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Show NOTES ON moral degradation. These must have occurred to the aristo· cratic and not less philanthropic circle at Stafford.housc, who know too well the fragile materials of their own social system not to fear the dama,ging reply they are bringing on th~mselvcs." . The "social system," I take it, is an "institution," wherever existing; certainly, the English social system. What though it be tho product of circumstances, and you can find no law establishing it? So is the institution of slavery. Lot the editor of tho Guardian l~ok into tho books, aml examine for himself: laws recogmzmg tho mstltuiion and regulating its working, he will find in abundance, just as he will, laws recognizing the social system and rCgulating its working; but any b.w establislt·ing either, he will look in Yain for. I know the Judges in England and in this country,-some, even in the slave States,-tell us that slavery is tho creature of positive law; but they speak without book. Slavery existed in "the colonies," years before any statute·law even regulating it, much less estab· lisldng it. Why, it is only the other day, as it were, that Maryland enacted the following law:- "An Act declaring Domestic Slavery to be lawful in this State. 1839. chap. 338. " Whereas, the courts in some of the non·slaveholding States require the owners of fugi.tivc slaves to prove that slavery exists in this State, and it is right to provide a convenient mode of enabling such owners to procure a certified copy of a law, proving that slavery exists by law in this State ; therefore, "Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That negroes and mulattoes have been held in slavery in this State as the property of their owners from the earliest settlement of this State, and arc, and may be hereafter held in slavery as·the property of their owners, and that every UN C L 1!: T 0 M '8 CAD 1 N. 85 ~wner of such negro or mulatto is entitled to the service and abour of such negro or mulatto for the life of such negro or mulatto, except in cases where such negro or mulatto can show, that by the grant or devise of the owner or some former owner of such negro or mulatto, or his or her matcr~al ancestor, a shorter period of service has been presented." Slayery, then, in the United States, is an institution, in ~he. sa~e sense that the social system in England. is an mstltutiOn, and in no other sense. "Ay, but slavery is a bad institution." . N:Ly, Mr. Guardian! not so fa.st. How do you know it IS 11 bad institution ? "Because it produces bad results." So docs the social system of England. "Not sol the ignorance, misery, and vice which exist in England, are such as grow· up in every old and densely peopled country." Aye, but the question is, not what they grow up in, but what they grow upj1·om. A dense population is only the soil m wluch they thrive: the social system, as it exists in ~ngland,-thc competitive, or demand-and-supply system,IS the seed from which they spring. * "That ignorance, misery, and vice, jf we do not our Yery best to conquer, we at least unanimously deplore.'' So _do we, tl.1e comparatively trifling ~tmount of misery and VJCC rcsultmg from slavery. As to the ignorance, I have a few words to say in explanation. I have not tho statistics of Europe at hand, but in tho little island of Sardihia, I learn from oflicial sources, that of the 548,000, and *If the editor of the Guardian wants further proof of thi~, I will refer him to "'l'he Shwe 'l'radc Dome~tic and Foreign, by If. C. Carey, P~liladclphia," published since the above was written, in which ho Will find my position demmtstra.tcd. H |