e by the inevitable laws of nature's God. I could
see that the All-wise Creator, had made man a free, moral, intelligent
and accountable being; capable of knowing good and evil. And I
believed then, as I believe now, that every man has a right to wages
for his labor; a right to his own wife and children; a right to
liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and a right to worship God
according to the dictates of his own conscience. But here, in the
light of these truths, I was a slave, a prisoner for life; I could
possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to my
keeper. No one can imagine my feelings in my reflecting moments, but
he who has himself been a slave. Oh! I have often wept over my
condition, while sauntering through the forest, to escape cruel
punishment.

"No arm to protect me from tyrants aggression;
No parents to cheer me when laden with grief.
Man may picture the bounds of the rocks and the rivers,
The hills and the valleys, the lakes and the ocean,
But the horrors of slavery, he never can trace."

The term slave to this day sounds with terror to my soul,--a word too
obnoxious to speak--a system too intolerable to be endured. I know
this from long and sad experience. I now feel as if I had just been
aroused from sleep, and looking back with quickened perception at the
state of torment from whence I fled. I was there held and claimed as a
slave; as such I was subjected to the will and power of my keeper, in
all respects whatsoever. That the slave is a human being, no one can
deny. It is his lot to be exposed in common with other men, to the
calamities of sickness, death, and the misfortunes incident to life.
But unlike other men, he is denied the consolation of struggling
against external difficulties, such as destroy the life, liberty, and
happiness of himself and family. A slave may be bought and sold in the
market like an ox. He is liable to be sold off to a distant land from
his family. He is bound in chains hand and foot; and his sufferings
are aggravated a hundred fold, by the terrible thought, that he is not
allowed to struggle against misfortune, corporeal punishment, insults,
and outrages committed upon himself and family; and he is not allowed
to help himself, to resist or escape the blow, which he sees impending
over him.

This idea of utter helplessness, in perpetual bondage, is the more
distressing, as there is no period even with the remotest generation
whe