law declares property.” That species of property was worth twelve hundred millions. Would the abolitionists raise that sum to indemnify the owners? The abolition movement had set back for half a century the prospect of any kind of emancipation, and “increased the rigors of legislation against the slaves.” Kentucky had once thought of gradual emancipation, but did so no longer. He himself had then favored it, because the number of slaves was much smaller than that of the whites. “But,” he added, “if I had been then, or were now, a citizen of any of the planting states, I should have opposed, and would continue to oppose, any scheme of emancipation, gradual or immediate, because of the danger of an ultimate ascendency of the black race, or of a civil contest which might terminate in the extinction of one race or the other.” He drew a gloomy picture of the dangers threatening the Union, of disruption, hatred, strife, and carnage, from which the abolitionists themselves would shrink back.
This was the highest flight upon which his old anti-slavery spirit ventured: —
“I am no friend of slavery. The Searcher of all hearts knows that every pulsation of mine beats high and strong in the cause of civil liberty. Wherever it is safe and practicable, I desire to see every portion of the human family in the enjoyment of it. But I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of any other people, and the liberty of my own race to that of any other race. The liberty of the descendants of Africa in the United
