Owing to this mistaken expectation of the effect of the Act of 1808 abolishing the slave-trade, the attention of philanthropists was in a great measure withdrawn from the subject of slavery for ten years or more. Meanwhile, the friends of “the peculiar institution” were busily engaged in extending its borders and strengthening its defences. The purchase of the Louisiana and Florida territories threw open countless acres of _virgin_ soil, on which the labor of slaves was more profitable than elsewhere. The invention of the “cotton-gin” rendered the preparation of that staple so easy, that our Southern planters could compete with any producers of it the world over. Cotton plantations, therefore, multiplied apace. The value of slaves was more than doubled. The spirit of private manumission, which in Virginia alone, between 1798 and 1808, had set free more than a thousand bondmen annually, was checked by avarice, and then forbidden by law. And the “Ancient Dominion,” proud Virginia, rapidly became the home of slave-breeders; and from that American Guinea was carried on a traffic in human beings as brisk and horrible as ever desolated the coast of Africa. The free colored population at the South were subjected to new disabilities, were exposed to most vexatious annoyances, and were denied the protection of law against encroachments or personal injuries by the “whites”; and very many of them, on slight pretexts, were reduced to slavery again. Social intercourse between the Northern and the Southern States was then infrequent. It was kept up mainly by the wealthy and pleasure-seeking, who, in their enjoyment of the hospitality of the planters, could learn little of the condition and character of their bondmen, and were easily led to take “South-side views of slavery.” Whatsoever we gathered from these sources of information led us too readily to acquiesce in the common assumption, that the negroes were a thick-skulled, stupid, kind-hearted, jolly people, not much if any worse off in slavery at the South than most of the free people of color, and some other poor folks were at the North. So, when we were disquieted at all on their account, it was but for a little time, and we relieved ourselves of the burden by a sigh or two over the misery that everywhere “flesh is heir to.”