gentleman from Brunswick (Mr. Gholson)
in the harmless character of this institution, let me request
him to compare the condition of the slaveholding portion of this
Commonwealth--barren, desolate, and seared as it were by the avenging
hand of Heaven,--with the descriptions which we have of this same
country from those who first broke its virgin soil. To what is this
change ascribable? Alone to the withering and blasting effects of
slavery. If this does not satisfy him, let me request him to extend his
travels to the Northern States of this Union,--and beg him to contrast
the happiness and contentment which prevails throughout the country--the
busy and cheerful sounds of industry--the rapid and swelling growth
of their population--their means and institutions of education--their
skill and proficiency in the useful arts--their enterprise and
public spirit--the monuments of their commercial and manufacturing
industry;--and, above all, their devoted attachment to the government
from which they derive their protection, with the division, discontent,
indolence, and poverty of the Southern country. To what, sir, is all
this ascribable? To that vice in the organization of society, by which
one half of its inhabitants are arrayed in interest and feeling against
the other half--to that unfortunate state of society in which freemen
regard labor as disgraceful--and slaves shrink from it as a burden
tyranically imposed upon them--to that condition of things, in which
half a million of your population can feel no sympathy with the society
in the prosperity of which they are forbidden to participate, and no
attachment to a government at whose hands they receive nothing but
injustice.

"If this should not be sufficient, and the curious and incredulous
inquirer should suggest that the contrast which has been adverted to,
and is so manifest, might be traced to a difference of climate, or other
causes distinct from slavery itself, permit me to refer him to the
two States of Kentucky and Ohio. No difference of soil--no diversity
of climate--no diversity in the original settlement of those two
States, can account for the remarkable disproportion in their national
advancement. Separated by a river alone, they seem to have been
purposely and providentially designed to exhibit in their future
histories the difference, which necessarily results from a country
free from, and a country afflicted with, the curse of slavery. The
same may be said