One day at the St. Charles he overheard a discussion between Mr. James Sterling, an English traveller, and the Rev. Dr. Manners of Virginia. Slaves are good listeners; and Peculiar had sharpened his sense of hearing by the frequent exercise of it under difficulties. He was an amateur in key-holes. On this occasion he had only to open a ventilating window at the top of a partition, and all that the disputants might say would be for his benefit.
“Will you deny, sir,” asked the reverend Doctor, “that slavery has the sanction of Scripture?”
“I exclude that inquiry as impertinent at present,” said Sterling. “If Scripture authorized murder, then it would not be murder that would be right, but Scripture that would be wrong. And so in regard to slavery. On that particular point Scripture must not be admitted as authoritative. It cannot override the enlightened human conscience. It cannot render null the deductions of science and of reason on a question that manifestly comes within their sphere.”
“Ah! if you reject Scripture, then I have nothing more to say,” retorted the Doctor. But, after a pause, he added, “Have you not generally found the slaves well treated and contented?”
“A system under which they are well treated and made content,” replied Sterling, “is really the most to be deplored and condemned. If slavery could so brutalize men’s minds as to make them hug their chains and glory in degradation, it would be, in my eyes, doubly cursed. But it is not so; the slaves are not happy, and I thank God for it. There is manhood enough left in them to make them at least unhappy.”[[3]]
“You assume the equality of the races,” interposed the Doctor.
“It is unnecessary for my argument to make any such assumption,” said Sterling. “I have found that many black men are superior to many white men, and some of those white men slaveholders. I do not assume this. I know it. I have seen it. But even if the black men were inferior, I hold, that man, as man, is an end unto himself, and that to use him as a brute means to the ends of other men is to outrage the laws of God. I take my stand far above the question of happiness or unhappiness. Have you noticed the young black man, called Peek, who waits behind my chair at table?”
“Yes, a bright-looking lad. He anticipates your wants well. You have fed[fed] him, I suppose?”
“I have given him nothing. I have put a few questions to him, that is all; and what I have to say is, that he is superior in respect to brains to nine tenths of the white youth who suck juleps in your bar-rooms or kill time at your billiard-tables.”
“As soon as the Abolitionists will stop their infatuated clamor,” replied the Doctor, “the condition of the slave will be gradually improved, and we shall give more and more care to his religious education.”