ic."

I am aware that Las Cases used this argument; but it was less unbecoming
in him than it is in a philanthropist of the present day. The speaker
does indeed say that "the 'infinite of agonies' and the infinite of
crime, since suffered and committed, proves that mercy cannot exist in
opposition to justice." I can hardly realize what sort of a conscience
it must be, that needed the demonstration.

The plain truth was, the Spaniards were in a hurry for gold; they
overworked the native Indians, who were inconsiderate enough to die in
very inconvenient numbers; but the gold must be had, and that quickly;
and so the Africans were forced to come and die in company with the
Indians. And in the nineteenth century, we are told it is our duty not
to forget that this was a "simulated form of mercy!" A _dis_simulated
form would have been the better expression.

If we may believe slave-owners, the whole system, from beginning to end,
is a matter of mercy. They have described the Middle Passage, with its
gags, fetters, and thumb-screws, as "the happiest period of a negro's
life;" they say they do the slaves a great charity in bringing them
from barbarous Africa to a civilized and Christian country; and on the
plantation, under the whip of the driver, the negroes are so happy, that
a West India planter publicly declared he could not look upon them,
without wishing to be himself a slave.

In the speech above referred to, we are told, that as to any political
interference, "the slave States are _foreign_ States. We can alienate
their feelings until they become foreign enemies; or, on the other hand,
we can conciliate them until they become allies and auxiliaries in the
sacred cause of emancipation."

But so long as the South insist that slavery is _unavoidable_, and say
they will not tolerate any schemes _tending_ to its abolition--and so
long as the North take the _necessity_ of slavery for an unalterable
truth, and put down any discussions, however mild and candid, which
tend to show that it _may_ be done away with safety--so long as we
thus strengthen each other's hands in evil, what remote hope is there
of emancipation? If by political interference is meant _hostile_
interference, or even a desire to promote insurrection, I should at
once pronounce it to be most wicked; but if by political interference
is meant the liberty to investigate this subject, as other subjects
are investigated--to inquire into what has been done, an