_A._ It is because people are either very much prejudiced or very ignorant on the subject. In the United States, colored persons have scarcely any chance to rise. They are despised, and abused, and discouraged, at every turn. In the slave States they are subject to laws nearly as oppressive as those of the slave. They are whipped or imprisoned, if they try to learn to read or write; they are not allowed to testify in court; and there is a general disposition not to encourage them by giving them employment. In addition to this, the planters are very desirous to expel them from the State, partly because they are jealous of their influence upon the slaves, and partly because those who have slaves to let out, naturally dislike the competition of the free negroes. But if colored people are well treated, and have the same inducements to industry as other people, they work as well and behave as well. A few years ago the Pennsylvanians were very much alarmed at the representations that were made of the increase of pauperism from the ingress of free negroes. A committee was appointed to examine into the subject, and it was ascertained that the colored people not only supported their own poor, but paid a considerable additional sum towards the support of white paupers. _Q._ I have heard people say that the slaves would not take their freedom, if it were offered to them. _A._ I sincerely wish they would offer it. I should like to see the experiment tried. If the slaves are so well satisfied with their condition, why do they make such severe laws against running away? Why are the patroles on duty all the time to shoot every negro who does not give an account of himself as soon as they call to him? Why, notwithstanding all these pains and penalties, are their newspapers full of advertisements for runaway slaves? If the free negroes are so much worse off than those in bondage, why is it that their laws bestow freedom on any slave, “who saves his master or mistress’s life, or performs any meritorious service to the State?” That must be a very bad country where the law stipulates that _meritorious_ actions shall be rewarded by making a man more unhappy than he was before! Some months ago, I had a conversation with a woman, who went from Boston to Tuscaloosa, in Alabama. She was the wife of a Baptist clergyman, professed to be a pious woman, and was considered as such. I found her an apologist for slavery, but was not aware at the time that she actually owned slaves. She maintained that freedom was the greatest curse that could be bestowed on a slave; and when I attempted to put the case home to her conscience, she, for consistency’s sake, declared, that she should be quite as willing to die and leave her own little son in slavery, as to leave him a free laborer at the North. She said if she had a hundred slaves, she should treat them all kindly, and endeavor to make their condition comfortable. I replied, “I am willing to believe that you would do