its natural order, and give every man an interest in the preservation of the peace and harmony of the community. All fear of hostility. and temptations to excite insurrections, or to shed the blood of the white men, would be banished with the removal of the cause which produce them. In all cases where the experiment has been tried, [in the West Indian Islands,] our reasoning from the nature of man, and the influence which just treatment will always exert on his moral character, has been proved by incontestable facts.-Evan Lewis.

PUBLIC LEDGER.

An impressive lesson is taught to the people of the United States, by the abortive attempts of the French to become free. This lesson is that without republican organization throughout all branches of society, constitutions are of very little use; that such organization does not necessarily flow from free constitutions, but that free constitutions to endure and be practically useful, must flow from such organization. What then is the conclusion to which every reflecting American will come? That this organization is to be maintained as the very foundation of his liberties.

Is this organization in danger? We regret the necessity which proclaims us to answer in the affirmative. A few years since, and any American citizen would have pronounced any attempt to disturb or interrupt a public meeting, an act of high treason against his liberties. What is the case now? Such disturbances are of daily occurrence, and all deliberation is at the mercy of disorderly mobs. This is a subject for grave reflection, and we invite to it the serious consideration of every republican. The consequences are not limited to the interruption of the meeting disturbed. They strike deeper. They endanger our whole system. They lead to despotism.—Philadelphia, 1837.

WILLIAM LEGGETT.

The whole matter resolves itself into this plain alternative, "Either the northern states must give up the right of free discussion, or they must give up the federal compact." When the choice has really to be made between the two evils, we will not so disparage the free spirit of the people of this portion of the confederacy, as to suppose it possible they can hesitate for a moment, in making their selection. It was "to secure the blessings of liberty" we confederated; and we would rend the compact which holds the states together into a thousand pieces, and scatter them to all the carrion kites, before we would seek to preserve it for a single instant at the expense of that best privilege of freemen-the unlimited right of speech and of the press.

The southern people very much mistake the temper of those of the North, if they suppose they can either be driven by menaces, or won by entreaties, to relinquish, or restrain by legal prohibitions, the sacred right of a free interchange of opinion on any subject which may seem to them deserving of discussion. We have elsewhere, in this number of our paper, expressed our conviction of the instant prostration, never to rise again, which any administration, in any of the northern states, would certainly experience, that should dare so to outrage the common sentiment of liberty, as to propose a law to abridge the freedom of speech. The southern slaveholders may rely upon it this view of the subject is correct. There is no possible chance of their coercing or inducing, by any threat or argument they can present, a single state north of the Potomac, to adopt the only alternative they offer for preserving the federal union.

The opinions of the southern people themselves, with respect to the perfect right which every American citizen possesses, to discuss the subject of slavery, have undergone a world-wide change in the course of a few years. If they will look into the writings of Jefferson and Madison, they will find that those great men, though southerners and slaveholders, not only did not claim any such right of interdicting the subject as is now set up, but exercised it very freely themselves. If they will turn to the record of the debate which took place in congress in 1790, on the question of committing the memorial of the Society of Friends against the slave-trade, they will find that Mr. Madison explained the obligations of the federal compact, in a very different manner from that which it is the fashion of the present day to interpret them. They will find that, in the review which he entered into of the circumstances connected with the adoption of the constitution, he very clearly showed that the powers of congress were by no means as limited as it is now contended that they are. They will find that, in speaking of the territories of the United States, he expressly declared, from his knowledge, as well of the sentiments and opinions of the members of the convention, as of the true meaning and force of the terms of the compact, that there "congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery." It is fortunate that Madison and Jefferson did not live to this day, or they would have been denounced as abolitionists, fanatics, and incendiaries, and every thing else that is bad. Lieutenant Governor Robinson would no doubt have honored them with a place in his message, as ringleaders of his " organized band of conspirators."

But though Madison and Jefferson are gone, the spirit which animated them still glows in many a freeman's bosom; and while one spark of it remains, the South will storm and rave in vain, for it never can induce the northern states to give up freedom for the sake of union; to give up the end for the sake of the means; to give up the substance for the sake of the shadow.-The Plaindealer.

FLORIDA.

The Hon. Timothy Pitkin of Connecticut, said, the slaves in Georgia, while Florida was owned by Spain, were in the habit of running away to Florida, and their masters could not recover them-, that in consequence, hundreds and hundreds of letters were written to the President, urging him to purchase Florida, that it MUST be bought at ALL EVENTS—and that in consequence of this, the matter was discussed in congress IN SECRET SESSION, and the result was a vote to purchase that territory.-Conversation with A. A. Phelps.

[Florida was then bought, it seems, just to protect the slavery of Georgia.]

MR. PEYTON OF TENNESSEE.

Why, sir, those speculators, or rather Indian robbers, would find an old chief upon his patrimonial estate, where the chiefs and kings of his race had lived for centuries before him, with his slaves and his farm around him, smoking his pipe amidst his own forest trees, spurning any offer to purchase his home; and they would bribe some vagabond Indian to personate him, in a trade to sell his land, forging his name, and the first intimation that he would have of the transaction would be his expulsion by force from his home! This was common; and not only so, but, under the pretext of reclaiming fugitive slaves, the wives and children (of mixed blood) of the Indians were seized and carried off into bondage. The famous Oseola himself had his wife taken from him, and that too, it has been said, by a government officer, and was chained by this officer to a log. Sir, what else could be expected but that these scourged, plundered, starving savages, would glut their vengeance by the indiscriminate slaughter of the innocent and helpless families of the frontier, whose blood has cried to us in vain? This has caused the Florida war.Speech in Congress, 1837.

"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

JAMES H. DICKEY.

In the summer of 1822, as I returned with my family from a visit to the Barrens of Kentucky, I witnessed a scene such as I never witnessed before, and such as I hope never to witness again. Having passed through Paris, in Bourbon county, Ky., the sound of music (beyond a little rising ground) attracted my attention; I looked forward and saw the flag of my country waving. Supposing that I was about to meet a military parade, I drove hastily to the side of the road; and having gained the top of the ascent, I discovered (I suppose) about forty black men all chained together after the following manner; each of them was handcuffed, and they were arranged in rank and file. A chain, perhaps forty feet long, the size of a fifth-horse-chain, was stretched between the two ranks, to which short chains were joined, which connected with the handcuffs. Behind them were, I suppose, about thirty women in double rank, the couples tied hand to hand. A solemn sadness sat on every countenance, and the dismal silence of this march of despair was interrupted only by the sound of two violins; yes, as if to add insult to injury, the foremost couple were furnished with a violin apiece; the second couple were ornamented with cockades, while near the centre waved the republican flag carried by a hand literally in chains. I perhaps have mistaken some punctilios of the arrange ment, for "my soul was sick," my feelings were mingled and pungent. As a man, I sympathized with suffering humanity; as a Christian, I mourned over the transgressions of God's holy law; and as a republican, I felt indignant to see the flag of my beloved country thus insulted. I could not forbear exclaiming to the

lordly driver who rode at his ease along side: “Heaven will curse that man who engages in such traffic, and the government that protects him in it." I pursued my journey till evening, and put up for the night. When I mentioned the scene I had witnessed, "Ah!" cried my landlady, "That is my brother." From her I learned that his name is Stone, of Bourbon county, Kentucky, in partnership with one Kinningham, of Paris; and that a few days before he had purchased a negro woman from a man in Nicholas county; she refused to go with him; he attempted to compel her, but she defended herself. Without further ceremony, he stepped back, and by a blow on the side of her head with the butt of his whip brought her to the ground; he tied her, and drove her off. I learned further, that besides the drove I had seen, there were about thirty shut up in the Paris prison for safe-keeping, to be added to the company; and that they were designed for the Orleans market. And to this they are doomed, for no other crime than that of a black skin and curled locks.

Ah me, what wish can prosper, or what prayer,
For merchants rich in cargoes of despair?

Who drive a loathsome traffic, guage and span,

And buy the muscles and the bones of man.-COWPER.

Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord? shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

GEORGE WHITFIELD.

As I lately passed through your provinces in my way hither, I was sensibly touched with a fellow-feeling for-the miseries of the poor negroes. Whether it be lawful for Christians to buy slaves, and thereby encourage the nations from whom they are bought to be at perpetual war with each other, I shall not take upon me to determine. Sure I am it is sinful, when they have bought them, to use them as bad as though they were brutes, nay worse; and whatever particular exceptions there may be (as I would charitably hope there are some) I fear the generality of you, who own negroes, are liable to such a charge; for your slaves, I believe, work aa hard, if not harder than the horses whereon you ride. These, after they have done their work, are fed and taken proper care of; but many negroes when wearied with labor in your plantations, have been obliged to grind their corn after their return home. Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your table; but your slaves, who are frequently styled dogs or beasts, have not an equal privilege. They are scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Not to mention what numbers have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel taskmasters who, by their unrelenting scourges have ploughed their backs, and made long furrows, and at length brought them even unto death. When passing along I have viewed your plantations cleared and cultivated, many spacious houses built, and the owners of them faring sumptuously every day, my blood has frequently almost run cold within me, to consider how many of your slaves had neither convenient food to eat nor proper raiment to put on, notwithstanding most of the comforts you enjoy were solely owing to their indefatiguable labors.-Letter to the inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, 1739.

JOHN RANKIN.

Often are the slaves driven through frost and snow without either stocking or shoe until the path they tread is dyed with the blood that issues from their frostworn limbs! And when they return to their miserable huts at night they find not there the means of comfortable rest; but on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and shiver while they slumber.

In connexion with their extreme sufferings occasioned by want of clothing, I