, brother, I put it to thy own conscience. Does thee
not, daily, in dealing with thy slaves, stifle thy emotions of piety,
generosity, and love, and is it not easier to do this now than it was
twenty years ago, when, with a heart full of tenderness and truth,
thee left us for thy southern home?

_Mr. F._ (_Rising and pacing the room with great agitation_.) Now,
sister, you are going to introduce another absurdity! Do I practice
the principles learned in the nursery? No, I do not! Do I believe
"honesty is the best policy" and its kindred humbugs? Of course I
don't! Show me the man who does? Do I follow the precepts of the
sermon on the Mount? Not I! The man who should undertake to do so
would make himself a perfect laughing-stock. I should like to see one
of your northern hypocrites attempt it. Ha! ha! ha! "Lay not up
treasure upon earth," and "take no thought for the morrow;" why, what
else do people take thought for, either North or South? It is not what
they shall eat, drink, or wear to-day, that worries them, but how they
shall lay up something for themselves or their children hereafter. You
silly women are always talking about righteousness, as if you really
thought it could enter in human plans, but we men of the world, who
have to wring the precious dollar from the hard hand of labor, know
better! I tell you, Rebecca, I don't believe there is a business-man
in your pious Quaker city even, who would dare acquaint his wife and
daughters with all his little arrangements for amassing wealth. Ha!
ha! ha! How the pretty things would stare at the tricks of the trade,
and simper: "Is that right?" As though anybody thought business
principles were gospel principles! As though they expected a man was
going to love his neighbor as himself, when he was making a bargain
with him! It provokes me to see you make yourself so ridiculous! You
ought to know that every man _acts_ on the principle, that "Wealth is
the chief good;" and you ought to know, too, that there the
slaveholders have the advantage of you entirely. They do right to
work, and grind it out of the slaves on a large scale, and call
Abraham and Moses to witness the patriarchal method, while your
northern mercenaries scheme and speculate how they can turn a penny
out of ignorance and poverty, and have not even the apology of a
precedent for their meanness. Why, one of our generous
southern planters is as far above one of your stingy
shave-three-cents-on-a-yard-trades