emancipation; that it has augmented the evils and hardships of slavery; that it has inflicted injury on both masters and servants; that it has engendered sectional hatred which endangers the peace, prosperity, and perpetuity of the Union.  Why, then, will abolitionists persist in a course so inconsistent; so contrary to reason; so opposed to truth, righteousness, and justice?  They need not tell me that slavery is an evil; that slavery is a curse; that slavery is a hardship, and that it ought to be extinguished.  I admit it; but this is not the question.  On this head I have no controversy with them.  The question is, whether their course of procedure is ever likely to remove or mitigate the evils of slavery.  Are we prepared, in our efforts to remove the evils of slavery, to incur the risk of subjecting ourselves to calamities infinitely worse that African slavery itself?  Or rather, is there the remotest probability, supposing the plans and schemes of abolitionists should be carried out, the Union dissolved, and the country plunged into civil war, that slavery would thereby be abolished in the southern States?

These are the questions at issue between the abolition party and the writer; and these are among the prominent questions discussed in the following pages.  It is true that I have hastily glanced at slavery in all its bearings, but it was the fell spirit of abolitionism which first attracted my attention, and induced me to investigate the subject.  It was its revolutionary designs and tendencies, its contempt of all law, human and Divine, that first impressed my mind with the necessity of prompt and efficient action on the part of the friends of our country.  It was the unparalleled circulation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that aroused my fears, and excited in my mind apprehensions of danger.  If such productions as Uncle Tom’s Cabin are to give tone to public sentiment in the North, then assuredly are we in danger.  Should Mrs. Stowe’s vile aspersion of southern character, and her loose, reckless and wicked misrepresentations of the institution of slavery in the southern States ever become accredited in the northern section of the Union I fear the consequence.  I sometimes survey the condition of my country with consternation and dismay, and tremble in prospect of what may yet occur.  History records the rise and fall of nations.  We read of revolutions, butcheries, and blood.  We have flattered ourselves that our beloved country for ages to come, and probably forever, is destined to escape these calamities.  But, O God! how mortifying the reflection that there are now, in our midst, religious fanatics and political demagogues, who for a little paltry gain or notoriety would plunge us into all these evils!