The effect of these contentions, kept up for six years, will be to implant _deep mutual hostility_; and the parties will be a hundred fold more irreconcilable than they were on the abolition of slavery.

Again, they argue that the apprenticeship system is calculated to make the negroes regard _law as their foe_, and thus it unfits them for freedom.

They reason thus--the apprentice looks to the magistrate as his judge, his avenger, his protector; he knows nothing of either law or justice except as he sees them exemplified in the decisions of the magistrate.

When, therefore, the magistrate sentences him to punishment, when he knows he was the injured party, he will become disgusted with the very name of justice, and esteem law his greatest enemy.
The neglect of the planters to use the apprenticeship as a preparation for freedom, warrants us in the conclusion, that they do not think any preparation necessary.

But we are not confined to doubtful inferences on this point.