All this, however, while it diminishes the fears of the philanthropist, ought not to relax his efforts for a future and gradual melioration. It simply illustrates things as they are, and does not positively show how they should be.
The facts hitherto collected under the second branch of inquiry, are not encouraging. The third head presents a very unsatisfactory aspect to the friends of emancipation, and of the negro race. The problem has not been solved; or if partially so, it goes to show, that there is an incompatibility between the two races, and that both are sufferers by their sojourn in the same land, even though both should be free nominally, and, in the eye of the law, equal. A glance at the condition of the free states of the union, as they are called, in this respect, exhibits the proofs of this condition of things. And so long as these startling anomalies exist—freedom without its enjoyments, equality without its social privileges—we really do not see how the people of the free states can pretend, with any show of propriety or justice, even had they the power by law and constitution, to meddle with the relations between master and slave, in the slave-holding states. They have the right, which all men ought to have, of discussing freely any and every important question in ethics, jurisprudence, and political economy, but not to give their conclusion a direct and offensive application to those portions of their fellow-citizens or fellow-men, to whom they have not yet furnished a clear and satisfactory example, and rule of conduct in the case specially adverted to.
Still more do the difficulties of the subject increase, if the last branch of inquiry has not been satisfactorily carried out—if the necessity of separation of the two races, be denied; or, if admitted, the means of accomplishing it be opposed and reviled, as either impracticable or unjust. I am myself in favour of emancipation; but this is a conclusion which it seems to us ought to be carried into effect, only after a due consideration of the premises, and with a full knowledge of the remoter consequences, and ability to make these consequences correspond with the claims of justice and peace in the beginning; and the best and permanent interests of the two races, ultimately. Have those who advocate immediate and unconditional emancipation weighed well these several branches of inquiry on this momentous subject? It is to be feared, indeed, by their language and conduct, that they have not. They should beware, while they are denouncing the slave-holder, that they do not themselves incur a still more fearful responsibility, and make themselves answerable for jeoparding, if not actually dissolving, the Union, and encouraging civil, perhaps servile war, with all its horrors and atrocities."
FOOTNOTES:
[19] "Field hands"—"Force"—"Hands"—"People," and "Niggers," are terms applied to the purchased labourers of a plantation; but "Slaves"—never. "Boys" is the general term for the men, and "women," for females. It is common to address a negro forty years of age as "boy." If much older he is called "daddy," or "uncle;" but "mister," or "man"—never. The females, in old age, become "aunty," "granny," or "old lady."
APPENDIX.
Note A.—Title-page—Mississippi.
Desirous of embodying in the appendix to this work, whatever of an interesting nature relates to the South-west, the author has compiled, principally from the American Almanac for 1835, the following Statistical Tables of Mississippi, presenting that growing state in a variety of interesting views:—