African race is right and proper, provided that it is properly
directed; but blindfold sympathy in the North, is not likely to result
in any good to the slaves of the South. The kindest and best feelings
of the human heart, unless they are directed and controlled by
prudence and discretion, frequently result in no good to the
possessor, and too often in positive injury to the object of his
solicitude. An excess of sympathy some times dethrones the judgment.
Sympathy for the slave may prompt us to act in the right direction;
but unless judgment and justice illumine our paths, and direct our
steps, all our efforts to ameliorate his condition, will prove worse
than useless. The slaves of the South are proper objects of our
sympathy, and so are their masters, and so is every living and
sensitive being in God's creation. Everything that lives and breathes
upon the face of the earth, has demands upon our sympathies; and it
would be well for us to provide ourselves with a large stock of it;
but we should be careful in meting it out, to give every one his due.
It is a gross error in the dispensation of our sympathies, to direct
our attention solely to some one object, regardless of the wants and
rights of others.

In order to accomplish anything for the benefit of the slave, we must
have a Southern audience; to them we must speak, and for them we must
write. With them we must reason, as brother holding familiar converse
with brother. Mrs. Stowe's book is not likely to be generally read in
the South; and provided it should be, it can excite no other than
feelings of indignation and defiance in Southern minds. Hence the work
can result in no good, and may possibly, unless its baneful influence
is counteracted, originate much evil.

If we take the institution of slavery in the United States, as a