"Where did all these black men come from?" I am sure I hear some young voice asking that question. Well, they came from Africa, the land of the negroes. In our time merchant ships are used to carry goods from one country to another. In old times many of these ships were used in carrying negroes to be sold as slaves. The wicked captains would steal the poor black men in Africa, or buy them from the chiefs, who had taken them prisoners in war. Some of them filled their ships so full of these miserable victims that hundreds of them died and were thrown overboard. Then, when they got to the West Indies or to the shores of our country, they would sell all that were left alive to the planters, to spend the rest of their lives like oxen chained to the yoke. It was a very sad and cruel business, but people then thought it right, and some of the best men took part in it. That is why I say the world has grown better. We have a higher idea of right and wrong in regard to such things than our forefathers had. Slaves were kept in all parts of the country, in the North as well as the South. There were more of them in the South than in the North, for they were of more use there as workers in the tobacco and rice and cotton fields. Most of those in the North were kept as house servants. Not many of them were needed in the fields. The North had not much use for slaves, and in time laws were passed, doing away with slavery in all the Northern states. Very likely the same thing would have taken place in the South if it had not been for the discovery of the cotton-gin. I have told you what a change this great invention made. Before that time it did not pay to raise cotton in our fields. After that time cotton grew to be a very profitable crop, and the cultivation of it spread wider and wider until it was planted over a great part of the South. This made a remarkable change. Negroes were very useful in the cotton fields, and no one in the South now thought of doing away with slavery. After 1808 no ships could bring slaves to this country, but there were a great many here then, and many others were afterwards born and grew up as slaves, so that the numbers kept increasing year after year. There were always some people, both in the North and the South, who did not like slavery. Among them were Franklin and Washington and Jefferson and other great men. In time there got to be so many of these people in the North that they formed what were called Anti-slavery Societies. Some of them said that slavery should be kept where it was and not taken into any new states. Others said that every slave in the United States ought to be set free.