CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
MY DEAR CHILDREN,--All of you who read this little book have
doubtless heard more or less of slavery. You know it is the system by
which a portion of our people hold their fellow-creatures as property, and
doom them to perpetual servitude. It is a hateful and accursed institution,
which God can not look upon but with abhorrence, and which no one of
his children should for a moment tolerate. It is opposed to every thing
Christian and humane, and full of all meanness and cruelty. It treats a
fellow-being, only because his skin is not so fair as our own, as though he
were a dumb animal or a piece of furniture. It allows him no expression of
choice about any thing, and no liberty of action. It recognizes and employs
all the instincts of the lower, but ignores and tramples down all the
faculties of his higher, nature. Can there be a greater wrong?
It is said by some, in extenuation of this wrong, that the slaves are well
fed and clothed, and are kindly, even affectionately, looked after. This is
true, in some cases,--with the house-servants, particularly,--but, as a
general thing, their food and clothing are coarse and insufficient. But
supposing it was otherwise; supposing they were provided for with as
much liberality as are the working classes at the North, what is that when
put into the balance with all the ills they suffer? What comfort is it, when a
wife is torn from her husband, or a mother from her children, to know that
each is to have enough to eat? None at all. The most generous provision
for the body can not satisfy the longings of the heart, or compensate for its
bereavements.
They suffer, also, a constant dread and fear of change, which is not the
least of their torturing troubles. A kind owner may be taken away by death,
and the new one be harsh and cruel; or necessity may compel him to sell
his slaves, and thus they may be thrown into most unhappy situations. So
they live with a heavy cloud of sorrow always before them, which their
eyes can not look through or beyond. There is no hope-- no EARTHLY
hope--for this poor, oppressed race.