make the negroes regard _law as their foe_, and thus it unfits them
for freedom. They reason thus--the apprentice looks to the magistrate as
his judge, his avenger, his protector; he knows nothing of either law or
justice except as he sees them exemplified in the decisions of the
magistrate. When, therefore, the magistrate sentences him to punishment,
when he knows he was the injured party, he will become disgusted with
the very name of justice, and esteem law his greatest enemy.

The neglect of the planters to use the apprenticeship as a preparation
for freedom, warrants us in the conclusion, that they do not think any
preparation necessary. But we are not confined to doubtful inferences on
this point. They testify positively--and not only planters, but all
other classes of men likewise--that the slaves of Barbadoes were fit for
entire freedom in 1834, and that they might have been emancipated then
with perfect safety. Whatever may have been the sentiment of the
Barbadians relative to the necessity of preparation before the
experiment was made, it is clear that now they have no confidence either
in the necessity or the practicability of preparatory schemes.

But we cannot close our remarks upon the apprenticeship system without
noticing one good end which it has undesignedly accomplished, i.e., _the
illustration of the good disposition of the colored people_. We firmly
believe that if the friends of emancipation had wished to disprove all
that has ever been said about the ferocity and revengefulness of the
negroes, and at the same time to demonstrate that they possess, in a
pre-eminent degree, those other qualities which render them the fit
subjects of liberty and law, they could not have done it more
triumphantly than it has been done by the apprenticeship. _How_ this has
been done may be shown by pointing out several respects in which the
apprenticeship has been calculated to try the negro character most
severely, and to develop all that was fiery and rebellious in it.

1. The apprenticeship removed that strong arm of slavery and substituted
no adequate force. The arbitrary power of the master, which awed the
slave into submission, was annihilated. The whip which was held over the
slave, and compelled a kind of subordination--brutal, indeed, but
effectual--was abolished. Here in the outset the reins were given to the
long-oppressed, but now aspiring mass. No adequate force was
substituted, because it was the intent