Now, to take from the present system its domestic element, or, what is virtually the same thing, to place it under such disabilities as to prevent its benevolent results, would arrest the progress of African civilization, and put off his moral elevation for ages to come. And this is precisely the effect which the accumulation of all the slaves of the whole country within the limits of a few States must have. The domestic element of the system would be effectually crippled, if not entirely destroyed. A large number of slaves would be congregated on single plantations. The whole territory would be in the possession of but a few wealthy planters. They would chiefly reside in the cities and more healthy districts of the country. Their plantations would be under the control of stewards. The steward and his family (usually small) would constitute the whole white population on a plantation, numbering, as would often be the case, several hundred slaves; and the same state of things would exist, to a greater or less extent, through large districts of country. This would be a condition of the race essentially different from that in which they are placed by the present system; and we cannot fail to perceive that they would be well-nigh cut off from all contact with civilization. Instead of continuing to rise in the scale of civilization, as they will do under the present system, they would begin at once to relapse into the barbarism of their original pagan state. This result would be inevitable--only so far as their downward progress might be arrested by the occasional voice of the self-sacrificing missionary, calling to the altars of Christian worship! Would this be humane? Rather, would it not be brutal? Yet such would be the result of the scheme of “gradual emancipation!”