Slavery, Though Under Modifications Which Rendered It Little More Than The
Apprenticeship Of Our Day, Was Permitted Under The Mosaic Dispensation;
But It Is Contrary To The Whole Tenor Of Christianity; And A System Which
Lowers Man As An Intellectual And Responsible Being Is No Less Morally
Than Politically Wrong.
That it is a political mistake is plainly
evidenced by the retarded development and apparent decay of the Southern
States, as compared with the ceaseless material progress of the North and
West.
It cannot be doubted that in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana,
"Legrees" are to be found, for cruelty is inherent in base natures; we
have "Legrees" in our factories and coal-pits; but in England their most
terrible excesses are restrained by the strong arm of law, which, when
appealed to, extends its protection to the feeblest and most helpless.
What then must such men become in the isolated cotton or sugar plantations
of the South, distant from the restraints which public opinion exercises,
and where the evidence of a slave is inadmissible in a court of justice?
The full extent of the cruelties practised will never be known, until
revealed at the solemn tribunal of the last day. But we dare not hope that
such men are rare, though circumstances of self-interest combine to form a
class of slave-owners of a higher grade. These are men who look upon their
slaves as we do upon our cows and horses - as mere animal property, of
greater or less value according to the care which is taken of them.
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