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Show 36 of a system, which is known and acknowledged to deprive one half of the people of property and civil ~ight~, known to doom them to perpetual ignorance and hcenhousneRs, known to rob the individual of the means of progress, and to poison the sources of domestic well-being. '~~ slave countries belongs the presumptuousness of m·datntng the perpetual debasement of half the community, on no better ground, than that from the Jaws of nature a large amount of evil must adhere to the social state. What ! Does Providence intend no progress in human afl'airs ? D~es Christianity encourage and enjoin no efforts for a happter condition of humanity ? Is man to take his rules of conduct towards his fellow-creatures from the corruptions which barbarous times have transmitted to the present ? May man, sheltering himself under Divine providence, perpetuate evils, which God, through the conscience and by his Son, commands us, to the extent of our power, to dtminish, and to expel fi·om the social state ? To return to the kindness, which is said to be practised at the South towards the slaves. I wish not to disparage it. Let us open our eyes to whatever is. beautiful or promising in human life. I could laud this kindness as heartily as any man, did I not find it used, both here and at the South, as a buttress to the tottering cause of slavery. I am bound, therefore, to inquire into its real value, to give it its due, but nothing more than its due. One obvious remark is, that kindness without justice is of httle moral worth. It is a feeling rather than a principle. Principle enjoins justice, and will not offer favors as an atonement for wrongs.- Again, the kindness at the South, of which we hear, finds its occasion in a dependence and helplessness," which the kind agent has himself created. Is there much merit in taking care of those, whom we have stripped of all property, of self-help, of all the means of taking care of themselves ? -There is another subtrac- 37 tion from kindness to the slave, inasmuch as it is a matter of interest. The human machine cannot work without food, raiment, and health ; and, in times like the present, when slave-labor is more than usually profitable, there cannot be a better investment of money, than in comforts which keep the slave in a working state. -A more im-ortanl consideration is, that the kindness to the slaves is not of the right stamp. It wants a moral character. The master is kind to them because they are his own, not because they arc fellow-creatures. The true, grand foundation of love is wanting. I-:low kind arc men to clogs and horses, which they have long owned ! They feed them, caress them, admit them to their familiarity. But the sort of kindness, which is shown to the brute, becomes a wrong and insult when extended to the man. He must be loved and respected as a man. This is his due ; and, had he the feelings of a man, nothing less would content him. The slave is treated kindly, because he is a slave, and has the spirit of a slave. Once let the spirit of a man wake in him, once let him know his rights, and show his knowledge in words, looks, and bearing, and immediately he falls under suspicion and dislike, and a severity, designed to break him down, is substituted for kindness. He is less liked, in proportion as he acts from a principle in his own breast, and not from his master's will. And what is the worth of such kindness ? The slave, were he not so degraded, would regard it as a cruel mockery. Again, I cannot but think, that a good deal of the kindness at the South has for its object to quiet the self-reproach, whtch, at thts age, can hardly but exist in a latent state, in th~ slaveholder's breast. Men must, in some way or other, stnke up a peace with their own consciences. He who holds his fe llow~creatures in bondage, must reconcile himself to himself; nnd nowhere is the task so difficult as in a free country, where the master claims liberty as an in- 4 |