thout it, would frown in naked and incurable
sterility.

"If any one desires an illustration of the opposite influences of slavery
and freedom, let him look at the two sister States of Kentucky and Ohio.
Alike in soil and climate, and divided only by a river, whose translucent
waters reveal, through nearly the whole breadth, the sandy bottom over
which they sparkle, how different are they in all the respects over which
man has control! On the one hand the air is vocal with the mingled
tumult of a vast and prosperous population. Every hillside smiles with
an abundant harvest, every valley shelters a thriving village, the click
of a busy mill drowns the prattle of every rivulet, and all the
multitudinous sounds of business denote happy activity in every branch
of social occupation.

"This is the State which, but a few years ago, slept in the unbroken
solitude of nature. The forest spread an interminable canopy of shade
over the dark soil on which the fat and useless vegetation rotted at
ease, and through the dusky vistas of the wood only savage beasts and
more savage men prowled in quest of prey. The whole land now blossoms
like a garden. The tall and interlacing trees have unlocked their hold,
and bowed before the woodman's axe. The soil is disencumbered of the
mossy trunks which had reposed upon it for ages. The rivers flash in the
sunlight, and the fields smile with waving harvests. This is Ohio, and
this is what freedom has done for it.

"Now, let us turn to Kentucky, and note the opposite influences of
slavery. A narrow and unfrequented path through the close and sultry
canebrake conducts us to a wretched hovel. It stands in the midst of an
unweeded field, whose dilapidated enclosure scarcely protects it from the
lowing and hungry kine. Children half clad and squalid, and destitute of
the buoyancy natural to their age, lounge in the sunshine, while their
parent saunters apart, to watch his languid slaves drive the ill-
appointed team afield. This is not a fancy picture. It is a true copy
of one of the features which make up the aspect 'of the State, and of
every State where the moral leprosy of slavery covers the people with its
noisome scales; a deadening lethargy benumbs the limbs of the body
politic; a stupor settles on the arts of life; agriculture reluctantly
drags the plough and harrow to the field, only when scourged by
necessity; the axe drops from the woodman's nerveless hand the moment his
f