But I have not seen an intelligent Southerner who,
admitting all that we had said about the happiness of the slaves as a
class, did not go far beyond me in declaring that the presence of a
subject, abject race, cannot fail to be an evil. There is not an
ultraist at the North, whom, if he had their confidence, and were not
put in antagonism to him, the Southerners could not make ashamed, and
put to silence, by telling him evil things about slavery, which he had
never contemplated, and by admitting most fully things which he would
expect them to deny. But they are placed in a false position by his
clamor and anger, which set them against him and his doctrines. They
say, "Allowing all that the North asserts, here are the colored people
on our hands; what are we to do with them?" Not one of the Northern
"friends of the slave," nor all of them together, have ever proposed a
feasible plan with regard to the disposal of the slaves, which would be
kind or even humane to the blacks. Moreover, theoretical arguments
against slavery, and representations of it, from many quarters, are so
palpably wrong, that replies to them and refutations are counted by us
at the North as defences of "oppression;" which they were never designed
to be.
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