It is painful to observe the unceasing efforts to alarm the South by imputations against the North of unconstitutional designs on the subject of the slaves. You are right, I have no doubt, in believing that no such intermeddling disposition exists in the body of our Northern brethren. Their good faith is sufficiently guarantied by the interest they have as merchants, as ship-owners, and as manufacturers, in preserving a union with the slaveholding States. On the other hand, what _madness_ in the South to look for greater safety in disunion. It would be worse than jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire; it would be jumping into the fire for fear of the frying-pan. The danger from the alarm is, that the pride and resentment exerted by them may be an overmatch for the dictates of prudence, and favor the project of a Southern Convention, insidiously revived, as promising, by its councils, the best securities against grievances of every sort from the North.[23] FOOTNOTES: [1] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 138. [2] _Ibid._, 170. [3] _Ibid._, 239. [4] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 168. [5] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, I, 542-543. [6] _Ibid._, III, 121. [7] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 122-124. [8] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 133-138. [9] _Ibid._, III, 170. [10] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 190. [11] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 193-194. [12] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 239, 240. [13] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 310-315. [14] These peculiarities, it would seem, are not of equal force in the South American States, owing, in part, perhaps, to a former degradation, produced by colonial vassalage; but principally to the lesser contrast of colours. The difference is not striking between that of many of the Spanish and Portuguese Creoles and that of many of the mixed breed.--J. M. [15] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 495-498. [16] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 541-542. [17] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, III, 2-3. [18] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, IV, 60. [19] _Ibid._, IV, 188. [20] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, IV, 192. [21] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, IV, 213-214. [22] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, IV, 274-279. [23] _Letters and other Writings of James Madison_, IV, 301. ADVICE GIVEN NEGROES A CENTURY AGO