"Perhaps, Should These Cold Political Views Still Hold Possession Of
The Moving Spirits Of The Country, The Next Practical Step
In advance
may be to secure to the slave a personal right to some small portion of
the day, and
To the produce of his labour in that portion; - to say, in
fact, that after a stipulated number of hours' labour for his master,
the remainder of his time shall be his own. The effect of this would be
to enable him legally to accumulate property. And if, in addition, a
minimum price be fixed at which his master should be bound to allow him
to redeem himself, and savings' banks were opened to receive the
produce of his free earnings - some glimmering of daylight would dawn
upon his lot, and his condition, as a 'chattel' to be bought and sold,
would not be hopeless."
Referring to what I hereafter relate of the incident at Saratoga, I
may, at this point, remind the reader that, as late as 1862, President
Lincoln, a sincere abolitionist, could not see his way to declare the
freedom of the slave. He told a deputation from Chicago that "a Pope
once issued a Bull against an eclipse, but the eclipse came along
nevertheless." The moment I saw black soldiers in Northern uniform,
carrying Northern muskets, at the end of 1863, I made up my mind that
the North had won. In 1865 Dr. Mackay, registrar, showed me the
registry of the passage of John Brown's, corpse through New York.
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