egalized institutions! What a precious paradox have we here? Yet these
virtual justifiers of the South in the great cause of the war, claim to
be zealous and forward in punishing that secession which, according to
their own views, is constitutional and right!

If slavery be right, then the South is right. No impartial foreigner
could fail to draw this conclusion under the circumstances of this war.
But _is_ it right; we do not say as a thing of the past, and of a
rapidly vanishing serf-system, but as an institution of the progressive
present? Witness the words of G. BATELLE, a member of the Western
Virginia Constitutional Convention,--as we write, in session at
Wheeling,--and who has published an address to that body on the question
of Emancipation, from which we extract the following:--

The injuries which slavery inflicts upon our own people are
manifold and obvious. It practically aims to enslave not merely
another race, but our own race. It inserts in its bill of rights
some very high-sounding phrases securing freedom of speech; and
then practically and in detail puts a lock on every man's mouth,
and a seal on every man's lips, who will not shout for and swear
by the divinity of the system. It amuses the popular fancy with
a few glittering generalities in the fundamental law about the
liberty of the press, and forthwith usurps authority, even in
times of peace, to send out its edict to every postmaster,
whether in the village or at the cross-roads, clothing him with
a despotic and absolute censorship over one of the dearest
rights of the citizen. It degrades labor by giving it the badge
of servility, and it impedes enterprise by withholding its
proper rewards. It alone has claimed exemption from the rule of
uniform taxation, and then demanded and received the largest
share of the proceeds of that taxation. Is it any wonder, in
such a state of facts, that there are this day, of those who
have been driven from Virginia mainly by this system, men
enough, with their descendents, and means and energy, scattered
through the West, of themselves to make no mean State?...

It has been as a fellow-observer, and I will add as a
fellow-sufferer, with the members of the Convention, that my
judgment of the system of slavery among us has been formed. We
have seen it seeking to inaugurate, in many instances all too
successfull