Slavery iz an evil of the worst kind; this iz generally acknowledged. But what remedy can be applied? To liberate the slaves at once would be madness; it would ruin both masters and slaves. To liberate them gradually, and suffer the freed men to liv with the whites, might giv rise to discord and tumults. Colonization, by a gradual exportation, iz an expedient that would be safe and effectual, but cannot be put in execution. The probability iz, that, in the lapse of time, the blacks wil all be blended with the whites; the mixed race wil acquire freedom, and be the predominant part of the inhabitants. This event haz taken place in Spanish America, between the nativs and Spaniards; and, to a great degree, in some of the West India islands. The same event iz rapidly taking place in the suthern states. A propozition waz once made in the house of delegates, in Virginia, for granting the rights of freemen to the free blacks; it waz not carried; but I do not see how any state can deny theze rights to blacks that hav the legal qualifications of property and residence. This privilege once granted, would facilitate the intercourse between the whites and blacks, and hasten the abolition of slavery.
In the climate of the united states, there are several particulars that dezerv notice. In the first place, every circumstance in the local position of Atlantic America, concurs to render the wether variable. Theze states extend thro fifteen degrees of latitude, in the temperate zone; consequently must always experience the extremes of winter and summer. Every part of this territory experiences sudden changes of wether; but the most numerous and violent changes, are between the 36th and 43d degrees of latitude, on the Atlantic coast. Within this district, the most frequent variations seem to be in Pensylvania and Maryland. Four months in the winter season, the wether in Pensylvania, Maryland and Virginia, resembles the March wether in New England; almost every week exhibiting the varieties of cold, heet, frost, snow and rain. For two months in the spring, and one in autumn, New England iz expozed to eesterly winds and rain; except in theze months, the changes of wether, tho sometimes sudden and violent, are not very frequent. The eesterly winds, which uzually bring rain, ceese about the 20th of May.
The variations of wether in the united states, arizing from the latitude of their situation, are multiplied by their position on the ocean. Water in an ocean iz of a very uniform temperature; whereas land iz eezily heeted and cooled. This circumstance creates an incessant contest between heet and cold, on an extensiv see coast; and of course an everlasting variableness of winds. This iz true in all countries. According to this theory, Atlantic America must always hav a variable climate.
The south eest winds from the ocean, falling upon the continent at right angles with the shore, invariably produce rain; the opposit, or north west winds, proceeding from the high lands in the back country, invariably produce cold cleer wether. North eest winds, running parallel with the shore, produce storms of snow in winter, and long cold storms of rain in spring and autum. Our most violent gales blow from the north eest. A south westerly wind sometimes brings rain, and when it first blows in winter, iz chilly; but it soon moderates cold wether, and in summer it iz the gentle zepher of the poets.
In speeking of winds, it iz necessary to correct a vulgar error. It iz commonly said, that north west winds contract their coldness from the vast lakes in the north west regions of the united states. This iz an unphilosophical opinion, for water always moderates the temperature of the air; and it iz a wel known fact that the large lakes do not freeze at all; so that if we were to feel the wind immediately after passing over them, we should find it always temperate. The truth iz, our westerly winds come from high mountains and high regions of the atmosphere, which are always cool. The top of the blu ridge, or first range of mountains in Virginia, iz about four thousand feet abuv its base. The top of the Allegany or middle ridge, which iz the height of land between the Atlantic and the Missisippi, tho not so far from its base, must be much higher in the atmosphere. How far the base of the blu ridge iz abuv the surface of the ocean, haz not been ascertained; but suppoze it five thousand feet, and the top of the Allegany, two thousand feet abuv the blu ridge, and the greatest elevation of land iz eleven thousand feet abuv the waters of the Atlantic.
The air on the tops of theze mountains iz never heeted to the degree it iz in the low countries. The cold regions of the atmosphere are much neerer to such hights, than to a vast extended plain. Thus the tops of mountains are often cuvered with snow, when the land at the feet of them, iz fit for plowing. From the regions of air abuv theze mountains, proceed the serene cold winds which sweep the Atlantic states, purifying the atmosphere and bracing the bodies of animals.
I would just remark here, that the climate of the trans-alleganean country, wil never be expozed to the frequent changes of air and violent tempests which harrass the inhabitants of the Atlantic shore. The force and disagreeable effects of eesterly winds from the ocean, are broken by the mountains; and the northerly winds wil be tempered by passing over the lakes; while the sutherly winds wil be az refreshing in summer az on this eestern coast. Theze remarks are now verified by facts; altho by being cleered from forests, the country wil become more expozed to variations of wind.
In the second place, it iz obzervable that the climate of America grows more variable, in proportion to the cultivation of the land. Every person obzerves this effect of cleering the lands in the eestern and middle states. The heet in summer, and the cold in winter, are not so steddy az formerly, being interrupted by cool rains in summer, and moderate wether in winter. Our springs and autums are longer, the former extending into summer, and the latter into winter. The cause of this change iz obvious: By levelling the forests, we lay open the erth to the sun, and it becumes more impressible with heet and cold. This circumstance must multiply changes of wether. The cultivation necessary to produce this effect, haz proceeded about one hundred miles from the Atlantic, or perhaps a little farther. But in Vermont and other back settlements, the wether iz yet steddy; there being few violent storms, especially in winter. The snow falls gently, and lies til spring; whereas neer the Atlantic, moderate wether for three or four days, or a warm rain, often sweeps away the snow in January or February.
But altho the wether iz growing more variable from the cleering of lands, yet the salutary effects of cultivation are vizible in the increesing salubrity of the climate. The agu and fever iz a disorder that infests most new settlements. Cultivation wil totally remoov the causes of this disorder, from every tract of country, which iz capable of being drained. Forty yeers ago, this diseese prevailed in the state of Connecticut, in the same manner it now does in Maryland. But for twenty or thirty yeers past, it haz hardly been heerd of in the state. There are a few places expozed to the effluvia of marshy grounds, where the disorder stil infests the inhabitants.
Some parts of the suthern states can never be drained; the land iz so low that the freshes in the rivers, or the tides, are almost constantly cuvering it with water. Vegetable putrefaction may be considered az furnishing the miasmata in any country; and the greatest quantities of putrid effluvia are exhaled from lands constantly expozed to a flux and reflux of water.