"That is very far from being true," said I; "but still, you like Uncle
Tom as a character, do you?"
"You astonish me," said he, "by making a question about it. He is the most perfect specimen of Christianity that I ever heard of."
"Among the martyrs," said I, "have you ever found his superior?"
"No, Sir!" was his energetic answer.
"Now," said I, "what made Uncle Tom the paragon of perfection?"
"What made him?" said he.
"Yes," said I, "what made him the model Christian? You do not reply, and I will tell you. SLAVERY MADE UNCLE TOM. Had it not been for slavery, he would have been a savage in Africa, a brutish slave to his fetishes, living in a jungle, perhaps; and had you stumbled upon him he would very likely have roasted you and picked your bones. A system which makes Uncle Toms out of African savages is not an unmixed evil."
"But," said he, "it makes Legrees also."
"I beg your pardon, Sir," said I, "it does not make Legrees. There are as many Legrees at the North as at the South, especially if we include all the very particular 'friends of the slave.' Legree would be Legree in Wall Street, or Fifth Avenue; Uncle Tom would not be Uncle Tom in the wilds of Africa."
"And so," said he, "it is right to fit out ships, burn villages in Africa, steal the flying people, bestow them in slave-ships, and sell them into hopeless bondage!"