The decrease of the slave population of the West Indies, and the better economy--barbarous indeed--of keeping it up by importation, was adduced in evidence of the inhumanities of the system. And we think very fairly so. By the same rule, the rapid increase of the slave population in the Southern States, over the whites in the same States--it being in the proportion of 80 to 100 of the whites, and of 112 to 100 of the slaves, in the term of 40 years--proves, that slavery in the United States is comparatively mild. It is commonly reported and believed, by disinterested visitants to the slave States of the Union, that, from all appearances, the slaves, as a body, are the happiest people in the world. And although we are far from advocating the doctrine, in application to involuntary and hereditary bondage, as an element of society, that, “where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise;” yet the real condition of American slavery, when fairly ascertained, may go to show, that the pains taken by Abolitionists, in the use of false testimony, to awaken a romantic sympathy in the North, and to muster and urge on a violent crusade upon the South, in violation of the laws of the land, and of the obvious proprieties of man’s social condition, thereby disturbing the public peace, and threatening to bring about a civil war, involves a very grave responsibility. It is undoubtedly true, that the Abolitionists of the North know very little about Southern slavery; and that they know far less about it now, than they did before the Abolition press, under the American Anti-Slavery Society, began to instruct them. Nearly all their sympathy is romantic, resting on “the baseless fabric of a vision;” and they may rely upon it, that their crusade upon the South has as little hope of good result, as may now be read in the history of the crusade of the Christian nations of Europe upon “the Holy land.” CHAPTER XI. EVERY MAN MIND HIS OWN BUSINESS.