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Show 26 tory, and of course most likely to advance in influence and political power in the governnrent of the country. 'Without adoptin~; in their full force all Dr. C.'s disparaging reflections on the character of wllite men within a slave district, it is obvious that the circumstances under which they are placed are not very favorable to the operation of nice speculative morality when it comes in opposition to direct personal interest. The population, already five millions, will double and quadruple in a sho rt time by force of its natural productiveness and by new emigration. The natives born grow op accustomed to the state of things around them. 'fhe immigrants go there acqua inted with the Jaws and customs of the country, which they prefer to those of the adjacent free States. They go to better their worldly affairs , and with very insignificant exceptions, not as promulgators of a new faith or reform ers of existing pr·inciples. S lave ry is established by law in this vast territory and al\\'ays has been from its first settlement by Europeans. This law does not indeed change its proper character·, but it is the indication of the sentiment of the people as to that character, and speaks the popular opin ion of the country. By force of that law a slave is property and may be owned, bought and sold as any other article of merc.handize. His time and labor are his owner's, and the l)I'Ofits of his labor b elong to his master. l-Ie is of cour·se productive property. However abhorrent all this may sound in our ears, ''"e must hear it and give it weight. We are dealing now not with theories but with facts. Not discussing abstract rights, but actual realities ; not what ought to be hut what is. Slaves then are in fact property. They are the wealth and fortune of the planters. W e know how intimately pr·operty enters into all the relations of life, especially any kind of property which has been long understood and possessed, and has the peculiarities of being fixed or moveable at the will of the owner. In the divi sion of estates property in slaves is considered a part of the inheritance as much as bank stock ; and it may happen that while one heir takes the money of his ancestor, others divide the land and the slaves at their estimated value. As 27 property, debts are contracted on a pledge of slaves and slaves are disposed of to p<ty the deLts of thei r master. Here are the obv ious di rect operations of tire property cha racter of the s]a,·e population. Like articles of merchand ize elsewhere, like lPather, flour, sugar, cotto n, coffee, sbips, cloths, paper, or whatever is used among us for property and with which the industry and enterprise of our citizens is concer·ned, this species of property is in the slave district the indirect mellns of a great proportion of all the activity and industry which is there visible in the accumulation of profi t. It is an item indeed in the aggregation of capital which is not here particularly the subject of barter, the item, namely, of disposable human labor. I t resembles the value which is represented with us by the labor of oxen or horses which we know to be, though immensely less in amount, ye t actually of very considerable consideration in the estim ate of our New England wealth . I have already adrerted to the amount of capital vested in slaves by those who difl(>ring from Dr. Channing consider a slave as their property. It is of little moment whether we take the Southern estim ate as correct, and consider the slaves of the United States as equivalent in worth to five hundred mil. lions of dollars, or deducting one half, es timate them at two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, the smaller sum is of such enormous magnitude that it will answer the purposes of illustration as well as the larger.* The professed owners of this property are of every grade and class of society in point of wealth, integrity and reputation, from the affluent planter with his thousand negroes, to the day laborer who owns a single boy perhaps to diminish his mechanical drudgery ; from th e statesman of high intelligence, and the clergyman of acknowledged probity, whose domestic establishments are served by their bondsmen and bondswomen, to the keeper of the gambling house or the bagnio, to whose deeds of infamy these servile subjects lend their en- • Since this was written I have seen nn estimate hy which the value or s\a\•es in the, United States is estimated to be m.ore than i:IGHT Ht;rron~:o MILLIOI'I'! or DOLLAU. |