Some here
insist that slavery is the only proper condition for the blacks, and
they would reduce them back to bondage. Others remonstrate at this as
cruel. Surely it is a choice of evils for them, to be free, or to be
slaves, if they remain here. There is one thought that affords a ray of
consolation,--they are better off, in either condition, than they once
were in Africa. It is unquestionable to my mind that their relation to
the whites, even in bondage, is, as the general rule, mercy to them,
while they are on the same soil with the whites. Allow it to be
theoretically wrong to be a slave,--it is, under existing circumstances,
protection and a blessing, compared with any arrangement which has yet
been proposed. I have not sufficient patience to argue with those, North
or South, who contend for slavery as a normal condition. I should be
called at the North "pro-slavery;" but the North is in a passion on this
subject. I am not, and I never can be, an advocate for this relation, in
itself, but as a present necessity.
I once heard a speaker at an anti-slavery meeting at home say, "They
tell us how elevated the blacks are, how intelligent, how pious; that
shows how fit they are for freedom, how wrong it is to hold such people
in bondage.
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