Читать книгу Benjamin Drew. The Refugee. Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada онлайн

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Meanwhile the fugitive slave law continues to be enforced.

Gloss the matter over as much as we may, and take “south-side views” through a multiplying glass,–yet we must admit, that the slave’s is a cruel lot.

We may compare King James’s or the Douay Bible with the Hebrew and the Septuagint; we may find there, and in all recensions, polyglotts, and translations extant, the history of Abraham and Hagar,–yet we must allow, that an American slave, in his best estate, is a man badly educated, and systematically ill used.

We may study the New Testament and become conversant with the proceedings of Paul in regard to Onesimus; we may wade through the commentaries of pro-slavery and anti-slavery writers thereupon,–yet the truth will remain, that an American slave is deemed “a chattel personal,”–the property of a master to whom he belongs,”–that he is liable to be flogged, sold, and divorced, as the interest, caprice, or spite of his master may dictate.

It may possibly be the case that the denunciatory language which the South has used in speaking of abolitionists, may have “irritated” them, and that, under this irritation, they have manifested more zeal in the cause of emancipation, than they would otherwise have done. Still we deem it undeniable, that if there is any situation on earth in which a man can be placed, which should stir up from its depths, the most active sympathies of the human heart, it is the deplorable situation of an American slave.