"I presume," said I, "a Northern parent never gives a hasty box on the ear, never strikes one passionate blow in the chastisement, never shakes a child a single trill beyond the due harmony of parental affection, never scourges it with the tongue to momentary madness! What a dreadful thing parental authority is! Would it not be well to abolish the authority of parents over children! Indeed, would it not be well to go further, and interdict the public lands of the United States from being settled; for as surely as men live there, every form of wickedness will, in its turn, be perpetrated. How much better the calm and holy silence of the woods and fields, than if the tumultuous passions of men should roll over them!"
"But, my dear sir," said he, "I maintain that oppression is inseparable from the holding of a slave. I insist that this Southern lady, if all her feelings and conduct toward her servants are like her letter, is an exception among her people."
"No, Sir," said I, "she is the general rule among all decent people, and there is as much sense of decency and propriety there as with us, as many good people, kind, humane, generous, and it is as rare a thing for a servant to be ill-used there, as for our apprentices, and servants, and even our children. How kind and good you would be, Sir, if Providence should place a human being under you as his owner, for the mutual good of both of you."
"Dear me," said he, "I should try to feel and act just as I suppose those Southerners do who, you say, are fairly represented by this lady's letter about the slave-babe."
"Mr. North," said I, "suppose that the State should make you the absolute owner of some of those boys who set fire to the Westboro' and Deer Island institutions. In consideration of your personal responsibility for them, there is ceded to you all right and title to their services, and absolute control over them, subject, of course, to the laws against misdemeanors and crimes against the person. My only point is this: Where would be the sinfulness of that relation? All that would be sinful about it would be in your neglect or violation of your duty as a master."
"How glad all this makes me feel," said he, "that I am not troubled with slaves. If we do not like our servants or apprentices, we can get rid of them."
"Then," said I, "you surely ought to pity those who are bound to their slaves and have to put up with a thousand things which you say we can escape by changing our help."
"But," said he, "can they not sell off their slaves when they please?"
"Suppose, however," said I, "that they happen to be humane, as Mr. North is, and as we all are in the Free States! and that they are unwilling to turn off a poor helpless creature for her faults, to be sold, and to go they know not where!"
"Slavery," said Mr. North, "is surely a great curse. I am so glad that I live under free institutions."