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Show 122 exertion in his own mind ; that he is unused to forethought, providence, and self-denial, and the responsibilities or domestic life; that freedom would pmduce idleness; idleness, want; want, crime; and that crime, when it should become the habit or numbers, would bring misery, perhaps ruin, not only on the offenders, but the state. Here lies the strength of the argument for continuing pmsent restraint. Give the slave3 disposi· tion and po1Yer to support themselves and their families br honest industry, and complete emancipation should not be delayed one hour. The great step, then, towards the removal of slavery is to prepare the slaves for self-support. And thi, work seems attended with no peculiar difficulty. The colored man is not a savage, to wliom toil is torture, who has centred every idea or happiness and dignity in a wild freedom, who must exchange the boundless forest fot· a narrow plantation, and bend his proud neck to an unknown yoke. Labor was his first lesson, and he has been repeating it all his lire. Can it be a hard task to teach him to labor for l)imself, to work from impulses in his own breast? Much may be done at once to throw the slave on himself, to accustom him to work for his own and his family's support, to awaken forethought, and strengthen the habit or providing for the future. On every plantation there are slaves, who 123 would do more for wages than from fear of punishment. There are those, who, if entrusted with a piece of ground, would support themselves and pay a rent in kind. There are those, who, if moderate task-work were given them, would gain their whole subsistence in their own time. Now every such man ought to be committed very much to himself. It is a crime to subject to the whip a man who can be made to toil from rational and honorable motives. This partial introduction of freedom would form a superior class a!T.ong the slaves, whose example would have immense moral power on those who needed compulsion. The industrious and thriving would g-ive an impulse to the whole race. It is im portant that the property, thus earned by the slave, should be made as sacred as that of any other member of the community, and fot· this end he should be enabled to obtain redress of wrongs. J n case of being injured by his master in this ot· in any respect, he should either be set free, or, if unprepared for liberty, should be transferred to another guardian. As another means of raising the slave and fitting him to act from higher motives than compulsion, a system of bounties and rewards should be introduced. New privileges, increased indulgences, honorable distinctions, expressions or respect, should be awarded to the honest aud industrious. |