he Northern States it is rapidly declining. Thus
the great question of its future condition is confined within a narrow
circle, where it becomes less formidable, though not more easy of
solution.

The more we descend towards the South, the more difficult does it become
to abolish slavery with advantage: and this arises from several physical
causes which it is important to point out.

The first of these causes is the climate; it is well known that in
proportion as Europeans approach the tropics they suffer more from
labor. Many of the Americans even assert that within a certain latitude
the exertions which a negro can make without danger are fatal to them;
*o but I do not think that this opinion, which is so favorable to
the indolence of the inhabitants of southern regions, is confirmed by
experience. The southern parts of the Union are not hotter than the
South of Italy and of Spain; *p and it may be asked why the European
cannot work as well there as in the two latter countries. If slavery has
been abolished in Italy and in Spain without causing the destruction of
the masters, why should not the same thing take place in the Union? I
cannot believe that nature has prohibited the Europeans in Georgia and
the Floridas, under pain of death, from raising the means of subsistence
from the soil, but their labor would unquestionably be more irksome and
less productive to them than to the inhabitants of New England. As the
free workman thus loses a portion of his superiority over the slave in
the Southern States, there are fewer inducements to abolish slavery.

[Footnote o: This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated;
rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are particularly
dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the beams of a tropical
sun. Europeans would not find it easy to cultivate the soil in that part
of the New World if it must be necessarily be made to produce rice; but
may they not subsist without rice-grounds?]

[Footnote p: These States are nearer to the equator than Italy and
Spain, but the temperature of the continent of America is very much
lower than that of Europe.

The Spanish Government formerly caused a certain number of peasants
from the Acores to be transported into a district of Louisiana called
Attakapas, by way of experiment. These settlers still cultivate the soil
without the assistance of slaves, but their industry is so languid as
scarcely to supply their most nec