SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 311 



the Southern States, and the feelings and habits of the white 

 population in this part of the territory being strongly in its 

 favour, a separation and weakening of the Union would have 

 resulted from then pressing the subject. It is a disputed 

 point whether the general government can interfere with sla 

 very the Northern and Southern States taking different 

 views. A law was passed prohibiting slavery in the district 

 north of the river Ohio, and east of the Mississippi, before the 

 territory was organized into states ; but since that time, the 

 state of Missouri, with all the evils of slavery, has been ad 

 mitted into the bosom of the Union, which seems to deter 

 mine the noninterference of the general government in the 

 slave question. 



Slavery is felt and acknowledged to be an appalling evil 

 throughout the Union, and the most intelligent inhabitants 

 of the Northern States are also aware of its sinfulness. Here 

 the prejudice against the sooty race is becoming less strong; 

 and in one instance, at least, they have been invested with 

 the rights of freemen. In the state of New York, men of 

 colour exercise suffrage when twenty-one years of age, and the 

 census of 1825 showed 298 of them qualified to vote.* This 

 act of wisdom and liberality on the part of the legislature, can 

 not fail of producing a good effect throughout the Union, and 

 in all probability led to the teaching of the little children at 

 Rochester already mentioned. I hail these advances of the 

 coloured population with unmingled pleasure, as sure indica 

 tions of improvement in the people of both complexions. Sla 

 very exists by the cupidity of the white population ; and in 

 most cases it will terminate only by their moral enlightenment. 

 However slow the progress of abolition may be in the United 

 States, it cannot stand still. Justice, humanity, and religion 

 are already enlisted on the side of the slave ; and before the 

 lapse of many years, his manacles will assuredly be loosened 

 throughout the whole territory. 



The world does not perhaps afford a more striking instance 

 of human frailty, than the existence of slavery in the Southern 

 States of the Union, where the white population, after having 



* Description of United States ; published at New York, 1831. 



