'--I
then observed,
"I have come to this conclusion: if Southern Christians say to us, as
they do, Auction-blocks, separation of families, and similar features of
slavery, in the limited and decreasing extent to which they prevail, are
as odious to us as to you;--we tolerate these things as parts of a
system which we all feel to be an evil, and which we are constantly
striving to ameliorate;--I will leave the whole subject in their hands;
I will trust them in this as I would in anything and everything; I feel
absolved from all responsibility to God or to them with regard to the
matter."
"Pray tell me," said Mrs. North, "what is all this discussion about 'the
territories,' and keeping slavery out of them?"
"I told her that slavery, which fifteen States of the Union maintain as
a part of their domestic life, is, by many of the people in the Free
States, regarded as they regard the plague and death; they prescribe
certain degrees of latitude as barriers to it, as though they enacted
thus: 'North of 36 deg. 30' whooping-cough is prohibited, measles are
forbidden, cholera-morbus is forever interdicted.' They regard
slave-holders as living in a moral pestilence, and seeking to carry it
with them into new districts.
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