the four winds of heaven; these hearts are broken, these
poor beings are given a prey to infamy and sorrow, these marriages are
ruptured, and adulterous unions are formed twenty leagues, a hundred
leagues away, in the bosom and with the assent of a Christian community.
Every day, too, the domestic slave-trade carries on its work; merchants
in human flesh ascend the Mississippi, to seek in the _producing_ States
wherewith to fill up the vacuum caused unceasingly by slavery in the
_consuming_ States; their ascent made, they scour the farms of Virginia
or of Kentucky, buying here a boy, there a girl; and other hearts are
torn, other families are dispersed, other nameless crimes are
accomplished coolly, simply, legally: it is the necessary revenue of the
one, it is the indispensable supply of the others. Must not the South
live, and how dares any one travesty a fact so simple? by what right was
penned that eloquent calumny called "Uncle Tom's Cabin"?

A calumny! I ask how any one would set to work to calumniate the customs
which I have just described. Say, then, that the laws of the South are a
calumny, that the official acts of the South are a calumny; for I affirm
that the simple reading of these acts and these laws, a glance at the
advertisements of a Southern journal, saddens the heart more, and
wounds the conscience deeper, than the most poignant pages of Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe. I admit willingly that there are many masters who
are very kind and very good. I admit that there are some slaves who are
relatively happy. I cast aside unhesitatingly the stories of exceptional
cruelty; it is enough for me to see that these _happy_ slaves expose
themselves to a thousand deaths to escape a situation declared
"preferable to that of our workmen." It is enough for me to hear the
heart-rending cries of those women and young girls who, adjudged to the
highest and last bidder, become, by the law and in a Christian country,
the property, yes, the property (excuse the word, it is the true one) of
the debauchees, their purchasers. And remark here that the virtues of
the master are a weak guarantee: he may die, he may become bankrupt, and
nothing then can hinder his slaves from being sold into the hands of the
buyer who scours the country and makes his choice.

We should calumniate the South if we amused ourselves by making a
collection of atrocious deeds, in the same manner that we should
calumniate France by seeking in the _Police