indefinite thing, called “moderate correction;” this law would let the inhabitants of Meriden loose upon the inhabitants of Berlin; for it would protect the former in the grossest outrages upon the latter. But the repeal of this law would not let the inhabitants of Berlin loose upon us. Extending them protection would not be letting them loose upon us. Had we the power of repealing the law; or if not, possessing the power of _not enforcing_ it, we should find our security in doing so. The very way to make them respect _our_ rights, would be to respect _theirs_. Immediate emancipation places the slaves under the _control_ as well as protection of the laws of the State against idleness, vagrancy, theft, murder, and all other aggressions on the rights of men. We are told that the _Slaves are not fit to be free_; and therefore our scheme of immediate emancipation, if adopted, would prove a curse to them and the country. Nothing is more false. The Slaves are _men_; and therefore they are more fit for freedom than for slavery; more fit to be treated as persons than as things; to be governed by appeals to the reason and conscience than by brute force. God made man to be free and adapted him to that condition. A state of Slavery is unnatural to him. Nor can his nature so change, that he shall be more fit to be treated as a brute, than as a free moral agent. Slaves have often been set at liberty, and have _always_ proved their capacity for freedom, by their industry, frugality and ready obedience to the laws. And why, we would ask, should they be thought unfit to be put under the control and protection of the same laws, which govern freemen? Do their vices or their ignorance, disqualify them? While Slavery lasts, they will remain equally degraded.