OCR Text |
Show 314 UNOLE TOM'S CABIN: OR, generosity, a.nd humanity, which in many cases characterize individuals at the South. Such instances save us from utter despair of our kind. But, she asks any person, who knows the world, are such characters commwn, anyw~crc? . For many years of her life, the author avmded all reading upen or allusion to the subject of slavery, cons1dcrmg 1t. as too painful to be inquired into, and one wh1ch advancmg light and civilization would certainly live down. But, smce the legislative ad of 1850, when she heard, with perfect surprise and consternation, Christian and huma~~ people actually recommending the remanding escaped fug1t1ves mto slavery, as a duty binding on good Cltlzens,- whe~ she heard, on all hands, from kind, compasswnate and esllmable people, in the free states of the North, deliberations and discussions as to what Christian duty could be on th1s head,she could only think, These men and Christians cannot know what slavery is; if they did, such a question could never be open for discussion. And from this arose a desire t~ exhibit it in a living dramatic ,-eality. She has endeavored to show it fairly, in its best and its worst phases. In its best aspect, she has, perhaps, been successful ; but, oh! who shall say what yet remains untold in that valley and shadow of death, that lies the other side 1 To you, generous, noble-minded men and women, of the South,- you, whose virtue, and magnanimity, and purity of character, are the great or for the severer trial it has encountered,- to you is her appeal. Have you not, in your own secret souls, in your own private conversings, felt that there are woes and evils, in this accursed system, f:~r beyond what are here shadowed, or can be shadowed 1 Can it be otherwise 1 Is man ever a creature to bo trusted with wholly irresponsible power1 And does not the slave system, by LH'E AUONO TilE LOWLY. 815 denying the sh>ve all legal right of testimony, make every individual owner an irresponsible despot 1 Can anybody fail to make the inference what the practical result will be 1 If there is, as we admit, a. public sentiment among you, men of honor, justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, tho debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and purest 1 Arc tho honorable, the just, the high-minded and compassionate, the majority anywhere in this world 1 ~rho slave-trade is now, by American law, considered as piracy. Dut a slave-trade, as systematic as ever was carried on on the coast of Africa, is an inevitable attendant and result of American slavery. And its heart-break and its horrors, can they be told 1 The writer has given only a faint shadow, a dim picture, of the anguish and despair that are, at this very moment, riving thousands of hearts, shattering thousands of families, and driving a helpless and sensitive race to frenzy and despa~·. There arc those living who know the mothers whom this accursed traffic has driven to the murder of their children; and themselves seeking in death a shelter from woes mora dreaded than death. Nothing of tragedy can be written, can be spoken, can be conceived, that equals the frightful reality of scenes daily and hourly acting on our shores, beneath the shadow of American law, and the shadow of tho cross of Christ. And now, men and women of America, is this a thing to bo trifled with, apologized for, and passed over in silence 1 Farmers of Massachusetts, of New Hampshire, of Vermont, of Connecticut, who read this book by the blaze of your winter-evening fire,- strong-hearted, generous sailors and |