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It’s a free country, sir; the man’s mine, and I do what I please with him,—that’s it!”
his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word,—or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle with “Ran away from the subscriber” under it. The magic of the real presence of distress,—the imploring human eye, the frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony,—these he had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, a defenceless child,—like
Applies to today
“I should think you’d be ashamed to spend all your life buying men and women, and chaining them, like cattle! I should think you’d feel mean!” said George. “So long as your grand folks wants to buy men and women, I’m as good as they is,” said Haley; “’tan’t any meaner sellin’ on ‘em, that ‘t is buyin’!”
Poor John! It was rather natural; and the tears that fell, as he spoke, came as naturally as if he had been a white man.
“It’s undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the African race should be servants,—kept in a low condition,” said a grave-looking gentleman in black, a clergyman, seated by the cabin door.
The wild look of anguish and utter despair that the woman cast on him might have disturbed one less practised; but he was used to it. He had
seen that same look hundreds of times. You can get used to such things, too, my friend; and it is the great object of recent efforts to make our whole northern community used to them, for the glory of the Union.
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!
sick-headache,
But Eva somehow always seems to put herself on an equality with every creature that comes near her. It’s a strange thing about the child. I never have been able to break her of it. St. Clare, I believe, encourages her in it. The fact is, St. Clare indulges every creature under this roof but his own wife.”
“Is God on their side?” said George, speaking less to his wife than pouring out his own bitter thoughts. “Does he see all they do? Why does he let such things happen? And they tell us that the Bible is on their side; certainly all the power is. They are rich, and healthy, and happy; they are members of churches, expecting to go to heaven;
Planters, who have money to make by it,—clergymen, who have planters to please,—politicians, who want to rule by it,—may warp and bend language and ethics to a degree that shall astonish the world at their ingenuity;
“O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many such things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them,—you know, Eva, nobody does.”
“O, that’s what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and never to have any pain,—never suffer anything,—not even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain and sorrow, all their lives;—it seems selfish. I ought to know such things, I ought to feel about them! Such things always sunk into my heart; they went down deep; I’ve thought and thought about them. Papa, isn’t there any way to have all slaves made free?”
“Poor Topsy!” said Eva, “don’t you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you, as me. He loves you just as I do,—only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good; and you can go to Heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white.
For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come short.
