A few facts will help to explain this apparent anomaly. In the first place, the system of slavery contravenes all the laws of human nature, and therefore contains within itself the seed of ultimate ruin. It takes away the motive power from the laborers, who naturally desire to shirk as much as possible of the work, which brings them no pay; consequently, overseers and drivers must be hired to force out of them their unwilling toil. It makes them indifferent to the destruction of property on estates, in whose prosperity they have no interest. It stimulates them to theft, by perpetual privations, from which they have no prospect of relief. It kills their ingenuity and enterprise, by rendering them utterly unavailing for any improvement in their own condition; while all their faculties are stupefied by the extreme ignorance in which they must necessarily be kept in order to be held in slavery. The effects on the white population are quite as injurious, though in a different way. Slavery unavoidably renders labor a degradation, and consequently, it is a matter of pride with them to live in idleness. Extravagance and dissipation follow of course. All, who have examined into the subject, are aware that intemperance, licentiousness, and gambling, are fearfully prevalent in slave-holding countries. One hint will suffice to suggest the immoral condition of the West Indies, during slavery. It is a well-known fact that the white subordinates employed by planters were very liable to lose their situations if they married; because it was for the interest of the proprietors to have them live with slaves, and raise up laborers for the estates. As for the slaves, being regarded as animals, and treated like live-stock, they unavoidably lived like animals. Modesty and self-respect were impossible to their brutalized condition. In this Tract, I merely aim at presenting a _business_-view of the subject. Therefore, I will not describe the cruelties, which were continually practised, and which kept the worst passions of both masters and slaves in perpetual excitement. The barbarities recorded were the same that always _must_ prevail, under a system of coerced labor and irresponsible power.