CHAP. XXV.] INCEEASE OF NEGROES. 95 



veller in the South to moderate his enthusiasm for 

 emancipation. He is forced continually to think of 

 the responsibility which would be incurred, if several 

 millions of human beings were hastily set aside, like 

 so many machines, by withdrawing from them sud 

 denly the protection afforded by their present mo 

 nopoly of labour. In the opening of the market 

 freely to white competitors, before the race is more 

 improved, consists their danger. 



Yet, on taking a near view of the slave question, 

 we are often thrown into opposite states of mind and 

 feeling, according as the interests of the white or 

 negro race happen, for the moment, to claim our 

 sympathy. It is useless now to look back and wish, 

 for the sake of civilisation, that no Africans had ever 

 crossed the Atlantic. Their number in the Union 

 now exceeds three millions, and, as they have doubled 

 in the last twenty-five years, we must expect, unless 

 some plan can be devised to check their increase, 

 that they will amount, before the close of this cen 

 tury, to twelve millions, by which time the white 

 population will have augmented to eighty millions. 

 Notwithstanding this increase of negroes, were it 

 not for disturbing causes, to which I shall presently 

 advert, I should cherish the most sanguine hopes of 

 their future improvement and emancipation, and even 

 their ultimate amalgamation and fusion with the 

 whites, so highly has my estimate of their moral and 

 intellectual capabilities been raised by what I have 

 lately seen in Georgia and Alabama. Were it not 

 for impediments which white competition and po 

 litical ascendency threaten to throw in the way of 



