latter class, none can be demanded upon principle, none accorded as matter of right. "It is conceded that, at this precise moment of our legislation, slaves are injurious to the interests and threaten the subversion and ruin of this Commonwealth. Their present number, their increasing number, all admonish us of this. In different terms, and in more measured language, the same fact has been conceded by all who have yet addressed this House. '_Something must be done_,' emphatically exclaimed the gentleman from Dinwiddie; and I thought I could perceive a response to that declaration, in the countenance of a large majority of this body. And why must something be done? Because if not, says the gentleman from Campbell, the throats of all the _white_ people of Virginia will be cut. No, says the gentleman from Dinwiddie--'The whites cannot be conquered--the throats of the _blacks_ will be cut.' It is a trifling difference, to be sure, Sir, and matters not to the argument. For the fact is conceded, that one race or the other must be exterminated. "Sir, such being the actual condition of this Commonwealth, I ask if we would not be justified _now_, supposing all considerations of policy and humanity concurred without even a moment's delay, in staving off this appalling and overwhelming calamity? Sir, if this immense negro population were now in arms, gathering into black and formidable masses of attack, would that man be listened to, who spoke about property, who prayed you not to direct your artillery to such or such a point, for you would destroy some of _his_ property? Sir, to the eye of the Statesman, as to the eye of Omniscience, dangers pressing, and dangers that must _necessarily_ press, are alike present. With a single glance he embraces Virginia now, with the elements of destruction reposing quietly upon her bosom, and Virginia is lighted from one extremity to the other with the torch of servile insurrection and massacre. It is not sufficient for him that the match is not yet applied. It is enough that the magazine is open, and the match will shortly be applied.