Abundant experience has established in the cultivated men of Europe, as testified in European literature, the conviction that a fixed system of slavery is a deadly plague-spot in any national institution. Notoriously, it is fatally demoralizing to the masters, and inevitably oppressive to the slaves. From an industrial aspect it is intensely wasteful; and by dishonouring labour, it pro pagates idleness and vice among poor freemen. Through the danger of insurrections it also conduces to military weakness. Notwithstanding the attempts inthe American Union at a philosophic defence of the cruel and ruinous system but lately dominant there, and the deplorable support given to them in England by one eminent man of letters,* we can happily say that the vile and hateful institution is now thoroughly condemned by the collective European intellect.