all the labor which our country can supply. Are these regions of fertility to be abandoned at once and forever to the alligator and tortoise with here and there perhaps a miserable, shivering, crouching free black savage? Does not the finger of heaven itself seem to point to a race of men-not to be enslaved by us, but already enslaved, and who will be in every way benefited by the change of masters—to whom such climate is not uncongenial, who though disposed to indolence, are yet patient and capable of labor; on whose whole features, mind and character, nature has indelibly written-slave ;-and indicate that we should avail ourselves of these in fulfilling the first great command, to subdue and replenish the earth.

It is true that this labor will be dearer than that of northern countries, where, under the name of freedom, they obtain cheaper and perhaps better slaves. Yet it is the best we can have, and this too has its compensation. We see it compensated at present by the superior value of our agricultural products. And this superior value they must probably always have. The Southern climate admits of a greater variety of productions. Whatever is produced in Northern climates, the same thing, or something equivalent, may be produced in the Southern. But the Northern have no equivalent for the products of Southern climates. The consequence will be, that the . products of Southern regions will be demanded all over the civilized world. The agricultural products of Northern regions are chiefly for their own consumption. They must therefore apply themselves to the manufacturing of articles of luxury, elegance, convenience or necessity, which requires cheap labor,-for the purpose of exchanging them with their Southern neighbors. Thus nature herself indicates that agriculture should be the predominating employment in Southern countries, and manufactures in Northern. Commerce is necessary to both-but less indispensable to the Southern, which produce within themselves a greater variety of things desirable to life. They will therefore have somewhat less of the commercial spirit. We must avail ourselves of such labor as we can command. The slave must labor, and is inured to it; while the necessity of energy in his government, of watchfulness, and of preparation and power to suppress insurrection, added to the moral force derived from the habit of command, may help to prevent the degeneracy of the master.

The task of keeping down insurrection is commonly supposed, by those who are strangers to our institution, to be a very formidable one. Even among ourselves, accustomed as we have been to take our opinions on this as on every other subject, ready formed from those whom we regarded as instructors, in the teeth of our own observation and experience, fears have been entertained which are absolutely ludicrous. We have been supposed to be nightly reposing over a mine, which may at any instant explode to our destruction. The first thought of a foreigner sojourning in one of our cities, who is awakened by any nightly alarm, is of servile insurrection and massacre. Yet if any thing is certain in human affairs, it is certain and from the most obvious considerations, that we are more secure in this respect than any civilized and fully-peopled society upon the face of

the earth. In every such society, there is a much larger proportion than with us, of persons who have more to gain than to lose by the overthrow of government, and the embroiling of social order. It is in such a state of things that those who were before at the bottom of society, rise to the surface. From causes already considered, they are peculiarly apt to consider their sufferings the result of injustice and misgovernment, and to be rancorous and embittered accordingly. They have every excitement therefore of resentful passion, and every temptation which the hope of increased opulence, or power or consideration can hold out, to urge them to innovation and revolt. Supposing the same disposition to exist in equal degree among our slaves, what are their comparative means or prospect of gratifying it? The poor of other countries are called free. They have, at least, no one interested to exercise a daily and nightly superintendence and control over their conduct and actions. Emissaries of their class may traverse, unchecked, every portion of the country, for the purpose of organizing insurrection. From their greater intelligence, they have greater means of communicating with each other. They may procure and secrete arms. It is not alone the ignorant, or those who are commonly called the poor, that will be tempted to revolution. There will be many disappointed men, and men of desperate fortune-men perhaps of talent and daring-to combine them and direct their energies. Even those in the higher ranks of society who contemplate no such result, will contribute to it, by declaiming on their hardships and rights.

With us, it is almost physically impossible, that there should be any very extensive combination among the slaves. It is absolutely impossible that they should procure and conceal efficient arms. Their emissaries traversing the country, would carry their commission on their foreheads. If we suppose among them an individual of sufficient talent and energy to qualify him for a revolutionary leader, he could not be so extensively known as to command the confidence, which would be necessary to enable him to combine and direct them. Of the class of freemen, there would be no individual so poor or degraded (with the exception perhaps of here and there a reckless and desperate outlaw and felon) who would not have much to lose by the success of such an attempt; every one therefore would be vigilant and active to detect and suppress it. Of all impossible things, one of the most impossible would be a successful insurrection of our slaves, originat ing with themselves.

Attempts at insurrection have indeed been made-excited, as we believe, by the agitation of the abolitionists and declaimers on slavery; but these have been in every instance promptly suppressed. We fear not to compare the riots, disorder, revolt and bloodshed which have been committed in our own, with those of any other civilized communities, during the same lapse of time. And let it be observed under what extraordinary circumstances our peace has been preserved. For the last half century, one half of our population has been admonish ed in terms the most calculated to madden and excite, that they are the victims of the most grinding and cruel injustice and oppression. We know that these exhortations continually reach them,

through a thousand channels which we cannot detect, as if carried by the birds of the air-and what human being, especially when unfa vorably distinguished by outward circumstances, is not ready to give credit when he is told that he is the victim of injustice and oppression? In effect if not in terms, they have been continually exhorted to insurrection. The master has been painted a criminal, tyrant and robber, justly obnoxious to the vengeance of God and man, and they have been assured of the countenance and sympathy, if not of the active assistance of all the rest of the world. We ourselves have in some measure pleaded guilty to the impeachment. It is not long since a great majority of our free population, servile to the opinions of those whose opinions they had been accustomed to follow, would have admitted slavery to be a great evil, unjust and indefensible in principle, and only to be vindicated by the stern necessity which was imposed upon us. Thus stimulated by every motive and passion which ordinarily actuate human beings-not as to a criminal enterprize, but as to something generous and heroic-what has been the result? A few imbecile and uncombined plots-in every instance detected before they broke out into action, and which, perhaps, if undetected, would never have broken into action; one or two sudden, unpremeditated attempts, frantic in their character, if not prompted by actual insanity, and these instantly crushed. As it is, we are not less assured of safety, order and internal peace than any other people; and but for the pertinacious and fanatical agitation of the subject, would be much more so.

This experience of security, however, should admonish us of the folly and wickedness of those who have sometimes taken upon themselves to supersede the regular course of law, and by rash and violent acts to punish supposed disturbers of the peace of society. This can admit of no justification or palliation whatever. Burke, I think, somewhere remarks something to this effect,-that when society is in the last stage of depravity-when all parties are alike corrupt and alike wicked and unjustifiable in their measures and objects, a good man may content himself with standing neuter, a sad and disheartened spectator of the conflict between the rival vices. But are we in this wretched condition? It is fearful to see with what avidity the worst and most dangerous characters of society seized on the occasion of obtaining the countenance of better men, for the purpose of throwing off the restraints of law. It is always these who are most zealous and forward in constituting themselves the protectors of the public peace. To such men-men without reputation or principle or stake in soci ety-disorder is the natural element. In that, desperate fortunes and the want of all moral principle and moral feeling constitute power. They are eager to avenge themselves upon society. Anarchy is not so much the absence of government as the government of the worstnot aristocracy but kakistocracy-a state of things which, to the honor of our nature, has seldom obtained amongst them, and which perhaps was only fully exemplified during the worst times of the French revolution, when that horrid hell burnt with its most lurid flame. In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned-to protect

the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of guilt and violence. The scenes of lawless violence which have been acted in some portions of our country, rare and restricted as they have been, have done more to tarnish its reputation than a thousand libels. They have done more to discredit, and if any thing could, to endanger, not only our domestic, but our republican institutions, than the abolitionists themselves. Men can never be permanently and effectually disgraced but by themselves, and rarely endangered but by their own injudicious conduct, giving advantage to the enemy. Better, far better, would it be to encounter the dangers with which we are supposed to be threatened, than to employ such means for averting them. But the truth is, that in relation to this matter, so far as respects actual insurrection, when alarm is once excited, danger is absolutely at an end. Society can then employ legitimate and more effectual measures for its own protection. The very commission of such deeds, is proof that they are unnecessary. Let those who attempt them then, or make any demonstration towards them, understand that they will meet only the discountenance and abhorrence of all good men, and the just punishment of the laws they have dared to outrage.

It has commonly been supposed, that this institution will prove a source of weakness in relation to military defence against a foreign enemy. I will venture to say, that in a slave-holding community, a larger military force may be maintained permanently in the field, than in any state where there are not slaves. It is plain that almost the whole of the able-bodied free male population, making half of the entire able-bodied male population, may be maintained in the field, and this without taking in any material degree from the labor and resources of the country. In general the labor of our country is performed by slaves. In other countries, it is their laborers that form the material of their armies. What proportion of these can be taken away without fatally crippling their industry and resources? In the war of the revolution, though the strength of our state was wasted and paralyzed by the unfortunate divisions which existed among ourselves, yet it may be said with general truth, that every citizen was in the field, and acquired much of the qualities of the soldier.

It is true that this advantage will be attended with its compensating evils and disadvantages; to which we must learn to submit, if we are determined on the maintenance of our institutions. We are, as yet, hardly at all aware how little the maxims and practices of modern civilized governments will apply to us. Standing armies, as they are elsewhere constituted, we cannot have; for we have not, and for generations cannot have, the materials out of which they are to be formed. If we should be involved in serious wars, I have no doubt but that some sort of conscription, requiring the services of all citizens for a considerable term, will be necessary. Like the people of Athens, it will be necessary that every citizen should be a soldier, and qualified to discharge efficiently the duties of a soldier. It may seem a melancholy consideration, that an army so made up should be op

posed to the disciplined mercenaries of foreign nations. But we must learn to know our true situation. But may we not hope, that made up of superior materials, of men having home and country to defend; inspired by higher pride of character, of greater intelligence, and trained by an effective, though honorable discipline, such an army will be more than a match for mercenaries? The efficiency of an army is determined by the qualities of its officers; and may we not expect to have a greater proportion of men better qualified for officers, and possessing the true spirit of military command? And let it be recollected, that if there were otherwise reason to apprehend danger from insurrection, there will be the greatest security when there is the largest force on foot within the country. Then it is that any such attempt would be most instantly and effectually crushed.

And perhaps a wise foresight should induce our state to provide, that it should have within itself such military knowledge and skill as may be sufficient to organize, discipline and command armies, by establishing a military academy or school of discipline. The school of the militia will not do for this. From the general opinion of our weakness, if our country should at any time come into hostile collision, we shall be selected for the point of attack; making us, according to Mr. Adams' anticipation, the Flanders of the United States. Come from what quarter it may, the storm will fall upon us. It is known that lately, when there was apprehension of hostility with France, the scheme was instantly devised of invading the Southern States and organizing insurrection. In a popular English periodical work, I have seen the plan suggested by an officer of high rank and reputation in the British army, of invading the Southern States at various points and operating by the same means. He is said to be a gallant officer, and certainly had no conception that he was devising atrocious crime, as alien to the true spirit of civilized warfare, as the poisoning of streams and fountains. But the folly of such schemes is no less evident than their wickedness. Apart from the consideration of that which experience has most fully proved to be true-that in general their attachment and fidelity to their masters is not to be shaken, and that from sympathy with the feelings of those by whom they are surrounded, and from whom they derive their impressions, they contract no less terror and aversion towards an invading enemy; it is manifest that this recourse would be an hundred fold more available to us than to such an enemy. They are already in our possession, and we might at will arm and organize them in any number that we might think proper. The Helots were a regular constituent part of the Spartan armies. Thoroughly acquainted with their characters and accustomed to command them, we might use any strictness of discipline which would be necessary to render them effective, and from their habits of subordination already formed, this would be a task of less difficulty. Though morally most timid, they are by no means wanting in physical strength of nerve. They are excitable by praise; and directed by those in whom they have confidence, would rush fearlessly and unquestioning upon any sort of danger. With white officers and accompanied by a strong white cavalry, there are