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Untitled Article
might be taken . The inferences are deduced from the broadest and most undeniable premises . Every thing is above the reach of cavil . No refuge is left for sophistry ; no room for evasion . If the negro , and the negro ' master , be men , then the argument holds with links of adamant . The composition is an extraordinary display of dignity and intensity . It is like the voice of an incarnate archangel come to judgment , with all the clearness of a spiritual intelligence , and all the emotion of humanity .
We cannot close this chapter without extracting the rebuke of those who plead the gaiety of the slave as an apology for slavery . " But still we are told the slave is gay . He is not as wretched as our theories teach . After his toil , he sings , he dances , he gives no signs of an exhausted frame or gloomy spirit / The slave happy 1 Why , then , contend for Rights ? Whv follow with beating hearts
the struggles of the patriot for freedom ? Why canonize the martyr to freedom ? The slave happy ! Then happiness is to be found in giving up the distinctive attributes of a man ; in darkening intellect and conscience ; in quenching generous sentiments ; in servility of spirit ; in living under a whip ; in having neither property nor rights ; in holding wife and child at another ' s pleasure ; in toiling without hope ; m living without an end ! The slave , indeed , has his pleasures . His
animal nature survives the injury to his rational and moral powers ; and every animal has its enjoyments . The kindness of Providence allows no human being to be wholly divorced from good . The lamb frolics ; the dog leaps for joy ; the bird fills the air with cheerful harmony ; and the slave spends his holiday in laughter and the dance * Thanks to Him who never leaves himself without witness : who cheers
even the desert with spots of verdure ; and opens a fountain of joy in the most withered heart ! It is not possible , however , to contemplate the occasional gaitt j of the slave without some mixture of painful thought . He is gay , because he has not learned to think ; because he is too fallen to feel his wrongs ; because he wants just selfrespect . We are grieved by the gaiety of ihe insane . There is a sadness in the gaiety of him , whose lightness of heart would be turned
to bitterness and indignation , were one ray of light to awaken in him the spirit of a man . " That there are those among the free , who nre more wretched than slaves , is undoubtedly true ; just as there is incomparably greater misery among men than among brutes . The brute never knew the ugony of a human spirit torn by remorse or wounded in its love . But would we cease to be human , because our capacity for suffering increases with the elevation of our nature ? All blessings may !> * e perverted , and the greatest perverttd most . Were we to visit a
slavecountry , undoubtedly the most miserable human beings would be found amon" the free ; for among them the passions have wider sweep , and the power they possess may be used to their own ruin . Liberty is not a necessity of happiness . It is only a means of good . It is a trust which may be abused . Are all such trusts to be cust away * Are they not the greatest gifts of Heaven ?"—pp . 57 , 58 .
Untitled Article
Charming on Slavery , 190
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 199, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/7/
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