More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
July 11 - August 17, 2024
you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say and do.
he really seemed somehow or other to fancy that his wife had piety and benevolence enough for two—to indulge a shadowy expectation of getting into heaven through her superabundance of qualities to which he made no particular pretension.
a free country, sir; the man’s mine, and I do what I please with him,—that’s it!”
I have told her that one soul is worth more than all the money in the world; and how will she believe me when she sees us turn round and sell her child?—sell
“Obeying God never brings on public evils. I know it can’t.
If folks want to keep their slaves from running away, let ‘em treat ‘em well,—that’s
CHAPTER XI In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind
Treat ‹em like dogs, and you›ll have dogs› works and dogs› actions. Treat ‹em like men, and you›ll have men›s works.»
George, you’ve got a hard master—in fact, he is—well he conducts himself reprehensibly—I can’t pretend to defend him. But you know how the angel commanded Hagar to return to her mistress, and submit herself under the hand;* and the apostle sent back Onesimus to his master.”** * Gen. 16. The angel bade the pregnant Hagar return to her mistress Sarai, even though Sarai had dealt harshly with her. ** Phil. 1:10. Onesimus went back to his master to becomeno longer a servant but a “brother beloved.”
“Undoubtedly. It pleased Providence, for some inscrutable reason, to doom the race to bondage, ages ago; and we must not set up our opinion against that.”
Trading negroes from Africa, dear reader, is so horrid! It is not to be thought of! But trading them from Kentucky,—that›s quite another thing!
“Well, I hate those old slaveholders!” said the boy, who felt as unchristian as became any modern reformer.
I said before, they are a degraded race, and always will be, and there isn’t any help for them; you can’t make anything of them, if you try. You see, Cousin Ophelia, I’ve tried, and you haven’t; I was born and bred among them, and I know.”
am one of the sort that lives by throwing stones at other people’s glass houses, but I never mean to put up one for them to stone.”
You want to send Jim and me back to be whipped and tortured, and ground down under the heels of them that you call masters; and your laws will bear you out in it,—more shame for you and them! But you haven›t got us. We don›t own your laws; we don›t own your country; we stand here as free, under God›s sky, as you are; and, by the great God that made us, we›ll fight for our liberty till we die.»
But, you see, from the mother’s breast the colored child feels and sees that there are none but underhand ways open to it. It can get along no other way with its parents, its mistress, its young master and missie play-fellows. Cunning and deception become necessary, inevitable habits.
The fact is, that the whole race are pretty generally understood to be turned over to the devil, for our benefit, in this world, however it may turn out in another!”
Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!
“Mr. Shelby, I have taught my people that their marriages are as sacred as ours. I never could think of giving Chloe such advice.” “It’s a pity, wife, that you have burdened them with a morality above their condition and prospects. I always thought so.” “It’s only the morality of the Bible, Mr. Shelby.” “Well, well, Emily, I don’t pretend to interfere with your religious notions; only they seem extremely unfitted for people in that condition.”
in my opinion, it is you considerate, humane men, that are responsible for all the brutality and outrage wrought by these wretches; because, if it were not for your sanction and influence, the whole system could not keep foothold for an hour.
It is your respectability and humanity that licenses and protects his brutality.”
“True,” says the negligent lounger; “picking cotton isn’t hard work.” Isn’t it? And it isn’t much inconvenience, either, to have one drop of water fall on your head; yet the worst torture of the inquisition is produced by drop after drop, drop after drop, falling moment after moment, with monotonous succession, on the same spot; and work, in itself not hard, becomes so, by being pressed, hour after hour, with unvarying, unrelenting sameness, with not even the consciousness of free-will to take from its tediousness.
after ye’ve killed the body, there an’t no more ye can do. And O, there’s all ETERNITY to come, after that!”
Ye say that the interest of the master is a sufficient safeguard for the slave. In the fury of man›s mad will, he will wittingly, and with open eye, sell his own soul to the devil to gain his ends; and will he be more careful of his neighbor›s body?
“To the Anglo-Saxon race has been intrusted the destinies of the world, during its pioneer period of struggle and conflict. To that mission its stern, inflexible, energetic elements, were well adapted; but, as a Christian, I look for another era to arise.
