that slavery, so far as federal legislation or government extend, is irrevocable in the United States.

Thus we have the most indisputable evidence that slavery in the States is not to be interfered with in the future; we have that of the political manifesto of the North-that of the address of the President they have elected that of Congress passing an amendment to the Constitution, declaring it for ever beyond its reach. Strange, that in the face of all this, there should be those who can bring themselves to believe that the abolition of slavery is the real object of this conflict. But if it be so clear that slavery is not really at issue, how comes it to be so identified with the contest? We have already seen that the question of its extension into the territories has formed a great element in the strife, in no respect as a question of moral principle, but solely as one of political power. Beyond this, it has contributed to the rupture in a very high degree, not indeed upon any consideration of material interests, but as a source of rancorous enmity of feeling, embittered by the intemperate language and irritating agitation of the Abolitionists.

We may know a possession to be safe under protection of the law, but if our title to it be attacked year after year, our right denounced, and our principles reviled, at last, although reason may not be alarmed, patience will become exhausted, and temper aroused. The attack may not

be formidable in power, but intolerable in its nature, until at last the desire to be rid of it becomes irresistible. In order to estimate the strength of this feeling, we must consider what are the views of the Southerner upon this subject, and in what manner they are attacked. To judge correctly, and appreciate the feelings of the people of the South, it is essential to divest ourselves of our own opinions, and to conceive that we occupy their position and see with their eyes.

All know that in every country labour is the groundwork of society, to imperil which is to imperil existence. The nature of the climate in the South caused this labour to be that of the negro, and we, for our own advantage, planted the system in the country. There are those who hold at the present day that cotton could be grown as well by white men. In a partial sense, this is true; in a general one, quite fallacious. In the uplands of the Atlantic States, and on the elevated lands of Tennessee and Texas, it is quite possible, and indeed now in practice. But the quantity these districts produce is insignificant in reference to the whole crop. The soil, so admirably adapted for the growth of cotton, and which none other in the world appears to equal, is the "bottom land," the alluvium, along the course of the rivers of all the most baneful to the white race. The heat of the cotton States in summer is as intense as that of the West Indies, and more exhausting in its effects, for there it is tempered by the humidity of the

ocean and the daily alternations of the land and sea breeze.

On several occasions the employment of white labour has been attempted in Jamaica, but invariably with the same disastrous result. Besides, cotton is not the only product of the South; there are others of large importance-tobacco, sugar, rice. In South Carolina, at certain seasons of the year, such is the nature of the climate, that the planter, born and nurtured on the spot, is forced to leave home and fields for many months of the year. Around Charleston it is regarded as certain death to continue in the country even for one week during the summer season. Suppose such a district peopled with white labourers-could they remove, to reside in other air, for many months of the year, and what would become of the crop during their absence? And yet, in the midst of all this, the negro continues at his work, amidst the swamps, in perfect health. In Louisiana, the heat of the climate is aggravated by the process of sugarmaking to so great a degree, that the European can hardly endure to stand in the temperature in which the negro has to work; yet they rejoice in the juice of the cane, and are never more hearty than during the boiling season.

The plain truth is, and it is idle to attempt to argue it away, that the white man is the inhabitant and labourer of the temperate zone, and he would no more thrive if put to field labour amidst the canes of Louisiana, or the rice-swamps of Caro

lina, or the cotton lands of Mississippi or Alabama, than would the Bengalee, in the ice-harvest of the winter's cold of Massachusetts. Nature has allotted to each latitude a race suited to its climate, and we cannot reverse her laws. And whatever may be the speculations of visitors and theorists, this is beyond a doubt that there exists in the mind of the Southern planter a thorough conviction, that without negro labour his fields must go untilled, and he and his children come to want. With him, therefore, the question is more than one of mere profit, it is one of existence.

It is also one of property: a subject upon which, in every part of the world, and in none more so than in this country, human nature is susceptible and tenacious. And in this case it is no ordinary amount of property. The slaves of the Union have been valued as high as six hundred and fifty millions sterling, which appears excessive. But taking the number, which is by the last census four millions, at an average value of 600 dollars-a very low estimate in 1860-this would give a sum of five hundred millions of pounds sterling. And they who talk so readily of emancipation—who denounce the South so bitterly and impatientlydo they stop to consider what five hundred millions sterling really means? We emancipated our slaves at a cost of twenty millions, a trifle in comparison. Who is prepared to say that, to this very day, we should not have continued slave

owners, had it required five hundred millions to remove the evil? If we assume that payment of the full value might not be required, who is prepared to pay half, or a third, or a quarter of the sum? Is it proposed that the South, of its own magnanimity and virtue, should make the sacrifice? But when was such a sacrifice heard of, or recorded in the history of mankind? Men will make sacrifices under the impulse of their own strong convictions of duty; but in this case there is no more conviction of wrong than existed amongst our own West Indian proprietors; if possible, still less.

And the vast sum named is not all that is at stake. The value of real and personal estate, in the South, has been estimated as very nearly equal to that of the slaves; and by this rule, the landed property would considerably exceed two hundred millions. Now as the loss of slave labour would, in their belief, virtually annihilate all value in land, it is really as a question of seven hundred millions sterling that this subject presents itself to the Southern mind.

There is another result of the abolitionist agitation. The American of the Southern States is not entirely without the feelings of other men. It is well known that the most accomplished and refined of American society may be found there. They have contributed more than their share to all that has given lustre to the military history of their country, or the councils of its Senate. Of the names familiar to Europe, those of Washing

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