inions into the world.
If they have a comatose tendency in the brain, they are pro-slavery
while they live; if of a nervous sanguineous temperament, they are
abolitionists. Then interests were never persuaded. Can you convince the
shoe interest, or the iron interest, or the cotton interest, by reading
passages from Milton or Montesquieu? You wish to satisfy people that
slavery is bad economy. Why, the "Edinburgh Review" pounded on that
string, and made out its case forty years ago. A democratic statesman
said to me, long since, that, if he owned the State of Kentucky, he
would manumit all the slaves, and be a gainer by the transaction. Is
this new? No, everybody knows it. As a general economy it is admitted.
But there is no one owner of the State, but a good many small owners.
One man owns land and slaves; another owns slaves only. Here is a woman
who has no other property,--like a lady in Charleston I knew of, who
owned fifteen chimney-sweeps and rode in her carriage. It is clearly a
vast inconvenience to each of these to make any change, and they are
fretful and talkative, and all their friends are; and those less
interested are inert, and, from want of thought, averse to innovation.
It is like free trade, certainly the interest of nations, but by no
means the interest of certain towns and districts, which tariff feeds
fat; and the eager interest of the few overpowers the apathetic general
conviction of the many. Banknotes rob the public, but are such a daily
convenience that we silence our scruples, and make believe they are
gold. So imposts are the cheap and right taxation; but by the dislike of
people to pay out a direct tax, governments are forced to render life
costly by making them pay twice as much, hidden in the price of tea and
sugar.

In this national crisis, it is not argument that we want, but that rare
courage which dares commit itself to a principle, believing that Nature
is its ally, and will create the instruments it requires, and more than
make good any petty and injurious profit which it may disturb. There
never was such a combination as this of ours, and the rules to meet it
are not set down in any history. We want men of original perception and
original action, who can open their eyes wider than to a nationality,
namely, to considerations of benefit to the human race, can act in the
interest of civilization. Government must not be a parish clerk, a
justice of the peace. It has, of necessity, in any