considerable extent. These seven states include an area of about one hundred and fifty thousand square miles; the extent of the six slave states is upwards of two hundred thousand square miles. By the first census in 1790, the six free states contained a population of 1,908,000 souls; the population of the slave states amounted to 1,848,000. Forty years after, by the census of 1830, the population of the seven free states amounted to 5,256,000, while the population of the six slave states was only 3,571,000. The census of 1840 will show a still greater contrast ;-for while the population of the seven free states has been increasing during the last eight or nine years, in a greater ratio than ever before, in the six slave states the drain of emigration has been so great as to have prevented any considerable increase.

Density of population, and the existence of towns and cities, are essential to any great degree of social progress. Brought thus into contact, mind acts upon mind; what is discovered by one soon becomes known to all; emulation leads to new discoveries and enterprises; competition constantly exerts its beneficial influence; the division of labor, that essential means of improvement, is not practicable among a scattered population ; cities are the central points from which knowledge, enterprise, and civilization stream out upon the surrounding country.

In the six free States above referred to, we find three large cities, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the first of which is generally regarded as the commercial metropolis of the Union. There are not less than twenty other considerable towns which are growing with rapidity, and several of which promise to rise to the first importance. Villages containing five or six thousand inhabitants, are quite numerous; new ones are springing up every day, and others are passing from the class of villages into that of towns.

How different a picture is presented by the six slave States! They contain but one city deserving the name, and that one, be it observed, is situated upon

the verge of the free States, and owes the principal part of its importance to that very circumstance. In wealth, trade and public institutions, in literature, science and general refinement, Baltimore is far inferior to either of the great cities of the north. Charleston is a little more than a place of deposite for the produce of the surrounding country, and a retreat for the neighboring planters from the unhealthiness of their plantations. It has been about stationary for this last twenty years, and the same is true of Alexandria, Norfolk, Savannah, and other ancient towns. Jamestown, the original capital of Virginia, has ceased to exist, the ruins of an old church steeple are its only memorial. Williamsburg the second capital of Virginia, has long been in decay. Such existence as it has, it owes to the ancient college established there. Richmond, the present capital presents a more thriving appearance,but to judge by the depopulation and impoverishment of the surrounding country, it must soon share a similar fate.

What are called towns in these States, would for the most part, be esteemed at the north, as little better than villages. In addition to the small number scattered along the sea-coast, there are a few of more recent growth, situated on the great rivers, generally at the head of steam-boat navigation. They are points at which the produce of the country is collected for shipment, and whence imported goods are distributed through the adjoining country; but so few and far between, as scarcely at all to vary the dull monotony of a poorly peopled country which presents at the same time, all the rudeness of a new settlement, and all the marks of old age and decay.

If the slave holding states formed a separate and insulated nation, cut off from communication and intercourse with the free states of the north, there is good reason to suppose that they would fall rapidly behind hand, in the career of civilization. As it is, they are sustained and dragged along by the energy of their northern sisters. Improvements are first started and

put into execution at the north, then slowly and faintly imitated at the south. The best educated and most accomplished men of the southern states have passed their youth at northern schools and colleges; such seminaries for education as the southern states possess, are supplied almost entirely with northern or foreign teachers. The whole trade of the south, so far as relates to transactions on the large scale, is in the hands of northern merchants who carry on this important branch of business for which the native citizens of those states, seem to lack the requisite knowledge, sagacity, perseverance and application. The learned professions, physic, divinity, and even the law, are more or less, recruited from the same source. The newspapers have northern editors; even the compositors who set the types are imported. The same is the case with all mechanics who have any considerable skill in the art they profess. Southern rail roads are built with northern capital and by northern engineers and contractors. It is hardly possible to erect a large hotel, or block of ware-houses without the aid of northern artificers. The southern states are supplied with books and periodicals from northern presses; and it seems to be only by a close and intimate union with the north, that civilization at the south is enabled to make any progress, or even to preserve itself from decline. It is worthy of special remark however, that those northern men who emigrate to the south imbibe by degrees, the feelings and the habits, the indolence, and the incapacity of the population by which they are surrounded. They are unable to transmit to their children any of those qualities which they carried with them from home. These children, bred up after the southern fashion, are thoroughly southern. It is constantly necessary that new blood should be transferred from the warm and vigorous circulation of the north, to revive and quicken the veins, palsied, and made stagnant by the poison of slavery.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

PERSONAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM.

SECTION I.

Personal Effects of Slavery upon the members of the ́ privileged class.

By personal results of the slave-holding system those results are intended, which exhibit themselves in the personal character of the members of a slaveholding community.

Slavery has already been explained to be in its nature, a protracted state of war. All its results are sufficiently conformable to such an origin.

Soldiers possess a free and self-confident air, and when among friends and not irritated or opposed, they exhibit a frank good humor, an easy, companionable disposition, which renders their society agreeable, and causes their company to be generally courted. Their military duties often leave them an abundance of leisure; for long intervals, they often have nothing to do but to seek amusement, and they give a warm and hearty welcome to all who are disposed to join and aid them in that pursuit.

These same traits of manners are sufficiently conspicuous among the privileged class of our southern aristocracies. Though a large portion of that class is destitute of education, and of any real refinement, yet almost every member of it has more or less, a certain patrician bearing, a consciousness of his own superiority which gives him an air of manliness and dignity,

but which it must be confessed, degenerates too often into rudeness and braggadocio. The wealthier and better educated, passing almost the whole of their lives in a round of social pleasures, have attained to a considerable perfection in the art of pleasing; and those who visit the southern states of the Union for the first time, are generally captivated by the politeness, the hospitality, the attentions, the good humor of the people.

Manners however are far from being any certain index of character, and they are often carried to a high pitch of refinement, in cases where all the virtues. which they seem to indicate, are lamentably deficient.

The soldier nursed in blood and robbery, however mildly and gently he conducts himself, is at best only a tame tiger, not rashly to be trusted. His passions are violent and unmanageable, accustomed to indulgence, and impatient of control. It is the same with the slave-master. Habituated to play the tyrant at home, unshackled regent and despotic lord upon his own plantation, where his wish, his slightest whim is law, the love of domineering possesses all his heart. The intercourse of society has taught him the policy and the advantages of mutual concession in little things, and the trifling points of ordinary politeness he yields with the ready willingness of a well-bred man. Beyond this he is not to be trusted. Alarm his prejudices, his self-love, his jealousy, his avarice, his ambition; cross his path in any shape whatever; assume the character of a rival or a censor; presume to doubt his perfect wisdom and immaculate virtue; and from a laughing, good natured companion, he is changed at once, into a fierce, furious, raving and raging enemy. He boils and almost bursts with passion; he answers argument with invective; instead of reasons, he replies to you with insults. Not content to restrain his hate within the usual limits of civilized life, he thirsts for your blood. He murders you in a duel; assaults you in the streets with pistols and Bowie knife; or deliberately shoots you from the door of his house, with