The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from "the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing un"der the auspices of heaven for a total emancipation; and that "this is disposed in the order of events, to be with the consent of "the masters, rather than by their extirpation."*

SIDNEY

NO. 4.

I should not, I suppose have troubled you, my fellow ctzens, with arguments to prove the enormity and impolicy of slavery, if I had not thought the removal of the evil feasible on constitutional principles, without infringing on the claims of the holders, or burthening the nation with additional taxes. We have sufficient data, from which the whole business may be calculated very nearly. The census of 1820 gives the number of slaves in the United States, arranged into four classes, namely, those under 14

*Since the first number of this essay was put to press, advice has been received, that the two ex-presidents, the members of the committee which supported and framed our declaration of independence, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, have been both removed from among us, on the jubilee com memoration of that happy event, and date of that number. How striking a manifestation of the arrangements of Divine Providence! How much should the opinion of the worthy and judicious author of the notes on Virginia respecting slavery, weigh with his surviving fellow citizens. It sounds like the last advice of a departing father!

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence prepared by him, was the following clause respecting slavery; which was left out, in consequence of objections made by some of the Southern representatives in Congress; it being considered all important, that the Declaration should go forth, as the unanimous voice of the whole thirteen states. Speaking of the king of Great Britain it is said,

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights, of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.This piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of a Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep an open market where MEN should be bought and sold; he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

years old, those of 14 and under 26, those of 26 and under 45, and those of 45 and upwards. The census of 1810, compared with that of 1820, shews the rate per centum of their increase in 10 years; whence by the laws of compound interest, the rate per cent per annum of that increase may be found. Aga n, from the amount of the debt of the United States on the first day of the year 1822, the first commencement of a year after the payment of the claims on the Florida purchase, and the amount of the debt 1st of January, 1826, we find that in the space four years, the United States, besides paying all the expenses of the government, and interest of their debt, discharged more than twelve and a half millions of dollars of the principal. From these data, I think I shall shew in the course of this essay, that, by a prudent application of our means, we can in much less time than might at. first be supposed, both pay off our debt, and entirely, or very nearly annihilate slavery among us, without laying any additional tax, or at all infringing on the claim of the slave holders. But previous to entering on the consideration of the mode of effecting it, or the necessary calculations, I proceed to consider the propriety, expediency, constitutionality and obligation, of the general government's buying up the slaves by voluntary contract, and colonizing them without the territory of the United States.

And first, of its propriety. Of this there can certainly be no doubt. If it be true and self-evident, as our declaration of independence declares, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; it is manifest, that nothing but the most absolute and peremptory necessity can justify us in keeping our fellow-creatures in that condition; and if such a necessity exists at present, that the most speedy and effectual measures should be used to remove it. That no necessity exists for its being retained perpetually, is manifest from this:-That all other civilized nations except our own, either do not permit it, or are pursuing measures to abolish it; that in those of our own states where there are few or no slaves, labor is performed to more advantage, the lands improve faster, are more valuable, and there is a more rapid increase in population and wealth, than in those, where they are numerous.-Than in managing the concerns of a nation, as well as those of an individual, honesty is, as our illustrious Washington often observed, the best policy. Which brings me to

The second head, its Expediency. This head is so extensive, that in an essay of this kind, I can by no means pretend to do justice to it. The impolicy of slavery is abundantly manifest,

by comparing the increase of population in slave holding states. with that increase in those states where few or no slaves exist.The population of Virginia, considered by far the most populous state during our revolutionary war, was by the census of 1790, considerably more than double that of New-York, whereas by that of 1820, thirty years after, that of New-York exceeded that of Virginia, by considerably more than a fourth, and very nearly a third part of the latter. Nor is this all. The population of New-York is all of a friendly nature, and may be depended on in case of war, or invasion; whereas the slave population, which is nearly one half of the other, is of a hostile nature, and so far from being any protection in the hour of danger, could not be safely trusted with arms, and would even require a considerable part of the free population to guard against them. A large slave population will always interfere considerably with the increase of free population. The free labouring poor, which must always constitute the greater proportion of a population exclusively free, will naturally avoid going into a country, where slaves constitute a large proporton of the population, for the obvious reason, that there is little chance of employment for them, most of those who want labour, being provided with slaves for that purpose.

The political evils arising from an extensive slave population, are many and great. Those who cultivate their lands by laborers of this description,are obliged to feed and clothe a great number, who from infancy, old age, or other causes, are incapable of labor. This obliges them to cultivate much more land than they can manure, so that we generally find land so situated to depreciate. The expense of supporting so many supernumeraries lessens their profits, which are still farther diminished by the loss of the income, which the capital vested in this kind of property, would produce in any other good investment. All which accounts for the well known fact, that the prodnce of slave labor cannot come in competition in the market with the produce of free labor. The lands also become less valuable from the want of a free laboring population, many of whom would become wealthy, and of course competitors for the purchase of it. Inconveniences may be expected to arise from an extensive slave population, to the wealthy, because, if it were not for the slave population, there would be an abundance of free labourers to be employed to better advantage. The difficulty of procuring hirelings to those in middling circumstances, who are not rich enough to own slaves, is manifestly increased; while the free poor are injured from a diminution of employment.

Let it be considered, moreover, that an extensive and rapidly

increasing slave population, and such, ours of a million and three quarters, doubling every twenty-seven years, must be considered, has always been found to produce wars, the most expensive and desolating of all political evils; and a very short war would cost the nation more, than buying up and removing that population on a judicious plan, as will I trust appear in the course of this essay.

The expediency of the measure is still further enhanced from the increase of the public prejudices against this evil. All the states of our union to the northward of the states of Maryland and Delaware, the slaves of which, by the census of 1790, were upwards of forty thousand, have either abolished slavery, or made provision for the speedy removal of it. The same may be said of the seven republics, which have lately been formed out of the former Spanish American dominions. An independent government of black people has lately arisen in a very large and fruitful West India Island. Repeated and respectable petitions have been lately made to the British Parliament, for the abolition of slavery in their foreign possessions, and the Eritish Minister has declared a determination of removing it, if the Colonial Governments do not soon of themselves effect it. That powerful engine, the press, has also lately become active in the cause, and periodical publications, having this for their professed object, are edited and meet with encouragement from the public. Anti-Slavery Societies multiply in different parts of the Union. And these circumstances must become very generally known to the slaves themselves, and tend to raise in them hopes of relief from their erslaved condition.

The writer of this essay has communicated his proposed plan for the removal of slavery, to several slave holders, for the purpose of knowing their dispositions, and bearing their observations and objections, and had the pleasure of finding them generally friendly to the measure of buying them up for the purpose of liberating and colonizing them. Indeed he considers the measure as very favorable to the interests of that class of our citizens. SIDNEY.

NO. 5.

The expediency of the proposed measure is farther evidenced by its effect on the industrious free population, and especially on the mechanical part of society. Slaves are taught various me

chanical branches, as the business of carpenters, blacksmiths weavers, shoemakers, &c. and in this way interfere much with the interest of mechanics. Moreover, slaves are generally obliged to live in small huts raised chiefly by their own labor, to eat the most common fare, and wear the coarsest apparel raised chiefly by their own industry; whereas if they were free, they would most of them, by their industry, be enabled to live in better houses, and to provide themselves with more comfortable and costly food and raiment; and which would furnish additional employment for mechanics, merchants, retailers, and even farmers. Hence the interests of the children of a great many slave holders are injured by the system of slavery; a large proportion of the slaveholders cannot leave each of their children, sufficient land and slaves to support them without a profession or mechanical business, and the concerns of mechanics being injured by slavery, many of their children are obliged to emigrate to more favorable situations, such as the western states or territories. This is doubtless one cause of the slowness of the Increase of free population in slaveholding states.

It seems indeed to be a national policy of governments, having distant possessions, to encourage slavery in them, in order to diminish the free, and divide and weaken the whole population. Accordingly we find, in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, (see note to No. 3 above,) the king of Great Britain accused, of having prostituted his negative, for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain that execrable commerce, the slave trade. This accusation, it is presumed, refers to a suppression of some attempt or attempts of some of the colonial or state governments, to prohibit or limit the slave trade with respect to themselves. The contrary, the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, is evidently the natural policy of free states.

The superior increase of the slave population above that of the free in the Southern states would be a just ground of alarm, if something were not likely to be done to counteract it. The increase of the free population of Georgia, between the census of 1810 and 1820, was under thirty per cent, that of the slave, above forty-two; of the free in South Carolina, during the same period, about nine, of the slave above twenty-eight; in North Carolina, of the free about twelve, of the slave, about twenty-six and an half. A like observation is applicable to most of the other slave holding states, as may be found by consulting the censuses of these years. The fact needs no comment.