. Slaves
will find out, for they already know it, that they possess rights as
men. And here is the fatal mistake now committed in the southern
slaveholding states--legislating against the instruction of their
slaves--to keep them from knowing their rights. They will obtain some
loose, vague, and undefined notion of the doctrine of human rights, and
the unrighteousness of oppression in this republican country. Being
kept from all the moral and religious instruction which Sabbath schools,
the Bible, and other good books are calculated to impart, and with those
undefined notions of liberty, and without any moral principle, they are
prepared to enter into the first insurrectionary movement proposed by
some artful and talented leader. The same notion prevailed in the West
Indies half a century since, and many of the planters resisted and
persecuted the benevolent Moravians, who went there to instruct the
blacks in the principles and duties of religion. A few of the planters
reasoned justly. They invited these benevolent men on their plantations,
and gave them full liberty on the Sabbath, and at other suitable
seasons, to instruct their slaves. The happiest effects followed. On
these plantations, where riot, misrule, and threatened insurrections,
had once spread a panic through the colony, order, quietness and
submission followed. Such would be the effects if the southern planter
would invite the minister of the gospel and the Sunday school teacher to
visit his plantation, allow his slaves to be instructed to read, and
each to be furnished with a copy of the Scriptures. The southern planter
hourly lives under the most terrific apprehensions. It is in vain to
disguise the fact. As Mr. Randolph once significantly said in Congress,
"_when the night bell rings, the mother hugs her infant closer to her
breast_." Slavery, under any circumstances, is a bitter draught--equally
bitter to him who tenders the cup, and to him who drinks it. But in all
the northern slaveholding states, it is comparatively mild. Its condition
would be much alleviated, and the planter might sleep securely if he would
abolish his barbarous laws, more congenial with Asiatic despotism than
American republicanism, and provide for his slaves the benefits of
wholesome instruction. Philanthropy and interest unite in their demands
upon every southern planter to provide Sunday school instruction for his
slaves.

The planting region of the lower Valley furnishes an i