tate of mind is awful; it's getting really desperate
George. I'm concerned. Going to break the laws of your country!"

"My country again! Mr. Wilson, _you_ have a country; but what country
have _I_, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are there
for us? We don't make them,--we don't consent to them,--we have nothing
to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us down.
Haven't I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don't you tell us all,
once a year, that governments derive their just power from the consent
of the governed? Can't a fellow _think_, that hears such things? Can't
he put this and that together, and see what it comes to?"

Mr. Wilson's mind was one of those that may not unaptly be represented
by a bale of cotton,--downy, soft, benevolently fuzzy and confused.
He really pitied George with all his heart, and had a sort of dim and
cloudy perception of the style of feeling that agitated him; but
he deemed it his duty to go on talking _good_ to him, with infinite
pertinacity.

"George, this is bad. I must tell you, you know, as a friend, you'd
better not be meddling with such notions; they are bad, George, very
bad, for boys in your condition,--very;" and Mr. Wilson sat down to a
table, and began nervously chewing the handle of his umbrella.

"See here, now, Mr. Wilson," said George, coming up and sitting himself
determinately down in front of him; "look at me, now. Don't I sit before
you, every way, just as much a man as you are? Look at my face,--look at
my hands,--look at my body," and the young man drew himself up proudly;
"why am I _not_ a man, as much as anybody? Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I
can tell you. I had a father--one of your Kentucky gentlemen--who didn't
think enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and horses,
to satisfy the estate, when he died. I saw my mother put up at sheriff's
sale, with her seven children. They were sold before her eyes, one by
one, all to different masters; and I was the youngest. She came and
kneeled down before old Mas'r, and begged him to buy her with me, that
she might have at least one child with her; and he kicked her away with
his heavy boot. I saw him do it; and the last that I heard was her moans
and screams, when I was tied to his horse's neck, to be carried off to
his place."

"Well, then?"

"My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister.
She was a pious, good girl,--a member of the Baptist c