vil wars, and
perhaps in the extirpation of one or other of the two races. Such is the
view which the Americans of the South take of the question, and they
act consistently with it. As they are determined not to mingle with the
negroes, they refuse to emancipate them.

Not that the inhabitants of the South regard slavery as necessary to the
wealth of the planter, for on this point many of them agree with their
Northern countrymen in freely admitting that slavery is prejudicial to
their interest; but they are convinced that, however prejudicial it may
be, they hold their lives upon no other tenure. The instruction which is
now diffused in the South has convinced the inhabitants that slavery is
injurious to the slave-owner, but it has also shown them, more clearly
than before, that no means exist of getting rid of its bad consequences.
Hence arises a singular contrast; the more the utility of slavery is
contested, the more firmly is it established in the laws; and whilst
the principle of servitude is gradually abolished in the North, that
self-same principle gives rise to more and more rigorous consequences in
the South.

The legislation of the Southern States with regard to slaves, presents
at the present day such unparalleled atrocities as suffice to show how
radically the laws of humanity have been perverted, and to betray the
desperate position of the community in which that legislation has
been promulgated. The Americans of this portion of the Union have not,
indeed, augmented the hardships of slavery; they have, on the contrary,
bettered the physical condition of the slaves. The only means by which
the ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death; the Americans of
the South of the Union have discovered more intellectual securities
for the duration of their power. They have employed their despotism and
their violence against the human mind. In antiquity, precautions were
taken to prevent the slave from breaking his chains; at the present day
measures are adopted to deprive him even of the desire of freedom. The
ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed
no restraint upon the mind and no check upon education; and they
acted consistently with their established principle, since a natural
termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave
might be set free, and become the equal of his master. But the Americans
of the South, who do not admit that the negroes can ever be