great honour. Her House of Representatives carried, by a
majority, a vote for the abolition of slavery within her boundaries;
but the measure was lost in her Senate by a majority of one or two. The
State legislature will not meet again for two years. All parties are
confident that the measure will then be triumphantly carried through.
In America, however, the abolition of slavery in any State does not
always mean freedom to the slaves. Too often it is a mere
transportation of them to the Southern States. Had Delaware passed a
law that all slaves should he free at the expiration of five years, or
that all children born after a certain period should he free, the
owners of slaves would have had an obvious interest in disposing of
their human property to the Southern traders _before_ that period
arrived. Mothers, too, would have been hastened Southward to give birth
to their offspring; so that the "peculiar institution" might lose none
of its prey. Measures for the abolition of slavery in any part of
America do not arise from sympathy with the negro, and from a wish to
improve his condition and promote his happiness, but from aversion to
his presence, or perhaps from a conviction that the system of slavery
is expensive and impolitic. Those who feel kindly towards their
coloured brother, and act towards him under the impulse of pure and
lofty philanthropy, are, I am sorry to say, very few indeed.

These views may appear severe and uncharitable towards the American
people, but they are confirmed by M. de Tocqueville. "When a Northern
State declared that the son of the slave should be born free," observes
that impartial writer, "the slave lost a large portion of his market
value, since his posterity was no longer included in the bargain, and
the owner had then a strong interest in transporting him to the South.
Thus the same law prevents the slaves of the South from coming to the
Northern States, and drives those of the North to the South. The want
of free hands is felt in a State in proportion as the number of slaves
decreases. But, in proportion as labour is performed by free hands,
slave labour becomes less productive; and the slave is then a useless
or an onerous possession, whom it is important to export to those
Southern States where the same competition is not to be feared. _Thus
the abolition of slavery does not set the slave free: it merely
transfers him from one master to another, and from the North to the
South_." M