women and children in crowds, without shelter, at places of common refuge, in every condition of weakness and infirmity, under every suffering which want and terror could inflict, yet willing to endure all, willing to meet death from famine, death from climate, death from hardships, preferring anything rather than the horrors of meeting it from a domestic assassin?  Was that a ‘petty affair’ which erected a peaceful and confiding portion of the State into a military camp,—­which outlawed from pity the unfortunate beings whose brothers had offended,—­which barred every door, penetrated every bosom with fear or suspicion,—­which so banished every sense of security from every man’s dwelling, that, let but a hoof or horn break upon the silence of the night, and an aching throb would be driven to the heart, the husband would look to his weapon, and the mother would shudder and weep upon her cradle?  Was it the fear of Nat Turner, and his deluded, drunken handful of followers, which produced such effects?  Was it this that induced distant counties, where the very name of Southampton was strange, to arm and equip for a struggle?  No, Sir, it was the suspicion eternally attached to the slave himself,—­the suspicion that a Nat Turner might be in every family,—­that the same bloody deed might be acted over at any time and in any place,—­that the materials for it were spread through the land, and were always ready for a like explosion.  Nothing but the force of this withering apprehension, —­nothing but the paralyzing and deadening weight with which it falls upon and prostrates the heart of every man who has helpless dependents to protect,—­nothing but this could have thrown a brave people into consternation, or could have made any portion of this powerful Commonwealth, for a single instant, to have quailed and trembled.”

While these things were going on, the enthusiasm for the Polish Revolution was rising to its height.  The nation was ringing with a peal of joy, on hearing that at Frankfort the Poles had killed fourteen thousand Russians.  “The Southern Religious Telegraph” was publishing an impassioned address to Kosciusko; standards were being consecrated for Poland in the larger cities; heroes, like Skrzynecki, Czartoryski, Rozyski, Kaminski, were choking the trump of Fame with their complicated patronymics.  These are all forgotten now; and this poor negro, who did not even possess a name, beyond one abrupt monosyllable,—­for even the name of Turner was the master’s property,—­still lives a memory of terror and a symbol of retribution triumphant.

CONCERNING VEAL: 

A DISCOURSE OF IMMATURITY.