You well know how it affects the soil, and that the great price of slaves will in time make the system oppressive to the masters, especially if they are all as considerate as you say they are about selling." "The good Aunt has replied to you as to the soil, and we need not distress ourselves about the price of slaves; that will regulate itself.
You well understand," said I, "that I am not arguing in favor of slavery _per se_, nor for the slave-trade, nor for the extension of slavery; but I contend that where slavery now exists, no one has yet proposed a scheme which is better than the continuance of ownership, the blacks remaining on the same soil with their present masters.

Nor do I mean to say that the present system must inevitably continue forever.

We must leave future developments in other hands.

Of course there are difficult problems on such a subject as this.

Intelligent Christian gentlemen at the South say that the best schemes which have been proposed by Europeans for the substitution of apprenticed negroes for slaves would make the condition of the negro as far worse than our slavery as the condition of a degraded negro here is below that of his master.