Over

burg, George-Town, Charleston, Beaufort, Colleton. Each has its court-house, judge, magistrates, and commissioners of roads. The assizes are half-yearly. In the fall and in the spring the commissioners call out one man out of every twenty to repair the roads. The negroes on plantations have easy work: begin at sunrise, breakfast at nine, dinner at three; by which time the task-work is usually finished. All work is done by task, looked over by the driver, who is a negro, and all are under the overseer. seers are white men, their salary being about $2000 (£400 a year), with good houses, and gardens, and servants: in Mr. W's plantation, having 350 negroes, all were born on the estate, except one family. All have gardens, pigs, poultry, cows. No boys or girls work till they are fifteen years of age; till then they are employed tending the infants while the parents are at work. On Saturday half-tasks are set, so that they have more than a half-holiday. Here every evening some of them came into the parlour to read the New Testament to Mrs. W-One of these," March," is a driver, about forty years of age; he stammers much in talk, but not at all in reading. If a negro marries a woman of another plantation, she is called a "broad wife;" the children stay with her.

It is the custom for masters to arrange for man and wife to be together: the wife is often bought on purpose to be with her husband, and vice versa. A man who sells a wife away from her husband, out of reach, is reckoned inhuman in society; still it is done, and none that I conversed with on the subject but agree that a law should be passed to prevent it. A master at Wilmington sold a little child away from its mother: a subscription was immediately raised to buy the mother from him to put her with the child. He dared not refuse, and he was so avoided that he was obliged to quit the place.

I here insert an extract from a Charleston paper, complaining of the manner in which the constitution has been infringed, the condition of the negroes injured, and their freedom postponed :—

"The Declaration of Independence of the 4th July, 1776, is that 'These United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.'

"The very word 'State' presumes self-government. A State is a body separate and entire. The several States came into Union, on throwing off the British yoke, for each one's individual benefit, and for the sake of making a nation of States, and so, as soon as any State ceased to derive that benefit, it would have perfect right to withdraw from that

Union, and either to remain per se, or to confederate with those, whose interests might be identical. In fact the very origin of the Union proves this, for each joined it separately as an 'Independent' State; (two expressly stipulating the right of separation at pleasure, but the rest always held it as part of the Constitution). The States were not made for the Union, but the Union for the States. The South was not joined to the North as in eternal wedlock, but only as partners in company-the partnership dissoluble, at any time, by the will of either one. Moreover, each State has the seed of Independence in itself, having its Governor or President, its officers of State, its Senate and Congress, and above "all its right to call a State Convention-also each State has its own distinct legal code, that of South Carolina being a copy of the Common Law' of England.

"Again, the Constitution requires that 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion.

"Departures from these provisions—

"1st. The Executive has invaded the sovereignty, freedom, and independence of those States, which claim to be separated from the Union. See Article 2nd.

"2nd. Force has been used and attack made against the independent States of the South, on account of their asserting their right of 'sovereignty." See Article 3rd.

"3rd. The Southern States have had no vote in Congress; their Representatives have been absent from the House. See Article 5th.

66 '4th. The so-called United States of the North engaged in war against the Southern States, when thirteen out of thirty-one States did not assent in Congress, though, according to the Constitution, war cannot be declared unless two-thirds assent. See Article 9th.

"5th. As thirteen States are not represented in Congress, therefore no question as to this war against the Southern States can have been submitted to the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, for Congress consists by the Constitution of the whole of the States in Union; and, till a new Constitution be agreed on by the Northern States, there can be no legal Congress of the United States. And these articles having been broken by the so-called United States Congress, and the Executive, they have violated the Confederation, and destroyed the perpetuity of the Union. Moreover, they have broken the guarantee of a republican form of

Government to every State, in resisting the will of the people of said thirteen* States to be independent of the Union, and, instead of protecting them from invasion, have actually invaded them themselves. See Article 13.

"Thus the so-called United States, through their Congress and Executive, are in open disobedience to the Constitution, which constitutes rebellion.

"It is remarkable too, that they (i.e. the so-called United States and Executive) have been and are perpetrating the very same grievances that caused the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Among the grievances against the King of England, causing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, it is said that he combined with others' for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.' 'He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.' 'He has excited domestic insurrections against us.' By the Navigation Acts, the Congress shut out the South from carrying freight by any except Northern vessels, and, by protective tariffs taxed them heavily

*It is a remarkable coincidence that this number agrees with the number of States who at first conquered independence.