say to me, "Why are we to be loaded, certainly for some
years, probably for ever, with a tax, admitted by those who impose it to
be grievous, unequal, inquisitorial? Why are we to be loaded in time of
peace with burdens heretofore reserved for the exigencies of war?" The
paper manufacturer, the soap manufacturer, say, "Why, if the Income Tax
is to be continued, are our important and suffering branches of industry
to have no relief?" And the answer is, "Because Brazil does not behave
so well as the United States towards the negro race." Can I then avoid
instituting a comparison? Am I not bound to bring to the test the truth
of an assertion pregnant with consequences so momentous to those who
have sent me hither? I must speak out; and, if what I say gives offence
and produces inconvenience, for that offence and for that inconvenience
the Government is responsible.

I affirm, then, that there exists in the United States a slave trade,
not less odious or demoralising, nay, I do in my conscience believe,
more odious and more demoralising than that which is carried on between
Africa and Brazil. North Carolina and Virginia are to Louisiana and
Alabama what Congo is to Rio Janeiro. The slave States of the Union are
divided into two classes, the breeding States, where the human beasts of
burden increase and multiply and become strong for labour, and the sugar
and cotton States to which those beasts of burden are sent to be worked
to death. To what an extent the traffic in man is carried on we may
learn by comparing the census of 1830 with the census of 1840. North
Carolina and Virginia are, as I have said, great breeding States. During
the ten years from 1830 to 1840 the slave population of North Carolina
was almost stationary. The slave population of Virginia positively
decreased. Yet, both in North Carolina and Virginia propagation was,
during those ten years, going on fast. The number of births among the
slaves in those States exceeded by hundreds of thousands the number of
the deaths. What then became of the surplus? Look to the returns from
the Southern States, from the States whose produce the right honourable
Baronet proposes to admit with reduced duty or with no duty at all; and
you will see. You will find that the increase in the breeding States
was barely sufficient to meet the demand of the consuming States. In
Louisiana, for example, where we know that the negro population is
worn down by cruel toil, and would not, if