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THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF SLAVE 
 LABOUR: 
 
 AN 
 
 IMPARTIAL APPEAL 
 
 TO THE 
 
 REASON, JUSTICE, AND PATRIOTISM 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Snfuriou0 iBffecH of ^Ui)c Ualioiit. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PRINTED : 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Re-printed hy EUerton and Henderson, Gough Square ; 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 SOCIETY FOR THE MITIGATION AND GRADUAL ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 
 
 THROUGHOUT THE BRITISH DOMINIONS. 
 
 1824. 
 
'■S'& 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 Thi; State of Illinois, iii America, adopted a Constitution of 
 Government vvliieh excluded Slavery from its territory. Its lands, 
 however, being rich and abundant, have been eyed with cupidity by 
 the Slave-holders of Virginia, the Carolinas, &c. as atfording them 
 a market for their Slaves, whom they can no longer profitably 
 employ on their own worn-out soils. They have, therefore, been 
 inciting the citizens of Illinois to call a Convention for the purpose 
 of revising their Constitution ; the real object of this revisal being 
 to remove the existing interdiction of Slavery. The Convention is 
 to assemble in the course of the present year. A large proportion 
 of the inhabitants of tliis State, with their excellent governor, 
 Mr. Cole, at their head, are strongly opposed to any such change; 
 and they have been taking great pains to diffuse among their fellow- 
 citizens such information as may deter them from adopting that 
 tempting but insidious and injurious proposal. One of the 
 pamphlets circulated on this occasion has reached this country ; 
 and as, from the beginning to the end of it, the arguments (which 
 it will be admitted are very powerful, if not irresistible) will be 
 found to apply with still more force to the rase of our own Colo- 
 nies, than to that of Illinois, it has been thought expedient to 
 republish it. The facts and reasonings contained in it are parti- 
 cularly recommended to the attentive consideration of West-India 
 Proprietors. 
 
INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 
 OF 
 
 SLAVE LABOUR, 
 
 When a people, educated with the principles and habits of 
 freemen, blessed with the light of Christianity — who live 
 under a Government of their own choice, and belong- more- 
 over to a great Commonwealth of free Republics ; when such 
 a people, desirous of altering the frame of their Constitution, 
 make a solemn call for a convention for that purpose, there 
 would seem to be but one conclusion to be drawn from the cir- 
 cumstance : some great defect has been discovered in that Con- 
 stitution ; some bar to the distribution of justice; some heavy 
 incumbrance upon the operations of the Government. Such 
 would be the conclusions of a person acquainted with the 
 nature of our institutions, yet ignorant of the particular facts, 
 upon being told that the people of Illinois had now to deli- 
 berate upon such a question. How great would be his 
 surprise at learning that the main object in calling this Con- 
 vention was to enable the citizens of Illinois to hold Slaves ! 
 The grand argument for this change in the Constitution is 
 the effect which it would have upon the value of land, and 
 upon the general prosperity of the State, by introducing the 
 cultivation of cotton and tobacco. It is true, that its first 
 effect might be to raise the price of lands along our southern 
 border. Persons anxious to take advantage of any chano-e 
 would purchase them on speculation. Planters from the 
 southern side of the Ohio would probably remove with their 
 
 A 2 
 
O THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 
 are all visible in the operations of the one ; while in the other 
 are as distinctly to be seen, the degradation, the apathy, 
 the want of motive, the slothfulness and wastefulness inse- 
 parable from the character of a Slave. 
 
 These general principles, as they are founded in the na- 
 ture of man and of things, are of universal application. The 
 results, however, may be so niodilied by circumstances, as 
 to appear at first sight contradictory. To take an instance 
 in point : In the State of Illinois the price of labour is far 
 above what may be regarded as its natural standard ; for the 
 wagei of one day will support the labourer for several days. 
 The causes of this are, the plenty and cheapness of land and 
 provision, and the scarcity of labourers. A man readily 
 earns enough money to purchase a small farm, and naturally 
 prefers the condition of a farmer to that of a day labourer. 
 From this cause it arises that more land than can be tilled by 
 the farmer and his children is an incumbrance, or at least 
 useless to him. The owner of large tracts may find it diffi- 
 cult to procure free labourers ; and to him, in this state of 
 affairs, the labour of Slaves may possibly be cheaper than 
 that of Free Men. But the prosperity of this individual does 
 not necessarily increase that of the State. The real value 
 of labour is the same in this as in all other cases; and its 
 high price, in the present instance, only enables the labourer 
 the sooner to commence proprietor, and enjoy the whole 
 profit of his industry himself; thus distributing, as it were, 
 into a thousaiul channels, that wealth which, in the case of 
 the large Slave-holder, goes to swell a single stream. In the 
 early stage of a settlement, the employment of Slaves enables 
 rich individuals to bring an excess of agricultural products 
 into the market for exportation, and thus create enormous 
 fortunes. This, however, is not always a real indication of 
 prosperity : it is often but drawing for present use upon the 
 future resources of the country ; and if the introduction of 
 Slaves be a virtual exclusion of Free Labourers, as it has uni- 
 versally been found to be, it is the infliction of an incurable 
 wound upon the future growth of the nation. 
 
 One of the most remarkable experiments that has yet been 
 made upon the value of Free and Slave labour, was tried by 
 
OF SLAVIi LAHOUR. 
 
 the Hon. Joshua Steele, of Barbadoes. He was owner of 
 an estate of nearly three hundred Slaves, and tried with 
 great success the plan of paying them for task-work. Being 
 put (without a premium) to work in the common manner, 
 eighteen of the same Negroes did not do as much in a given 
 time as six had performed a few days before with a small 
 reward. His experiments ended in his giving regular 
 wages, which the industry he had excited among his whole 
 gang enabled him to pay. An alteration was made in the 
 mode of governing the Slaves : the whips were taken from 
 the overseers, all arbitrary punishments were abolished, and 
 all offences were tried, and sentence passed, by a Negro 
 Court. His people became contented ; and in Httle better 
 than four years the annual net clearance of his estate was 
 more than tripled. Who does not perceive that he had vir. 
 tually changed his Slaves into Free Men, by awakening in 
 them the love of gain, the feelings of emulation, and the 
 sense of self-dependence? 
 
 It is calculated by Mr. Coulomb, a French engineer, who 
 served for many years in the West Indies, that field Slaves 
 do only between a third and a half of the work dispatched by 
 reluctant French soldiers, and probably not mure than a third 
 of what those very Slaves would do if urged by their own 
 interest. 
 
 " I have watched," remarks a traveller in the Brazils, 
 " two parties labouring in the same field — one of Free persons, 
 the other of Slaves — which occasionally, though very seldom, 
 occurs. The former are singing, joking, and laughing, and 
 are always actively turning hand and foot; whilst the latter 
 are silent ; and if they are viewed from a little distance, their 
 motions are scarcely to be perceived." 
 
 The Petersburg Virginia Auxiliary Colonization Society* 
 in a late Report to the Parent Institution, makes the fol- 
 lowing statement: — " A farmer cultivates a farm of 10,000 
 acres with ?]00 Slaves. Of these at least 150 may be deducted 
 as supernumeraries, and fifty more as old and infirm, children 
 and sick, domestics, and such as are required to administer 
 to the daily wants of their fellows. But deduct only fifty in 
 all, and it is evident that they, as well as their masters and 
 overseers, must be supported by the labour of the residue. 
 
10 THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 
 Owing to this wretched system, connected with the bad 
 cultivation, the indolent and destructive habits generated by 
 slavery, the master amasses nothing, but barely supports his 
 family, while his property is daily depreciating. It may be 
 assumed, that the labour of forty Free Men, judiciously be- 
 stowed on these 10,000 acres, would be as productive as 
 that of 300 Slaves. But the labour of 300 Slaves may, under 
 our assumption, be considered about equal to their support; 
 and, at 100 dollars each, will amount to 30,000 dollars, which 
 sum will be necessary for the preservation of the estate or 
 principal. The support of forty free labourers, at 150 dollars 
 each, will be 6000 dollars ; consequently, the gross produce 
 of the labour of Slaves and freemen being the same, while the 
 profits of the former are entirely absorbed for the support of 
 the farm, there will be an actual clear profit in favour of the 
 latter, of 24,000 dollars over and above their support." 
 
 This statement is confirmed, in the fullest manner, by the 
 unimpeachable testimony of the Hon. Bushrod Washington. 
 This gentleman made a sale of a number of his Negroes in 
 the year 1821, which excited some public animadversion. He 
 thought proper to publish a vindication of the transaction ; in 
 which he assigns as his chief reason for parting with them, 
 that they were a constant burthen upon his estate. " I had 
 struggled for about twenty years," says he, " to pay for the 
 expenses of my farm, and to afford a comfortable support to 
 those who cultivate it from the produce of their labour. In 
 this way to have balanced that account would have satisfied 
 me. But I always had to draw upon my other resources for 
 those objects ; and I would state, upon the best of my judg- 
 ment, that the produce of the farm had in general fallen short 
 of its support, from 500 to 1000 dollars annually. To the 
 best of my recollection, I have, during the above period, two 
 years excepted, had to buy corn for the Negroes, for which 
 I have sometimes paid five, six, and seven dollars the barrel. 
 Last year I commenced the purchase of this article for ninety 
 Negroes, in the month of May, and so continued to the end 
 of iU" 
 
 " A comparison of Pennsylvania with Virginia," says a 
 candid observer, " certainly shews us that it is the labour of 
 Free Men which enriches a country. A farmer in the former, 
 
OF SLAVE LABOUR. H 
 
 with three or four hands, lives better and more comfortable, 
 and saves more money, than another in the latter with four 
 times as many Slaves. For the work done in the common 
 business of agriculture, the labour of Free persons is by far 
 cheaper than that of Slaves. There is an intelligence in its 
 details, which the Slave is not intrusted with ; or, if known to 
 him, that he has no motive to exert." 
 
 " A few Polish nobles," says Coxe, in his Travels in Po- 
 land, " have ventured upon the expedient of giving liberty 
 to their vassals. It appears that in the district in which this 
 new arrangement has been introduced, the population of their 
 villages has been considerably increased, and the revenues of 
 the estates augmented in a triple proportion." 
 
 It is not merely a few scattered examples, however, that 
 prove the superior cheapness of free labour. The people of 
 China, Hindostan, and the Indian Islands, are an enterprising 
 and industrious race — personally, though not politically, free. 
 Notwithstanding the arbitrary character of their Govern- 
 ments, and the system of monopoly so injurious to industry 
 and enterprise which prevails in the European commerce with 
 those countries, so admirably are their climates adapted to 
 the growth of cotton, sugar, indigo, and coffee, and so vast is 
 the extent of land fit for the cultivation of these staple 
 articles, that the whole world may be supplied with them 
 from these sources alone. In the article of indigo, of which the 
 single State of South Carolina at one time exported more than 
 a million of pounds annually, the East Indians have, by the 
 superior cheapness and quality of their manufacture, almost 
 wholly forced the Slave Labourer out of the market. With- 
 out a change of policy in America and the West Indies, the 
 same results may take place with cotton, sugar, and coffee. 
 These can be raised in India by Free Labourers at nearly one 
 half the cost of their production by Slaves ; and the inevitable 
 consequences will be, that the Negroes of America must be 
 raised to the condition of Free Labourers, or they must even- 
 tually abandon the cultivation of these articles. 
 
 The free Republics of South America, acting on the 
 soundest maxims of justice and policy, have proclaimed 
 freedom to their Slaves. No quarter of the globe is better 
 fitted for the cultivation of all the staple commodities of our 
 
12 THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 
 Southern States. It is therefore destined, at no very distant 
 period, not merely to compete with us in foreign markets, but 
 finally, perhaps, even to supplant us. For it will not be hazard- 
 ing much, to say, that if we persist in tilling and planting 
 by Slaves, and they pursue the more rational and economical 
 plan of cultivating their lands by Free Men, they will, by 
 selling cheaper, compel us to abandon the unequal strife. 
 
 With these facts and prospects before them, what induce- 
 ment have the people of Illinois to try this fatal experiment i 
 It is not for a moment supposed by any one, that Slaves would 
 be worth purchasing for the cultivation of wheat and maize. 
 It is well understood, that the object of the alteration is to 
 enable the owner of rich lands along the Ohio and Mississippi 
 to brino; them into cultivation for cotton and tobacco*. It has 
 been proved, that Slave labour is always dearer than the labour 
 of Free Men; that even where it enables the Slave-holder to 
 effect a premature cultivation of the soil, it ultimately stints 
 the prosperity of the State ; and that, consequently, in all cases 
 where it is profitable, it would be still more so to the nation at 
 large and the individual cultivator, that he were a free man. 
 
 It has ever been a plea for Slavery, that Negroes are alone 
 capable of efl'ectually supporting the fatigue and exposure of 
 labour under a vertical sun ; but if the argument were even 
 applicable to our clime, we have the testimony of the cele- 
 brated Humboldt to prove its fallacy. " There are," says 
 that accurate observer, " in the hot plains of America, near 
 the Equator, men of the genuine European race, who are as 
 athletic as the peasantry of Spain, an.d perform all sorts of 
 field labour without inconvenience." There is also a notion 
 prevalent, that Slaves only are fit for the cultivation of cotton 
 and tobacco; than which nothing can be more erroneous. 
 Not to speak of the more simple and frugal Asiatic, there is 
 
 • Tlie plea which is so much urged by the advocates of Slavery, that, if it 
 I)r not introduced, or, at least, that if the perniission granted in the Consti. 
 mtion for the employment of Slaves in tlie great Saline, till the year 1821, 
 !)(• not renewed, the salt works will he no longer valuable, and the revenue 
 derived from them to the State will cease, is not worth refuting. Tiicre is 
 no part of the labour of making salt which is not performed by the free 
 White citizens of Oiiio, Pennsylvania, and New York ; and the latter Stale 
 derives a large revenue from her salt springs thus worked ; larger, without 
 doubt, than if Slaves were employed in the manufacture. 
 
01' SLAVE LAHOUU. ^3 
 
 nothing in any part of the worUl to sanction such an opinion. 
 Tobacco is raised in large quantities for home consumption 
 throughout Europe. Cotton is esteemed the most profitable 
 crop in the south of Italy, where it is very generally cultivated 
 by the peasantry and small farmers. It forms a principal 
 export from Greece and the Levant ; and it has been asserted, 
 that the valley of Ceres, in Macedonia, produces 20,000,000 
 pounds annually. In all these cases the cultivators are free- 
 men. Its cultivation is, in fact, admirably suited to small farms. 
 It requires but little severe labour ; and there is, perhaps, no 
 kind of agricultural pursuit of which women and children can 
 take so large and useful a share. Let the experiment be 
 fairly tried in Illinois, and the issue cannot long be doubtful. 
 A new staple of commerce will be introduced ; the superior 
 profits of its cultivation must attract the attention of farmers 
 from the East ; and it will probably be found, that an emigra- 
 tion of Freemen equal in number and superior in all respects 
 in value to that which would^have taken place of Slaves, will 
 speedily occur. The price of lands and the general trade of 
 the State will be more increased by such an emigration than 
 by hordes of Slaves. 
 
 If Slave labour be less profitable to the landholder than the 
 labour of Free Men, its effects must be seen in the state of agri- 
 culture, and the general appearance of the country. Upon 
 this head, also, of the argument, there is ample testimony. 
 
 The first authority which I shall produce is that of Col. 
 John Taylor, now a Senator of the United States from Vir- 
 ginia, who wrote a series of Essays, a few years since, on the 
 Agriculture of that State, and who is a most competent wit- 
 ness. In proving that " the fertility of Virginia has long 
 been declining," he observes,—" The decay in the culture of 
 tobacco is testimony to this unwelcome fact. It is deserted 
 because the lands are exhausted. To conceal from ourselves 
 a disagreeable truth, we resort to the delusion that tobacco 
 requires new or fresh land. Whole counties, comprising 
 large districts of country which once grew tobacco in great 
 quantities, are now too sterile to grow any of moment ; and 
 the wheat crops substituted for tobacco, have already sunk to 
 an average below profit, 
 
 " I have known many farms for above forty years; and, 
 
14 THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 
 though I think that all of them have been greatly impoverished, 
 yet 1 rely more upon the general fact which 1 have stated, 
 for agreeing with Strickland in opinion, * that Virginia is in 
 a rapid decline.' 
 
 " Negro Slavery is a misfortune to agriculture incapable of 
 removal, and only within the reach of palliation. 
 
 " The fact is, that Negra Slavery is au evil which the 
 United States must look in the face. To whine over it is 
 cowardly ; to aggravate it, criminal ; and to forbear to alle- 
 viate it because it cannot be wholly cured, foolish." 
 
 The testimony of Col. Taylor is of great authority. He 
 gives full evidence of the wretched condition of the agricul- 
 ture of Virginia, which is plainly caused by Slavery, and can 
 only be meliorated by raising the Slave to the rank of a Free 
 Labourer. 
 
 " The State of Maryland," says an intelligent observer, 
 " although a Slave State, has comparatively but few Slaves 
 in the upper or western part of it : the land in the upper 
 district is generally more broken by hills and stones, and is not 
 so fertile as that in the eastern and southern parts. The latter 
 has also the advantage of being situated upon the navigable 
 rivers that flow into the Chesapeake Bay, and its produce can 
 be conveyed to market at one-third of the average expense 
 of that from the upper part of the State ; yet, with all these 
 advantages of soil, situation, and climate, the land within the 
 Slave district will not, upon a general average, sell for half 
 as much per acre as in the upper district, which is cultivated 
 principally by Freemen. In Virginia also, land of the same 
 natural soil and local advantages, will not sell for one-third as 
 high a price as the same description of land will command in 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 '• It is believed that no country can furnish more full and 
 clear opportunity than the United States of America do at 
 this time, of testing the effect of domestic Slavery upon the 
 industry aiid prosperity of a nation, and the relative value 
 and profit of Free and Slave labour. The middle and eastern 
 States are now cultivated almost entirely by Freemen. These 
 States lie under a more rigorous climate, and possess a less 
 IVirtile soil than the southern States ; yet the prosperous situ- 
 ation of the country, the general comfort of the inhabitants, 
 
OF SLAVE LABOUR. 15 
 
 and the improved condition of agricultare in them, compared 
 with the Slave States, are so obvious, as to strike the traveller 
 immediately as he passes from one district to the other. In 
 the one we find the whole country divided into small farms of 
 from 100 to 150 acres of land ; on each of these tracts is 
 generally erected a comfortable dwelling-house, with the 
 necessary out-buildings, which are surrounded by well culti- 
 vated fields in good order. In this district the farmers, with 
 but few exceptions, annually realize a small profit, by which 
 they are enabled, as their children attain to manhood, to 
 make respectable provision for their establishment in busi- 
 ness. In the other we meet here and there, thinly scattered 
 over a wretchedly cultivated district of country, a mansion- 
 house, commonly in bad repair, surrounded by a number of 
 dirty beggarly huts, crowded with ragged Negroes and Mu- 
 lattoes, and the whole bearing the strongest marks of op- 
 pression and suffering, in which the half-starved neglected 
 cattle, and other domestic animals, evidently participate." 
 
 How exactly would the following description apply to the 
 present condition of this country ! How uniformly hideous 
 in every age have been the features of Slavery ! " While 
 the ancient Romans," says a late writer, " cultivated their 
 fields themselves, Italy was renowned for its abundance and 
 fertility ; but agriculture declined when it was abandoned to 
 Slaves. The small proprietors and farmers disappeared; 
 and the same country which had formerly presented the 
 smiling aspect of a crowd of villages, with their contented 
 and Free inhabitants, became a vast solitude, with here and 
 there a magnificent palace, rising amidst the miserable huts 
 and caverns inhabited by the Slaves." 
 
 " The introduction of Slavery into this country," says 
 Judge Tucker, of Virginia, " is at this day considered among 
 its greatest misfortunes." 
 
 Such are the opinions and warning accents of our southern 
 brethren ! They feel this mighty evil as a cancer at their 
 vitals; they apologise to themselves and to the world for its 
 continuance, that they found it diffused through and poisoning 
 every ramification of their system ; that they received it from 
 their ancestors — an inheritance of incurable disease, con- 
 
10 THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 
 suming their strength, darkening their present enjoyments, 
 and blighting their hopes of the future. 
 
 " No persons," says Gen. Robert G. Harper, of Maryland, 
 " who have seen the Slave-holding States and those where 
 Slavery does not exist, and has compared ever so slightly 
 their condition and situation, can have failed to be struck with 
 the vast difference in favour of the latter. This difference 
 extends to every thing, except only the character and man- 
 ners of the most opulent and best educated people. These 
 are very much the same every where. But in population, in 
 the general diffusion of wealth and comfort, in public and 
 private improvements, in the education, manners, and mode 
 of life of the middle and labouring classes, in the face of the 
 country, in roads, bridges, and inns, in schools and churches, 
 in the general advancement of improvement and prosperity, 
 there is no comparison. The change is seen the instant you, 
 cross the line which separates the country where there are 
 Slaves from that where there are none. Even in the same 
 State, the part where Slaves mostly abound, are uniformly 
 the worst cultivated, the poorest, and the least populous; 
 while wealth and improvement uniformly increase as the 
 number of Slaves diminishes. 1 might prove and illustrate 
 this position by many examples drawn from a comparison of 
 different States, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, and between 
 different counties in the same State, as Charles County, and 
 Frederick County, in Maryland ; but it is unnecessary, be- 
 cause every body who has seen the different parts of the 
 country, has been struck by the difference. 
 
 •' Whence does it arise? I answer. From this — that in one 
 division of the country, the land is cultivated by Free Men for 
 their own benefit, and in the other almost entirely by Slaves 
 for the benefit of their masters. It is the obvious interest of 
 the first class of labourers to produce as much and consume 
 as little as possible ; and, of the second class, to consume as 
 much and produce as little as possible. What the Slave 
 consumes is for himself; what he produces is for his master. 
 All the time he can withdraw from labour is for himself; all 
 that he spends in labour is devoted to his master. All that the 
 Free Labourer, on the contrary, can |)roduce, is for himself; 
 
OF SLAVE LABOUR. 17 
 
 all that he can save is so much added to his own stock. All 
 the time that he loses from labour is his own loss. 
 
 •' This, if it were all, would probably be quite suflicient to 
 account for the whole difference in question ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, it is far from being- all. Another and still more inju- 
 rious effect of Slavery remains to be considered. 
 
 " Where the labouring class is composed wholly or in a 
 very considerable degree, of Slaves, and of Slaves distin- 
 guished from the Free class, by colour, feature, and origin, 
 the idea of labour and Slavery become connected in the 
 minds of the Free class. This arises from that association of 
 ideas which forms one of the characteristic features of the 
 human mind, and with which every reflecting person is well 
 acquainted. They who Trom their infancy continually see 
 Black Slaves employed in labour, and forming by much the 
 most numerous class of labourers, insensibly associate the 
 idea of labour and Slavery, and are almost irresistibly led to 
 consider labour as a badge of Slavery, and consequently as a 
 degradation. To be idle, on the contrary, is, in their view, 
 the mark and the privilege of Free Men. The effect of this 
 habitual feeling upon that class of free Whites who ought to 
 labour, and conseq\iently upon their condition and that of 
 society, will be readily perceived by those who reflect upon 
 such subjects. It is seen in the vast difference between the 
 labouring classes of Whites in the southern and middle and 
 those of the northern and eastern States. Why are the latter 
 incomparably more industrious, more thriving, more orderly, 
 more comfortably situated than the former? The effect is 
 obvious to all those who have travelled through the different 
 parts of our country. What is the cause? It is found in the 
 association between the idea of Slavery and the idea of labour; 
 and the feeling produced by this association, that labour, the 
 proper occupation of Negro Slaves, is degrading to a Free 
 Man. 
 
 " It is therefore obvious, that a vast benefit would be con- 
 ferred on the country, and especially on the Slave-holding 
 districts, if all the Slave labourers could be gradually and 
 imperceptibly withdrawn from cultivation, and their place 
 supplied with Free labourers. 
 
18 * 'injurious EFFECTS OF SLAVE LABOUR. 
 
 In conclusion, we would apply to the citizens of Illinois 
 the language used by the Colonial Assembly of Virginia, in 
 a petition to the British Throne in the year 1772, against the 
 further importation of Slaves : — 
 
 " We are sensible that some of your Majesty's subjects of 
 Great Britain may reap emoluments from this traffic ; and 
 when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the 
 colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may in time have 
 the most destructive influence, we presume to hope that the 
 interests of a few will be disregarded, when placed in com- 
 petition with the security and happiness of such numbers of 
 vour Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects." 
 
 Such, then, is the result of an impartial examination of this 
 momentous question. We will not remark upon the moral 
 evil of Slavery. No honest man will contend for its rectitude. 
 Where, then, are its expediency and policy ? They are to be 
 found alone in the cupidity of interested speculators. These, 
 indeed, may gain some thousands by a temporary increase of 
 the price of lands in a few sections of the State. And is it 
 for this — to enrich a handful of land-jobbers— that the fair 
 territory of Illinois is to be cursed with barrenness, and 
 blackened with a servile population, which may in time de- 
 mand all the energies of the free to retain in bondage ? Citi- 
 zens of Illinois, be warned ! Let your decision of this question 
 evince that you respect the peace and prosperity of your 
 descendants, and that you regard Slavery, as it truly is, alto- 
 gether and essentially an evil of incalculable magnitude, pos- 
 sessino- not one redeeming quality to render it acceptable 
 in your eyes. Impressed as you must be, with the solemn 
 responsibilities of your station as men, and as freemen, acting 
 in the sight of Heaven and of earth, you will not suffer so foul 
 an act to disgrace the records of your State, nor wilfully incur 
 the reproaches of all future ages, by voluntarily clasping an 
 evil which must eventually bring upon yourselves, upon your 
 children, and upon your children's children, the awful retri- 
 bution of an avenging and just God. 
 
 F.llrrton and Urndor^on. Pi inters, 
 Goimh Square. London. 
 
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