them knowledge, we tempt them to that forbidden fruit, the taste of which banished our first parents from peace and content; for nothing is more certain than that knowledge, which disqualifies us for the enjoyment of the means of happiness we possess, without enabling us to obtain those we desire, is but a type of the gift of Satan in the garden of Eden. It is only when we possess a right to the exercise and enjoyment of every acquisition, that its attainment is at all desirable or salutary. A clear perception of the blessings of liberty, without the prospect of ever attaining to them, is equivalent to the tortures of Tantalus. To be chained to a rock, and hear the waters gurgling at our foot, to touch yet not be able to taste, adds tenfold to the miseries of thirst. To dream of freedom every night and awake every morning a slave, is to aggravate our impatience of all restraint; and never did inspiration give utterance to a truer axiom, than did the poet when he said

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.”

One thing, however, is practicable, and will do more to pluck the sting from the heart of the slave than all the wild schemes of fanatical reformers. It is to treat them with a patriarchal kindness,

"forbearing threatening," as the greatest of the apostles enjoins; making due allowances for their ignorance, and for the peculiarity of their tempers and disposition; giving them such food, raiment, and lodging, as their habits and necessities require; permitting them the free enjoyment of their holydays, and their hours of rest and relaxation; interchanging with them all those kind offices not incompatible with the relations that subsist between the master and slave; exacting from them nothing but a fair return for protection and maintenance; and taking special care that the sick, the children, and the aged who are past labour, are provided with everything essential to their comfort.

That such is the treatment, except in a few rare instances, of the slaves of the South, all who have resided in that quarter will bear testimony, if they speak the truth. Slavery is becoming gradually divested of all its harsh features, and is now only the bugbear of imagination. If the masters are not deterred from further concessions by the unwarrantable interference of the abolitionists, the period will soon come, if it has not already come, when the slave of the South will have little cause to envy the situation of the other labouring classes of the world. They will have nothing to desire but what is equally the object of pursuit to all man

kind, namely, some fancied good beyond their reach, or which, if attained, either detracts from their happiness, or leaves them just where they were before.

It may possibly be objected to us, that these and similar sentiments scattered through this work, savour of optimism, and consequently tend to discourage all efforts in behalf of public or individual happiness. But if fairly scrutinized, such will not be found to be the case; for, though all mankind were optimists in theory, still there would be none in practice. Our abstract opinions have little, if any influence over our conduct. We are impelled to action by our wants or our passions, not by our metaphysical refinements; and the stoutest believer in the equal, unalterable happiness of all mankind, will not the less ardently labour to increase his

own.

G 2

CHAPTER V.

Of the Social and Political Relations that would subsist between the Whites and the Blacks, in case of the Emancipation of the latter.

It will be sufficiently explicit, without resorting to minute calculations, to state that taking the aggregate population of the states in which slavery prevails, the number of blacks is not greatly inferior to that of the whites. The former are not equally distributed. In some places, they greatly preponderate; in others, they are outnumbered by the latter. The former is the case all along the seaboard of the southern states, and it is believed in Louisiana and Mississippi; the latter, in the interior and mountainous parts, where the climate permits the labour of white men. Suppose all the slaves spontaneously set free at once, or by degrees, and at the same time admitted to a participation of the social and political rights of free citizens. What may rational reflecting men anticipate as the result?

Separated as are the two races by impassable barriers; carrying in their very faces the badge. of that separation, and animated as they must necessarily be by conflicting interests, there can be no doubt that the first struggle would be for ascendency in political power, and that it would be one of far greater excitement than the ordinary contests of parties in the United States. The master with all his ancient prejudices, if you please, all his accustomed ideas and habits of superiority, would be obliged to enter into a struggle for power with his quondam slave; the latter, flushed with all the insolence of newly acquired freedom, and glowing not only with the recollections of the past, but the hopes of the future. Would such a contest be a peaceable one? Would it approximate to our ordinary elections, in which the struggle is between two parties recognising in each other equals and associates, while here it will be whether the master shall be governed by his former slave? Impossible. Elections would become battles; and blood, not ballots, would decide the mastery. The body politic would be rent asunder by eternal and inveterate struggles; civil strife would ensue, and a deadly war of extermination be the end of this woful experiment of philanthropy, where the num