"Tell me he is not a man, but a slave! tell me a being with such
faculties should be thus sunken beneath the amenities of freedom!
that man may barter almighty gifts for gold! trample his religion
into dust, and turn it into dollars and cents! What a mockery is
this against the justice of heaven! When this is done in this our
happy land of happy freedom, scoffers may make it their foot-ball,
and kings in their tyranny may point the finger of scorn at us, and
ask us for our honest men, our cherished freedom!
"Woman can do something, if she will; let me see what I can do to
relieve this poor oppressed," she exclaims one day, after he has
consulted her on the best means of relief. "I will try."
Woman knows the beatings of the heart; she can respond more quickly
to its pains and sorrows. Our youthful missionary will sit down and
write a letter to Mrs. Rosebrook-she will do something, the
atmosphere of slavery will hear of her yet-it will!
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PRETTY CHILDREN ARE TO BE SOLD.
HOW varied are the sources of human nature-how changing its tints
and glows-how immeasurable its uncertainties, and how obdurate the
will that can turn its tenderest threads into profitable
degradation! But what democrat can know himself a freeman when the
whitest blood makes good merchandise in the market? When the only
lineal stain on a mother's name for ever binds the chains, let no
man boast of liberty. The very voice re-echoes, oh, man, why be a
hypocrite! cans't thou not see the scorner looking from above? But
the oligarchy asks in tones so modest, so full of chivalrous
fascination, what hast thou to do with that? be no longer a fanatic.
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