dered in regard to the circumstances which compose it, and to the effects which it produces on the physical, intellectual, and moral faculties of the divers classes of men, on the wealth, nature of government, and relations of nations to each other. Of some species of associations which approximate to slavery." We regard this book as the most complete, learned and philosophical treatise, that has ever appeared on the subject of slavery and its disastrous effects. Doubtless humanity has inspired numbers of those philosophers, who with such eloquence have assailed this outrageous institution; but hitherto the masters of slaves, have believed themselves able to hold them in contempt; or even to admire them without effect; because, said they, the writer was unacquainted with the circumstances, and the finest theories are often found, upon trial, to be impracticable. But here we have presented to us, the circumstances of all times, and of every region of the globe, with a precision, and authenticity which leave no shadow of doubt, with regard to their agreement or to the conclusions which ought to be deduced from them.

Slavery is so foreign to the manners, the habitudes, and even the recollections of France, that many regard a treatise on the fatal consequences of slavery, in nearly the same light as an exposition of the errors of paganism. All are inclined to regard such a work as relating only to the legislation of some distant American islands, and to the actions of a people with whom we have no community of feeling. They have so often heard the assertion that Christianity had put an end to slave

ry, they do not attend to the fact, that, in England, slavery was abolished only in 1660, by statute 12, Cha. 24 (Charles II.,) in the rest of western Europe, only in the eighteenth century, and that in eastern Europe it has never ceased to the present day. Yet so far is the cause of the abolition of slavery from being gained, there has been effected, and even under our own eye, a revolution, which, by suddenly elevating to the rank of powerful and civilized states, some vast countries where slavery is established by law, may secure to the countries governed by the possessors of slaves, the most frightful preponderance in the balance of nations, over those in which this species of possession is interdicted. In Russia and Poland, the great mass of the population is held in slavery; this is also the case in nearly half the Austrian states; and the weight of Russia and Austria, have never been greater in the balance of Europe, than in the present time. Slavery is maintained by England, France and Holland, in their colonies dispersed over Asia, Africa and America; and by Spain and Portugal in the remnant of their colonial inheritance. Slavery retains its place in ten of the twenty-two* United States of America, and these are the most extensive, as well as the most happily situated. In all English In

*Thus the numbers stand in the original. This is a fresh, but not a singular instance of the ignorance often manifested by the learned of Europe, in relation to the political geography of America. With us a well instructed school boy need not be informed, that of the twenty-four United States, twelve tolerate the system of slavery.

dia, in all India, tributary to England, slavery is legal, but not very prevalent. Lastly, in nearly all the colossal republics of America, lately belonging to Spain, and in the empire of Brazil, slavery is yet legal, although these new states have adopted, with a view to the future abolition of slavery, some measures, which are incessantly assailed or evaded by the prejudices or the passions of the people. Such are, notwithstanding, the states of which, at this day, Christendom and the civilized world, are composed. Such are the states, which dictate to the rest of the world, the laws by which they shall be governed. Certainly when the sovereign power is in the hands of so many of the possessors of slaves; the time has not yet come, when we can say, that the cause of the abolition of slavery is gained; on the contrary, we ought more than ever to collect facts, to study them, and give them publicity, in order to turn away the regenerated nations from the continuance of so abominable a system.

We shall now endeavour to present to our readers, in the least possible space, the train of M. Compte's ideas; and this we shall generally do in his own words; even when for the sake of brevity, we omit the usual indication of inverted commas. Though slavery is maintained among some civilized nations, it evidently originated among barbarians, in the abuse of victory. The victors, instead of putting the vanquished to death, have believed it more humane, and above all more profitable, to subject them to servitude. M. Compte, as the title of his book indicates, has undertaken to examine, what was the re

sult of this estimate; and what were the effects of slavery on the physical, moral, and intellectual faculties of the masters, as well as of the slaves. He begins by remarking that the physical organs of the masters, are not deteriorated by the system. The causes which are apparently conducive to the preservation of physical force, are the supply of proper nourishment, sufficient exercise, and the choice of the individuals who are to continue the race. Now the masters of slaves, whether in a state of barbarism or of civilization, appear to unite all these advantages. Their nou chment is always assured; habit, a taste for pleasure, and even policy lead them, in a greater or less degree, to the maintenance of such exercises, as fit them for the chase, or the field of battle; and, unless prevented by national prejudices, they may, by marrying the finest among their female slaves, raise a progeny superior to themselves. This is practised among the Turks and Persians, to the manifest improvement of their race.

But slavery must necessarily vitiate the physical organization of slaves. For they are supplied with food, clothing, and dwellings no further than the masters may choose to grant them. Such exercises as may increase their strength, activity or courage are interdicted, as dangerous to their possessors. The small number of mechanical operations, to which the interest of the master confines them, can develope but a few of their organs. Even this development may be very much restrained; for a forced and excessive exercise, accompanied with want of food, is a cause of weakness, rather

than of strength. When to these considerations we add, that men in a state of servitude, can obtain as companions, such females only, as are least favoured by nature, the others being monopolized by the masters, we shall readily conceive that the servile part of the human race must, at all times, be descending in the scale of nature.

But the development of the phy. sical organization ought to be chiefly considered, in regard to the means which it affords to man, to act upon things, and to provide for his wants. Now slavery arrests this development in the masters, as well as the slaves. The first effect which slavery produces on the masters, is to dispense with those labours upon which man is immediately dependant for the means of subsistence: the second is, to cause them to hold those employments in contempt. Among the ancients, one kind of industry, and one only, exempted those who engaged in it from degradation in the eyes of masters; this consisted of the trade in the human species. One of the ancestors of Octavius, had, they said, dishonoured his posterity, by engaging in merchandise; but Marcus Cato bought and sold men; he is noted for selling his old slaves, whose labours furnished but little profit, and who must soon become useless; and yet Cato was the Censor of morals.

This contempt for manual labour, which they denominated servile, was universal among the Greeks and Romans; it is every where prevalent among slave-holders in the colonies. Even the labourer of Europe, expelled as a malefactor, if he becomes the possessor of a slave, immediate

In

ly concludes that he can no longer engage in productive labour without derogating from his nobility. The Hollanders, who, at home, so fully appreciate every kind of useful employment, entertain, at Batavia or the Cape of Good Hope, the most insurmountable contempt and aversion for all industrious occupations. The English, at St. Helena, Jamaica, and in all their colonies, the anglo-Americans in the ten southern states, have in like manner, renounced every species of labour. Hungary, Poland and Russia, the possessors of slaves never engage in laborious occupations; the labours of agriculture are performed by the serfs; among the Jews alone, can industry be found; for these people being already borne down by contempt, can be no further degraded by rendering themselves useful to the community. Thus, although slavery does not necessarily vitiate the physical organs of those who belong to the superior class, yet its effect is to render their exercise useless in respect to those occupations which are indispensable to the existence of man. These organs are not only rendered useless to the human race, considered in mass, but are useful to their possessors only by the injuries they enable them to inflict on the rest of their species. If, by any great catastrophe, the race of masters should suddenly disappear from a country where slavery prevails, there is no kind of labour which would be necessarily suspended, and no species of wealth whose loss we should have to deplore. Nothing would cease, except the punishments inflicted on the slaves.

Whilst the formation of industri

of Louisiana, and all the colonial dependencies of Spain, where the number of slaves is great.

In the United States, as the holders of slaves are in possession of political freedom, their intellectual powers are cultivated and improved. But the citizens of the southern states cultivate those faculties only which are capable of acting upon men; the citizens of the northern states wish to act both on men and things, and between these objects, their energies are divided. Thus, the southern states have furnished, perhaps, a greater number of men competent to hold the reins of government.— Washington, qualified to lead an army, or to direct the concerns of || government, was born in a land cultivated by slaves; but Franklin, destined to enlighten the world, and to enlarge the power of man over the operations of nature, could arise, only in a country where the arts were exercised by the hands of free

men.

In regard to the slaves, the immediate effect of slavery, is to prevent all intellectual improvement. Thus, in the American colonies, where all the manual labour is performed by slaves, the owners are obliged to import from countries where slavery is not admitted, all those articles which require dexterity to produce them. The masters may employ their slaves in the felling and transportation of timber; but if that timber is to be formed into ships, it must be sent to a country where the labourers are free. Slaves may cultivate the ground, and raise grain, but to convert that grain into flour, it must be sent to places where workmen, capable of erecting mills, can be found.

Slaves are not capable of exercising all the care which even agriculture requires. They seldom possess sufficient care or skill to cultivate pulse or fruit trees. Their agriculture is in the most barbarous condition, so that the masters import from England the coal which they require for fuel, though they have forests at six miles distance. They even sometimes import the bricks of which their houses are built.

The causes of the unskilfulness of slaves, in every kind of occupation, are easily perceived. The hand can execute, with ease and accuracy, only what the mind conceives with clearness. Our physical organs are nothing but the instruments of our intellect; and the mind, when its faculties have not been developed, can direct but imperfectly, the organs which are subject to its control.— Now in countries, where slavery is established, the masters are not only incapable of developing the intellects of their slaves, but they generally have a natural propensity to prevent their development. The demand for security, more powerful than the passion of avarice, obliges them to hold the servile class in a state approaching as nearly as possible, to that of brutes. Robin reports,* that a French colonist in Louisiana, frequently asserted, that he feared nothing so much as negroes with cultivated minds. He said, that his utmost efforts were used to restrain the enlargement of their understandings, and that these efforts were mostly successful. The opinions of the colonists on this subject, are similar to those formerly entertained by the

* Travels in Louisiana, p. 197.