ease, is it his master's _interest_
to feed him well, and clothe him comfortably? Certainly not: it then
becomes desirable to get rid of the human brute as soon as convenient.
It is a common remark, that it is not quite safe, in most cases, for
even parents to be entirely dependant on the generosity of their
children; and if human nature be such, what has the slave to expect,
when he becomes a mere bill of expense?

It is a common retort to say that New-Englanders who go to the South,
soon learn to patronize the system they have considered so abominable,
and often become proverbial for their severity. I have not the least
doubt of the fact; for slavery contaminates all that comes within its
influence. It would be very absurd to imagine that the inhabitants
of one State are worse than the inhabitants of another, unless some
peculiar circumstances, of universal influence, tend to make them so.
Human nature is every where the same; but developed differently, by
different incitements and temptations. It is the business of wise
legislation to discover what influences are most productive of good, and
the least conducive to evil. If we were educated at the South, we should
no doubt vindicate slavery, and inherit as a birthright all the evils it
engrafts upon the character. If they lived on our rocky soil, and under
our inclement skies, their shrewdness would sometimes border upon
knavery, and their frugality sometimes degenerate into parsimony. We
both have our virtues and our faults, induced by the influences under
which we live, and, of course, totally different in their character.
_Our_ defects are bad enough; but they cannot, like slavery, affect
the destiny and rights of millions.

All this mutual recrimination about horse-jockeys, gamblers,
tin-pedlers, and venders of wooden-nutmegs, is quite unworthy of a great
nation. Instead of calmly examining this important subject on the plain
grounds of justice and humanity, we allow it to degenerate into a mere
question of _sectional_ pride and vanity. [Pardon the Americanism, would
we had less _use_ for the word!] It is the _system_, not the _men_, on
which we ought to bestow the full measure of abhorrence. If we were
willing to forget ourselves, and could like true republicans, prefer the
common good to all other considerations, there would not be a slave in
the United States, at the end of half a century.

The arguments in support of slavery are all hollow and deceptive, tho