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

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If these things are so, how can it be wrong to assist a slave who is making his escape? Surely, to aid the unfortunate is a duty, which no power on earth can legislate into a crime.

But at this late day, the question is forced upon us, whether it is an unfortunate thing for a man to be a slave? This “excites a smile” at the North,–but as this book is destined to be read at the South as well as at the North, we will examine the question a little.

Slavery, we are told, has its bright as well as its dark parts. In southern cities, there is good order, the streets are quiet in the night, and there is an absence of mobs. In that portion of southern society which is under the highest cultivation, the slaves smile, laugh, are happy,–one must see that they are happy. Religion has gained a wonderful ascendency among the colored people. The number of communicants among them is very large. “The only difference between them and us, as to religious instruction is, they cannot generally read.” “As responsibility, anxiety about the present and future, are the chief enemies to cheerfulness, and, among mental causes, to health, it is obvious that if one can have all his present wants supplied, with no care about short crops, the markets, notes payable, bills due, be relieved from the necessity of planning and contriving, all the hard thinking being done for him by another, while useful and honorable employment fills his thoughts and hands, he is so far in a situation favorable to great comfort, which will show itself in his whole outer man. Some will say, ‘This is the lowest kind of happiness.’ Yet it is all that a large portion of the race seek for; and few, except slaves, obtain it.” “If the colored people of Savannah, Columbia, and Richmond, are not, as a whole, a happy people, I,” says the reverend author from whom we quote, “have never seen any.” We are told, indeed, that “Cases illustrating the opposite of almost every agreeable statement now made could also be multiplied; still the things just described are as represented, and he is not in a healthful state of mind, who cannot appreciate them. Our error has been in mixing the dark and bright parts of slavery together. This is wrong. We should never lose sight of distinct moral qualities in character, as we do of different colors in mixing paint. Let us judge slavery in this manner; let us keep her different qualities distinct–abhor that in her which is evil, rejoice in that which is good.”