it into flame, even while the people know that the power is in their own hands. But when once they shall be obliged to see, that these principles are actually going into practice by force, throughout the length and breadth of the land, it requires no prophet to foretell how they will feel, and how they will act. Honestly, we do not think it among the possible events of the future, that Abolition principles, as they now stand forth before the public, can be forced upon the people of this country; but on the contrary, that, foreseeing the evil, they will take care to prevent it. The Abolitionists cannot appeal to the effects of emancipation in the British West Indies, even on the ground of their own showing, to allay these apprehensions; for there is no parallel between the two cases. Every circumstance and every attribute of the question, as it exists here, in its essential influences, are at variance with that example. But so long as our political fabric remains such as it is, it would seem to be folly to discuss this subject on this hypothetical basis. We have only taken this license for a moment, for the sake of showing, that, if this political structure of our society were all out of the way, and if the slave-holders had no interest or voice in the question, the avowed principles of the Abolitionists, apart from the difficulty of political rights, would erect an insuperable barrier in the public mind to the accomplishment of their designs. CHAPTER XVII. ABOLITIONISM CONSIDERED AS PROPOSING NO COMPENSATION FOR SLAVE-PROPERTY.