Aunt has replied to you as to the soil, and we need not
distress ourselves about the price of slaves; that will regulate itself.
You well understand," said I, "that I am not arguing in favor of slavery
_per se_, nor for the slave-trade, nor for the extension of slavery; but
I contend that where slavery now exists, no one has yet proposed a
scheme which is better than the continuance of ownership, the blacks
remaining on the same soil with their present masters. Nor do I mean to
say that the present system must inevitably continue forever. We must
leave future developments in other hands. Of course there are difficult
problems on such a subject as this. Intelligent Christian gentlemen at
the South say that the best schemes which have been proposed by
Europeans for the substitution of apprenticed negroes for slaves would
make the condition of the negro as far worse than our slavery as the
condition of a degraded negro here is below that of his master. Who will
care for him when he is old, or sick? Granting this apprentice scheme
to be arranged without oppression or sin of any kind, I hold that the
condition of our slaves owned by masters and mistresses, is better than
such a hireling condition, though it have the appearance of liberty."

"Why so?" inquired Mr. North.

"The slaves are not treated as hired horses are liable to be treated," I
replied. "We know how a man is likely to treat his own horse, compared
with the horse which he hires. Men nurse their slaves when they are
sick; they provide for them when they are old. By their care and
responsibility for them, and in relieving them from responsibility, they
pay them wages whose market-value, if it could be reckoned in dollars,
would be higher wages than are paid to the same class of laborers in the
land. There are not four millions of the lower class of the laboring
people in any one district of the earth whose condition is to be
compared with that of the Southern slaves for comfort and happiness."

"I presume," said Mrs. North, "that you would not regard exemption from
responsibility as in itself a blessing. You know how it educates us, how
it sharpens the faculties, how it makes a man more of a man; therefore
is it, after all, any kindness to the slaves, that they are relieved
from responsibility?"

"I thank you," said I, "for that question. Does it concern us that our
domestic servants are relieved, for the time, of all responsibility for
house-rent, taxes, poli