ys yielded to Southern
policy in preference to uniting with the Middle States, with which she
has, in most respects, a congeniality of interests and habits. It has
been the constant policy of the slave States to prevent the free States
from acting together.

Who does not see that the American people are walking over a
subterranean fire, the flames of which are fed by slavery?

The South no doubt gave her influence to General Jackson, from the
conviction that a slave-owner would support the slaveholding interest.
The Proclamation against the nullifiers, which has given the President
such sudden popularity at the North, has of course offended them. No
person has a right to say that Proclamation is insincere. It will be
extraordinary if a slave-owner does in _reality_ depart from the uniform
system of his brethren. In the President's last Message, it is
maintained that the wealthy landholders, that is, the planters, are
the _best_ part of the population;--it admits that the laws for raising
of revenue by imposts have been in their operation oppressive to the
South;--it recommends a gradual withdrawing of protection from
manufactures;--it advises that the public lands shall cease to be
a source of revenue, as soon as practicable--that they be sold to
settlers--and in a _convenient time_ the disposal of the soil be
surrendered to _the States respectively in which it lies_;--lastly,
the Message tends to discourage future appropriations of public money
for purposes of internal improvement.

Every one of these items is a concession to the slaveholding policy. If
the public lands are taken from the nation, and given to the States in
which the soil lies, who will get the largest share? That _best_ part of
the population called planters.

The Proclamation and the Message are very unlike each other. Perhaps
South Carolina is to obtain her own will by a route more certain, though
more circuitous, than open rebellion. Time will show.

CHAPTER V.

COLONIZATION SOCIETY, AND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

It is not madness
That I have utter'd:----For love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass but my madness speaks:
It will but _skin_ and _film_ the ulcerous place;
While rank corruption, mining all within,
_Infects unseen_. Confess yourself to Heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make the