We must change. If our Northern people would discriminate, and,
while retaining all their natural feelings against oppression and
man-stealing, would admit that "ownership in man" is not necessarily
oppression nor man-stealing, they would do themselves justice and
contribute to the peace of the country. "But O!" they say, "look at the
iniquitous _system_. If separating families, and destroying marriage,
and liberty to chastise at pleasure, and to kill, are not _sin_, what is
sin?" So they impute the _system_, and everything in it, to the people
who live under it. How a system can be a sin, it would puzzle some of
them, who say that all sin consists in action, to explain. And when they
came to look into the system itself, they would find, that if slavery is
to exist, some laws regulating it are, of necessity, self-protective,
and must be coercive. Even in Illinois, it is enacted that a black man
shall not be a witness against a white man. But if the slaves could
swear in court, every one sees that the whites must be at the mercy of
their servants. The testimony of the honest among them is procured,
though indirectly, and it has weight with juries; but it is a wise
provision to exclude them as sworn witnesses.
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