race, without the semblance or pretext of good to that race for which the abolitionist professes so much regard, and which stands so much higher in his affections than his own, is seen to be one of mere folly and wickedness, or, what is perhaps worse, a selfish and sectional struggle for political power.

It is a singular fact, and one worthy of notice in this connexion, that in the history of African slavery up to this time, no government has ever yet been known to abolish it, which fairly represented the interests and opinions of the governed. Great Britain, it is true, abolished slavery in Jamaica, but the planters of Jamaica had no potential voice in the British Parliament. The abolition of slavery in New England, and in the middle States, can hardly be cited as an exception, since that abrogation was not so much the result of positive legislation, as it was of natural causes—the unfitness of climate and productions to slave labor. It is well known to those familiar with the jurisprudence of this country, and of England, that slavery has been in no instance created by positive statutory enactment, nor has it been thus abolished in any country, when the popular will was paramount in legislative action. Its existence and non-existence appears to depend entirely upon causes beyond the reach of governmental action, and this fact should teach some dependence upon the will of an overruling Providence, which works out its ends in a mode, and at a time, not always apparent to finite mortals.

The history of some of our slaveholding States, in relation to efforts of this character, it would seem, ought to be conclusive, at least, against those who have no actual interests involved, and whom a proper sense of self-respect, if not of constitutional obligation, should restrain from impertinent interference. Virginia in 1831, and Kentucky more recently, were agitated from centre to circumference by a bold and unrestricted discussion of the subject of emancipation. Upon the hustings and in legislative assemblies, the subject was thoroughly examined, and every project which genius or philanthropy could suggest, was investigated. Brought forward in the Old Dominion, under the sanction of names venerated and respected throughout the limits of the commonwealth—well known to have been a cherished project of her most distinguished statesmen—favored by the happening of a then recent servile disturbance, and patronized by some of the most patriotic and enlightened citizens, the scheme nevertheless failed, without a show of strength or a step in advance towards the object contemplated. The magnitude of the difficulties to be overcome was so great, and so obvious, as to strike alike the emancipationists and their adversaries. The result has been, both in Virginia and Kentucky, that slavery, to use the language of one of Kentucky's eloquent and distinguished sons, and one, too, of the foremost in the work of emancipation, "has been accepted as a permanent part of their social system." Can it be that there is a destitution of honesty—of intelligence—of patriotism and piety in slaveholding States, and that these qualities are alone to be found in Great Britain and the northern free States? If not, the conclusion must be, that the difficulties in the way of such an enterprise exceed all the calculations of statesmanship and philosophy; and their removal must await the will of that Being, whose prerogative it is to make crooked paths straight, and justify the ways of God to man.

We have no thought of discussing the subject of slavery. Viewed in its social, moral or economical aspects, it is regarded, as the resolutions of the Convention declare, as solely and exclusively a matter of State jurisdiction, and therefore, one which does not concern the Federal Government, or the States where it does not exist. We have merely adverted to the fact, in connexion with the recent abolition movements upon Kansas, that amidst all their fierce denunciations of slavery for twenty years past, these fanatics have never yet been able to suggest a plan for its removal, consistent with the safety of the white race—saying nothing of constitutional guarantees, Federal and State.

The colonization scheme of Massachusetts, as we have said, excited alarm in Missouri. Its obvious design was to operate further than the mere prevention of the natural expansion of slavery. It was intended to narrow its existing limits,—to destroy all equilibrium of power between the North and the South, and leave the slaveholder at the will of a majority, ready to disregard constitutional obligations, and carry out to their bitter end the mandates of ignorance, prejudice and bigotry. Its success manifestly involved a radical change in our Federal Government, or its total overthrow. If Kansas could be thus abolitionized, every additional part of the present public domain hereafter opened to settlement, and every future accession of territory, would be the subject of similar experiments, and an exploded Wilmot Proviso thus virtually enforced throughout an extended domain still claimed as national, and still bearing on its military ensigns the stars and stripes of the Union. If the plan was constitutional and legal, it must be conceded that it was skillfully contrived, and admirably adapted to its ends. It was also eminently practicable, if no resistance was encountered, since the States adopting it contained a surplus population which could be bought up and shipped, whilst the South, which had an interest in resisting, had no such people among her white population. The Kansas-Nebraska law, too, which was so extremely hateful to the fanatics, and has constituted the principal theme of their recent denunciations, would be a dead letter, both as it regarded the two Territories for which it was particularly framed, and as a precedent to Congress for the opening of other districts to settlement. The old Missouri restriction could have done no more, and the whole purpose of the anti-slavery agitators, both in and out of Congress, was quietly accomplished. But the scheme failed—as it deserved to fail; and as the peace, prosperity, and union of our country required it should fail. It was a scheme totally at variance with the genius of our government, both State and Federal, and with the social institutions which these governments were designed to protect, and its success would have been as fatal to those who contrived it, as it could have been to those intended to be its victims.

The circumstance of novelty is entitled to its weight in politics as well as law. The abolition irruption upon Kansas is without precedent in our history. Seventy-nine years of our national life have rolled by; Territory after Territory has been annexed, or settled, and added to the galaxy of States, until from thirteen we have increased to thirty-two; yet it never before entered into the head of any statesman, North or South, to devise a plan of acquiring exclusive occupation of a Territory by State colonization. To Massachusetts belongs the honor of its invention, and we trust she will survive its defeat. But, she is not the Massachusetts, we must do justice to her past history to say, that she was in the times of her Adams', her Hancocks, and her Warrens; nor yet is she where she stood in more recent times, when her Websters, and Choates, and Winthrops, led the van of her statesmen. Her legislative halls are filled with ruthless fanatics, dead to the past and reckless to the future; her statute books are polluted with enactments purporting to annul the laws of Congress, passed in pursuance, and by reason of the special requirements of the Constitution; and her senatorial chairs at Washington are filled by a rhetorician and a bigot, one of whom studies to disguise in the drapery of a classic elocution, the most hideous and