'"
"Allow me," said I, "to smile at your simplicity, for you are very
child-like, not to say childish, in your feelings. You would have the
colored people universally go free. Do you really think that Kate is
worse off in being what you call a slave, than that young, free black
woman who keeps a stall and sells verses and knives near our Park?"
"O dear sir," said he, "liberty is a priceless boon; liberty"--
"Liberty to what?" said I.
"Why," said he, "liberty not to be sold, nor to be beaten, nor to be
subject to the wicked passions of a master."
"Would you rather," said I, "have your daughter a servant in a Southern
family, brought up as a playmate with the children, a sharer in many of
their gifts, a partner with their parents, as the children grew up, in
the pride and joy of the parents, an honored member of the wedding party
when a daughter is married, one of the principal mourners when the bride
departs, identified with the history of the family, provided for in the
will, a support guaranteed to her by law in sickness and old age, and
that, too, not in a pauper establishment, but in her owner's home, and
when the parents die, if she survives, taken by some branch of the
family or neighbor from regard to her and to them; her moral and
religious character improved under their training, a respectable
standing in society conferred upon her by her connection with them, her
religious privileges sacredly secured to her, any insult redressed as
though it were the family's personal affair; she a partaker of their
food and of all their comforts, and followed to her grave with respect
and love; or, for the sake of 'priceless liberty,' 'heaven's best gift
to man,' would you prefer to see her seated under the iron fence of a
park, an old umbrella tied to the pickets for her shelter, and she, in
rain and sunshine, selling 'Old Dan Tucker,' 'Jim Crow, Illustrated,'
and pea-nuts, and sleeping you know not where? Which lot would you
choose for a child? Which is best for this world and the next? In one
case, she is 'owned,' she is 'a slave;' and in the other, she is a free
woman.
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