And if their removal could be totally effected, and the redundant slave population likewise be sent to Africa, the last spark of hope for the remaining two millions of slaves* would be quenched, and the most distant expectation of their emancipation be extinguished.

The answer to this objection is, that the hypothesis requires a very extensive colonization of emancipated slaves to have been effected, in order to the consequence supposed-the riveting of the chains of the remainder. The object of the Colonization Society, is to facilitate and encourage manumission, by providing the means of emigration to the emancipated slave. Before this measure can render the slaves less formidable from their numbers, emancipation must have taken place to a considerable extent; and surely this were a positive good, not to be rejected because of any contingent evil. Besides, it may be questioned, whether the existence of the free black population is a circumstance of any benefit to the slave, seeing that they do not possess, and cannot exert, the genuine influence of free men. The existence of this caste is known to be a source of uneasiness to the slave-holder; but it only renders him the more indisposed to consent to the manumission of his slaves. It has also led several of the States to prohibit manumission. We say nothing as to the justice and humanity of such arbitrary enactments: but such is the fact. Some of the States, moreover, have passed, or are about to pass, some penal enactments for the purpose of expelling their free 'black population' from their respective territories. Yes, in America, the land of liberty, the free blacks and the native Indians are treated quite as unceremoniously as we treat the Irish on their own soil. Very abominable and detestable are such arbitrary proceedings. Nevertheless, what should we think of the reasoning which would oppose the transfer of a million of starving Irish to Canada, if it could be effected, on the ground that it would place the remaining six millions more at the mercy of the Irish landlords? If our West India Planters had founded Sierra Leone with the express design of transporting thither the superfluous free coloured population of the islands, with their own consent, no compulsion being used, we would not have quarrelled with their policy. But we should have said to them, as we would now say to the American slave-holders-Go on colonizing; yet, do not flatter yourselves with the notion, that, by so doing, you will perpetuate the right or power to hold your fellow creatures in bondage. Colonization is like a pump to a leaky vessel;

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*We cite the language of an objector. The total slave population of the United States is only 1,840,000; the free coloured, about 250,000.

you do well to empty out your black population by ship-fulls, but you would do still better to look in time to the leak. Slavery may by this means be kept under for a while, but, if not abolished, it will eventually sink the vessel of the State.

Colonization, if intended as a substitute for emancipation, will assuredly disappoint its projectors; but to charge the benevolent founders of the American Colonization Society with any intention of this kind, is in the highest degree illiberal and unjust. We regret that any such aspersions should have been cast upon their motives, or that they should have been blamed for not hazarding the success of their whole scheme, by proclaiming themselves, unequivocally, abolitionists. The language of Mr. Clay shews in what light slavery is viewed by the most enlightened men in America; and we must recollect that our American brethren have given the best practical demonstration of their conviction of its evil nature, by abolishing it in so many of the States. It is true, the Congress and Government of the United States have, by admitting Missouri into the Union as a slave-holding State, for the purpose of opening a slave-market for the Virginian and other slave-growers, and by allowing an internal slave-trade, drawn down upon themselves deep disgrace and guilt. But before we can with fairness impute the sins of the Legislature to the American nation, we must recollect how long our own parliament resisted the abolition even of the slave-trade, in defiance of the voice of the people. Nor are we yet in a condition that entitles us to talk to the Americans of abolishing slavery. No; let us first get rid of the blot, the crime, the curse of our own colonial system, and then-when slavery shall have been abolished, not only in Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Hayti, but in the British Isles, the time will not be very distant, when the Slave-states of the American Union shall feel themselves compelled to follow our example.

There is one important difference between American slavery and West India slavery, which, in justice to our Transatlantic brethren, must not be overlooked. The circumstance which recommends the expedient of colonization even to slave-holders in the United States, is, we are told, the rapid and alarming increase of the slave, as well as the free coloured population,-which has been calculated at 56,000 a year. And what is highly remarkable, notwithstanding the numerous manumissions, the slave population has increased faster than the free. Between 1820 and 1830, it had increased 19 per cent. ; and the rate of increase was formerly still higher. Now this subject of alarm, this motive to plans of colonization, could not have arisen in Jamaica, where, instead of an increase of 23 per cent. per annum, as in the American Slave-states, there was formerly a decrease of 2 per cent.; and where, even now, the slave population is, in

point of numbers, stationary. In America, it is calculated that the importation of less than half a million of Africans has produced the present coloured population of two millions. In Jamaica, 850,000 slaves have been imported, and the present coloured population does not amount to half that number. We are aware, however, that we are not to set down this whole difference between a fourfold increase and a decrease of one half, to the superior humanity of the American slave-holders; although, in point of fact, the American slaves are generally better treated. Brother Jonathan has a notion, as we have already hinted, that it is more profitable to grow slaves for transportation, than to work them to death upon worn-out soils. We shall borrow a paragraph or two from Mr. Clay, in illustration of this mystery.

In proportion to the multiplication of the descendants of the European stock, and the consequent diminution of the value of slave labour, by the general diminution of wages, will there be an abatement in the force of motives to rear slaves. The master will not find an adequate indemnity in the price of the adult for the charges of maintaining and bringing up the offspring. His care and attention will relax; and he will be indifferent about incurring expenses when they are sick, and in providing for their general comfort, when he knows that he will not be ultimately compensated. There may not be numerous instances of positive violation of the duties of humanity, but every one knows the difference between a negligence, which is not criminal, and a watchful vigilance, stimulated by interest, which allows no want to be unsupplied. The effect of this relaxed attention to the offspring will be, to reduce the rates of general increase of the slave portion of our population, whilst that of the other race, not subject to the same neglect, will increase and fill up the void. A still greater effect, from the diminution of the value of labour, will be that of voluntary emancipations; the master being now anxious to relieve himself from a burthen, without profit, by renouncing his right of property. One or two facts will illustrate some of these principles. Prior to the annexation of Louisiana to the United States, the supply of slaves from Africa was abundant. The price of adults was generally about 100 dollars, a price less than the cost of raising an infant. Then it was believed that the climate of that province was unfavourable to the rearing of negro children, and comparatively few were raised. After the United States abolished the slave trade, the price of adults rose very considerably; greater attention was consequently bestowed on their children; and now, nowhere is the African female more prolific than she is in Louisiana, and the climate of no one of the Southern States is supposed to be more favourable to rearing the offspring. The serfs of Russia possess a market value inferior to that of the African slaves of the United States; and, although the lord is not believed to be bound to provide for the support of his dependent, as the American master is for his slave, voluntary manumissions of the serf are very frequent, influenced in some degree, no doubt, by his inconsiderable value.

'What has tended to sustain the price of slaves in the United States, has been, that very fact of the acquisition of Louisiana, but especially the increasing demand for cotton, and the consequent increase of its cultivation. The price of cotton, a much more extensive object of culture than the sugar-cane, regulates the price of slaves as unerringly as any one subject whatever is regulated by any standard. As it rises in price, they rise; as it falls, they fall. But the multiplication of slaves, by natural causes, must soon be much greater than the increase of the demand for them; to say nothing of the progressive decline which has taken place, in that great Southern staple, within a few years, and which there is no reason to believe will be permanently arrested. Whenever the demand for the cultivation of sugar and cotton comes to be fully supplied, the price of slaves will begin to decline; and as that demand cannot possibly keep pace with the supply, the price will decline more and more. Farming agriculture cannot sustain it; for it is believed that nowhere in the farming portion of the United States would slave labour be generally employed, if the proprietor were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern market, which keeps it up in his own.

But neither this nor any other conceivable cause can, for any length of time, check the fall in the value of slaves to which they are inevitably destined. We have seen that, as slaves diminish in price, the motive of the proprietors of them to rear the offspring will abate, that consequent neglect in providing for their wants will ensue, and consequent voluntary emancipation will take place. That adult slaves will, in process of time, sink in value even below a hundred dollars each, I have not a doubt. This result may not be brought about by the termination of the first period of their duplication, but that it will come, at some subsequent, and not distant period, I think perfectly clear. Whenever the price of the adult shall be less than the cost of raising him from infancy, what inducement will the proprietor of the parent have to incur that expense? In such a state of things, it will be in vain that the laws prohibit manumission. No laws can be enforced or will be respected, the effect of which is the ruin of those on whom they operate. In spite of all their penalties, the liberation or abandonment of slaves will take place.' pp. 38, 39.

We have transcribed this truly American piece of reasoning for two purposes; first, to let our readers into the secret of Virginia slave-breeding, that they may understand why the slave population has increased so rapidly in America, and what motives have led to the cultivation of the race; and secondly, that they may see in this revolting disclosure, a fresh and damning proof of the infernal malignity of the evil, moral and political,-bestial slavery. We scarcely know which is calculated to awaken the more melancholy reflections, the increase of the slave population in the United States, or its murderous decrease in Jamaica and Mauritius. Honour be to those Virginians whose 'benevolence ' revolts at the idea of selling', and who are therefore willing to manumit gratuitously: but these, alas! are the noble exceptions.

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We have almost lost sight of the opinions which the American Reviewer ascribes to the supporters of the colonization policy. The first is, that slavery is a moral and political evil; the second, that it is, in America, a constitutional and legitimate system, ' which they have neither inclination, interest, nor ability to disturb.' Begging the Reviewer's pardon, this last clause is not an opinion', but a formal disclaimer of an 'inclination' to disturb a moral and political evil';- a declaration which, we are persuaded, the Reviewer was not authorized to put into the mouth of the Society. Not disturb it! This cannot be the sentiment of those States that have abolished slavery. But what, perhaps, is meant, is, that the Society do not seek to disturb the peace,' by interfering with the rights or the interest of the proprietors of slaves.' This principle we find no fault with it is that by which our own Missionary Societies have been religiously governed, and to which their agents have conscientiously adhered, in labouring to communicate religious instruction to the slave population of the British Colonies. That slavery is, in America, a legitimate system', is undeniable: it is as legitimate as Popery in Italy, as the Inquisition in Spain, as polygamy in Turkey, as piracy in Algiers, as idolatry in India, as infanticide in China. Every thing is legitimate, which the laws of the country do not forbid. Constitutional' too;-yes, the American Constitution sanctions and protects slavery. The States wherein slavery exists, are alone regarded as possessing the right and 'power, under the Constitution of the country, to legislate upon ' it.' Congress has no power to interfere with the slave system; and the very attempt would endanger a dissolution of the Union, or a civil war,- —a short one, indeed, if the slaves could find the means of arming themselves; still, no one would wish to see slavery abolished by such means.

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But then, how can it be said with truth, that the 'continuance ' of this system is not chargeable on the slave-holding States'? Who but they are chargeable with it, seeing that, according to the fourth proposition, the State governments and the indi'viduals immediately and personally concerned in the system, ' and they alone, have the right to manage and modify it as they 'choose? Having this right to manage or modify, they have also the right to abolish slavery, and not only the right, but the power. What but the want of inclination hinders Maryland and Virginia from following the example of New York and Pennsylvania? Although the question cannot be constitutionally agitated in Congress, it may constitutionally be brought forward in the State assemblies. There is nothing, we apprehend, in the Federal Constitution, that prevents the total abolition of slavery by each and every State of the Union, as the act of its own little legislature. What then forbids emancipation? The determin