INTRODUCTION. 49 



as those of the New England States were, when they were 

 emancipated ? 



" We know the free states would not permit the liberated 

 slaves to come over in any considerable numbers into their borders. 

 The new constitution of Indiana, so far as she is concerned, is con- 

 clusive upon that point. 



"It is not to be supposed that the states in question will 

 ever emancipate, if the liberated slaves are to stay where they 

 are. Emancipation and citizenship, both to the slaves of the 

 Southern States, is rather too much to expect from any one of 

 them. 



" The slave population increases at the rate of two and a half 

 per cent, per annum. Therefore, unless an outlet be found for 

 the slave population as slaves, the difficulties of emancipation 

 in those United States, so far from decreasing with time, will 

 become greater and greater ; and that, too, they are doing at a 

 tremendous rate, and with a frightful ratio, as year -after year rolls 

 round. 



" The fact must be obvious to the far-reaching minds of our 

 statesmen, that unless some means of relief be devised, some 

 channel afforded, by which the South can, when the time comes, 

 get rid of the excess of her slave population, she will be ulti- 

 mately found, with regard to this institution, in the predicament 

 of the man with the wolf by the ears too dangerous to hold on 

 any longer, and equally dangerous to let go. 



" To our mind, the event is as certain to happen as any event 

 is which depends on the contingencies of the future, viz., that 

 unless means be devised for gradually relieving the slave states 

 from the undue pressure of this class upon them, unless some way 

 be opened by which they may be rid of their surplus black popu- 

 lation, the time will come it may be not in the next, nor in the 

 succeeding generation but, sooner or later, come it will, and 

 come it must, when the two races will join in the death-struggle 

 for the mastery." 



I confess I could not resist the desire of transcribing these 

 lines into this introduction, because they show what is, on the 

 question of negro slavery, the opinion of a man who has already 

 gained a name in the scientific world, and is, besides, a Southerner. 

 It is plain that the greatest obstacle to emancipation in the States 

 is the difficulty of getting rid of the negro population. Let us 

 open a channel through which part of that population may flow 

 off, and then we shall have done both a good and a wise act. 



True, Lieutenant Maury and the slaveholders seek a place of 

 banishment for the slaves of the South as slaves and they think 

 they have found that place in the valley of the Amazon. But the 

 gradual transfer of the slave population of the South to that 

 " magnificent and interesting " valley, is evidently a herculean 



