bodies, and a seventh of slaves, who were led up to the very threshold
of freedom, comprehending altogether not less than between five and six
hundred thousand persons; and I have considered also all the objections
that could be reasonably advanced against them. The result is a belief
on my part, that emancipation is not only _practicable_, but that it is
_practicable without danger_. The slaves, whose cases I have been
considering, were resident in different parts of the world. There must
have been, amongst such a vast number, persons of _all characters_. Some
were liberated, who had been _accustomed to the use of arms_. Others at
a time when the land in which they sojourned was afflicted _with civil
and foreign wars_; others again _suddenly_, and with _all the vicious
habits of slavery upon them_. And yet, under all these disadvantageous
circumstances, I find them all, without exception, _yielding themselves
to the will of their superiors_, so as to be brought by them _with as
much ease and certainty into the form intended for them_, as clay in the
hands of the potter is fashioned to his own model. But, if this be so, I
think I should be chargeable with a want of common sense, were I _to
doubt for a moment_, that emancipation _was not practicable_; and I am
not sure that I should not be exposed to the same charge, were I to
doubt, that emancipation _was practicable without danger_. For I have
not been able to discover (and it is most remarkable) _a single failure_
in any of the cases which have been produced. I have not been able to
discover throughout this vast mass of emancipated persons _a single
instance of bad behaviour_ on their parts, not even of a refusal to
work, or of disobedience to orders. Much less have I seen frightful
commotions, or massacres, or a return of evil for evil, or revenge for
past injuries, even when they had it amply in their power. In fact, the
Negro character is malleable at the European will. There is, as I have
observed before, a singular pliability in the constitutional temper of
the Negroes, and they have besides a quick sense of their own interest,