of power, greedy of gain, it is in Slavery that he wantons in all the luxury of injustice, for it is here that he tastes the exquisite pleasure of depriving others of that which he most values in himself. Thus, whether we examine this system in the light of conscience and intelligence, or in the light of history and experience, we come to but one result,--that it has its source and sustenance in Satanic energy, in Satanic pride, and in Satanic greed. This is Slavery in itself, detached from the ameliorations it may receive from individual slaveholders. Now a bad system is not continued or extended by the virtues of any individuals who are but partially corrupted by it, but by those who work in the spirit and with the implements of its originators. Every amelioration is a confession of the essential injustice of the thing ameliorated, and a step towards its abolition; and the humane and Christian slaveholders owe their safety, and the security of what they are pleased to call their property, to the vices of the hard and stern spirits whom they profess to abhor. If they invest in stock of the Devil's corporation, they ought not to be severe on those who look out that they punctually receive their dividends. The true slaveholder feels that he is encamped among his slaves, that he holds them by the right of conquest, that the relation is one of war, and that there is no crime he may not be compelled to commit in self-defence. Disdaining all cant, he clearly perceives that the system, in its practical working, must conform to the principles on which it is based. He accordingly believes in the lash and the fear of the lash. If he is cruel and brutal, it may as often be from policy as from disposition, for brutality and cruelty are the means by which weaker races are best kept "subordinated" to stronger races; and the influence of his brutality and cruelty is felt as restraint and terror on the plantation of his less resolute neighbor. And when we speak of brutality and cruelty, we do not limit the application of the words to those who scourge, but extend it to some of those who preach,--who hold up heaven as the reward of those slaves who are sufficiently abject on earth, and threaten damnation in the next world to all who dare to assert their manhood in this.