uperior to the
prejudices of education, and the influence of the society in which they
are placed, and defending the truth for its own sake; to all such we
render their due homage.

It is objected to the defenders of American slavery, that they have
changed their ground; that from being apologists for it as an inevitable
evil, they have become its defenders as a social and political good,
morally right, and sanctioned by the Bible and by God himself. This
charge is unjust, as by reference to a few historical facts will
abundantly appear. The present slave States had little or no agency in
the first introduction of Africans into this country; this was achieved
by the Northern commercial States and by Great Britain. Wherever the
climate suited the negro constitution, slavery was profitable and
flourished; where the climate was unsuitable, slavery was unprofitable,
and died out. Most of the slaves in the Northern States were sent
southward to a more congenial clime. Upon the introduction into Congress
of the first abolition discussions, by John Quincy Adams, and Joshua
Giddings, Southern men altogether refused to engage in the debate, or
even to receive petitions on the subject. They averred that no good
could grow out of it, but only unmitigated evil.

The agitation of the abolition question had commenced in France during
the horrors of her first revolution, under the auspices of the Red
Republicans; it had pervaded England until it achieved the ruin of her
West India colonies, and by anti-slavery missionaries it had been
introduced into our Northern States. During all this agitation the
Southern States had been quietly minding their own business, regardless
of all the turmoil abroad. They had never investigated the subject
theoretically, but they were well acquainted with all its practical
workings. They had received from Africa a few hundred thousand pagan
savages, and had developed them into millions of civilized Christians,
happy in themselves, and useful to the world. They had never made the
inquiry whether the system were fundamentally wrong, but they judged it
by its fruits, which were beneficent to all. When therefore they were
charged with upholding a moral, social, and political evil; and its
immediate abolition was demanded, as a matter not only of policy, but
also of justice and right, their reply was, we have never investigated
the subject. Our fathers left it to us as a legacy, we have grown up
with it; it