masters) as to prevent frequent emancipations of individual slaves from personal affection and other causes. The freedmen formed a numerous class among the Romans; and it is known to what important posts slaves have risen in the Turkish empire. After these remarks, (the intention of which cannot be misunderstood by any reader of this Journal,) we can better estimate the effects of the change from slavery to personal freedom, upon the emancipated slave. He is relieved from the liabilities and burdens, but he at the same time forfeits the advantages of slavery. While the slave is exonerated from his legal obligations to his master, the master is exonerated from his legal and moral obligations towards his slave, and his interest in the conservation and protection of his slave is at an end. The slave (to use the common phrase) becomes his own master. With the acquisition of this power, he incurs the obligations of self-support. He becomes independent; and, being so, he must provide for his self-defence. Self-dominion is not an unmixed good to the work. It imports onerous duties. It implies the necessity of providing for a man's own wants, and those of his family. The freedman is no longer forced, by the fear of corporal punishment, to do a prescribed task of work. But he must work in order to earn wages; and, what is more, he must find work for himself. He is no longer incapable of acquiring property, or of reaping the fruits of his own industry. But he is, in consideration of this power, bound to provide for his own support. He is no longer incapable of contracting a lawful marriage, or begetting free legitimate children. But he is bound to maintain his wife and children by his own exertions; and if he deserts them, or allows them to starve, he is subject to legal punishment. He is no longer fed and maintained merely according to his physical wants, without reference to the value of his services; but, on the other hand, he is delivered over to the unchecked operation of the principle of competition; and he must content himself with the scanty pittance which the rivalry of the labor market may assign him. He is no longer treated as a mere animal or implement of production, without feeling, mind, or moral character; he does not follow the religion of his master, and he may voluntarily choose his own creed. But, in becoming a free moral agent, he accepts the responsibilities of that condition; his path is open to virtue, but he is answerable for his acts and their consequences if he deviates into other ways; he can, by foresight, determine his own lot, but he must, in compensation, suffer the penalties of his own improvidence.