“Because I am not a young lady of twenty, who is well satisfied with herself and her advantages. There is but one character for which I have a greater contempt than that of a senseless grumbler, who regards all things à tort et à travers, and who cries, there is nothing good in the world.”
“And what is the exception, sir?”
“The man who is puffed up with conceit, and fancies all around him perfection, when so much of it is the reverse; who ever shouts ‘liberty,’ in the midst of the direst oppression.”
“But direst oppression is certainly no term to be applied to anything in New York!”
“You think not? What would you say to a state of society in which the law is available to one class of citizens only, in the way of compulsion, and not at all, in the way of protection?”
“I do not understand you, sir; here, it is our boast that all are protected, alike.”
“Ay, so far as boasting goes, we are beyond reproach. But what are the facts? Here is a man that owes money. The law is appealed to, to compel payment. Verdict is rendered, and execution issued. The sheriff enters his house, and sells his very furniture, to extort the amount of the debt from him.”
“That is his misfortune, sir. Such things must happen to all debtors who cannot, or will not, pay.”
“If this were true, I should have nothing to say. Imagine this very debtor to be also a creditor; to have debts due to him, of many times the sums that he owes, but which the law will not aid him in collecting. For him, the law is all oppression—no protection.”
“But, surely, Uncle Tom, nothing of the sort exists here!”