You have, perhaps, seen a bull stopping in the
street, pawing the ground, throwing the dust over him and covering
himself with a cloud of it, his nose close to the earth, and a low,
bellowing sound issuing from his nostrils. Your heart has died within
you at the sight. You have been made to feel how slight a defence is
fan, or sunshade, against such an antagonist, though you should make
them to fly suddenly open in his face. No enemy of his was in sight, so
far as you could perceive; you wondered what had excited his belligerent
spirit; but he saw at a very great distance that which you could not
see; he heard a voice you could not hear, giving occasion to this show
of prowess. That fearful combatant on the highway, dear madam, is the
North, and you are the distant foe. You may affect to smile, perhaps, at
the valorous attitudes, the show of mettle in the bull, but you have no
idea, as I had the honor to say before, how sturdy is our hatred of the
slave-power and how ready we are to do battle with it. We paw in the
valley, and are not afraid.
Never think to delude us, my dear lady, with the thought that slavery in
our Territories means such ladies as you owning Kates and their little
babes, and having such hearts toward them as you seem to have; for that
would take away a large part of the evil in slavery.
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