s have no means of rapid communication; nor can
incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials
are everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied,
the indispensable connecting trains.

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for their
masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for
an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty
individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favourite
master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave
revolution in Haiti was not an exception to it, but a case occurring
under peculiar circumstances. The Gunpowder Plot of British history,
though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In that case, only
about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his
anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by
consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the
kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local
revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the
natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I
think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears,
or much hopes, for such an event, will be alike disappointed.

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is still
in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation
peaceably, and in such slow degrees as that the evil will wear off
insensibly, and their places be, _pari passu_, filled up by free white
labourers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human
nature must shudder at the prospect held up."

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia; and, as
to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States only.
The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of
restraining the extension of the institution--the power to insure that a
slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now
free from slavery.

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It
was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which
the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the
slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not
succeed. That affair, in