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the contrary, ever saw the slaves treated with kindness and humanity, indeed, often with more than was judicious. And here I would inform the abolitionists that they are depriving the slaves of many privileges and advantages, by their incendiary doings. They are the worst enemy the slave now has.
It has been my painful duty to officiate on funeral occasions, while in the south, and never have I seen grief so deep and genuine as that of the slaves whose master or mistress had gone to the place appointed to all living.
And I have often beheld the graceful and accomplished lady of the south, in the hut of the sick and dying negro, ministering that assistance and comfort, which derive half their efficacy from the hand and the voice that impart them; and which woman is so ready, and knows so well, how to administer. And, perhaps, at the very time they were doing these things, in soothing the pains of the body or the worse pains of the mind, and smoothing the dark path of the dying, their sisters of the north were holding conventions, preparing reports, forming committees of correspondence, drawing up remonstrances against their sisters of the south, and denouncing slavery as a heaven-daring sin, and slave-holders as the chief of sinners: or listening to some “godly young man” with brains as thin and shallow as his beard, and whose sphere of knowledge extends no further than the circle of his neighborhood, delivering himself of a rhapsody of solemn nonsense and falsehood, respecting a subject that he and his gaping and admiring audience knew as little as the Kahn of Tartary does of the policy and government of this country. And what is the worth of all this masculine and feminine talking and vaporing? Is a single slave set free?—not one. Is the first breach made on the rampart of slavery? no. Are the fetters of the slave relaxed? no—but rather tightened and increased. Abolitionism then is as foolish as it is wicked, lawless and reckless: and the time will come when it will be regarded as wicked and absurd as “witch burning” is now; though the time was when that was considered a holy and righteous measure.
I say nothing of the indelicacy of woman stepping out of the quiet walks of domestic life, to which alone her God has consigned her—and to which alone her nature adapts her; and obtruding her person and voice where those of man should alone be seen and heard. I say nothing of the impropriety as well as unfitness of woman engaging in public scenes and public affairs of any kind.
