Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/292

 cannot allow the peace of the country to be so perilled. They have forbidden the postmaster to give out the paper any more, and they have forbidden me to take it out or to read it. This is the degree of liberty that exists at present in North Carolina!" — words spoken with an indignant emphasis, and some little bitterness, in spite of the serene self-control which Mr Telfair in general exhibited.

"And how does it happen, gentlemen," said I, "that the evils of slavery which it would appear have been not only pretty largely felt, but pretty freely discussed among you, from the time of Jefferson downward, — and nowhere, as I have been told, more fully and freely than in some recent debates in the Virginia legislature, — how does it happen that this subject has become all at once prohibited? Pray, I should like to learn what is the mighty difference, after all, between colonizationists, like our good friend Mr Telfair here, and these northern abolitionists, whose interference, he seems to think, is likely to prove so serious a damage to the cause of emancipation? Isn't it slavery that you are both alike hostile to? Isn't it emancipation that you are both alike aimin at?" "The difference between us," replied Mr Telfair, "is sufficiently palpable, though I don't so much wonder at your asking the question; for I can perceive, especially since the late excitement broke out, a growing disposition to confound us together, and to set down as incendiary, and as hostile to the welfare of the south, the bare sentiment of dislike to slavery. But with respect to us colonizationists, the case is this: we admit the evils of slavery to be very great — so great that duty to ourselves, our children, to the entire population, black and white, requires from us the greatest efforts to get rid of them. But we do not-see how it is possible to get rid of these evils so long as the black population remains among us. It is a very common opinion in America, that it is impossible for two distinct races of men to live together, at least two races so distinct as the whites