It is the crushing out of the mind's
force,--the subduing the mental and physical man to make the chattel
complete,--the shutting out of all the succinct virtues that nurture
freedom, that incite us to improve the endowments of nature, that
proves the rankling poison. And this poison spreads its baneful
influence in and around good men's better desires.
After watching in silence for a few moments, Clotilda gives vent to
her feelings. "I should like to see old Daddy Bob once more, I
should! And my poor Annette; she is celled to be sold, I'm afraid;
but I must yield to the kindness of Franconia. I have seen some
good times among the old folks on the plantation. And there's Aunt
Rachel,--a good creature after all,--and Harry. Well; I mustn't think
of these things; freedom is sweetest," she says. Maxwell suggests
that they move onward. The music dies away in the stillness, as they
turn from the scene to flee beyond the grasp of men who traffic in
human things called property,--not by a great constitution, but under
a constitution's freedom giving power. Would that a great and
glorious nation had not sold its freedom to the damning stain of
avarice! would that it had not perverted that holy word, for the
blessings of which generations have struggled in vain! would that it
had not substituted a freedom that mystifies a jurisprudence,--that
brings forth the strangest fruit of human passions,--that makes
prison walls and dreary cells death-beds of the innocent;-that
permits human beings to be born for the market, and judged by the
ripest wisdom! "Has God ordained such freedom lasting?" will force
itself upon us.
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