in it as it saw in our victory over Mexico. Let the North not covet a distinction which she can never possess, thanks to the superior glories of Liberty! To the proposition from South Carolina, that her sons should meet more than their number of Massachusetts men, and decide the issue in this country by this duel of States, a shrewd resident of the Old Bay proposed, as an amendment, that these should meet, but that, instead of using weapons of death, vast blank-books should be opened, and if a third more Massachusetts men could not write their own names than South Carolina men, the South should be declared victorious. That was rather cruel toward the Southerners, beneath whose rule, entirely great, the bowie-knife is mightier than the pen; but it was from a man who had wit enough to know that Liberty's Code of Honour is a different one from that of Slavery. To that or any legitimate weapon we may confidently trust American Freedom; but not one hour to the shifting chances of war, if we can help it, not to the accident of a general's being drunk or sober, or the posi tion of a ditch or fence. If these flimsy defences are the surest with which we can surround the world's trust to America, be sure the precious lamp will be removed to those who can keep it alive, though we be left in outer darkness.

XIII

THE PROBABILITIES OF INSURRECTION

THE experience of the Slave States has furnished reason to believe that no general and concerted insurrection of slaves can occur for many years.

In estimating this question, several things are to be remembered: 1. That the negroes cannot generally write, or use the mails or the facilities of travel. They are un

doubtedly anxious enough for their freedom to strike any blow that might have a reasonable prospect of success; but they can see as readily as we that concert would be necessary, and that to any great extent is impossible. It will be remembered that the insurrection of Nat Turner and that planned by Denmark Vesey covered very small sections of the States in which they occurred, though they were the most expensive and elaborately prepared of all that have occurred. 2. The negroes are an extremely cautious people, and not at all self-reliant. Much of this is the result of their training. A negro may be browbeaten even into the confession of things he has not done; and at a word of suspicion about any real offence, he at once supposes the master knows everything, and makes a clean breast of it. It is probably through these means, rather than deliberate treachery upon the part of any of them, that schemes of this kind have been so often betrayed by negroes themselves. 3. The negroes are superstitious, and in the direction of special providences. They believe generally in luck and miracle, and the fatalism of the Baptist Church, to which they usually belong, helps to cut the sinews of their own right arms. "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow," would be an incomprehensible sentiment among them, and, in my opinion, it will never be true in their case. When their blow comes, it will be at the end of a long series of others' blows. They are always looking for their Moses, whom they would not follow unless he had his wonder-working rod along. 4. But the chief fetter worn by this race is the habit of servile obedience; the master's ordinary tone and cowhide are more irresistible than his musket and epaulets.

Undoubtedly there will be in the future, as there have been in the past, here and there local insurrections; but

none that could excite a general panic in the South will this generation be apt to witness.

On reflection, it will be seen that all of the forces above enumerated as those which will be likely to prevent any general slave insurrection are at the present time doubly active. In the present juncture, the slave has every inducement to remain quiet, none at all to rebel: neither side is ready to befriend him as an insurrectionist, both are helping him as a slave. He is, of the three parties in this contest, as he should be, infinitely the best off. At any rate, he is very sure not to rebel when every Southern eye is on the watch and every hand on the trigger.

So those who are hoping to have their shoulders relieved of the burden of doing justice to these slaves will find that they will act as Paul and Silas when their prison was opened by an earthquake, who said to the frightened Macedonians, "Let the magistrates come and fetch us out." He certainly will not stir to befriend or welcome those who have not decided whether or not to exile him in case he becomes free; who have not yet declared even those deserted by rebel masters to be free; and who really show more aversion to personal proximity to him than his Southern master.

But every one of the inward links which bind him now - his caution, superstition, and servile obedience - would be transferred to our banner on the instant that he should be declared free under it, and would curl about it like tendrils. Not insurrections, but stampedes, would at once follow our proclamation of freedom; and they would have to be, and would be, checked immediately. But to check them knocks into pi every column of the Southern

army.

The slave's heart everywhere is at this moment filled

with the one burning idea of freedon he is doing now exactly what his friends advised him to do,— sitting still; he has shown great wisdom during this war. But he listens every hour of the night and day for the watchward which calls him to his feet.

That word is not Confiscation; it is not Colonization. Hearing people discussing and advocating every measure for these people except simple justice, one thinks of Cassim, loaded with treasures in the robbers' cave, with the door fast locked in his face, calling for it to open by every name but the one to which it really does open. He says,

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Barley," and "oats," but the door opens not a crack. Let our rulers take care that the Sesame which alone can open the door of success in this war is not first uttered, as in Cassim's case, by the robbers; the side that first cries Freedom to the Slave gains the day in this war.

We hear some talk of arming the slaves: would it not be well first to try the effect of doing them simple, unelaborate justice?

For that word the slave's heart far down on the Southern plantations is now all ear. It is a common error to suppose that the slaves on the plantations of the far South are more ignorant, degraded, and obtuse, or that they are less informed in public matters, than those in the Border States. The contrary is truer. It has been for many generations the invariable custom to send to these plantations of the Cotton and Sugar States every negro near the border who at any time shows a desire for freedom, or who has attempted to run off, or has been overtaken, or who shows enough intelligence for an inference that he will be restive under the yoke. The number of overseers and strictness of patrol on these plantations make it comparatively unimportant whether the slave is discontented or

otherwise. The consequence is that there has been through many years a gradual accumulation in the far South of the most inflammable and intelligent negroes; and any serious insurrections would be far more apt to come from them than from their more comfortable Border State comrades.

But they listen on the border also for that word to whose Orphic music the hearts of men are made to dance, though they were as stone and trees. The Border State negro has had his senses whetted by a certain kind of perpetual fear and ever-recurring anguish. For these are the slave-breeding States. Not one half of the slaves born in any of the Border States are or can be retained there; the demand for them is insufficient. This makes the yoke through all this region terribly galling. Year by year parents watch the growth of their children, knowing that they cannot be kept at home, that there each will be only another mouth to feed and back to clothe, -knowing that so soon as the year of the noblest promise and strength comes, it comes only to bring the bitter parting and heartbreak. No farmer gathers in his harvest more regularly than the slave-trader of the Border States, putting in his scythe this year for the human hearts which were not quite ripe for plantation service last year.

Thus they listen, thus they watch, more than they that watch for the morning: God's captive Israel, of whom he says, They shall prosper who love thee!

XIV

MERCY, AND NOT SACRIFICE

AFTER what has been said, there is no need that we shall dwell upon the objection, sometimes offered to an edict of