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Show 28 show of piety. Nothing is easier than to draw forth groans or shouts from a colored congregation. Nothing easier than to gather this people by crowds into churches. But the slave is incapable of a nobler reverence towards God than towards his master. He is equally, I fear, a slave before both. This is one of the evils of slavery, that it perverts, turns into an instrument of degradation, that highest sentiment of our nature, reverence. In truth, it is hard to comprehend, how the slaveholder can preach the grand principles of Christianity; how he can set forth God as the Universal Father, who looks on all men with an equally tender love, and watches, with an equal severity of justice, over the rights of all. Indeed, how difficult must it be for either masters or slaves to get into the heart of this religion, to understand its deep purpose, when the chief element of such a community is in direct hostility to its spirit. I speak not from report, but from the general principles of human nature; and these would lead me to fear, that, in such a community, the religion of the higher classes as well as of the lowest, must be, to an unusual extent, one or another form of superstition, that is, a substitution of dogmas, ceremonies, or feelings, for the manly and enlightened piety which Jesus taught, and which makes the worship of God to consist chiefly in the imitation of his Universal Justice and Universal Love. This is somewhat of a digression, though not exceeding the freedom of epistolary communication. I return to the subject. I acknowledge, and rejoice to acknowledge, that slavery is mitigated by kindness at the South, though, as we shall see, it necessarily includes much cruelty. I will allow to the full extent what is urged in favor of the comforts of a state of bondage, though the concession is not warranted by facts. I still say, that the apology fails of its end; that it does not touch the essential, fundamental evil of slavery, which is, the Injustice it does to a human being. 29 It is no excuse for wronging a man, that you make him as ~omfortable as is consistent with the wrong. A man, shuttmg me up in prison, would poorly atone for his violation of my rights, by feeding and clothing me to my heart's content. I claim from my oppressor, not food and clothes, but fr~edom. I insist, that he leave to me, unrestrained, the right of using my limbs and powers for my own and others' good. A deep instinct of my soul, founded at once i~ my spiritual and physical nature, calls out for personal hberty. No matter, that our chains arc woven of silk. They are as iron, because they are chains. Let a master draw round us a line, which may not be passed without our being driven back by a whip ; and for this very reason we should burn to escape. Such is the thirst for freedom breathed by God into the human spirit. Slavery is a vio~ lence to our nature, to which nothing but abjectness can reconcile a man, and which we honor him for repelling. It is vain to say, that the slave suffers less than other laborers. We have no right to inflict a suffering, greater ~r less, on an innocent fellow-creature. Injustice is injustice, be the extent of its influence ever so confined. Were one of our g_overnments, by an act of usurpation, to abridge !he free m?hons and the rights of the laboring class, would •t be a m;hgation of the wrong, that the laborer still exceeded in privileges and means of pleasure the serfs of Russia ? It is no excuse for keeping a man in the dust that you throw him better food than he can earn by his fre~ ind~stry . . Be just .before you are generous. The lenity, whteh qmets you m wrong doing, becomes a crime. Do ~o.t boast of your humanity to those whom you own, when 1t IS a cruel wrong to be their owner. Some highwaymen ha~e taken pride in the gentlemanly, courteous style, in whiCh ~hey h~ve eased the traveller of his purse. They have g•ven h1m back a part of the spoils, that he might travel comfortably home. But they were robbers still. 3" |