Thou inquirest--‘Have the northern States power to rectify evils at the South, as they have to remove their own moral deformities?’ I answer unhesitatingly, certainly they have, for _moral_ evils can be removed only by _moral_ power; and the close connection which exists between these two portions of our country, affords the greatest possible facilities for exerting a _moral_ influence on it. Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation. The South has told us so. In the report of the committee on federal relations in the Legislature of South Carolina last winter, we find the following acknowledgement: ‘Let it be admitted, that by reason of an efficient police and judicious internal legislation, we may render abortive the designs of the fanatic and incendiary within our limits, and that the torrent of pamphlets and tracts which the abolition presses of the North are pouring forth with an inexhaustible copiousness, is arrested the moment it reaches our frontier. Are we to wait until our enemies have built up, by the grossest misrepresentations and falsehoods, a _body of public opinion, which it would be impossible to resist_, without separating ourselves from the social system of the rest of the civilized world?’ Here is the acknowledgement of a southern legislature, that it will be _impossible for the South to resist the influence_ of that body of _public opinion_, which abolitionists are building up against them at the North. If further evidence is needed, that anti-slavery societies are producing a powerful influence at the South, look at the efforts made there to vilify and crush them. Why all this turmoil, and passion, and rage in the slaveholder, if we have indeed rolled back the cause of emancipation 200 years, as thy father has asserted? Why all this terror at the distant roar of free discussion, if they feel not the earth quaking beneath them? Does not the _South_ understand what really will affect her interests and break down her domestic institution? Has _she_ no subtle politicians, no far-sighted men in her borders, who can scan the practical bearings of these troublous times? Believe me, she has; and did they not know that we are springing a mine beneath the great bastile of slavery, and laying a train which will soon whelm it in ruin, she would not be quite so eager ‘to cut out our tongues, and hang us as high as Haman.’ I will just add, that as to the committee saying that abolitionists are building up a body of public opinion at the North ‘by the grossest misrepresentations and falsehoods,’ I think it was due to _their_ character for veracity, to have cited and refuted some of these calumnies. Until they do, we must believe them; and as a Southerner, I can bear the most decided testimony against slavery as the mother of _all_ abominations.