epeat it--when men speak of the treatment of
others as being either good or bad, their declarations are not
generally to be taken as testimony to matters of _fact_, so much as
expressions of _their own feelings_ towards those persons or classes
who are the subjects of such treatment. If those persons are their
fellow citizens; if they are in the same class of society with
themselves; of the same language, creed, and color; similar in their
habits, pursuits, and sympathies; they will keenly feel any wrong done
to them, and denounce it as base, outrageous treatment; but let the
same wrongs be done to persons of a condition in all respects the
reverse, persons whom they habitually despise, and regard only in the
light of mere conveniences, to be used for their pleasure, and the
idea that such treatment is barbarous will be laughed at as
ridiculous. When we hear slaveholders say that their slaves are _well
treated_, we have only to remember that they are not speaking of
_persons_, but of _property_; not of men and women, but of _chattels_
and _things_; not of friends but of _vassals_ and _victims_; not of
those whom they respect and honor, but of those whom they _scorn_ and
trample on; not of those with whom they sympathize, and co-operate,
and interchange courtesies, but of those whom they regard with
contempt and aversion and disdainfully set with the dogs of their
flock. Reader, keep this fact in your mind, and you will have a clue
to the slaveholder's definition of "_good treatment_." Remember also,
that a part of this "good treatment" of which the slaveholders boast,
is plundering the slaves of all their inalienable rights, of the
ownership of their own bodies, of the use of their own limbs and
muscles, of all their time, liberty, and earnings, of the free
exercise of choice, of the rights of marriage and parental authority,
of legal protection, of the right to be, to do, to go, to stay, to
think, to feel, to work, to rest, to eat, to sleep, to learn, to
teach, to earn money, and to expend it, to visit, and to be visited,
to speak, to be silent, to worship according to conscience, in fine,
their right to be protected by just and equal laws, and to be
_amenable to such only_. Of _all these rights the slaves are
plundered_; and this is a _part_ of that "good treatment" of which
their plunderers boast! What then is the _rest_ of it? The above is
enough for a sample, at least a specimen-brick from the kiln. Reader,
we ask