which the one is common to us with the gods, the other with the beasts," and that it selects to obliterate and deny the nobler of the two. But although slavery must inevitably be debasing to the intellectual being of man, the popular impression of the extent of this influence is greatly exaggerated. The amount of degradation resulting from any cause must be limited by the height from which there was room to fall. The intellectual condition of the slave has not fallen from that of his race in the home from which he was transplanted. There has been no absolute loss whatever, but, on the contrary, a positive gain. It differs also in no appreciable degree from that of the free black in the North. Strange as it may sound, the term "free nigger" is frequently used by the slaves as an expression of pity and contempt.

Why, we know not, but we do know as a fact, that Nature has ordained a difference in the mental powers of of man, as marked and ineradicable as any of the physical distinctions of race. In theory, we may call every man a brother; but, as a reality, take the Esquimaux, or the Australian, and work the theory out. The Australian is of all human beings the most entirely unshackled by restraint. He commands freedom in its widest range. No slavery has ever debased him,-the name of it he never heard. Yet what is the mind of the Australian savage? Will all the culture of Europe raise it to our level?

How many

efforts have been made to elevate it, and with

what result? less free

There is the New Zealander, by far nay, with slavery as an institution amongst his people, in many respects as savage, cannibals but one generation ago. Yet how entirely different in mental power. The one full of noble and generous sentiments, of apt intelligence, with a keen sense of honour; the other as incapable of such feelings, as impervious to them, as if he were altogether a thing of ill-coloured clay, hideously fashioned into human form.

And these races, differing so radically in mental capacity, are in the same latitude, nearest neighbours to each other. If between them there be so indisputable a mental difference, how much easier is it to comprehend its existence in the instance of a race, denizens of the equatorial region of Africa, when compared with the people of temperate Europe. Had the negro possessed the powers of the European mind, Africa would not have remained to this day without the rudest monuments of art. What has prevented the negro from rising even to the civilization of the Arab? And why should we attempt to reason away the fact, or receive it with impatience? The mind of the negro may be improved and instructed, but it cannot be raised to the level of the European. When we see throughout Nature a prevailing law of variety, in all things-in animal instinct-in the intelligence of individual men-why assume that there should be uniformity in the mental power allotted to different races of men?

The

mind of the negro avoids reflection on the past, abstains from investigating the future; he improves nothing that is old, he invents nothing that is new, he discovers nothing unknown. We are not speaking of those of mixed descent, but of the pure race; and wherever it be found, in Africa or America, these will be found as characteristics. Perception of this would save much benevolence from being led astray. We imagine the slave to groan possess and under the feelings that would be In reality, as a ours, if reduced to his condition.

rule, he knows nothing of these feelings. It is just as natural to him to be a slave as it would be monstrous to us. The great majority, if their freedom were offered to them, would look upon it He was born as a proposal to go out and starve. to it, brought up to it; he has no traditions of the past to sadden it-it is the ordinary routine, the every-day condition of things around him. He tasks his fellow-slaves, when appointed over them, with a peculiar severity. He despises the white He would have plenty, man who has no slaves. and of his own race too, if he could. He has no more idea of questioning the justice or propriety of the matter than of inquiring why night follows day. We create imaginary feelings, of which he knows nothing, and sympathise with sorrows that are not really in his breast, but in our own.

We venture to express these perhaps unpopular opinions of the general state of the facts, after personal observation in our own Colonies, as well

as in the United States; but although we believe that they apply to the great majority of the slaves, there are exceptions. There arises in some an irrepressible desire for freedom, which nothing can restrain. It haunts them by night and by day. No hardship or danger will deter them from the effort to escape. There are also those in the Border States to whom a belief has been conveyed from without, that the whole system is unjust, and that they should strive as a duty to themselves to escape from it. The numbers of these classes are considerable absolutely, but relatively to the aggregate of four millions of people they are altogether inconsiderable. The vast majority, until stirred up by others, are contented with their lot, know no other, and have no desire to incur the anxiety of going out into the world to seek a better one. Indeed, apart from other, and higher considerations, it is difficult to see what injury has been inflicted upon the negro by taking him from slavery to a savage in Africa, to place him under a civilised master in America. But there is no difficulty in tracing the injury inflicted by the system upon that master, upon the whole of the white population, or the sinister shadow which it casts over the face of society.

In the case of the negro a comparison may be fairly made. The works recently published on several portions of Africa, exhibiting the condition of the race where entirely free from the influence of the European, can leave no doubt on

K

the mind of any dispassionate reader, whether or not the change has been to his injury. But when the same test of comparison is applied to the white population, in contact with slavery, the result is very different. There is an absolute injury sustained by the whole white community, apparent to any observer, and the more striking when contrasted with its condition in the neighbouring free States. Where labour is allotted to the black, it soon comes to be held disreputable by the white man to place himself on the same level. But the great majority in number, in every community, will consist of those who have neither wealth nor slaves, and this important body, shut out from the path of ordinary industry, becomes a listless burden upon society instead of being its main support. The position of this large class in the Southern States is painful in the extreme. They are known by the appellation of "mean whites," a term applied by the negroes, who, as we have stated, associate respectability in the white man with the owning of slaves.

This class, which in other systems is the very backbone of the framework of society, is here disjointed and superfluous. The negro, admirably adapted for field labour in a semi-tropical climate, is altogether unsuited for factory work. In addition to this, and to effects of climate, the coal-fields, and other local advantages of the North, give to that section a superiority in manufacturing industry, with which it is impossible for the South