I Have Likened The Slaveholding States To The Drunken
Husband, And In So Doing Have Pronounced Judgment Against Them.
As
regards the state of the drunken man, his unfitness for partnership
with any decent, diligent, well-to-do wife, his ruined condition,
and shattered prospects, the simile, I think, holds good.
But I
refrain from saying that as the fault was originally with the
drunkard in that he became such, so also has the fault been with the
slave States. At any rate I refrain from so saying here, on this
page. That the position of a slaveowner is terribly prejudicial,
not to the slave, of whom I do not here speak, but to the owner; of
so much at any rate I feel assured. That the position is therefore
criminal and damnable, I am not now disposed to take upon myself to
assert.
The question of slavery in America cannot be handled fully and
fairly by any one who is afraid to go back upon the subject, and
take its whole history since one man first claimed and exercised the
right of forcing labor from another man. I certainly am afraid of
any such task; but I believe that there has been no period yet,
since the world's work began, when such a practice has not prevailed
in a large portion, probably in the largest portion, of the world's
work fields. As civilization has made its progress, it has been the
duty and delight, as it has also been the interest of the men at the
top of affairs, not to lighten the work of the men below, but so to
teach them that they should recognize the necessity of working
without coercion.
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