Rhode Island American And Gazette

From the Charleston City Gazette.

There are few in this whole nation who require any admonition on the topic of negro slavery. Among the thousands whose sentiments we have heard expressed in every direction of our country, we have rarely met a native born American who manifested the least inclination to meddle with any branch of the whole subject. Personal observation convinces us, that the amount of speculation on this head is infinitely more extensive and dangerous in Virginia, than it is or ever has been, in New England or in the Middle or Western States. With respect to Virginia, it is not as Gov. Hamilton professed to suppose, in one of his late speeches, that the speculations of her people had been aroused by "recent occurrences"—far otherwise. The high-minded Virginians have watched the wonderful advances of their neighbors, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio, with any other than feelings of content. Possessing all the variety of soil adapted to the growth of almost every article that ministers to the comfort or luxury of man; as well watered as any other country of equal extent, and having all the advantages of a old and healthy climate, to what evils could they ascribe the fact, that while those around them with less natural advantages, were outstripping them in the career of improvement, they were on a comparatively retrograde march? Was this not sufficient to arouse them to a spirit of investigation? Assuredly. They for awhile, stimulated by the wild and incoherent but often ingenious theories of the unfortunate and once able Giles, attributed their withering decay to the palpable and odious exactions of the Tariff. Those times have gone by. The statesmen of Virginia have awakened in season to save the State— in season, we hope to restore it back to the relative position which the grandeur of its locality entitles it to occupy among the States of the Nation. It remains to be seen whether our State will profit by the example of Virginia— and, instead of keeping up an excitement to prostitute every attempt at improvement, and hangs like an incubus upon the enterprising energies of our people, whether we have not the courage to smother our political juggling, and the enterprise to undertake those measures of public policy, that would elevate the character of the State, and secure to Charleston that confidence which it requires, in the struggle to regain its former trade and consequence as the undisputed emporium of the South!