_Do you believe that Daniel Webster himself could be returned if there was the least doubt upon the question?_” Mr. Choate then adds: “Upon this question alone, we always differ from those Whigs of the south; and on that one, we _propose simply to vote them down_.” Mr. Webster now says he will not join in voting them down. Under such circumstances, is it frivolous or captious to ask for something more than a dogmatic assertion that slavery cannot impregnate these new regions, and cause them to breed monsters forever? On a subject of such infinite importance I cannot be satisfied with a dictum; I want a demonstration. I cannot accept the prophecy without inquiring what spirit inspired the prophet. As a revelation from Heaven, it would be most delightful; but, as it conflicts with all human experience, it requires at least one undoubted miracle to attest the divinity of its origin. According to the last census, there were more than eight thousand persons of African blood in Massachusetts. Abolish the moral and religious convictions of our people, let slavery appear to be in their sight not only lawful and creditable, but desirable as a badge of aristocratic distinction, and as a “political, social, moral, and religious blessing,” and what obstacle would prevent these eight thousand persons from being turned into slaves, on any day, by the easy, cheap, and shorthand kidnapping of a legislative act? Africans can exist here, for the best of all reasons,--they do exist here. A state of slavery would not stop their respiration, nor cause them to vanish “into thin air.” Think, for a moment, of the complaints we constantly hear in certain circles, of the difficulty and vexatiousness of commanding domestic service. If no moral or religious objection existed against holding slaves, would not many of those respectable and opulent gentlemen who signed the letter of thanks to Mr. Webster, and hundreds of others indeed, instead of applying to intelligence offices, or visiting emigrant ships for “domestics,” as we call them, go at once to the auction room and buy a man or a woman with as little hesitancy or compunction as they now send to Brighton for beeves, or go to Tattersall’s for a horse? If the cold of the higher latitudes checks the flow of African blood, or benumbs African limbs, the slaveholder knows very well that a trifling extra expense for whips will make up for the difference.