Well-proved facts vindicate completely the policy of Emancipation, even if it were not commanded by the simplest rules of morality. All testimony, whether from official documents or from travellers, shows, beyond question, that in these islands the condition of the negro is improved by emancipation; but this testimony is especially instructive, when we learn that the improvement is most strongly manifest in those who have been born in Freedom. Ask any person familiar with these islands,--as I have often done,--or consult any unprejudiced authority, and such will be the answer. This alone is enough to vindicate the act. Moreover, it is enough, if _men_ are raised in the scale of being, even though sugar perishes from the earth. But careful statistics attest that the material interests of these possessions share the improvement of the population. In some of the islands, as in Barbadoes and Antigua, the advance is conspicuous, while in Jamaica itself, which is the instance most constantly cited of “failure,” the evidence is unanswerable, that the derangement of affairs cannot be charged upon Emancipation, but is a natural incident to the anomalous condition of that island throughout its history, aggravated by insane pretensions of the Slave-Masters. Two different Governors of this island[165] have assured me, that, with all their experience there, they looked upon Emancipation as a “blessing.” Thus is it shown that the true policy of this world is found in justice. Nothing is truer than that injustice, beside its essential wickedness, is folly also. The unjust man is a fool. Only recently important testimony on this subject has found place, where it would be hardly expected, in the columns of the “New York Times”; and similar testimony occurs in other quarters, both in England and America. And yet, with the truth flashing in their faces, our Slave-Masters misrepresent the sublime and beautiful act as a “failure”! This, however, is of a piece with their whole conduct. Let me thank you for the invitation with which you have honored me, and for the good wishes with which you cheer me; and believe me, my dear Sir, Very faithfully yours, CHARLES SUMNER. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. SLAVERY A BARBAROUS DISEASE TO BE STAYED. LETTER TO A REPUBLICAN MEETING AT THE DEDICATION OF THE REPUBLICAN WIGWAM IN NEW YORK, AUGUST 6, 1860. BOSTON, August 6, 1860. GENTLEMEN,--Accept my thanks for the invitation with which you have honored me. Knowing by recent experience something of the generous Republicans of New York, it is with reluctance that I renounce the opportunity you give me of mingling with them on an interesting occasion.