“Arter breakfast, Mr. Abers, his brother-in-law, come down, and says he, ‘Gideon, what’s your notion in torturin’ this boy, so? If you want to kill him, why not take an axe and put him out of his misery?’ Master says, ‘is it any of your business?’ ‘Yis, Sir, ’tis my business, and the business of every human bein’ not to see you torture that boy so. You know he’s faithful, and every body knows it, and a smarter boy you can’t find any where of his age.[[9]] Master then colours up, with wrath, and says, ‘you or any body else, help yourself! I’ll do with my nigger as I please—he’s my property, ☜ and I have a right to use my own property, as I please. You lie, that it’s any of your business to interfere with my concerns.’[[10]]
[9]. Here is Abolition, and its opposition in a nut-shell. Abolitionists, are those who claim that if a fellow-man is suffering, it is the business of his brother to help him, if possible, and in the best way he can. Accordingly, we lift up our voice against the abominations that are done in this land of chains, and whips, and heathenism, and slaves! Who are our opposers, and revilers, and enemies? They are men who don’t believe it to be their business, to interfere with the rights of the slave breeder, and slave buyer, and slaveholder, of the United States. Their creed will let them stand by and look at a brother bleeding, and groaning, and dying under a worse than high-way robbery, and yet ’twill bind their arms if they would extend a helping hand—’twill stop their mouths if they wish to plead for the dumb. Oh! my soul! who that respects the claims of humanity, ain’t ashamed to disgrace man so? What philanthropist who wants to see all men rise high in virtue, and happiness, ain’t ashamed to hold one set of principles for men in freedom, and another for men in chains. What christian don’t blush, to urge as an excuse for chilling and freezing his sympathies for the slave, “the legislation of the country forbids me to help a brother in distress.”
[10]. The old corner stone of the whole edifice—☞ property in man. ☜ This reply of the master, is just like the low, and vile swaggering and bragging of the South, that has so long intimidated the time-serving politician of the North, with Southern principles, and the dough-faced christian with infidel principles. There is something humiliating in the thought, that the South has been able always to put down the rising spirit of freedom at the North, by brags and swagger! ☜ Ever since the early days of the Revolution, when Adams and Hancock, and Ames, and Franklin, tried to get the South to wash her hands from the blood of oppression, and be clean, bluster, and noise, and brags have crushed our efforts. And these same patriots, noble in every thing else, were dragooned into submission, and this Moloch of the South was worshipped by the signers of the greatest instrument the world ever saw. And, as the compromise must go on, an unholy alliance was formed between liberty and despotism; and as the price paid for the temple’s going up, tyranny has made a great niche in our temple of freedom, and there this strange god is worshipped by freemen. Oh! God! what blasphemy is here? tyranny and liberty worshipped together! offerings made to the God of heaven, and the demon of oppression on the same altar!
Nullification lifted its brags and boasts, and swagger, and the North gave up her principles. And because the South has always succeeded, they already boast of victory over all the Abolitionists of the North, and expect either that they have accomplished the work of crushing them, or that they can do it just when they please. But the South will find that since the days of Jay, and Adams, liberty has grown strong, and when the great struggle comes, they will see that there are but two parties on the field,—a few slave-driving, slave-breeding tyrants covered with blood, unrighteously shed, at war with the combined powers of the world. The principles of Abolition, have ennobled the human mind, and in all the world’s history, cannot be found a body of men, who have endured so much obloquy and abuse, with so much unflinching firmness, and manly fortitude, as the Abolitionists. They are not to be awed by swagger, nor stopped by brags. No! thanks to our Leader, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died to break every chain in creation, the work of human freedom must go forward; and the South has no more power to stop the progress of light, and principles of liberty in this age, than the progress of the sun in the heavens. The great guiding principle of all the benevolence in the world is, to interfere to save a brother from distress and tyranny.—Every reform must interfere with tyranny: ’twas so with christianity in its establishment—with the Reformation—with our Revolution—and shall be so—for christianity makes it man’s business to interfere with every usurpation, and system of tyranny and invasion of human rights, until every yoke shall be broken in the entire dominions of God.
“‘Don’t, you give me the lie again,’ says Abers, ‘or I’ll give you what a liar deserves.’ Well, master give him the lie agin, and Abers took him by the nape of the neck and by the britch of his clothes, and flings him down on the floor, as you would a child, (for master was a small man,) and he pounds him and kicks him and bruises him up most egregiously and then starts for the door and says, ‘come along with me, Peter, you are agoin’ to be my boy a spell, and I’ll see if this is your fault, or ‘master’s’ as you call him.’
“So I picks up my old hat, there warn’t any crown in it, but swindle tow stuffed in, and goes along with him. I gits there, and Mrs. Abers, master’s sister, says, ‘my dear feller, ain’t you almost dead?’
“So arter breakfast, for Mr. Abers had come down afore breakfast, and I sets down and eats with ’em, Mrs. Abers takes a leetle skillet, and warms some water, and then she tries to pull my shirt off, and it stuck fast to my back, and so she puts in some castile soap-suds all over my back, and I finally gits it off, and all the wool that had come off of my old homespun shirt of wool, and the hairs of this, sticks in the wounds, and so she takes and picks ’em all out, and washes me with a sponge very carefully, but oh! how it hurt.—Arter this she takes a piece of fine cambric linen, and wets it in sweet ile, and lays it all over my back, and I felt like a new crutter; and then I went to bed and slept a good while, and only got up at sundown to eat, and then to bed agin. So next mornin’ she put on another jist like it, and I stayed there a fortnight and had my ease, and lived on the fat of the land tu, I tell ye.”
A. “Didn’t your master come after you, Peter?”
P. “Oh! no, Sir; he had all he could do to take care of the bruises Abers gin him. So one Monday mornin’ he tells me I had better go home to master’s. Well, I begins to cry, and says, ‘I’ll go, but master will whip me to death, next time.’ ‘No he won’t,’ says Abers. ‘You go and do your chores, and be a good boy; and I’ll be over bim’bye, and see how you git along.’
“Well, as soon as I got home, I opened the door, and mistress says, ‘You come home agin’, have you, you black son of a bitch?’