Oregon          1848
Minnesota       1849
S. Kansas          1855
S. Utah            1850
New Mexico      1850
Nebraska        1853]

[Footnote BU:  I believe the last slave has been removed from New Jersey.—­H.A.M.]

[Footnote BV:  Between 1810 and 1850 the slave population in Virginia has only increased from 392,000 to 470,000, while in Tennessee it has increased from 44,000 to 240,000; and in Louisiana, from 35,000 to 240,000.]

[Footnote BW:  I take no notice of the various other valuable productions of these States:  they may fairly represent the produce of the white man’s labour.]

[Footnote BX:  Vide ch. xii., “The Queen of the Antilles.”]

CHAPTER XXVI.

Hints for Master—­Hopes for Slave.

I will now suggest certain proposals,[BY] in the hope that while they can do no harm, they may by chance lead to some good result.  The first proposal is a very old one, and only made by me now, because I consider it of primary importance—­I mean a “Free-Soil” bill.  I advocate it upon two distinct grounds—­the one affecting the Republic, the other the slave.  The Republic sanctions and carries on the slave-trade by introducing the institution into land hitherto free, and the slave throughout the Union has his fetters tightened by the enhancement of his value; but the great Channing has so fully and ably argued the truth of these evils, when treating of the annexation of Texas, that none but the wilfully blind can fail to be convinced; in short, if Slavery is to be introduced into land hitherto free, it is perhaps questionable if it be not better to send for the ill-used and degraded slave from Africa, and leave the more elevated slave in his comparatively happy home in the Old Slave States; the plea may be used for bettering the condition of the former, but that plea cannot be used for the latter.

The next proposal is one which, if it came from the South, would, I suppose, have the support of all the kind masters in those States, and most assuredly would find no opposition in the North,—­I mean the expulsion from the Constitution of that law by which fugitive slaves are forced to be given up.  If the proposal came from the North, it would naturally excite ill-feeling in the South, after all the angry passions which abolition crusading has set in action; but the South might easily propose it:  and when we see the accounts of the affectionate attachment of the slaves to their masters, and of the kindness with which they are treated, in proportion, as such statements are correct, so will it follow as a consequence, that none but those who are driven to it by cruelty will wish to leave their snug homes and families, to seek for peace in the chilly winters of the North.  And surely the slaves who are victims of cruelty, every kind-hearted slave-master would rejoice to see escaping; it would only be the compulsory giving up