e is drawing a tooth.
Perhaps there may be found some moral law against doing so!"

"But we are apt," said I, "to take these exceptional cases, and make a
rule that includes them and all others. I have been present when
intelligent gentlemen, Northerners and Southerners, have discussed this
subject in the most friendly manner, though with great earnestness. Once
I remember we spent an evening discussing the subject. I will, if you
please, tell you about the conversation.

"I must take you, then, to an old mansion at the South, around which,
and at such a distance from each other as to reveal a fine prospect,
stood a growth of noble elms, a lawn spreading itself out before the
house, and the large hall, or entry, serving for a tea-room, where seven
or eight gentlemen, and as many ladies were assembled.

"A Southern physician, who had no slaves, took the ground that all the
slaves had a right to walk off whenever they pleased. He did not see why
we should hold them in bondage rather than they us, so far as right and
justice were concerned. Some of the slave-holders were evidently much
troubled in their thoughts, and did not speak strongly. My own feelings
at first went with the physician and with his arguments; but I saw that
he was not very clear, nor deep, and his friends who partly yielded to
him, seemed to do so rather under the influence of conscientious
feelings, than from any very well defined principles. This is the case
with not a few at the South, and it was very common in Thomas
Jefferson's days. But the large majority, who were of the contrary
opinion, got the advantage in the argument, and it seemed to me went far
toward convincing the physician, as they did me, that he was wrong.

"The company all seemed to look toward a judge who was present, to open
the discussion with a statement of his views. He did so by saying, for
substance, as follows:--

"'I will take it for granted,' said he, 'that we are agreed as to the
unlawfulness of the slave-trade, past and present. We find the blacks
here, as we come upon the stage. We are born into this relationship. It
is an existing form of government in the Slave States.

"'Ownership in man is not contrary to the will of God. I also find it
written that "Canaan shall be a servant." Hear these words of
inspiration: "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto
his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan
shall be his servant. Go