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Show 14 NOTES ON And yet, in doing this, I am puzzlcu by the very next paragraph, in which the author tells us that she "can sincerely disclaim any invidious feeling towards those individuals who, often without any fault of their own, nrc involved in the trials and embarrassments of the legal relations of slavery. Experience has shown her that some of the noblest of minds and hearts are often thus involved;'' for how'' some of the noblest of minds ant! l10arts can often be," (i. e. continue, for that is the meaning here of the verb "be,") involved in "a system so necessarily cruel and unjust as to defeat and do away the good efi"ccts of all that can be attempted for them," (the negroes,) "by their best friends, under it," passes my comprehension. They cannot thus continue, ignorantly, for if the system be, what it is here represented to be, a. system of necessary cruelty and injustice, always and everywhere, without one redeeming trait, so that, in point of fact, they have never, in any instance in which they have attempted it, succeeded in doing any good to any of their slaves, but have, always, and under all circumstances, done them evil and only evil, (for such is the literal meaning of the author's language); I say, if all this be so, they cannot but know it, and knowing it, and still continuing connected with the system, they can bo neither "noble minds," nor "noble hearts." Before God, as I am a Christian, nay, as I am a man, if I believed the system were what, in the literal rne:ming of the language, it is here represented to be, I would renounce, at once and forever, all social intercourse with tho people of the South; nay, I would not even preach the gospel to them, for the gospel is for men, and not devils, and none but a devil incarnate could uphold such a s tem, or have anything to Uo with it, except to execrate it, and to spurn it from God's earth, which it pollutes and dishonours. But, as I saiJ, ..~. am in doubt. about the meaning of ~h e UNCLE TOM'S. CADIN . 15 paragraph. If it stood by itself, I should have no difficulty with it; but, as it is, I know not whether it is to be taken as a literal statement of fact, or as a rhetorical exaggeration. One or the other it must be. I would be glad if our author would tell us which. If she says it is to be taken as a literal statement of fact, then she ought to expunge the two par~graphs that follow it. Nay, more, she ought to join at once the crusade of Garrison, and Philips, and '\\' right, against the slaveholder, as a monster to be hunted from the face of the earth. (See Appendix, A.) If, on the other hand, she says that it is to be. taken as rhetorical exaggeration, then a1l I have to say is, if such be the exaggeration of the sober preface, what arc we to look for in the body of the work? What but a tissue of exaggeration 'from beginning to end? And such (so far as the evils of slavery are concerned,) we shall actually find it to be when we get to it. NoTE 2.-BLlmDING AFRICA. But I have not yet done with the preface. Here is another rhetorical specimen: "In this general movement, unhappy Africa at last is remembered ; Africa, who began the race of civilir.ation and huma,n progress in the dim, gray dawn of early time, but who, for centuries, has lain bound and blc~ding at the foot of civilized and Christianizcll humn.nity, -imploring compassion in vain." (p. 6.) Now if this· means anything to the purpose, it means that that Africa, which "b~gan the race of civilization and human progress in the dim, gray dawn of early time/' "has for centuries lain bound and bleeding at the foot of civilized a.nu Christianized humanity." But histoty tells us that that |