He said there were about six hundred thousand non-slaveholding whites in Kentucky to about thirty-three thousand slaveholders; that in the convention then recently held it was expected that the delegates would represent these classes about in proportion to their respective numbers; but when the convention assembled, there was not a single representative of the non-slaveholding class; everyone was in the interest of the slaveholders; 'and,' said he, 'the thing is spreading like wildfire over the country.

In a few years we will be ready to accept the institution in Illinois, and the whole country will adopt it.' I asked him to what he attributed the change that was going on in public opinion.

He said he had recently put that question to a Kentuckian, who answered by saying, 'You might have any amount of land, money in your pocket, or bank-stock, and while travelling around nobody would be any wiser; but if you had a darkey trudging at your heels, everybody would see him and know that you owned a slave.

It is the most ostentatious way of displaying property in the world; if a young man goes courting, the only inquiry is as to how many negroes he owns.' The love for slave property was swallowing up every other mercenary possession.

Its ownership not only betokened the possession of wealth, but indicated the gentleman of leisure who scorned labor.