You remember the oldfable of "The Man andthe Lion," where the lion complained that he shouldnot be so misrepresented "when the lions writehistory." I am glad the time has come when the "lions writehistory." We have been left long enough to gathercharacter of slavery from the involuntary evidence of themasters. One might, indeed, rest sufficiently satisfied withwhat, it is evident, must be, in general the results of sucha relation, without seeking farther to find whether theyhave followed in every instance. Indeed, those who stareat the half-peck of corn a week, and love to count thelashes on the slave's back, are seldom the "stuff " out ofwhich reformers and abolitionists are to be made. Iremember that, in 1838, many were waiting for the resultsof the West India experiment, before they could comeinto our ranks. Those "results" have come long ago; but, alas! few ofthat number have come with them, as converts. A man mustbe disposed to judge of emancipation by other teststhan whether it has increased the produce of sugar,--andto hate slavery for other reasons because it starvesmen and whips, women,--before he is ready to lay thefirst stone of his anti-slavery life. Page xivI was glad to learn, in your story, how early the mostneglected of God's children waken to a sense of theirrights, and of the injustice done them. Experience is a keenteacher; and long before you had mastered your A B C, orknew where the "white sails" of the Chesapeake werebound, you began, I see, to gauge the wretchedness of theslave, not by his hunger and want, not by his lashes andtoil, but by the cruel and blighting death which gathersover his soul. In connection with this, there is one circumstancewhich makes your recollections peculiarly valuable, andrenders your early insight the more remarkable. You comefrom that part of the country where we are told slaveryappears with its fairest features. Let us hear, then, what itis at its best estate--gaze on its bright side, if it has one;and then imagination may task her powers to add darklines to the picture, as she travels southward to that (forthe colored man) Valley of the Shadow of Death, wherethe Mississippi sweeps along. Again, we have known you long, and can put the mostentire confidence in your truth, candor, and sincerity.Every one who has heard you speak has felt, and, I amconfident, every one who reads your book will feel,persuaded that you give them a fair specimen of the wholetruth. No one-sided portrait,--no wholesale complaints,--but strict justice done, whenever individual kindliness hasneutralized, for a moment, the deadly system with whichit was strangely allied. You have been with us, too, someyears, and can fairly compare the twilight of rights, whichyour race enjoy at the North, with that "noon of night"under which they labor south of Mason and Dixon's line.Tell us whether, after all, the half-free colored man ofMassachusetts is worse off than the pampered slave ofthe rice swamps! In reading your life, no one can say that we have Page xvunfairly picked out some rare specimens of cruelty. Weknow that the bitter drops, which even you have drainedfrom the cup, are no incidental aggravations, no individualills, but such as must mingle always and necessarily in thelot of every slave. They are the essential ingredients, notthe occasional results, of the system. After all, I shall read your book with trembling for you.Some years ago, when you were beginning to tell me yourreal name and birthplace, you may remember I stoppedyou, and preferred to remain ignorant of all. With theexception of a vague description, so I continued, till theother day, when you read me your memoirs. I hardlyknew, at the time, whether to thank you or not for thesight of them, when I reflected that it was still dangerous,in Massachusetts, for honest men to tell their names!They say the fathers, in 1776, signed the Declaration ofIndependence with the halter about their necks. You, too,publish your declaration of freedom with dangercompassing you around. In all the broad lands which theConstitution of the United States overshadows, there isno single spot,--however narrow or desolate,--wherea fugitive slave can plant himself and say, "I am safe."The whole armory of Northern Law has no shield for you.I am free to say that, in your place, I should throw theMS. into the fire. You, perhaps, may tell your story in safety, endearedas you are to so many warm hearts by rare gifts, and astill rarer devotion of them to the service of others. But itwill be owing only to your labors, and the fearless effortsof those who, trampling the laws and Constitution ofthe country under their feet, are determined that they will"hide the outcast," and that their hearths shall be, spite ofthe law, an asylum for the oppressed, if, some time orother, the humblest may stand in our Page xvistreets, and bear witness in safety against the crueltiesof which he has been the victim. Yet it is sad to think, that these very throbbing heartswhich welcome your story, and form your best safeguardin telling it, are all beating contrary to the "statute in suchcase made and provided." Go on, my dear friend, till you,and those who, like you, have been saved, so as by fire,from the dark prison-house, shall stereotype these free,illegal pulses into statutes; and New England, cuttingloose from a blood-stained Union, shall glory in being thehouse of refuge for the oppressed;--till we no longermerely "hide the outcast," or make a merit of standingidly by while he is hunted in our midst; but, consecratinganew the soil of the Pilgrims as an asylum for theoppressed, proclaim our welcome to the slave so loudly,that the tones shall reach every hut in the Carolinas, andmake the broken-hearted bondman leap up at the thoughtof old Massachusetts. God speed the day!Till then, and ever,Yours truly,
Earths Forbidden Secrets Part Two Pdf Files
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