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at the time when it abolishes slavery. No sooner is an end put to slavery, than the want of free labour is felt, and a crowd of enterprising adventurers immediately arrive from all parts of the country, who hasten to profit by the fresh resources which are then opened to industry. The soil is soon divided among them, and a family of white settlers takes possession of each tract of country. Beside which, European emigration is exclusively directed to the free states; for what would be the fate of a poor emigrant who crosses the Atlantic in search of ease and happiness, if he were to land in a country where labour is stigmatized as degrading?
Thus the white population grows by its natural increase, and at the same time by the immense influx of emigrants; while the black population receives no emigrants, and is upon its decline. The proportion which existed between the two races is soon inverted. The negroes constitute a scanty remnant, a poor tribe of vagrants, which is lost in the midst of an immense people in full possession of the land; and the presence of the blacks is only marked by the injustice and the hardships of which they are the unhappy victims.
In several of the western states the negro race never made its appearance; and in all the northern states it is rapidly declining. Thus the great question of its future condition is confined within a narrow circle, where it becomes less formidable, though not more easy of solution.
The more we descend toward the south, the more difficult does it become to abolish slavery with advantage: and this arises from several physical causes, which it is important to point out. The first of these causes is the climate: it is well known that in proportion as Europeans approach the tropics, they suffer more from labour. Many of the Americans even assert, that within a certain latitude the exertions which a negro can make without danger are fatal to them;[1] but I do not think that this opinion, which is so favourable to the indolence of the inhabitants of south-
- ↑ This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated: rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are particularly dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the beams of a tropical sun. Europeans would not find it easy to cultivate the soil in that part of the New World if it must necessarily be made to produce rice; but may they not subsist without rice-grounds?
