"If any slave shall suffer in his life, limbs, or members, when no white person shall be present, or being present shall neglect or refuse to give evidence concerning the same, in every such case the owner or other person who shall have the care and government of the slave shall be deemed and taken to be guilty of such offence; unless such owner or other person can make the contrary appear by good and sufficient evidence, or shall by his own oath clear and exculpate himself, which oath every court where such offence shall be tried is hereby empowered to administer and to acquit the offender accordingly, if clear proof of the offence be not made by two witnesses at least, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." Is not this offering a reward for perjury? And what shall we think of that misnamed court of justice, where it is optional with the witnesses, in a case of life and death, to give or withhold their testimony. 5. Because it induces dangerous sectional jealousies, creates of necessity a struggle between the opposing interests of free and slave labor, and threatens the integrity of the Union. That sectional jealousies do exist, the tone of your paper, gentlemen, is of itself an evidence, if indeed any were needed. The moral sentiment of the free states is against slavery. The freeman has declared his unwillingness that his labor should be reduced to a level with that of slaves. Harsh epithets and harsh threats have been freely exchanged, until the beautiful Potomac, wherever it winds its way to the ocean, has become the dividing line, not of territory only, but of feeling, interest, national pride, a moral division. What shook the pillars of the Union when the Missouri question was agitated? What but a few months ago arrayed in arms a state against the Union, and the Union against a state? From Maine to Florida, gentlemen, the answer must be the same, slavery. 6. Because of its pernicious influence upon national wealth and prosperity. Political economy has been the peculiar study of Virginia. But there are some important truths connected with this science which she has hitherto overlooked or wantonly disregarded. Population increasing with the means of subsistence is a fair test of national wealth. By reference to the several censuses of the United States, it will be seen that the white population increases nearly twice as fast in states where there are few or no slaves as in the slave states. Again, in the latter states the slave population has increased twice as fast as the white. Let us take, for example, the period of twenty years, from 1790 to 1810, and compare the increase of the two classes in three of the Southern states. Per cent. of whites. Per cent. of blacks. Maryland 13 31 Virginia 24 38 North Carolina 30 70 The causes of this disproportionate increase, so inimical to the true interests of the country, are very manifest.