lords of the lash began to sit uneasily in their chairs, and their timid accomplices at the north, the law and order men were laboring with untiring zeal to convince them of their own readiness to act at their bidding, the sincerity of which was proved when they were called upon to "conquer their prejudices."
As the contest went on the little remnant of northern conscience which had hitherto endorsed in theory, if not in practice, the doctrine that every man had an inalienable right to liberty was ready to pronounce it a "glittering generality," and the teachings of Christ were reversed,—"I was a stranger and ye took me not in" being made the test of national Christianity. In the reverent stillness of a New England Sabbath the church bells sounded then call to morning prayer; from choir and organ rose the swelling anthems of praise, but only to the white man's God. The black was that day struck out of existence. Only in secluded alleys and darkened cellars, in the crowded attic where his living flesh could be stowed away so that it might be overlooked among the enormous piles of other "merchandise," could his soul pour itself to God in prayer.
Then was the hour of triumph for such as Mr. Carleton. On the scent of their human prey they skulked abroad under the ensign of the American Eagle, to proclaim the infatuated lie that "black men had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." But over these scenes humanity would willingly draw a veil.
