Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/358

Rh of peace, have conceded to the Southern the honourable and holy right of sanctuary, which their states had afforded—now that they have given up the precious privilege of protecting the fugitive slave, out of regard to the constitutional rights of the Southern States—and now that violent abolitionism is more and more giving place to a nobler and calmer spirit, nothing, I think, ought any longer to prevent the Middle Slave States from carrying out such measures as would contribute to their highest interests.

The slave institution of Virginia has not merely permitted a vast amount of the white population to grow up—eighty thousand I have understood—without being able either to read or write, and who are as low in morals as in education; but it has here, as well as elsewhere, prevented the development of industry and the extension of emigration, and has caused a want of enterprise in public works, and hence want of employment for an increasing poor population. The consequences of this have assumed every year a more threatening aspect. There is here no background of strong and noble popular life, as in the free states, in which the government of the states and the schools are filled as by a fresh germ of life. Immorality, ignorance, and poverty increase; and it cannot be otherwise when one half of the people hold the other in slavery. The planters of Virginia, proud of their historic memories, and of their slaves, among whom they fancy that they live like feudal princes of the middle ages, although this is a great mistake, intrenched behind their traditions and slave institutions, have styled themselves “high-blooded” and “high-minded,” and other such terms, have sat still whilst the chariot of the age has passed by them. The rapidly-flourishing condition of the free states of the Union, during a life full of great public undertakings, and the development of intelligence as well as of the industrial spirit, and the decline of Virginia, both in affluence