cation, shaped almost entirely to the interest of
slavery, has been false and vicious in the extreme, and it
must be corrected with as much suddenness, almost, as that
with which Salem witchcraft came to an end. The only
question that remains to decide is how the change shall take
place.

"We are not without examples and precedents in the history
of the past. The enfranchisement of the people of Europe has
been, and is still going on, through the instrumentality of
military service; and by this means our slaves might be
raised in the scale of civilization and prepared for
freedom. Fifty regiments might be raised among them at once,
which could be employed in this climate to preserve order,
and thus prevent the necessity of retrenching our liberties,
as we should do by a large army exclusively of whites. For
it is evident that a considerable army of whites would give
stringency to our government, while an army, partly of
blacks, would naturally operate in favor of freedom and
against those influences which at present most endanger our
liberties. At the end of five years they could be sent to
Africa, and their places filled with new enlistments.

"There is no practical evidence against the effects of
immediate abolition, even if there is not in its favor. I
have witnessed the sudden abolition of flogging at will in
the army, and of legalized flogging in the navy, against the
prejudice-warped judgments of both, and, from the beneficial
effects there, I have nothing to fear from the immediate
abolition of slavery. I fear, rather, the violent
consequences from a continuance of the evil. But should such
an act devastate the whole State of Louisiana, and render
the whole soil here but the mere passage-way of the fruits
of the enterprise and industry of the Northwest, it would be
better for the country at large than it is now as the seat
of disaffection and rebellion.

"When it is remembered that not a word is found in our
constitution sanctioning the buying and selling of human
beings, a shameless act which renders our country the
disgrace of Christendom, and worse, in this respect, even
than Africa herself, we should have less dread of seeing the
degrading traffic stopped at once and forever. Half wages
are already virtuall