little book have doubtless
heard more or less of slavery. You know it is the system by which a
portion of our people hold their fellow-creatures as property, and doom
them to perpetual servitude. It is a hateful and accursed institution,
which God can not look upon but with abhorrence, and which no one of
his children should for a moment tolerate. It is opposed to every thing
Christian and humane, and full of all meanness and cruelty. It treats a
fellow-being, only because his skin is not so fair as our own, as
though he were a dumb animal or a piece of furniture. It allows him
no expression of choice about any thing, and no liberty of action. It
recognizes and employs all the instincts of the lower, but ignores and
tramples down all the faculties of his higher, nature. Can there be a
greater wrong?

It is said by some, in extenuation of this wrong, that the slaves are
well fed and clothed, and are kindly, even affectionately, looked
after. This is true, in some cases,--with the house-servants,
particularly,--but, as a general thing, their food and clothing are
coarse and insufficient. But supposing it was otherwise; supposing they
were provided for with as much liberality as are the working classes at
the North, what is that when put into the balance with all the ills they
suffer? What comfort is it, when a wife is torn from her husband, or a
mother from her children, to know that each is to have enough to eat?
None at all. The most generous provision for the body can not satisfy
the longings of the heart, or compensate for its bereavements.

They suffer, also, a constant dread and fear of change, which is not
the least of their torturing troubles. A kind owner may be taken away by
death, and the new one be harsh and cruel; or necessity may compel
him to sell his slaves, and thus they may be thrown into most unhappy
situations. So they live with a heavy cloud of sorrow always before
them, which their eyes can not look through or beyond. There is no
hope--no EARTHLY hope--for this poor, oppressed race.

Their minds, too, are starved. No education, not even the least, is
allowed. It is a criminal offense in some of the States to teach a slave
to read. Now, if they could be made to exist without any consciousness
of intellectual capacity, it would not be so bad. But this is
impossible. They think and reason and wonder about things which they
see and hear; and, in many cases, feel an eager desire to be instructed.
This