He is only seemingly eccentric and erratic. He feels the difficulty of disposing of his immense wealth, without making it an engine of oppression and exaction. He understands the theory of capital and labor, as his speeches show;--knows that labor produces every thing, and that capital is the whip that forces it to work, and also the exploitator that robs it of most of the proceeds of its industry. "La proprieté c'est le vol!" he sees is true, save in the impurity of motive, which it seems to attribute to its owners. If he endows colleges, or gives his money in large sums to individuals, in the one case it is used to rear up exploitators, who rob labor by professional skill; and in the other, to those who use it at once as an engine of exaction and oppression. If he gives it in smaller sums to the poor, he is generally giving to the idle the labor of the industrious, and offering a premium to continued idleness; for he can neither control the conduct nor expenditure of his beneficiaries. He is too good, and too proud, to spend his income in pomp and luxury. Too good thus to waste the proceeds of labor, (as all public or private luxury does,) and thus increase the burdens of the working class. Too proud to derive reflected importance and standing from extraneous glitter and costly show and equipage. He has (no doubt, in vain,) attempted to ameliorate the condition of a great many slaves, by purchasing them and emancipating them. Could he retain them as slaves, he might see that his charity was not misapplied, by educating them and controlling their conduct. To us, it occurs that a large capital can only be safely invested in slaves and hands, if the owner wishes to be sure that it shall not be used as an engine of oppression, or as a persuasive to idleness and dissipation. We should do injustice to Mr. Smith were we not to add, that he is quite as busy in abducting negroes as in buying them. The underground railroad is one of his favorite pets and beneficiaries. His restless energy is not satisfied with the slow proceedings of this road, and hence he buys negroes, as well as aids the abducting of them. He has been severely censured for buying them, by those whom he supplies with the means to steal them, or whom he rescues from the fangs of the law, when caught in abortive efforts to abduct them. He had the education and has the feelings and bearing of the Southerner. His father owned slaves, and a territory full of Indians, and he was reared as playmate and prince in their midst; hence, he has the proud humility of the Southerner, not the exacting and supercilious arrogance of the Northerner. He does not demand deference and respect, because it has, from boyhood, been yielded to him, as his due, by admitted inferiors.