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Show 46 strung anew by liberty ; with the same limbs to toil, and with stronger motives to toil than before. He will receive wages, instead of a fixed allowance ; and wages are found in many parts of the "Vest Indies, to get from him nearly twice the labor which he performed during bondage. He will work from hope, not fear ; will work for himself, not for others; and, unless all the principles of human nature are reversed under a black skin, he will work better than before. For what mighty loss then does the slaveholder need compensation ? We believe that agriculture will revive, worn-out soils be renewed, and the whole country assume a brighter aspect under free labor. The slaveholder, in relinquishing what is another's, will add a new value to what is unquestionably his own. The next objection to Emancipation is, that it will produce an amalgamation of the white and colored races. This objection is a strange one from a resident at the South. Can any impartial man fear, that amalgamation will, in any event, go on more rapidly than at the present moment ? Slavery tends directly to intermingle the races. It robs the colored female of protection against licentiousness. Still worse, it robs her of self-respect. It dooms her class to prostitution. Nothing, but freedom, can give her the feelings of a woman, and can shield her from brutal lust. Slavery does something worse than sell otf her children. It makes her a stranger to the delicacy of her sex. Undoubtedly a smile will be provoked· by expressions of concern for the delicacy of a colored woman. But is this a conventional, arbitrary accomplishment, appropriate only to a white skin ? Is it not the fit, natural, beautiful adorning, which God designed for every woman ; and does not a curse belong to an institution which blights it, not accidentally, but by a necessary, fixed operation? It is the relation of property in human beings, which generates the 47 impure connexions of the South, and which prevents the natural repugnance, gro\\'ing out of difference of color, from exerting its power. As far as marriage is concerned, there seems to be a natural repugnance between the races ; and in saying this, no unfeeling contempt is expressed towards either race. l\farriage is an affair of taste. We do not marry the old; yet how profoundly we respect them. How few women would a man of refinement consent to marry ; yet he honors the sex. The barrier of color, as far as this particular connexion is concerned, implies no degradation of the African race . There seems, as I have said, a repugnance in nature ; but if not natural, the prejudice is as strong as an innate feeling ; and how much it may be relied on to prevent connexions, we may judge from the whole experience of the North. There is another security against this union in our country. I refer to the mark which has been set on the colored race by their past slavery ; a mark which generations will not efface, and in which the whites will have no desire to participate. Even were the slaves of the South of our own color, and were slavery to fix on them and on their children some badge or memorial, such as the impress of a lash on the forehead, or of a chain on the cheek, how few among the class of free descent would be anxious to ally themselves with this separated portion of the race. The spirit of caste, which almost seems the strongest in human nature, will certainly postpone amalgamation long enough, to give the world opportunity to understand and manage the subject much better than ourselves. To continue a system of wrong from dread of such evils, only shows the ingenuity of power in defending itself. The fable of the wolf and the lamb drinking at the same stream, comes spontaneously to our thoughts. But allowing what I have contested, allowing that amalgamation is to be anticipated, then, I maintain, we have no right to resist it. Then, it is not unnatural. |