etimes a lean bull, or an ox and
a mule; and I have seen a mule, a bull, and a cow, each miserable in its
appearance, composing one team, with a half-naked black slave or two,
riding or driving, as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon, if it may
be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the team and its
driver. Sometimes a couple of horses, mules, or cows, &c., would be
dragging a hogshead of tobacco, with a pivot, or axle, driven into each
end of the hogshead, and something like a shaft attached, by which it
was drawn, or rolled along the road. I have seen two oxen and two slaves
pretty fully employed in getting along a single hogshead; and some of
these come from a great distance inland."

The inhabitants of free States are often told that they cannot argue
fairly upon the subject of slavery because they know nothing about its
actual operation; and any expression of their opinions and feelings with
regard to the system, is attributed to ignorant enthusiasm, fanatical
benevolence, or a wicked intention to do mischief.

But Mr. Clay, Mr. Brodnax, and Mr. Faulkner, belong to slaveholding
States; and the two former, if I mistake not, are slave-owners. _They_
surely are qualified to judge of the system; and I might fill ten
pages with other quotations from southern writers and speakers, who
acknowledge that slavery is a great evil. There are zealous partisans
indeed, who defend the system strenuously, and some of them very
eloquently. Thus, Mr. Hayne, in his reply to Mr. Webster, denied that
the south suffered in consequence of _slavery_; he maintained that the
slaveholding States were prosperous, and the principal cause of all the
prosperity in the Union. He laughed at the idea of any danger, however
distant, from an overgrown slave population, and supported the position
by the fact that slaves had always been kept in entire subjection in the
British West Indies, where the white population is less than ten per
cent. of the whole. But the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina
did not mention that the _peace_ establishment of the British West
Indies costs England _two million pounds annually_! Yet such is the
fact. This system is so closely entwined with the apparent interests and
convenience of individuals, that it will never want for able defenders,
so long as it exists. But I believe I do not misrepresent the truth,
when I say the prevailing opinion at the South is, that it would have
been much bett