qualities some of them exhibit in their own persons; and that the second and third generations of Irish are among the most valuable citizens of the republic. The immigrant Germans are more sober and respectable than the Irish; but there is more difficulty in improving them and their children. The Scotch are in high esteem. My own opinion is that most of the evils charged upon the immigrants are chargeable upon the mismanagement of them in the ports. The atrocious corruption of the New York elections, where an Irishman, just landed, and employed upon the drains, perjures himself, and votes nine times over, is chargeable, not upon immigration, nor yet upon universal suffrage, but upon faults in the machinery of registration. Again, if the great pauper-palace, over the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, be half full of foreigners; if it be true that an Irish woman was seen to walk round it, and heard to observe that she should immediately write over for all her relations; the evil is chargeable upon there being a pauper-palace, with the best of food and clothing, and no compulsion to work, in a country where there is far more work and wages than there are hands to labour and earn. There is in New York a benevolent gentleman who exercises a most useful and effectual charity. He keeps a kind of registry office for the demand and supply of emigrant labour; takes charge of the funds of such emigrants as are fortunate enough to have any; and befriends them in every way. He declares that he has an average of six situations on his list ready for every sober, able-bodied man and woman that lands at New York.

The bad moral consequences of a dispersion of agricultural labour, and the good moral effects of an adequate combination, are so serious as to render it the duty of good citizens to inform themselves fully of the bearings of this question before they attempt to influence other minds upon it. Those who have seen what are the morals and manners of families who live alone in the wilds, with no human opinion around them, no neighbours with whom to exchange good offices, no stimulus to mental activity, no social amusements, no church, no life, nothing but the pursuit of the outward means of living,—any one who has witnessed this will be ready to agree what a blessing it would be to such a family to shake down a shower of even poor Irish labourers around them. To such a family no tidings ought to be more welcome than of the arrival of ship-load after ship-load of immigrants at the ports, some few of whom may wander hitherwards, and by entering into a combination of labour to obtain means of living, open a way to the attainment of the ends. Sixty thousand immigrants a-year! What are these spread over so many thousand square miles? If the country could be looked down upon from a balloon, some large clusters of these would be seen detained in the cities, because they could not be spared into the country; other clusters would be seen about the canals and railroads; and a very slight sprinkling in the back country, where their stations would be marked by the prosperity growing up around them.

The expedients used in the country settlements to secure a combination of labour when it is absolutely necessary, show how eminently deficient it is. Every one has heard of the "frolic" or "bee," by means of which the clearing of lots, the raising of houses, the harvesting of crops is achieved. Roads are made, and kept by contributions of labour and teams, by settlers. For the rest, what can be done by family labour alone is so done, with great waste of time, material, and toil. The wonderful effects of a "frolic," in every way, should serve, in contrast with the toil and difficulty usually expended in producing small results, to incline the hearts of settlers towards immigrants, and to plan how an increase of them may be obtained.

Minds are, I hope, beginning to turn in this direction. In New England, where there is the most combination of labour, and the poorest land, it is amusing to see the beginning of discoveries on this head. I find, in the United States' Almanack for 1835, an article on agricultural improvements, (presupposing a supply of labour as the primary requisite,) which bears all the marks of freshness and originality, of having been a discovery of the writer's.

"If such improvements as are possible, or even easy," (where there is labour at hand,) "were made in the husbandry of this country, many and great advantages would be found to arise. As twice the number of people might be supported on the same quantity of land, all our farming towns would become twice as populous as they are likely to be in the present state of husbandry. There would be, in general, but half the distance to travel to visit one's friends and acquaintances. Friends might oftener see and converse with each other. Half the labour would be saved in carrying the corn to mill, and the produce to market; half the journeying saved in attending our courts; and half the expense in supporting government, and in making and repairing roads; half the distance saved in going to the smith, weaver, clothier, &c.; half the distance saved in going to public worship, and most other meetings; for where steeples are four miles apart, they would be only two or three. Much time, expense and labour would, on these accounts, be saved; and civilisation, with all the social virtues, would, perhaps, be proportionally promoted and increased."

Before this can be done, there must be hands to do it. Steeples must remain four or fourteen miles apart, till there are beings enough in the intervening space to draw them together. I saw, on the Mississippi, a woman in a canoe, paddling up against the stream; probably, as I was told, to visit a neighbour twenty or thirty miles off. The only comfort was that the current would bring her back four times as quickly as she went up. What a blessing would a party of emigrant neighbours be to a woman who would row herself twenty miles against the stream of the Mississippi for companionship!

Instead of complaining of the sixty thousand emigrants per annum, and lowering the price of land, so as to induce dispersion, it would be wise, if it were possible, in the people of the United States to bring in sixty thousand more labourers per annum, and raise the price of land. This last cannot, perhaps, be done: but why should not the other? With a surplus revenue that they do not know what to do with, and a scarcity of the labour which they do not know how to do without, why not use the surplus funds accruing from the lands in carrying labour to the soil?

It is true, Europeans have the same passion for land as the Americans; and such immigrants would leave their employers, and buy for themselves, as soon as they had earned the requisite funds: but these, again, would supply the means of bringing over more labour; and the intermediate services of the labourers would be so much gained. If the arrangements were so made as to bring over sober, respectable labourers, without their being in any way bound to servitude, (as a host of poor Germans once were made white slaves of,) if, the land and labour being once brought together, and repayment from the benefited parties being secured, (if desired,) things were then left to take their natural course, a greater blessing could hardly befal the United States than such an importation of labourers.

I was told, in every eastern city, that it was a common practice with parish officers in England to ship off their paupers to the United States. I took some pains to investigate the grounds of this charge, and am convinced that it is a mistake; that the accusation has arisen out of some insulated case. I was happy to be able to show my American friends how the supposed surplus population of the English agricultural counties has shrunk, and in most cases disappeared, under the operation of the new Poor Law, so that, even if the charge had ever been true, it could not long remain so. By the time that we shall be enabled to say the same of the parishes of Ireland, the Americans will, doubtless, have discovered that they would be glad of all the labourers we had ever been able to spare; if only we could send them in the form of respectable men and women, instead of squalid paupers, looking as if they were going from shore to shore, to rouse the world to an outcry against the sins and sorrows of our economy.

It will scarcely be credited by those who are not already informed on the subject, that a proposition has been made to send out of the country an equal number of persons to the amount brought into it; ship loads of labourers going to and fro, like buckets in a well: that this proposition has been introduced into Congress, and has been made the basis of appropriations in some State legislatures: that itinerant lecturers are employed to advocate the scheme: that it is preached from the pulpit, and subscribed for in the churches, and that in its behalf are enlisted members of the administration, a great number of the leading politicians, clergy, merchants, and planters, and a large proportion of the other citizens of the United States. It matters little how many or how great are the men engaged in behalf of a bad scheme, which is so unnatural that it cannot but fail:—it matters little, as far as the scheme itself is concerned; but it is of incalculable consequence as creating an obstruction. For itself, the miserable abortion—the Colonisation scheme—might be passed over; for its active results will be nothing; but it is necessary to refer to it in its passive character of an obstruction. It is necessary to refer thus to it, not only as a matter of fact, but because, absurd and impracticable as the scheme clearly is, when viewed in relation to the whole state of affairs in America, it is not so easy on the spot to discern its true character. So many perplexing considerations are mixed up with it by its advocates; so many of those advocates are men of earnest philanthropy, and well versed in the details of the scheme, while blind to its general bearing, that it is difficult to have general principles always in readiness to meet opposing facts; to help adopting the partial views of well-meaning and thoroughly persuaded persons; and to know where to doubt, and what to disbelieve. I went to America extremely doubtful about the character of this institution. I heard at Baltimore and Washington all that could be said in its favour, by persons conversant with slavery, which I had not then seen. Mr. Madison, the President of the Colonisation Society, gave me his favourable views of it. Mr. Clay, the Vice-President, gave me his. So did almost every clergyman and other member of society whom I met for some months. Much time, observation, and reflection were necessary to form a judgment for myself, after so much prepossession, even in so clear a case as I now see this to be. Others on the spot must have the same allowance as was necessary for me: and, if any pecuniary interest be involved in the question, much more. But, I am firmly persuaded that any clear-headed man, shutting himself up in his closet for a day's study of the question, or taking a voyage, so as to be able to look back upon the entire country he has left,—being careful to take in the whole of its economical aspect, (to say nothing, at present, of the moral,) can come to no other conclusion than that the scheme of transporting the coloured population of the United States to the coast of Africa is absolutely absurd; and, if it were not so, would be absolutely pernicious. But, in matters of economy, the pernicious and the absurd are usually identical.

No one is to be blamed for the origin of slavery. Because it is now, under conviction, wicked, it does not follow that it was instituted in wickedness. Those who began it, knew not what they did. It has been elsewhere[17] ably shown how slavery has always, and, to all appearance, unavoidably existed, in some form or other, wherever large new tracts of land have been taken possession of by a few agricultural settlers. Let it be granted that negro slavery was begun inadvertently in the West India islands, and continued, by an economical necessity, in the colonies of North America.

What is now the state of the case? Slavery, of a very mild kind, has been abolished in the northern parts of the Union, where agricultural labour can be carried on by whites, and where such employments bear a very reduced proportion to manufacturing and commercial occupations. Its introduction into the north-western portions of the country has been prohibited by those who had had experience of its evils. Slavery, generally of a very aggravated character, now subsists in thirteen States out of twenty-six, and those thirteen are the States which grow the tobacco, rice, cotton and sugar; it being generally alleged that rice and sugar cannot be raised by white labour, while some maintain that they may. I found few who doubted that tobacco and cotton may be grown by white labour, with the assistance from brute labour and machinery which would follow upon the disuse of human capital; The amount of the slave population is now above two millions and a half. It increases rapidly in the States which have been impoverished by slavery; and is killed off; but not with equal rapidity, on the virgin soils to which alone it is, in any degree, appropriate. It has become unquestionably inappropriate in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Kentucky. To these I should be disposed to add Missouri, and North Carolina, and part of Tennessee and South Carolina. The States which have more slave labour than their deteriorated lands require, sell it to those which have a deficiency of labour to their rich lands. Virginia, now in a very depressed condition, derives her chief revenue from the rearing of slaves, as stock, to be sent to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The march of circumstance has become too obvious to escape the attention of the most short-sighted. No one can fail to perceive that slavery, like an army of locusts, is compelled to shift its place, by the desolation it has made. Its progress is southwards; and now, having reached the sea there, south-westwards. If there were but an impassable barrier there, its doom would be certain, and not very remote. This doom was apparently sealed a while ago, by the abolition of slavery in Mexico, and the fair chance there seemed of Missouri and Arkansas being subjected to a restriction of the same purport with that imposed on the new States, north-west of the Ohio. This doom has been, for the present, cancelled by the admission of slavery into Missouri and Arkansas, and by the seizure of Texas by American citizens. The open question, however, only regards its final limits. Its speedy abolition in many of the States may be, and is, regarded as certain.

The institution of slavery was a political anomaly at the time of the Revolution. It has now become an economical one also. Nothing can prevent the generality of persons from seeing this, however blind a few, a very few persons on the spot may be to the truth.[18]

It has thus obviously become the interest of all to whom slavery still is, or is believed to be, a gain; of those who hold the richest lands; of those who rear slaves for such lands; of all who dread change; of all who would go quietly through life, and leave it to a future generation to cope with their difficulty,—it has become the interest of all such to turn their own attention and that of others from the fact that the time has come when the slaves ought to be made free labourers. They cannot put down the fact into utter silence. Some sort of compromise must be made with it. A tub must be thrown to the whale. A tub has been found which will almost hold the whale.

It is proposed by the Colonisation Society that free persons of colour shall be sent to establish and conduct a civilised community on the shores of Africa. The variety of prospects held out by this proposition to persons of different views is remarkable. To the imaginative, there is the picture of the restoration of the coloured race to their paternal soil: to the religious, the prospect of evangelising Africa. Those who would serve God and Mammon are delighted at being able to work their slaves during their own lives, and then leave them to the Colonisation Society with a bequest of money, (when money must needs be left behind,) to carry them over to Africa. Those who would be doing, in a small way, immediately, let certain of their slaves work for wages which are to carry them over to Africa. Those who have slaves too clever or discontented to be safe neighbours, can ship them off to Africa. Those who are afraid of the rising intelligence of their free coloured neighbours, or suffer strongly under the prejudice of colour, can exercise such social tyranny as shall drive such troublesome persons to Africa. The clergy, public lecturers, members of legislatures, religious societies, and charitable individuals, both in the north and south, are believed to be, and believe themselves to be, labouring on behalf of slaves, when they preach, lecture, obtain appropriations, and subscribe, on behalf of the Colonisation Society. Minds and hearts are laid to rest,—opiated into a false sleep.

Here are all manner of people associated for one object, which has the primary advantage of being ostensibly benevolent. It has had Mr. Madison for its chief officer: Mr. Clay for its second. It has had the aid, for twenty years, of almost all the presses and pulpits of the United States, and of most of their politicians, members of government, and leading professional men and merchants, and almost all the planters of twelve states, and all the missionary interest. Besides the subscriptions arising from so many sources, there have been large appropriations made by various legislatures. What is the result?—Nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Out of a chaos of elements no orderly creation can arise but by the operation of a sound principle: and sound principle here, there is none.

In twenty years, the Colonisation Society has removed to Africa between two and three thousand persons;[19] while the annual increase of the slave population is, by the lowest computation, sixty thousand; and the number of free blacks is upwards of three hundred and sixty-two thousand.

The chief officers of the Colonisation Society look forward to being able, in a few years, to carry off the present annual increase, and a few more; by which time the annual increase will amount to many times more than the Society will have carried out from the beginning.

The leading Colonisation advocates in the south object to abolition, invariably on the ground that they should be left without labourers: whereas it is the Colonisation scheme which would carry away the labourers, and the abolition scheme which would leave them where they are. To say nothing of the wilfulness of this often-confuted objection, it proves that those who urge it are not in earnest in advocating Colonisation as ultimate emancipation.

As far as I could learn, no leading member of the Colonisation Society has freed any of his slaves. Its president had sold twelve, the week before I first saw him. Its vice-president is obsÉdÉ by his slaves; but retains them all. And so it is, through the whole hierarchy.

The avowal of a southern gentleman,—"We have our slaves, and we mean to keep them,"—is echoed on political occasions by the same gentlemen of the Colonisation Society, who, on politic or religious occasions, treat of colonisation as ultimate emancipation.

While labourers are flocking into other parts of the country, at the rate of sixty thousand per annum, and are found to be far too few for the wants of society, the Colonisation scheme proposes to carry out more than this number; and fails of all its ostensible objects till it does so. A glance at the causes of slavery, and at the present economy of the United States, shows such a scheme to be a bald fiction.

It alienates the attention and will of the people, (for the purposes of the few,) from the principle of the abolition of slavery, which would achieve any honest objects of the Colonisation Society, and many more. Leaving, for the present, the moral consideration of the case, abolition would not only leave the land as full of labourers as it is now, but incalculably augment the supply of labour by substituting willing and active service, and improved methods of husbandry, for the forced, inferior labour, and wasteful arrangements which are always admitted to be co-existent with slavery.

The greater number of eminent Abolitionists,—eminent for talents, zeal and high principle,—are converted Colonisationists.

This is surely enough.

It appears to me that the Colonisation Society could never have gained any ground at all, but for the common supposition that the blacks must go somewhere. It was a long while before I could make anything of this. The argument always ran thus.

"Unless they remain as they are, Africa is the only place for them.—It will not do to give them a territory; we have seen enough of that with the Indians. We are heart-sick of territories: the blacks would all perish.—Then, the climate of Canada would not suit them: they would perish there. The Haytians will not take them in: they have a horror of freed slaves.—There is no rest for the soles of their feet, anywhere but in Africa!"

"Why should they not stay where they are?"

"Impossible. The laws of the States forbid freed negroes to remain."

"At present,—on account of the slaves who remain. In case of abolition, such laws would be repealed, of course: and then, why should not the blacks remain where they are?"

"They could never live among the whites in a state of freedom."

"Why? You are begging the question."

"They would die of vice and misery."

"Why more than the German labourers?"

"They do in the free States. They are dying out there constantly."

"What makes them more vicious than other people?"

"The coloured people always are."

"You mean because their colour is the badge of slavery?"

"Yes."

"Then, when it is no longer so, the degradation, for aught you know, will cease."

This is the circle, described by those who pity the slaves. There is another, appropriate to those who pity the masters.

"What is to become of the planters, without any labourers? They must shut up and go away; for they cannot stay in their houses, without any labourers on the plantations."

"Are the slaves to be all buried? Or are they to evaporate? or what?"

"O, you know, they would all go away. Nothing would make them stay when they were once free."

"They would change masters, no doubt. But as many would remain in the area as before. Why not?"

"The masters could not possibly employ them. They could never manage them, except as slaves."

"So you think that the masters could not have the labourers, because they would go away: and the labourers must go away, because the masters would not have them."

To prevent any escape by a nibble in this circle, the other is brought up round it, to prove that there is no other place than Africa for the blacks to go to: and thus, the alternative of slavery or colonisation is supposed to be established.

All action, and all conversation, on behalf of this institution, bears the same character,—of arguing in a circle. A magic ring seems drawn round those who live amidst slavery; and it gives a circular character to all they think and say and do upon the subject. There are but few who sit within it who distinctly see anything beyond it. If there were but any one moral giant within, who would heave a blow at it with all the force of a mighty principle, it would be shattered to atoms in a moment; and the white and black slaves it encloses would be free at once. This will be done when more light is poured in under the darkness which broods over it: and the time cannot now be far off.

Whenever I am particularly strongly convinced of anything, in opposition to the opinion of any or many others, I entertain a suspicion that there is more evidence on the other side than I see. I felt so, even on this subject of slavery, which has been clear to English eyes for so long. I went into the slave States with this suspicion in my mind; and I preserved it there as long as possible. I believe that I have heard every argument that can possibly be adduced in vindication or palliation of slavery, under any circumstances now existing; and I declare that, of all displays of intellectual perversion and weakness that I have witnessed, I have met with none so humbling and so melancholy as the advocacy of this institution. I declare that I know the whole of its theory;—a declaration that I dare not make with regard to, I think, any other subject whatever: the result is that I believe there is nothing rational to be said in vindication or palliation of the protraction of slavery in the United States.—Having made this avowal; it will not be expected that I should fill my pages with a wide superficies of argument which will no more bear a touch than pond-ice, on the last day of thaw. As I disposed in my mind the opposite arguments of slave-holders, I found that they ate one another up, like the two cats that Sheridan told of; but without leaving so much as an inch of tail.

One mistake, perhaps, deserves notice. Restless slave-holders, whose uneasiness has urged them to struggle in their toils, and find themselves unable to get out but by the loss of everything, (but honour and conscience,) pointed out to me the laws of their States, whereby the manumission of slaves is rendered difficult or impossible to the master, remaining on the spot, and prospectively fatal to the freed slave;—pointed out to me these laws as rendering abolition impossible. To say nothing of the feebleness of the barriers which human regulations present to the changes urged on by the great natural laws of society,—it is a sufficient answer that these State laws present no obstacle to general, though they do to particular, emancipation. They will be cancelled or neglected by the same will which created them, when the occasion expires with which they sprang up, or which they were designed to perpetuate. The institution of slavery was not formed in accordance with them: they arose out of the institution. They are an offset; and, to use the words of one of their advocates, spoken in another connexion, "they will share the fate of offsets, and perish with the parent."

It is obvious that all laws which encourage the departure of the blacks must be repealed, when their slavery is abolished. The one thing necessary, in the economical view of the case, is that efficient measures should be taken to prevent an unwise dispersion of these labourers: measures, I mean, which should in no way interfere with their personal liberty, but which should secure to them generally greater advantages on the spot than they could obtain by roaming. It has been distinctly shown that slavery originated from the difficulty of concentrating labour in the neighbourhood of capitalists. Where the people are few in proportion to the land, they are apt to disperse themselves over it; so that personal coercion has been supposed necessary, in the first instance, to secure any efficient cultivation of the land at all. Though the danger and the supposed necessity are past, in all but the rawest of the slave States, the ancient fact should be so borne in mind as that what legislation there is should tend to cause a concentration, rather than a dispersion of the labourers. Any such tendency will be much aided by the strong local attachments for which negroes are remarkable. It is not only that slaves dread all change, from the intellectual and moral dejection to which they are reduced; fearing even the removal from one plantation to another, under the same master, from the constant vague apprehension of something dreadful. It is not only this, (which, however, it would take them some time to outgrow,) but that all their race show a kind of feline attachment to places to which they are accustomed, which will be of excellent service to kind masters when the day of emancipation comes. For the rest, efficient arrangements can and will doubtless be made to prevent their wandering further than from one master to another. The abolition of slavery must be complete and immediate: that is to say, as a man either is or is not the property of another, as there can be no degrees of ownership of a human being, there must be an immediate and complete surrender of all claim to negro men, women, and children as property: but there may and will doubtless be arrangements made to protect, guide, and teach these degraded beings, till they have learned what liberty is, and how to use it. Liberty to change their masters must, under certain reasonable limitations, be allowed; the education of their children must be enforced. The amount of wages will be determined by natural laws, and cannot be foreseen, further than that they must necessarily be very ample for a long time to come. It will probably be found desirable to fix the price of the government lands, with a view to the coloured people, at that amount which will best obviate squatting, and secure the respectable settlement of some who may find their way to the west.

Suggestions of this kind excite laughter among the masters of slaves, who are in the habit of thinking that they know best what negroes are, and what they are capable of. I have reasons for estimating their knowledge differently, and for believing that none know so little of the true character and capabilities of negroes as their owners. They might know more, but for the pernicious and unnatural secrecy about some of the most important facts connected with slave-holding, which is induced partly by pride, partly by fear, partly by pecuniary interest. If they would do themselves and their slaves the justice of inquiring with precision what is the state of Hayti; what has taken place in the West Indies; what the emancipation really was there; what its effects actually are, they would obtain a clearer view of their own prospects. So they would, if they would communicate freely about certain facts nearer home: not only conversing as individuals, but removing the restrictions upon the press by which they lose far more than they gain, both in security and fortune,—to say nothing of intelligence. Of the many families in which I enjoyed intercourse, there was, I believe, none where I was not told of some one slave of unusual value, for talent or goodness, either in the present or a former generation. A collection of these alone, as they stand in my journal, would form no mean testimony to the intellectual and moral capabilities of negroes: and if to these were added the tales which I could tell, if I also were not bound under the laws of mystery of which I have been complaining, many hearts would beat with the desire to restore to their human rights those whose fellow-sufferers have given ample proof of their worthiness to enjoy them. The consideration which binds me to silence upon a rich collection of facts, full of moral beauty and promise, is regard to the safety of many whose heroic obedience to the laws of God has brought them into jeopardy under the laws of slave-holders, and the allies of slave-holders. Nor would I, by any careless revelations, throw the slightest obstacle in the way of the escape of any one of the slaves who may be about to shirk their masters, by methods with which I happen to be acquainted.

It can, however, do nothing but good to proclaim the truth that slaves do run away in much greater numbers than is supposed by any but those who lose them, and those who help them. By which I mean many others besides the abolitionists par excellence. Perhaps I might confine the knowledge to these last; for I believe no means exist by which the yearly amount of loss of this kind may be verified and published in the south. Everybody who has been in America is familiar with the little newspaper picture of a black man, hieing with his stick and bundle, which is prefixed to the advertisements of runaways. Every traveller has probably been struck with the number of these which meets his eye; but unless he has more private means of information, he will remain unaware of the streams of fugitives continually passing out of the States. There is much reserve about this in the south, from pride; and among those elsewhere who could tell, from far other considerations. The time will come when the whole story, in its wonder and beauty, may be told by some who, like myself, have seen more of the matter, from all sides, than it is easy for a native to do. Suffice it, that the loss by runaways, and the generally useless attempts to recover them, is a heavy item in the accounts of the cotton and sugar-growers of the south; and one which is sure to become heavier till there shall be no more bondage to escape from. It is obvious that the slaves who run away are among the best: an escape being usually the achievement of a project early formed; concealed, pertinaciously adhered to, and endeared by much toil and sacrifice undergone for its sake, for a long course of years. A weak mind is incapable of such a series of acts, with a unity of purpose. They are the choicest slaves who run away. Of the cases known to me, the greater number of the men, and some of the women, have acted throughout upon an idea; (called by their owners "a fancy,"—a very different thing;) while some few of the men have started off upon some sudden infliction of cruelty; and many women on account of intolerable outrage, of the grossest kind. Several masters told me of leave given to their slaves to go away, and of the slaves refusing to avail themselves of it. If this was meant to tell in favour of slavery, it failed of its effect. The argument was too shallow to impose upon a child. Of course, they were the least valuable slaves to whom this permission was given: and their declining to depart proved nothing so much as the utter degradation of human beings who could prefer receiving food and shelter from the hand of an owner to the possession of themselves.

Amidst the mass of materials which accumulated on my hands during the process of learning from all parties their views on this question, I hardly know where to turn, and what to select, that will most briefly and strongly show that the times have outgrown slavery. This is the point at which every fact and argument issue, whatever may be the intention of those who adduce it. The most striking, perhaps, is the treatment of the Abolitionists: a subject to be adverted to hereafter. The insane fury which vents itself upon the few who act upon the principles which the many profess, is a sign of the times not to be mistaken. It is always the precursor of beneficial change. Society in America seems to be already passing out of this stage into one even more advanced. The cause of abolition is spreading so rapidly through the heart of the nation; the sound part of the body politic is embracing it so actively, that no disinterested observer can fail to be persuaded that even the question of time is brought within narrow limits. The elections will, ere long, show the will of the people that slavery be abolished in the District of Columbia. Then such truckling politicians, mercenary traders, cowardly clergy, and profligate newspaper corps, as are now too blind to see the coming change, will have to choose their part; whether to shrink out of sight, or to boast patriotically of the righteous revolution which they have striven to retard, even by the application of the torture to both the bodies and the minds of their more clear-eyed fellow-citizens.

After giving one or two testimonies to the necessity of a speedy change of system, I will confine myself to relating a few signs of the times which I encountered in my travels through the south.

In 1782, Virginia repealed the law against manumission; and in nine years, there were ten thousand slaves freed in that State. Alarmed for the institution, her legislature re-enacted the law. What has been the consequence?—Let us take the testimony of the two leading newspapers of the capital of Virginia, given at a time when the Virginian legislature was debating the subject of slavery; and when there was, for once, an exposure of the truth from those best qualified to reveal it. In 1832, the following remarks appeared in the "Richmond Enquirer."

"It is probable, from what we hear, that the committee on the coloured population will report some plan for getting rid of the free people of colour. But is this all that can be done? Are we for ever to suffer the greatest evil which can scourge our land not only to remain, but to increase in its dimensions? 'We may shut our eyes and avert our faces, if we please,' (writes an eloquent South Carolinian, on his return from the north a few weeks ago,) 'but there it is, the dark and growing evil, at our doors: and meet the question we must at no distant day. God only knows what it is the part of wise men to do on that momentous and appalling subject. Of this I am very sure, that the difference—nothing short of frightful—between all that exists on one side of the Potomac, and all on the other, is owing to that cause alone. The disease is deep seated; it is at the heart's core; it is consuming, and has all along been consuming, our vitals; and I could laugh, if I could laugh on such a subject, at the ignorance and folly of the politician who ascribes that to an act of the government, which is the inevitable effect of the eternal laws of nature. What is to be done? O my God, I don't know; but something must be done.'

"Yes, something must be done; and it is the part of no honest man to deny it; of no free press to affect to conceal it. When this dark population is growing upon us; when every new census is but gathering its appalling numbers upon us; when within a period equal to that in which this federal constitution has been in existence, those numbers will increase to more than two millions within Virginia; when our sister States are closing their doors upon our blacks for sale; and when our whites are moving westwardly in greater numbers than we like to hear of; when this, the fairest land on all this continent, for soil and climate and situation combined, might become a sort of garden spot if it were worked by the hands of white men alone, can we, ought we to sit quietly down, fold our arms, and say to each other, 'well, well, this thing will not come to the worst in our day? We will leave it to our children and our grand-children and great-grand-children to take care of themselves, and to brave the storm. Is this to act like wise men? Heaven knows we are no fanatics. We detest the madness which actuated the Amis des Noirs. But something ought to be done. Means, sure but gradual, systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the mass of evil which is pressing upon the south, and will still more press upon her the longer it is put off. We ought not to shut our eyes, nor avert our faces. And though we speak almost without a hope that the committee or the legislature will do anything, at the present session, to meet this question, yet we say now, in the utmost sincerity of our hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention to this subject, nor can they give it too soon."

The other paper, the "Richmond Whig," had the same time, the following:

"We affirm that the great mass of Virginia herself triumphs that the slavery question has been agitated, and reckons it glorious that the spirit of her sons did not shrink from grappling with the monster. We affirm that, in the heaviest slave districts of the State, thousands have hailed the discussion with delight, and contemplate the distant, but ardently desired result, as the supreme good which Providence could vouchsafe to their country."

This is doubtless true. One of the signs of the times which struck me was the clandestine encouragement received by the abolitionists of the north from certain timid slave-holders of the south, who send money for the support of abolition publications, and an earnest blessing. They write, "For God's sake go on! We cannot take your publications; we dare not countenance you; but we wish you God speed! You are our only hope." There is nothing to be said for the moral courage of those who feel and write thus, and dare not express their opinions in the elections. Much excuse may be made for them by those who know the horrors which await the expression of anti-slavery sentiments in many parts of the south. But, on the other hand, the abolitionists are not to be blamed for considering all slave-holders under the same point of view, as long as no improved state of opinion is manifested in the representation; the natural mirror of the minds of the represented.

Chief Justice Marshall, a Virginian, a slave-holder, and a member of the Colonisation Society, (though regarding this society as being merely a palliative, and slavery incurable but by convulsion,) observed to a friend of mine, in the winter of 1834, that he was surprised at the British for supposing that they could abolish slavery in their colonies by act of parliament. His friend believed it would be done. The Chief Justice could not think that such economical institutions could be done away by legislative enactment. His friend pleaded the fact that the members of the British House of Commons were pledged, in great numbers, to their constituents on the question. When it was done, the Chief Justice remarked on his having been mistaken; and that he rejoiced in it. He now saw hope for his beloved Virginia, which he had seen sinking lower and lower among the States. The cause, he said, was that work is disreputable in a country where a degraded class is held to enforced labour.[20] He had seen all the young, the flower of the State, who were not rich enough to remain at home in idleness, betaking themselves to other regions, where they might work without disgrace. Now there was hope; for he considered that in this act of the British, the decree had gone forth against American slavery, and its doom was sealed.

There was but one sign of the times which was amusing to me; and that was the tumult of opinions and prophecies offered to me on the subject of the duration of slavery, and the mode in which it would be at last got rid of; for I never heard of any one but Governor M'Duffie who supposed that it can last for ever. He declared last year, in his message to the legislature of South Carolina, that he considers slavery as the corner-stone of their republican liberties: and that, if he were dying, his latest prayer should be that his children's children should live nowhere but amidst the institutions of slavery. This message might have been taken as a freak of eccentricity merely, if it had stood alone. But a committee of the legislature, with Governor Hamilton in the chair, thought proper to endorse every sentiment in it. This converts it into an indication of the perversion of mind commonly prevalent in a class when its distinctive pecuniary interest is in imminent peril. I was told, a few months prior to the appearance of this singular production, that though Governor M'Duffie was a great ornament to the State of South Carolina, his opinions on the subject of slavery were ultra, and that he was left pretty nearly alone in them. Within a year, those who told me so went, in public, all lengths with Governor M'Duffie.

I believe I might very safely and honourably give the names of those who prophesied to me in the way I have mentioned; for they rather court publicity for their opinions, as it is natural and right that they should, as long as they are sure of them. But it may suffice to mention that they are all eminent men, whose attention has been strongly fixed, for a length of years, upon the institution in question.

A. believes that slavery is a necessary and desirable stage in civilisation: not on the score of the difficulty of cultivating new lands without it, but on the ground of the cultivation of the negro mind and manners. He believes the Haytians to have deteriorated since they became free. He believes the white population destined to absorb the black, though holding that the two races will not unite after the third mixture. His expectation is that the black and mulatto races will have disappeared in a hundred and fifty years. He has no doubt that cotton and tobacco may be well and easily grown by whites.

B. is confident that the condition of slaves is materially improved, yet believes that they will die out, and that there will be no earlier catastrophe. He looks to colonisation, however, as a means of lessening the number. This same gentleman told me of a recent visit he had paid to a connexion of his own, who had a large "force," consisting chiefly of young men and women: not one child had been born on the estate for three years. This looks very like dying out; but does it go to confirm the materially improved condition of the slaves?

C. allows slavery to be a great evil; and, if it were now non-existent, would not ordain it, if he could. But he thinks the slaves far happier than they would have been at home in Africa, and considers that the system works perfectly. He pronounces the slaves "the most contented, happy, industrious peasantry in the world." He believes this virtue and content would disappear if they were taught anything whatever; and that if they were free, they would be, naturally and inevitably, the most vicious and wretched population ever seen. His expectation is that they will increase to such a degree as to make free labour, "which always supersedes slave labour," necessary in its stead; that the coloured race will wander off to new regions, and be ultimately "absorbed" by the white. He contemplates no other than this natural change, which he thinks cannot take place in less than a century and a half. A year later, this gentleman told a friend of mine that slavery cannot last above twenty years. They must be stringent reasons which have induced so great a change of opinion in twelve months.

D. thinks slavery an enormous evil, but doubts whether something as bad would not arise in its stead. He is a colonisationist, and desires that the general government should purchase the slaves, by annual appropriations, and ship them off to Africa, so as to clear the country of the coloured people in forty or fifty years. If this is not done, a servile war, the most horrible that the world has seen, is inevitable. Yet he believes that the institution, though infinitely bad for the masters, is better for the slaves than those of any country in Europe for its working classes. He is convinced that the tillage of all the crops could be better carried on by whites, with the assistance of cattle and implements, than by negroes.

E. writes, (October 1835,) "Certain it is that if men of property and intelligence in the north have that legitimate influence which that class has here, nothing will come of this abolition excitement. All we have to say to them is, 'Hands off!' Our political rights[21] are clear, and shall not be invaded. We know too much about slavery to be slaves ourselves. But I repeat, nothing will come of the present, or rather recent excitement, for already it is in a great degree passed. And the time is coming when a struggle between pauperism and property, or, if you choose, between labour and capital in the north, stimulated by the spirit of Jacksonism, will occupy the people of that quarter to the exclusion of our affairs. If any external influence is ever to affect the institution of slavery in the south, it will not be the vulgar and ignorant fanaticism of the northern States, intent upon a cheap charity which is to be done at our expense; but that influence will be found in English literature, and the gradual operation of public opinion. Slavery, so to speak, may be evaporated;—it cannot be drawn off. If it were, the whole land would be poisoned and desolated."

The best reply to this letter will be found in the memorable speech of Mr. Preston, one of the South Carolina senators, delivered in Congress, last spring. It may be mentioned, by the way, that the writer of the above is mistaken in supposing that there is at present, or impending, any unhappy struggle in the north between pauperism and property, or labour and capital. It is all property there, and no pauperism, (except the very little that is superinduced;) and labour and capital were, perhaps, never before seen to jog on so lovingly together. The "cheap charity" he speaks of is the cheap charity of the first Christians, with the addition of an equal ability and will to pay down money for the abolition of the slaves, for whose sake the abolitionists have already shown themselves able to bear,—some, hanging;—some, scourging, and tarring and feathering; some, privation of the means of living; and all, the being incessantly and deeply wounded in their social relations and tenderest affections. Martyrdom is ever accounted a "cheap devotion," or "cheap charity," to God or man, by those who exact it of either religious or philanthropic principle.

Mr. Preston's speech describes the spread of abolition opinions as being rapid and inevitable. He proves the rapidity by citing the number of recently-formed abolition societies in the north; and the inevitableness, by exhibiting the course which such convictions had run in England and France. He represents the case as desperate. He advises,—not yielding, but the absolute exclusion of opinion on the subject,—exclusion from Congress, and exclusion from the slave States. This is well. The matter may be considered to be given up, unless this is merely the opinion of an individual. The proposal is about as hopeful as it would be to draw a cordon round the Capitol to keep out the four winds; or to build a wall up to the pole-star to exclude the sunshine.

One more sample of opinions. A gentleman who edits a highly-esteemed southern newspaper, expresses himself thus. "There is a wild fanaticism at work to effect the overthrow of the system, although in its fall would go down the fortunes of the south, and to a great extent those of the north and east;—in a word, the whole fabric of our Union, in one awful ruin. What then ought to be done? What measures ought to be taken to secure the safety of our property and our lives? We answer, let us be vigilant and watchful to the last degree over all the movements of our enemies both at home and abroad. Let us declare through the public journals of our country, that the question of slavery is not, and shall not be open to discussion;—that the system is deep-rooted amongst us, and must remain for ever;—that the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the necessity of putting measures into operation to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dung-hill. We are freemen, sprung from a noble stock of freemen, able to boast as noble a line of ancestry as ever graced this earth;—we have burning in our bosoms the spirit of freemen—live in an age of enlightened freedom, and in a country blessed with its privileges—under a government that has pledged itself to protect us in the enjoyment of our peculiar domestic institutions in peace, and undisturbed. We hope for a long continuance of these high privileges, and have now to love, cherish, and defend, property, liberty, wives and children, the right to manage our own matters in our own way, and, what is equally dear with all the rest, the inestimable right of dying upon our own soil, around our own firesides, in struggling to put down all those who may attempt to infringe, attack, or violate any of these sacred and inestimable privileges."

If these opinions of well-prepared persons, dispersed through the slave States, and entrusted with the public advocacy of their interests, do not betoken that slavery is tottering to its fall, there are no such things as signs of the times.

The prohibition of books containing anything against slavery, has proceeded to a great length. Last year, Mrs. Barbauld's works were sent back into the north by the southern booksellers, because the "Evenings at Home" contain a "Dialogue between Master and Slave." Miss Sedgwick's last novel, "The Linwoods," was treated in the same way, on account of a single sentence about slavery. The "Tales of the Woods and Fields," and other English books, have shared the same fate. I had a letter from a Southern lady, containing some regrets upon the necessity of such an exclusion of literature, but urging that it was a matter of principle to guard from attacks "an institution ordained by the favour of God for the happiness of man:" and assuring me that the literary resources of South Carolina were rapidly improving.—So they had need; for almost all the books already in existence will have to be prohibited, if nothing condemnatory of slavery is to be circulated. This attempt to nullify literature was followed up by a threat to refuse permission to the mails to pass through South Carolina: an arrangement which would afflict its inhabitants more than it could injure any one else.

The object of all this is to keep the children in the dark about how the institution is regarded abroad. This was evident to me at every step: and I received an express caution not to communicate my disapprobation of slavery to the children of one family, who could not, their parents declare, even feel the force of my objections. One of them was "employed, the whole afternoon, in dressing out little Nancy for an evening party; and she sees the slaves much freer than herself." Of course, the blindness of this policy will be its speedy destruction. It is found that the effect of public opinion on the subject upon young men who visit the northern States, is tremendous, when they become aware of it: as every student in the colleges of the north can bear witness. I know of one, an heir of slaves, who declared, on reading Dr. Channing's "Slavery," that if it could be proved that negroes are more than a link between man and brute, the rest follows of course, and he must liberate all his. Happily, he is in the way of evidence that negroes are actually and altogether human.

The students of Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, of which Dr. Beecher is the president, became interested in the subject, three or four years ago, and formed themselves into an Abolition Society, debating the question, and taking in newspapers. This was prohibited by the tutors, but persevered in by the young men, who conceived that this was a matter with which the professors had no right to meddle. Banishment was decreed; and all submitted to expulsion but fourteen. Of course, each of the dispersed young men became the nucleus of an Abolition Society, and gained influence by persecution. It was necessary for them to provide means to finish their education. One of them, Amos Dresser, itinerated, (as is usual in the sparsely-peopled west,) travelling in a gig, and selling Scott's Bible, to raise money for his educational purposes. He reached Nashville, in Tennessee; and there fell under suspicion of abolition treason; his baggage being searched, and a whole abolition newspaper, and a part of another being found among the packing-stuff of his stock of bibles. There was also an unsubstantiated rumour of his having been seen conversing with slaves. He was brought to trial by the Committee of Vigilance; seven elders of the presbyterian church at Nashville being among his judges. After much debate as to whether he should be hanged, or flogged with more or fewer lashes, he was condemned to receive twenty lashes, with a cow-hide, in the market-place of Nashville. He was immediately conducted there, made to kneel down on the flint pavement, and punished according to his sentence; the mayor of Nashville presiding, and the public executioner being the agent. He was warned to leave the city within twenty-four hours: but was told, by some charitable person who had the bravery to take him in, wash his stripes, and furnish him with a disguise, that it would not be safe to remain so long. He stole away immediately, in his dreadful condition, on foot; and when his story was authenticated, had heard nothing of his horse, gig, and bibles, which he values at three hundred dollars. Let no one, on this, tremble for republican freedom. Outrages upon it, like the above, are but extremely transient signs of the times. They no more betoken the permanent condition of the republic, than the shivering of one hour of ague exhibits the usual state of the human body.

The other young men found educational and other assistance immediately; and a set of noble institutions has grown out of their persecution. There were professors ready to help them; and a gentleman gave them a farm in Ohio, on which to begin a manual labour college, called the Oberlin Institute. It is on a most liberal plan young women who wish to become qualified for "Christian teaching" being admitted; and there being no prejudice of colour. They have a sprinkling both of Indians and of negroes. They do all the farm and house work, and as much study besides as is good for them. Some of the young women are already fair Hebrew and Greek scholars. In a little while, the estate was so crowded, and the new applications were so overpowering, that they were glad to accept the gift of another farm. When I left the country, within three years from their commencement, they had either four or five flourishing institutions in Ohio and Michigan, while the Lane Seminary drags on feebly with its array of tutors, and dearth of pupils. A fact so full of vitality as this will overbear a hundred less cheering signs of the times. A very safe repose may be found in the will of the majority, wherever it acts amidst light and freedom.

Just before I reached Mobile, two men were burned alive there, in a slow fire, in the open air, in the presence of the gentlemen of the city generally. No word was breathed of the transaction in the newspapers: and this is the special reason why I cite it as a sign of the times; of the suppression of fact and repression of opinion which, from the impossibility of their being long maintained, are found immediately to precede the changes they are meant to obviate. Some months afterwards, an obscure intimation of something of the kind having happened appeared in a northern newspaper; but a dead silence was at the time preserved upon what was, in fact, the deed of a multitude. The way that I came to know it was this. A lady of Mobile was opening her noble and true heart to me on the horrors and vices of the system under which she and her family were suffering in mind, body, and estate. In speaking of her duties as head of a family, she had occasion to mention the trouble caused by the licentiousness of the whites, among the negro women. It was dreadful to hear the facts which had occurred in her own household; and the bare imagination of what is inflicted on the negro husbands and fathers was almost too much to be borne. I asked the question, "Does it never enter the heads of negro husbands and fathers to retaliate?" "Yes, it does." "What follows?" "They are murdered,—burned alive." And then followed the story of what had lately happened. A little girl, and her still younger brother, one day failed to return from school, and never were seen again. It was not till after all search had been relinquished, that the severed head of the little girl was found in a brook, on the borders of a plantation. Circumstances were discovered that left no doubt that the murders were committed to conceal violence which had been offered to the girl. Soon after, two young ladies of the city rode in that direction, and got off their horses to amuse themselves. They were seized upon by two slaves of the neighbouring plantation; but effected their escape in safety, though with great difficulty. Their agitation prevented their concealing the fact; and the conclusion was immediately drawn that these men were the murderers of the children. The gentlemen of Mobile turned out; seized the men; heaped up faggots on the margin of the brook, and slowly burned them to death. No prudish excuses for the suppression of this story will serve any purpose with those who have been on the spot, any more than the outcry about "amalgamation," raised against the abolitionists by those who live in the deepest sinks of a licentiousness of which the foes of slavery do not dream. No deprecatory plea regarding propriety or decency will pass for anything but hypocrisy with those who know what the laws against the press are in the south-west, and what are the morals of slavery in its palmy state. I charge the silence of Mobile about this murder on its fears; as confidently as I charge the brutality of the victims upon its crimes.

Notwithstanding the many symptoms of an unmanly and anti-republican fear which met my observation in these regions, it was long before I could comprehend the extent of it; especially as I heard daily that the true enthusiastic love of freedom could exist in a republic, only in the presence of a servile class. I am persuaded that the southerners verily believe this; that they actually imagine their northern brethren living in an exceedingly humdrum way, for fear of losing their equality. It is true that there is far too much subservience to opinion in the northern States: particularly in New England. There is there a self-imposed bondage which must be outgrown. But this is no more like the fear which prevails in the south than the apprehensiveness of a court-physician is like the terrors of Tiberius CÆsar.

I was at the French theatre at New Orleans. The party with whom I went determined to stay for the after-piece. The first scene of the after-piece was dumb-show; so much noise was made by one single whistle in the pit. The curtain was dropped, and the piece re-commenced. The whistling continued; and, at one movement, the whole audience rose and went home. I was certain that there was something more in this than was apparent to the observation of a stranger. I resolved to find it out, and succeeded. The band was wanted from the orchestra, to serenade a United States senator who was then in the city; and one or two young men were resolved to break up our amusement for the purpose of releasing the band. But why were they allowed to do this? Why was the whole audience to submit to the pleasure of one whistler? Why, in New Orleans it is thought best to run no risk of any disturbance. People there always hie home directly when things do not go off quite quietly.

It is the same, wherever the blacks outnumber the whites, or their bondage is particularly severe. At Charleston, when a fire breaks out, the gentlemen all go home on the ringing of the alarm-bell; the ladies rise and dress themselves and their children. It may be the signal of insurrection: and the fire burns on, for any help the citizens give, till a battalion of soldiers marches down to put it out.

When we were going to church, at Augusta, Georgia, one Sunday afternoon, there was smoke in the street, and a cry of fire. When we came out of church, we were told that it had been very trifling, and easily extinguished. The next day, I heard the whole. A negro girl of sixteen, the property of a lady from New England, had set her mistress's house on fire in two places, by very in-artificially lighting heaps of combustible stuff piled against the partitions. There were no witnesses, and all that was known came from her own lips. She was desperately ignorant; laws having been fully enforced to prevent the negroes of Georgia being instructed in any way whatever. The girl's account was, that she was "tired of living there," and had therefore intended to burn the house in the morning, but was prevented by her mistress having locked her up for some offence: so she did it in the afternoon. She was totally ignorant of the gravity of the deed, and was in a state of great horror when told that she was to be hanged for it. I asked whether it was possible that, after her being prevented by law from being taught, she was to be hanged for her ignorance, and merely on her own confession? The clergyman with whom I was conversing sighed, and said it was a hard case; but what else could be done, considering that Augusta was built of wood? He told me that there was great excitement among the negroes in Augusta; and that many had been saying that "a mean white person" (a white labourer) would not have been hanged; and that the girl could not help it, as it must have been severity which drove her to it. In both these sayings, the slaves were partly wrong. A white would have been hanged; but a white would have known that she was committing crime. It did not appear that the girl's mistress was harsh. But what does not the observation convey? I have never learned, nor ever shall, whether the hanging took place or not. The newspapers do not insert such things.

This burning would be a fearful art for the blacks to learn. There were four tremendous fires in Charleston, during the summer of 1835; and divers residents reported to the north that these were supposed to be the work of slaves.

Wherever I went, in the south, in whatever town or other settlement I made any stay, some startling circumstance connected with slavery occurred, which I was assured was unprecedented. No such thing had ever occurred before, or was likely to happen again. The repetition of this assurance became, at last, quite ludicrous.

The fear of which I have spoken as prevalent, does not extend to the discussion of the question of slavery with strangers. My opinions of slavery were known, through the press, before I went abroad: the hospitality which was freely extended to me was offered under a full knowledge of my detestation of the system. This was a great advantage, in as much as it divested me entirely of the character of a spy, and promoted the freest discussion, wherever I went. There was a warm sympathy between myself and very many, whose sufferings under the system caused me continual and deep sorrow, though no surprise. Neither was I surprised at their differing from me as widely as they do about the necessity of immediate action, either by resistance or flight, while often agreeing, nearly to the full, in my estimate of the evils of the present state of things. They have been brought up in the system. To them, the moral deformity of the whole is much obscured by its nearness; while the small advantages, and slight prettinesses which it is very easy to attach to it, are prominent, and always in view. These circumstances prevented my being surprised at the candour with which they not only discussed the question, but showed me all that was to be seen of the economical management of plantations; the worst as well as the best. Whatever I learned of the system, by express showing, it must be remembered, was from the hands of the slave-holders themselves. Whatever I learned, that lies deepest down in my heart, of the moral evils, the unspeakable vices and woes of slavery, was from the lips of those who are suffering under them on the spot.

It was there that I heard of the massacre in Southampton county, which has been little spoken of abroad. It happened a few years ago; before the abolition movement began; for it is remarkable that no insurrections have taken place since the friends of the slave have been busy afar off. This is one of the most eloquent signs of the times,—that, whereas rebellions broke out as often as once a month before, there have been none since. Of this hereafter. In the Southampton massacre, upwards of seventy whites, chiefly women and children, were butchered by slaves who fancied themselves called, like the Jews of old, to "slay and spare not."

While they were in full career, a Virginian gentleman, who had a friend from the north staying with him, observed upon its being a mistaken opinion that planters were afraid of their slaves; and offered the example of his own household as a refutation. He summoned his confidential negro, the head of the house establishment of slaves, and bade him shut the door.

"You hear," said he, "that the negroes have risen in Southampton."

"Yes, massa."

"You hear that they have killed several families, and that they are coming this way."

"Yes, massa."

"You know that, if they come here, I shall have to depend upon you all to protect my family."

The slave was silent.

"If I give you arms, you will protect me and my family, will you not?"

"No, massa."

"Do you mean, that if the Southampton negroes come this way, you will join them?"

"Yes, massa."

When he went out of the room, his master wept without restraint. He owned that all his hope, all his confidence was gone. Yet, who ever deserved confidence more than the man who spoke that last "No" and "Yes?" The more confidence in the man, the less in the system. This is the philosophy of the story.

I have mentioned the fact that no insurrections have for a long time taken place. In some parts of the slave regions, the effect has been to relax the laws relating to slaves; and such relaxation was always pointed out to me as an indication that slavery would go out of itself, if it were let alone. In other parts, new and very severe laws were being passed against the slaves; and this was pointed out to me as a sign that the condition of the negro was aggravated by the interference of his friends; and that his best chance lay in slavery being let alone. Thus the opposite facts were made to yield the same conclusion. A friend of mine, a slave-holder, observed to me, that both the relaxation and the aggravation of restrictions upon slaves were an indication of the tendency of public opinion: the first being done in sympathy with it, the other in fear of it.

There was an outcry, very vehement, and very general among the friends of slavery, in both north and south, against the cruelty of abolitionists in becoming the occasion of the laws against slaves being made more severe. In my opinion, this affords no argument against abolition, even if the condition of the slaves of to-day were aggravated by the stir of opinion. The negroes of the next generation are not to be doomed to slavery for fear of somewhat more being inflicted on their parents: and, severe as the laws already are, the consequence of straining them tighter still would be that they would burst. But the fact is, that so far from the condition of the slave being made worse by the efforts of his distant friends, it has been substantially improved. I could speak confidently of this as a necessary consequence of the value set upon opinion by the masters; but I know it also from what I myself saw; and from the lips of many slave-holders. The slaves of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, have less liberty of communication with each other; they are deprived of the few means of instruction that they had; they are shut in earlier in the evening, and precluded from supping and dancing for half the night, as they used to do; but they are substantially better treated; they are less worked by hard masters; less flogged; better fed and clothed. The eyes of the world are now upon the American slave and his master: the kind master goes on as he did before: the hard master dares not be so unkind as formerly. He hates his slave more than ever, for slavery is more troublesome than ever; but he is kept in order, by the opinion of the world abroad and the neighbours around; and he dares not vent his hatred on his human property, as he once could. A slave-holder declared in Congress, that the slaves of the south knew that Dr. Channing had written a book on their behalf. No doubt. The tidings of the far-off movement in their favour come to them on every wind that blows, calming their desperation, breathing hope into their souls; making the best of their masters thoughtful and sad, and the worst, desperate and cruel, though kept within bounds by fear.

The word 'hatred' is not too strong for the feeling of a large proportion of slave-holders towards particular slaves; or, as they would call them, (the word 'slave' never being heard in the south,) their 'force,' their 'hands,' their 'negroes,' their 'people.' I was frequently told of the 'endearing relation' subsisting between master and slaves; but, at the best, it appeared to me the same 'endearing relation' which subsists between a man and his horse, between a lady and her dog. As long as the slave remains ignorant, docile, and contented, he is taken good care of, humoured, and spoken of with a contemptuous, compassionate kindness. But, from the moment he exhibits the attributes of a rational being,—from the moment his intellect seems likely to come into the most distant competition with that of whites, the most, deadly hatred springs up;—not in the black, but in his oppressors. It is a very old truth that we hate those whom we have injured. Never was it more clear than in this case. I had, from time to time in my life, witnessed something of human malice; I had seen some of the worst aspects of domestic service in England; of village scandal; of political rivalship; and other circumstances provocative of the worst passions; but pure, unmitigated hatred, the expression of which in eye and voice makes one's blood run cold, I never witnessed till I became acquainted with the blacks of America, their friends and oppressors: the blacks and their friends the objects; their oppressors the far more unhappy subjects. It so happens that the most remarkable instances of this that I met with were clergymen and ladies. The cold livid hatred which deformed, like a mask, the faces of a few, while deliberately slandering, now the coloured race, and now the abolitionists, could never be forgotten by me, as a fearful revelation, if the whole country were to be absolutely christianized to-morrow. Mr. Madison told me, that if he could work a miracle, he knew what it should be. He would make all the blacks white; and then he could do away with slavery in twenty-four hours. So true it is that all the torturing associations of injury have become so connected with colour, that an institution which hurts everybody and benefits none, which all rational people who understand it dislike, despise, and suffer under, can with difficulty be abolished, because of the hatred which is borne to an irremovable badge.

This hatred is a sign of the times; and so are the alleged causes of it; both are from their nature so manifestly temporary. The principal cause alleged is the impossibility of giving people of colour any idea of duty, from their want of natural affection. I was told in the same breath of their attachment to their masters, and devotion to them in sickness; and of their utter want of all affection to their parents and children, husbands and wives. For "people of colour," read "slaves," and the account is often correct. It is true that slaves will often leave their infants to perish, rather than take any trouble about them; that they will utterly neglect a sick parent or husband; while they will nurse a white mistress with much ostentation. The reason is obvious. Such beings are degraded so far below humanity that they will take trouble, for the sake of praise or more solid reward, after they have become dead to all but grossly selfish inducements. Circumstances will fully account for a great number of cases of this sort: but to set against these, there are perhaps yet more instances of domestic devotion, not to be surpassed in the annals of humanity. Of these I know more than I can here set down; partly from their number, and partly from the fear of exposing to injury the individuals alluded to.

A friend of mine was well acquainted at Washington with a woman who had been a slave; and who, after gaining her liberty, worked incessantly for many years, denying herself all but absolute necessaries, in order to redeem her husband and children. She was a sick-nurse, when my friend knew her; and, by her merits, obtained good pay. She had first bought herself; having earned, by extra toil, three or four hundred dollars. She then earned the same sum, and redeemed her husband; and had bought three, out of her five, children when my friend last saw her. She made no boast of her industry and self-denial. Her story was extracted from her by questions; and she obviously felt that she was doing what was merely unavoidable. It is impossible to help instituting a comparison between this woman and the gentlemen who, by their own licentiousness, increase the number of slave children whom they sell in the market. My friend formerly carried an annual present from a distant part of the country to this poor woman: but it is not known what has become of her, and whether she died before she had completed her object, of freeing all her family.

There is a woman now living with a lady in Boston, requiring high wages, which her superior services, as well as her story, enable her to command. This woman was a slave, and was married to a slave, by whom she had two children. The husband and wife were much attached. One day, her husband was suddenly sold away to a distance; and her master, whose object was to increase his stock as fast as possible, immediately required her to take another husband. She stoutly refused. Her master thought her so far worthy of being humoured, that he gave her his son,—forced him upon her, as her present feelings show. She had two more children, of much lighter complexion than the former. When the son left the estate, her master tried again to force a negro husband upon her. In desperation, she fled, carrying one of her first children with her. She is now working to redeem the other, a girl; and she has not given up all hope of recovering her husband. She was asked whether she thought of doing anything for her two mulatto children. She replied that, to be sure, they were her children; but that she did not think she ever could tell her husband that she had had those two children. If this be not chastity, what is? Where are all the fairest natural affections, if not in these women?

At a very disorderly hotel in South Carolina, we were waited upon by a beautiful mulatto woman and her child, a pretty girl of about eight. The woman entreated that we would buy her child. On her being questioned, it appeared that it was "a bad place" in which she was: that she had got her two older children sold away, to a better place; and now, her only wish was for this child to be saved. On being asked whether she really desired to be parted from her only remaining child, so as never to see her again, she replied that "it would be hard to part," but for the child's sake she did wish that we would buy her.

A kind-hearted gentleman in the south, finding that the laws of his State precluded his teaching his legacy of slaves according to the usual methods of education, bethought himself, at length, of the moral training of task-work. It succeeded admirably. His negroes soon began to work as slaves are never, under any other arrangement, seen to work. Their day's task was finished by eleven o'clock. Next, they began to care for one another: the strong began to help the weak:—first, husbands helped their wives; then parents helped their children; and, at length, the young began to help the old. Here was seen the awakening of natural affections which had lain in a dark sleep.

Of the few methods of education which have been tried, none have succeeded so well as this task-work. As its general adoption might have the effect of enabling slavery to subsist longer than it otherwise could, perhaps it is well that it can be employed only to a very small extent. Much of the work on the plantations cannot be divided into tasks. Where it can, it is wise in the masters to avail themselves of this means of enlisting the will of the slave in behalf of his work.

No other mode of teaching serves this purpose in any degree. The shutting up of the schools, when I was in the south, struck me as a sign of the times,—a favourable sign, in as far as it showed the crisis to be near; and it gave me little regret on account of the slave children. Reading and writing even (which are never allowed) would be of no use to beings without minds,—as slaves are prior to experience of life; and religious teaching is worse than useless to beings who, having no rights, can have no duties. Their whole notion of religion is of power and show, as regards God; of subjection to a new sort of reward and punishment, as regards themselves; and invisible reward and punishment have no effect on them. A negro, conducting worship, was heard to pray thus; and broad as the expressions are, they are better than an abject, unintelligent adoption of the devotional language of whites. "Come down, O Lord, come down,—on your great white horse, a kickin' and snortin'." An ordinary negro's highest idea of majesty is of riding a prancing white horse. As for their own concern in religion, I know of a "force" where a preacher had just made a strong impression. The slaves had given up dancing, and sang nothing but psalms: they exhibited the most ludicrous spiritual pride, and discharged their business more lazily than ever, taunting their mistress with, "You no holy. We be holy. You no in state o' salvation." Such was the effect upon the majority. Here is the effect upon a stronger head.

"Harry," said his master, "you do as badly as ever. You steal and tell lies. Don't you know you will be punished in hell?"

"Ah, massa, I been thinking 'bout that. I been thinking when Harry's head is in the ground, there'll be no more Harry,—no more Harry."

"But the clergyman, and other people who know better than you, tell you that if you steal you will go to hell, and be punished there."

"Been thinking 'bout that too. Gentlemen be wise, and so they tell us 'bout being punished, that we may not steal their things here: and then we go and find out afterwards how it is." Such is the effect of religion upon those who have no rights, and therefore no duties. Great efforts are being now made by the clergy of four denominations[22] to obtain converts in the south. The fact, pointed out to me by Mr. Madison, that the "chivalrous" south is growing strict, while the puritanic north is growing genial, is a very remarkable sign of the times, as it regards slavery. All sanctions of the institution being now wanted, religious sanctions are invoked among others. The scene has been acted before, often enough to make the catastrophe clearly discernible. There are no true religious sanctions of slavery. There will be no lack of Harrys to detect the forgeries put forth as such: and, under the most corrupt presentments of religion, there lives something of its genuine spirit,—enough to expand, sooner or later, and explode the institution with which it can never combine. Though I found that the divines of the four denominations were teaching a compromising Christianity, to propitiate the masters, and gross superstitions to beguile the slaves,—vying with each other in the latter respect, that they might outstrip one another in the number of their converts,—I rejoiced in their work. Anything is better for the slaves than apathetic subjection; and, under all this falsification, enough Christian truth has already come in to blow slavery to atoms.

The testimony of slave-holders was most explicit as to no moral improvement having taken place, in consequence of the introduction of religion. There was less singing and dancing; but as much lying, drinking, and stealing as ever: less docility, and a vanity even transcending the common vanity of slaves,—to whom the opinion of others is all which they have to gain or lose. The houses are as dirty as ever, (and I never saw a clean room or bed but once, within the boundaries of the slave States;) the family are still contented with their "clean linen, as long as it does not smell badly." A new set of images has been presented to the slaves; but there still remains but one idea, by and for which any of them live; the idea of freedom.

Not for this, however, is the present zeal for religion a less remarkable sign of the times.

Another is, a proposition lately made in Charleston to remove the slave-market further from public observation. This acknowledgment, in such a place, that there is something distasteful, or otherwise uncomfortable, in the sale of human beings, is portentous. I was in that Charleston slave-market; and saw the sale of a woman with her children. A person present voluntarily assured me that there was nothing whatever painful in the sight. It appears, however, that the rest of Charleston thinks differently.

I was witness to the occasional discussion of the question whether Congress has power to prohibit the internal slave trade; and found that some very eminent men had no doubt whatever of such power being possessed by Congress, through the clause which authorises it to "regulate commerce among the several States." Among those who held this opinion were Mr. Madison and Mr. Webster.

The rapid increase of the suffrage in the north, compared with the south, affords an indication of some speedy change of circumstances. Three fifths of the slave population is represented; but this basis of representation is so narrow in contrast with that of the populous States where every man has the suffrage, that the south must decrease and the north increase, in a way which cannot long be borne by the former. The south has no remedy but in abolishing the institution by which her prosperity is injured, and her population comparatively confined. She sees how it is in the two contiguous States of Missouri and Illinois: that new settlers examine Illinois, pass on into Missouri, where land is much cheaper, and return to Illinois to settle, because there is no slavery there: so that the population is advancing incalculably faster in Illinois than in Missouri. Missouri will soon and easily find her remedy, in abolishing slavery; when the whites will rush in, as they now do into the neighbouring States. In the south, the case is more difficult. It will be long before white labour becomes so reputable there as elsewhere; and the present white residents cannot endure the idea of the suffrage being freely given, within any assignable time, to those who are now their slaves, or to their dusky descendants. Yet this is what must be done, sooner or later, with more or fewer precautions, if the south means to hold an important rank in Congress. It is in contemplation of this difficulty that the loudest threats are heard of secession from the Union; a movement which, as I have before said, would be immediately prevented, or signally punished. The abolition of slavery is the only resource.

Upon the most remarkable of all the signs of the times relating to slavery, it is not necessary to say much. Those which I have mentioned are surely enough to show, as plainly as if a ghost had come from the grave to tell us, that the time is at hand for the destruction of this monstrous anomaly. What the issue of the coming change will be is, to my mind, decided by a consideration on which almost every man is vociferating his opinion,—the character of the abolitionists.

It is obvious enough why this point is discussed so widely and so constantly, that I think I may say I heard more upon it, while I was in America, than upon all other American matters together. It is clearly convenient to throw so weighty a question as that of abolition back upon the aggregate characters of those who propose it; convenient to slave-holders, convenient to those in the north whose sympathies are with slave-holders, or who dread change, or who want an excuse to themselves for not acting upon the principles which all profess. The character of the abolitionists of the United States has been the object of attack for some years,—of daily and hourly attack; and, as far as I know, there has been no defence; for the plain reason that this is a question on which there can be no middle party. All who are not with the abolitionists are against them; for silence and inaction are public acquiescence in things as they are. The case is, then, that everybody is against them but their own body, whose testimony would, of course, go for nothing, if it were offered; which it never is.—I know many of them well; as every stranger in the country ought to take pains to do. I first heard everything that could be said against them: and afterwards became well acquainted with a great number of them.

I think the abolitionists of the United States the most reasonable set of people that I ever knew to be united together for one object. Among them may be enjoyed the high and rare luxury of having a reason rendered for every act performed, and every opinion maintained. The treatment they have met with compels them to be more thoroughly informed, and more completely assured on every point on which they commit themselves, than is commonly considered necessary on the right side of a question, where there is the strength of a mighty principle to repose upon. The commonest charge against them is that they are fanatical. I think them, generally speaking, the most clear-headed, right-minded class I ever had intercourse with. Their accuracy about dates, numbers, and all such matters of fact, is as remarkable as their clear perception of the principles on which they proceed. They are, however, remarkably deficient in policy,—in party address. They are artless to a fault; and probably, no party, religious, political, or benevolent, in their country, ever was formed and conducted with so little dexterity, shrewdness, and concert. Noble and imperishable as their object is, it would probably, from this cause, have slipped through their fingers for the present, if it had not been for some other qualities common among them. It is needless to say much of their heroism; of the strength of soul with which they await and endure the inflictions with which they are visited, day by day. Their position indicates all this. Animating as it is to witness, it is less touching than the qualities to which they owe the success which would otherwise have been forfeited through their want of address and party organisation. A spirit of meekness, of mutual forbearance, of mutual reverence, runs through the whole body; and by this are selfish considerations put aside, differences composed, and distrusts obviated, to a degree which I never hoped to witness among a society as various as the sects, parties and opinions which are the elements of the whole community. With the gaiety of heart belonging to those who have cast aside every weight; with the strength of soul proper to those who walk by faith; with the child-like unconsciousness of the innocent; living from hour to hour in the light of that greatest of all purposes,—to achieve a distant object by the fulfilment of the nearest duty,—and therefore rooting out from among themselves all aristocratic tendencies and usages, rarely speaking of their own sufferings and sacrifices, but in honour preferring one another, how can they fail to win over the heart of society,—that great heart, sympathising with all that is lofty and true?[23]

As was said to me, "the Searcher of hearts is passing through the land, and every one must come forth to the ordeal." This Searcher of hearts comes now in the form of the mighty principle of human freedom. If a glance is cast over the assemblage called to the ordeal, how mean and trivial are the vociferations in defence of property, the threats of revenge for light, the boast of physical force, the appeal to the compromises which constitute the defects of human law! How low and how sad appear the mercenary interests, the social fears, the clerical blindness or cowardice, the morbid fastidiousness of those who, professing the same principles with the abolitionists, are bent upon keeping those principles for ever an abstraction! How inspiring is it to see that the community is, notwithstanding all this, sound at the core, and that the soundness is spreading so fast that the health of the whole community may be ultimately looked for! When a glance shows us all this, and that the abolitionists are no more elated by their present success than they were depressed by their almost hopeless degradation, we may fairly consider the character of the abolitionists a decisive sign of the times,—a peculiarly distinct prophecy that the coloured race will soon pass from under the yoke. The Searcher of hearts brings prophecies in his hand, which those who will may read.[24]

I cannot give much space to the theories which are current as to what the issue will be if the abolition of slavery should not take place. To me it seems pretty clear, when the great amount of the mulatto population is considered. Within an almost calculable time, the population would be wholly mulatto; and the southern States would be in a condition so far inferior to the northern, that they would probably separate, and live under a different form of government. A military despotism might probably be established when the mixture of colours had become inconvenient, without being universal: slavery would afterwards die out, through the general degradation of society; and then the community would begin again to rise, from a very low point. But it will be seen that I do not anticipate that there will be room or time for this set of circumstances to take place. I say this in the knowledge of the fact that a very perceptible tinge of negro blood is visible in some of the first families of Louisiana; a fact learned from residents of high quality on the spot.

How stands the case, finally?—A large proportion of the labour of the United States is held on principles wholly irreconcilable with the principles of the constitution: whatever may be true about its origin, it is now inefficient, wasteful, destructive, to a degree which must soon cause a change of plan: some who see the necessity of such a change, are in favour of reversing the original policy;—slavery having once been begun in order to till the land, they are now for usurping a new territory in order to employ their slaves: others are for banishing the labour which is the one thing most needful to their country, in every way. While all this confusion and mismanagement exist, here is the labour, actually on the land, ready to be employed to better purpose; and in the treasury are the funds by which the transmutation of slave into free labour might be effected,—at once in the District of Columbia; and by subsequent arrangements in the slave States. Many matters of detail would have to be settled: the distribution would be difficult; but it is not impossible. Virginia, whose revenue is derived from the rearing of slaves for the south, whose property is the beings themselves, and not their labour, must, in justice, receive a larger compensation than such States as Alabama and Louisiana, where the labour is the wealth, and which would be therefore immediately enriched by the improvement in the quality of the labour which would follow upon emancipation. Such arrangements may be difficult to make; but "when there's a will there's a way;" and when it is generally perceived that the abolition of slavery must take place, the great principle will not long be allowed to lie in fetters of detail. The Americans have done more difficult things than this; though assuredly none greater. The restoration of two millions and a half of people to their human rights will be as great a deed as the history of the world will probably ever have to exhibit. In none of its pages are there names more lustrous than those of the clear-eyed and fiery-hearted few who began and are achieving the virtuous revolution.

[12] I might add their matter-of-fact credulity, strongly resembling romance. As a specimen of the quizzing common with regard to the Germans, I give an anecdote. At the time when the struggle between Adams and Jackson was very close, a supporter of Adams complained to Mr. W. that it was provoking that somebody had persuaded the Germans in Pennsylvania that Mr. Adams had married a daughter of George III.; a report which would cost him all their votes. Mr. W. said, "Why do not you contradict it?" "O," replied his friend, "you know nothing of those people. They will believe everything, and unbelieve nothing. No: instead of contradicting the report, we must allow that Adams married a daughter of George III.; but add that Jackson married two."