I beg leave to digress for a moment from the subject under discussion. Mrs. Stowe has told her tale about Southern slavery; and what a wondrous story it is! Remarkable indeed! She has told of deeds, dark and revolting! A tale of injustice and wrongs--oppression and woe! I admit there are, and ever have been, occasional and rare instances of acts of inhumanity and cruelty among Southern slaveholders; too shocking for recital! But if any one will be at the trouble to spend a few months in the Yankee States, and take for granted all that is related to him by busy-bodies, idlers and others that have nothing else to do but to talk about their neighbors; they will find no difficulty in gathering up material, out of which, they could manufacture as dark a tale as Uncle Tom's Cabin. The free negroes in the North could furnish material for a shocking story! But, ah! it is all a contemptibly low business; we had better quit talking about our neighbors. There are the best of reasons why we should not give full credence to village and neighborhood gossip, old women's stories, and free negroes tales. What we see, feel, taste and smell, we know to be true: and that is about all we do know. As for the remainder, it is as the breeze which plays around us, or passes over our heads. It is here, it is gone, and we know not from "whence it cometh, or whither it goeth?" nor yet what pestiferous emanations might perchance float in the current. The sooner we get rid of negro novels and village gossip, and neighborhood slander, and busy-bodies, and idlers, and loafers, and liars, and the whole crew, who have nothing else to do, but to meddle with people's business, the better. God speed the day when we shall all find better employment. But to return to the evils of slavery.
Slavery is not an evil to those involved in it, under all circumstances. There are circumstances, under which it may be a blessing to the slave--and a blessing it would have proved to the entire slave population in this country, if both masters and servants had complied with the requisitions of the Bible. None are so much to blame for the evils and hardships of slavery as the abolition party. No! none! Not the slaveholders themselves. They have incited the slaves to deeds for which they have been cruelly punished. In consequence of their unwarrantable interference, slaves that were, previous to such interference, pious, contented and happy, have become discontented, impertinent and perverse, and have been too often cruelly punished for their dereliction of duty. Ah! well do I recollect the time when the months of Southern clergyman were closed, when rigid laws were enacted--when so many restrictions were thrown around slaveholders. I then saw, and deplored the evil, and hoped, but hoped in vain, that Northern men would desist from a procedure, so fraught with mischief to masters and servants--so contrary to the laws of God--so opposed to every principle of humanity, justice, truth and righteousness. I must refer the reader to chapter three, and return to the proposition under investigation, that slavery is not, an evil under all circumstances.
