But to return: Abolition simply, and in itself considered, is not the only question to be discussed, as the whole matter now presents itself to the mind of the public, and claims consideration. The phasis of the subject comprehends the broad disk of society. The Abolitionists have forced their opponents to this wide view, by having set the example. They have brought up so many questions, and implicated so many principles, as to have set aside the main question; at least have thrown it into the back ground, so that the term Abolition no longer suggests alone the primitive idea of emancipation, nor hardly suggests it at all; but arrays before the mind a _system_ of principles, social and political, which are regarded by most people as of a very revolting character. It is impossible to meet such a foe without taking into consideration the ground which he occupies, without reconnoitring and surveying his position. He has already betrayed the poor slave, vitiated his cause, rivetted his chains, made all his prospects more hopeless, put far off the day of his emancipation, and at last run foul of a precipitous, frowning, and immoveable rock, that is likely to sit long in dignified composure on the base of the eternal hills, while the assailant exhausts his energies and breaks his sides by dashing against the rude and projecting points below. The opponents of Abolition principles, therefore, are treated very unfairly when they are of course set down as opposed to emancipation. This latter question cannot now be taken up, till the battle is concluded in defence of other and more momentous principles, for the subversion of which a disciplined army of Destructives has rushed into the field. Nevertheless, so long as the Abolitionists continue to hold up the slave--whose prospects they have ruined, till he gets better help--as a shield for the accomplishment of other ends, it still remains necessary to give reasons why emancipation cannot be brought about with that precipitate haste which the Abolitionists propose. We design, however, in this chapter, not to aim directly at the point above suggested, but to present somewhat of the _comparative condition_ of the slaves in the United States, principally in relation to the history of the African race, since, at the time, and previous to the time, when the slave trade commenced, with the purpose of coming fairly to the conclusion, whether their condition in this country is an improvement or deterioration; and consequently, whether, in the Providence of God, and in their social right, as a distinct and separate race, they have a fair claim to the instant elevation among the people of this country, which the Abolitionists demand for them, if it can be obtained only at the expense of social order, and at the peril of our institutions.