At least, it is always spoken of
and noted as pleasant and desirable."
"What would Northerners think," said I, "of gathering the old parents
and all the brothers and sisters of their domestics together, in small
tenements near their own dwellings? He who should do this would be
regarded as a very great saint. So that you may as well say that slavery
is a system by which a serving class is kept together in families, as to
say that its purpose and effect is to break up families."
"Just think," said Mrs. North, "of the serving class in our families
here at the North,--how they are separated by states, by oceans, from
one another!"
"Be careful, Mrs. North," said I, "how you even hint at such mitigations
in slavery, for you will be denounced as a 'friend of oppression' if you
discern anything in the system but 'villanies.' You never hear such a
feature of slavery, as that of which we have just spoken, recognized
here at the North by our zealous anti-slavery people."
"Do you not think," said she, "that if we were candid and less
passionate, and viewed the subject as anti-slavery men at the South do,
we should exert far more influence against slavery?"
"If we exerted any," I replied, "it would be 'far more' than we do now.
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