The examiner. [volume] (Louisville, Ky.) 1847-1849, 1848-10-21
Jemer~en en- sunvery.


The opinion which follows, if il had been
would have called him an incendiary and fana-
tic; but it is the sentiment of one whose poliii-
cal opinions we have been proud to adopt and
acknowledge. II is the matured and deliberate
opinion of THOMAS JEFFERSON.
"There must doubtless be an unhappy infiu-
ence on the manners Of our people produced by
the existence Of slavery among us. The whole
commerce between master and slave, is per-
petual exercise of the most boisterous passions,
the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submission on the other
Our children see this, and learn to initiate it,,
for man is an initiative animal. From his cradle
to his grave, he is learning to do what he sees
others do. IL parent could find no motive
either in his philanthropy or his self-lOve, in
restraining the intemperance Of passion towards
his slave, it should always be sufficient one
that his child is present But generally il is
not sufficient. The parent storms-the child
looks on, catches the lineaments Of wrath-puts
on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves;
gives loose to the worst of passions-and thus
uursed and educated, and daily exercised in tyr
amy, cannot but be stamped by it with odious
peculiarities. The man must be prodigy who
can retain his morals, undepraved by such cir
cumstances. And with what execration should
the statesman be branded, who, permitting one
half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights
Of the other, transforms those into despots, and
these into enemies destroys the morals of the one
part, and the love Of country Of the other
For if a slave can have any country in this
world, il must be any other in preference tc that
in which he was born to live and labor for anoth-
Erin which he must lock up the faculties Of his
nature; contribute, as far as depends on his in
divldual endeayors, to the enslavement Of the
human race, or entail his own miserable condi-
ton on the endless generations proceeding from
him. With the morals Of the people, their in
austry also is destroyed For in awarm eli mate,
no man will labor for himself who can make an
other labor for him. This is so true, that of the
propnetors of slaves, a small portion indeed are
ever seen to labor: And can the Liberties of a
nation be thought secure, when we have remov-
ed their only finn basis-a conviction on the
mind Of the people that these liberties are the gift
of God. That they are not to be violated but
with His WRATH Indeed, tremble formy coun-
try when reflect that God is Just: That His
justice cannot sleep forever; that considering
numbers, nature, and natural means only, a rev.
olutlon Of the wheel OF fortune, an. exchange Of
situation, is among possible events; that il may
become possible by supernatural interference
that the Almighty has no attribute that can take
part with us in such a contest, But il is impos-
sible to be temperate and to pursue this subject
throughout the various considerations Of policy.
Of morals, Of history, natural and civil. We
must be contentcd to hope they will force their
way into every ones mind. The spirit of the
slave is rising from the dust. His condition mol
llfying-the way, hope, preparing, under the
auspices Of Heaven, for a total emancipation. -