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development and apparent decay of the Southern States, as compared with the ceaseless material progress of the North and West. It cannot be doubted that in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana, "Legrees" are to be found, for cruelty is inberent in base natures; we have "Legrees" in our factories and coal-pits; but in England their most terrible excesses are restrained by the strong arm of law, which, when appealed to, extends its protection to the feeblest and most helpless. What then must such men become in the isolated cotton or sugar plantations of the South, distant from the restraints which public opinion exercises, and where the evidence of a slave is inadmissible in a court of justice? The full extent of the cruelties practised will never be known, until revealed at the solemn tribunal of the last day. But we dare not hope that such men are rare, though circunstances of self-interest combine to form a class of slave-owners of a higher grade. These are men who look upon their slaves as we do upon our cows and horses—as mere animal property, of greater or less value according to the care which is taken of them. The slaves of these persons are well clothed, lodged, and fed; they are not overworked, and dancing, singing, and other amusements, which increase health and cheerfulness, are actively promoted. But the system is one which has for its object the transformation of reason into instinct—the lowering of a rational being into a machine scarcely more intelligent in appearance than some of our own ingeniously-contrived steam-engines. Religious teaching is withheld, reading is forbidden, and the instruction of a slave in it punished as a crime, lest be should learn that freedom is his birthright.