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Show 12 PfiELIMINARY. argument that there can be such a thing,) means slavery considered in its essence, irrespective of its accidents, just as the abstract triongle signifies a figure with three sides and three ~ogles, irrespective of the comparative magnitude of those Sides and those angles. But what is true of the abstract triangle, is true of all triangles, and in tho same \ manner what is true of slavery in the abstract, (admitting that there is such a thing,) is true of all slavery. To say, therefore, that slavery in the abstract is wrong, and slavery in the concrete, right, is to talk nonsense. ~J.lhe truth is, slavery in the abstract is a non-entity, and nothing, therefore, can be predicated of it, or inferred from it : "Nothing can come of nothing; speak ngain !" Slavery, then, is right or wrong, according to circumstances. Slavery, as a means, may be right; slavery, as an end, is always and everywhere· wrong; slavery,' as a. transition st•te (of a race), may be right; slavery, as a permanent condition (of a race), is wrong; the subjection of an inferior race to a superior one, may be right; the subjection of a superior to an inferior, is always wrong. The simple test of the right or wrong of its continuance, in any given case, is its effect upon both races: if its continuance would elevate the subject race in the scale of being, then it is not only right, but the duty of the superior race, to continue them in bondage; if, on the contrary, the discontinuance of servitude would elevate the Subject race, without depressing the dominant one, then it ought to be discontinued at once. 'l1hesc are the principles with which I start, and they are such, I think, as must commend themselves to every unbiasscd mind. With these preliminary observations, I proceed at once to the examination of the work. NOTES ON UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. • NoTE 1.-0nJECT oF UNCLE ToM's CAniN. ~'nrs shall be given in the author's own words: "The object of these sketches is to awaken sympathy and feeling for the African race, as they exist among us ; to show their wrongs and sorrows, under a system so necessarily cruel . ... and unjust as to defeat and do away the good efl"ccts of all that can be attempted for them, by their best friends, under it." {Preface, p. 6.) Such is the author"s declaration of her object, and we are bound to believe it; but I> ad she avowed her object to be to awaken in the North antipathy to the Southern people, as a people, to show their cold-blooded indifference to, nay, positive sanction of, a system of heartless and mercenary oppression, we should have said the whole inter-nal evidence of the book was in accord'ance with such an avowal. But let us take her declaration as we have it, and Jet us examine into it a little. Had it occurred as an incidental observation in some exciting pn,rt of the narrative, we might have considered it as rhetorical exaggeration; but standing, as it docs, in the preface, (which is expected to be a plain, unvarnished, m;tttcr-of-fact sort of thing,) and being, as it is, a declaration of the author's object, where, if anywhere, we should expect that she woult.l weigh her words, I see not how I can give it any other than a literal interpretation. n ( 13) |