a monopoly in producing that article, than the importation of slaves. Cheap labour must be obtained, and this can be done only in one way-by reopening the African slave-trade. What followed, we give in Mr Adams's own words:

"Until Providence interposes and changes his organism, the African must continue to be a "hewer of wood and drawer of water." It is a diseased sentimentality which starts back at the idea of legalising the slavetrade, and, at the same time, contemplates without emotion the cruel servitude which capital exacts of labour, all the world over. There was a time when canting philanthropists had instilled into us a belief that slavery was wrong. Investigation has entirely changed the once common sentiment on this point. The South now believes that a mysterious Providence has brought the two races together on this continent for wise purposes, and that the existing relation has been mutually beneficial. Southern slavery has elevated the African to a degree of civilisation which the black race has never attained in any other age or country. "We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world." Had the slave-trade never been closed, the equilibrium between the North and the South would not have been destroyed. The North has had the Old World from which to draw her supply of labour, and hence the rapid settlement of the north-west. Since 1808, the South has supplied her own labour, and has necessarily made slower progress in settling up the south-west. If the trade were open now, I am persuaded that the South would not consent to close it; and this is perhaps the best answer to the argument derived from the mere sentiment that is arrayed against the proposition. It is apprehended that the opening of this trade will lessen the value of slaves,

and ultimately destroy the institution. It is a sufficient answer to point to the fact, that unrestricted immigration has not diminished the value of labour in the north-western section of the confederacy. The cry there is, want of labour, notwithstanding capital has the pauperism of the Old World to press into its grinding service. If we cannot supply the demand for slave-labour, then we must expect to be supplied with a species of labour we do not want, and which is, from the very nature of things, antagonistic to our institutions. In all slaveholding states, true policy dictates that the superior race should direct, and the inferior perform all menial service. Competition between the white and black man for this service may not disturb northern sensibility, but it does not exactly suit our latitude. Irrespective, however, of interest, the act of congress declaring the slave-trade piracy, is a brand upon us which I think it important to remove. If the trade be piracy, the slave must be plunder; and no ingenuity can avoid the logical necessity of such conclusion. My hopes and fortunes are indissolubly associated with this form of society. I feel that I would be wanting in duty if I did not urge you to withdraw your assent to an act which is itself a direct condemnation of our institutions. But we have interests to enforce a course of self-respect. I believe, as I have already stated, that more slaves are necessary to a continuance of our monopoly in plantation products. I believe that they are necessary to the full development of our whole round of agricultural and mechanical resources; that they are necessary to the restoration of the South to an equality of power in the general government, perhaps to the very integrity of slave society, disturbed as it has been by causes which have induced an undue proportion of the ruling race. To us have been committed the fortunes of this peculiar

form of society resulting from the union of unequal races. It has vindicated its claim to the approbation of an enlightened humanity. It has civilised and Christianised the African. It has exalted the white race itself to higher hopes and purposes, and it is perhaps of the most sacred obligation that we should give it the means of expansion, and that we should press it forward to a perpetuity of progress.'

In making the foregoing propositions to revive the foreign slave-trade, the more eager spirits of the South do not appear to have sufficiently considered the political difficulties which were presented to a measure of that kind. The North, little as it is to be respected for its general lethargy, would not tolerate so gross an outrage, and it is almost unnecessary to say, that the bare attempt to legalise the importation of slaves, would produce a rupture with England and other European powers, which might end in a speedy solution of the whole question of slavery and colour. The federal authorities hastened to repudiate the sentiments of the extreme southern party. Shortly after the meeting of congress, a resolution was brought into the House of Representatives, December 15, 1856, repelling the notion of opening the slave-trade, and it was carried by a majority of 152 to 57. Immediately afterwards, a resolution was introduced, declaring it to be inexpedient, unwise, and contrary to the settled policy of the United States, to repeal the laws against the slave-trade; and this expression of feeling was carried by a majority of 183 to 8. To think it was necessary at this time of day, for the representatives of a great nation to make these avowals! The motive for doing so, however, is alleged to have been less a regard for the outraged opinion of Christendom, than a desire to discountenance a project for lowering the value of slaveproperty, which would be an inevitable consequence

of large importations of blacks from the coast of Africa. Whatever truth may be in this supposition, surely all except a few indiscreet persons must have felt that southern demonstrations had gone a little too fast-and too far.

SLAVERY AT THE

REVOLUTION-ACQUISITION

OF LOUISIANA.

IN the dashing times which produced the Declaration of Independence, and opened up the most glowing anticipations of a political millennium, in which we were to 'hold these truths as self-evident, that all men are created equal-that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights-that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness'

-we say, in the midst of these announcements of a brighter day for hitherto down-trodden human nature, and of what was actually done towards founding a great republic, who could have foreseen that in eighty years the result would be a state of things in which a sixth part of the population would be slaves-human beings of every variety of complexion and diversity of intelligence, placed, from no fault of their own, on a level with the brute creation; and further, that this sorrowful and abject condition would come to be extended, perpetuated, vindicated as an essential element in civil society! The world, as it appears to us, has hardly awakened to a consciousness of this historical anomaly; and this is not surprising, for the Americans themselves are as yet only beginning to see the awkwardness of the dilemma into which they have allowed themselves to be drifted.

It was from no qualm of conscience on the part of the committee appointed to draw up the DeclarationJefferson, Adams, Livingston, Sherman, and Franklin -that the passages relative to slavery were struck out from the celebrated document. He [the king of

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