was better than the ox or the mule, the companions of his toil.

The truth, that the slave does really, notwithstanding the law, stand in a human relation to his master, is recognized by the practice and language of a large number of wealthy, educated, and humane proprietors. Their ideas and their conduct are in advance of the law. They speak habitually of slavery as a domestic institution, as one of the social relations. Custom and opinion among these, especially in the old States, and where families have inherited their property, secure to the slave much kindness and many privileges. Mutual attachment has grown up between the parties. A certain standard of treatment has been established in regard to holidays, food, clothing, work, discipline, and punishment, well suited to the character of the negro, and which, on many estates, could hardly be improved. This standard cannot be widely departed from without loss of character. But unfortunately the gentlemen, the enlightened and humane, those who have character and position to lose, and who can be influenced by public opinion, by any thing short of legal restraint in the pursuit of their interest or the gratification of their passions, are not appointed by the law as the exclusive owners of slaves. The trader, the speculator, who buys land and negroes to make money, and who regards the latter simply as stock, as an investment, the mercenary, the reckless, the brutal, still remain; and to these, also, the law gives the negro as a chattel, stripped of every human right, the helpless, unshielded, uncared for victim of rapacity, of selfishness, of coarse and violent passions inflamed by the possession of absolute power.

Now, here is the point of the case. This is the evil set forth in vivid colors by Mrs. Stowe; and the only question for sane men to consider is, can this evil be remedied? — not can slavery be abolished; that is neither possible nor desirable. But can it be made to conform to the dictates of humanity and justice, to the enlightened opinion of the civilized world? This evil, like all moral evil, is the result of error, of falsehood. It follows, as a necessary consequence, from the law which says that man can be property, that a

slave is property, which is untrue, and being so, every inference from it, whether of doctrine or practice, must be untrue and pernicious.

Let the law tell the truth. Let it say that a slave is not, and cannot be, property; that, as a man, he is entitled to justice, to the care of government, to protection from wrong, and the subject at once becomes manageable. Let the law conform to and execute the virtuous and enlightened portion of public sentiment in the South; let it really make slavery a domestic institution; let it enforce, universally, in the treatment of slaves, the customs and habits which have grown up among respectable masters; let it describe slaves, not as chattels, but in the wise and truthful language of the Constitution, as "persons held to service and labor;" and a new light would break in the horizon over this terrible subject, the light of dawn. We might then hope for day. Slavery would assume a new aspect. It would put on the robes of justice and truth. The Southern people would then have an answer to the charges made against them. They could say, we have this race among us. They are bound to us, and we to them, for good and for evil. To get rid of them is impossible; to emancipate them, equally so. It would involve calamities far worse than slavery to us and to them. The only thing that remains for us to do is to take care of them, to govern them for our welfare and their own; and that we are doing, that we mean to do.

Had this been done heretofore, there would have been no abolition party, and Uncle Tom would never have been written. Were it done now, its influence on opinion would be immediately felt. The chief argument of the abolitionists would be taken away. The moral sense of one half of the country would no longer be revolted at the life and habits of the other; the moderate, the judicious, the lovers of their country and of humanity, those who regard the right and the true as above country, above life, above every thing earthly, could give to slavery their support and aid; the fanatic, the demagogue, would be disarmed, and the frightful dangers which surround the agitation of this subject might be averted. Whatever the motive of Mrs. Stowe's books, their effect

will be good. They point to the truth, and the truth is always beneficial. It is the one thing needful in the management of all affairs. In the novel, the truth is not merely told; it is painted; it addresses the imagination and the feelings. Being thus put into a popular form, the multitude, on whom abstract reasoning would be thrown away, can understand and appreciate it. Curiosity, discussion, investigation are stimulated, and public attention forcibly drawn to the subject. The Southern people are put on their defence. In this contest, they have no State rights, or constitutional rights, to fall back upon. These are no barriers against reason, truth, and justice. They must reply, and are driven to apology, extenuation, denial, or confession,- at all events, to examination and discussion, from which some practical good may be hoped. Their condition is thus revealed to themselves, the good as well as the evil of it; and there are among them so much wisdom and virtue, so much cultivated intelligence and moral worth, that they may well be trusted to find remedies for the evil, and to hold fast to the good.

Mrs. Stowe has also, in her novel, unconsciously and unintentionally, done the South a service, by showing very clearly three things of great importance.

First, that the general condition of the slaves, notwithstanding many exceptions, is a happy one, well suited to their nature. The Shelbys may be regarded as a fair picture of the majority of masters, because they are a fair specimen of the majority of families of respectability and easy fortune everywhere. With such masters and such treatment, the negro is as well placed as he can be. He has kindness and care, government and guidance, and is exempt from the miseries of poverty, idleness, and vice. His position is better than that of most of the free negroes in the North, of the peasantry of many parts of Europe, and infinitely better, in all respects, mental, moral, and material, than that of his brethren in Africa. A similar description of the condition of the slaves on a well-ordered estate is contained in the letter of a gentleman in Virginia, at page 8 of the Key.

Secondly, the book shows, that, while the benefits of slavery may be increased and extended, its evils are capable of being

remedied by wise and just legislation. These evils arise chiefly from the cruelty of brutal masters; from the separation of families by judicial and other sales; and from the defenceless condition of the slave with reference to others than his master.

It would swell this article beyond its proper limits, to attempt a discussion of the means by which the atrocities produced by these causes might be prevented. In the slave laws of other nations, ancient and modern, may be found provisions which would palliate or wholly remove them. It is a disgrace to the country and the age, that our laws on the subject are more severe, with the exception of the early Roman, than any other. It is obvious that the cruelty of masters might be restrained by providing for the sale of the slave who is the subject of it, and by declaring persons guilty of it incapable of holding slaves, as they are certainly unfit for such a trust. The inhumanity of separating families might be prevented by regarding farm and plantation slaves as part of the realty, so that they could not be sold from it, at least by process of law; by prohibiting the sale of slaves apart from their wives, children, husbands, or parents, unless by their own consent, properly authenticated; and by providing that such sale should be void, or that by it, the slave should ipso facto gain his freedom. The slave might also be protected not only from excessive severity by his master, but from the violence and abuse of others, by penal laws properly executed.

Laws founded on these principles would but enforce on all what are now the opinions and practice of respectable slaveowners. Similar provisions exist already in the statutes of some of the Southern States. That they could be made. effectual, and to a great extent accomplish their object, by vigor of execution and by a different system of evidence from that which prevails, it is impossible to doubt. An enlightened public opinion, to demand them, alone is wanting; and it is wanting, not so much among slave-holders, as among those who are not slave-holders, but who vote; and whose ignorance, passions, and prejudices control government. These last, a wretched population, idle, vicious, and poor, such as grows

up where free industry is degraded by slavery, and robbed by it, also, of employment and reward, oppose with violence every attempt to improve the condition of the negroes, because their selfishness and pride are gratified by having a class below them, whom they may insult and abuse with impunity. They are the worst enemies of the slave, and their liberty, or political power, the greatest obstacle to any scheme.

for his benefit.

Thirdly, no one can read Uncle Tom without the irrisistible. conviction, that the Southern people alone can deal with this subject. Slavery, as this work shows, is so interwoven with all the relations, interests, and habits of their lives, that they only, who are thus in contact with it, can properly understand and manage it. It is no light task; and we believe that this novel, though written in no friendly spirit, written, indeed, with much of the bitterness of fanaticism,- will have a happy influence in convincing the liberal and enlightened among the Southern people of the necessity for reform, and of stimulating them to the work.

Much has been said of the evils of slavery; and it is a remark that passes current with most persons, that it is a social and political curse. It would be more correct to say, that it is an evil for any country to have any portion of its people who are fit subjects for slavery. It is not slavery that is the curse of the South; it is Africa. It is the presence of an alien, inferior race, with whom amalgamation is degradation and corruption of blood, who can never be citizens; whose natural tendency is not to improvement, but to barbarism; who make industry ignorant, unskilful, and abject; who form no part of the people, though a large proportion of the population; and who are thus a source of weakness, and not of strength. This is the curse; and it would be infinitely greater, were this degraded population free instead of being slaves. It is the punishment for the lawless rapine that tore the negro from his native sands, for the nameless horrors of the middle passage, for all the atrocities of the slave-trade. A portion of the South being so largely African, slavery is a necessity.

Wherever the white man can work, negro labor, slave or