is genuine wisdom in the
following remark, extracted from the petition of Cambridge University
to the Parliament of England, on the subject of slavery: "A firm belief
in the Providence of a benevolent Creator assures us that no system,
founded on the oppression of one part of mankind, _can_ be beneficial to
another."

But the tolerator of slavery will say, "No doubt the system is an
evil; but we are not to blame for it; we received it from our English
ancestors. It is a lamentable _necessity_;--we cannot do it away if we
would:--insurrections would be the inevitable result of any attempt to
remove it"--and having quieted their consciences by the use of the word
_lamentable_, they think no more upon the subject.

These assertions have been so often, and so dogmatically repeated, that
many truly kind-hearted people have believed there was some truth in
them. I myself, (may God forgive me for it!) have often, in thoughtless
ignorance, made the same remarks.

An impartial and careful examination has led me to the conviction that
slavery causes insurrections, while emancipation prevents them.

The grand argument of the slaveholder is that sudden freedom occasioned
the horrible massacres of St. Domingo.--If a word is said in favor
of abolition, he shakes his head, and points a warning finger to St.
Domingo! But it is a remarkable fact that this same vilified island
furnishes a strong argument _against_ the lamentable necessity of
slavery. In the first place, there was a bloody civil war there before
the act of emancipation was passed; in the second place enfranchisement
produced the most blessed effects: in the third place, no difficulties
whatever arose, until Bonaparte made his atrocious attempt to _restore
slavery_ in the island.

Colonel Malenfant, a slave proprietor, resident in St. Domingo at the
time, thus describes the effect of sudden enfranchisement, in his
Historical and Political Memoir of the Colonies:

"After this public act of emancipation, the negroes remained quiet both
in the South and in the West, and they continued to work upon all the
plantations. There were estates which had neither owners nor managers
resident upon them, yet upon these estates, though abandoned, the
negroes continued their labors where there were any, even inferior
agents, to guide them; and on those estates where no white men were left
to direct them, they betook themselves to the planting of provisions;
but upon all the plantat