relations themselves are all good in certain conditions. And there may be
no more of evil in the lowest than in the highest. And there may be in the
lowest, as really as in the highest, the fulfilment of the commandment to
love thy neighbor as thyself, and of doing unto him whatsoever thou
wouldst have him to do unto thee.

Why, sir, the wife everywhere, except where Christianity has given her
elevation, is _the slave_. And, sir, I say, without fear of saying too
strongly, that for every sigh, every groan, every tear, every agony of
stripe or death, which has gone up to God from the relation of master and
slave, there have been more sighs, more groans, more tears, and more agony
in the rule of the husband over the wife. Sir, I have admitted, and do
again admit, without qualification, that every fact in Uncle Tom's Cabin
has occurred in the South. But, in reply, I say deliberately, what one of
your first men told me, that he who will make the horrid examination will
discover in New York City, in any number of years past, more cruelty from
husband to wife, parent to child, _than in all the South from master to
slave_ in the same time. I dare the investigation. And you may extend it
further, if you choose,--to all the results of honor and purity. I fear
nothing on this subject. I stand on rock,--the Bible,--and therefore, just
before I bring the Bible, to which all I have said is introductory, I will
run a parallel between the relation of master and slave and that of
husband and wife. I will say nothing of the grinding oppression of capital
upon labor, in the power of the master over the hireling--the crushed
peasant--the chain-harnessed coal-pit woman, a thousand feet under ground,
working in darkness, her child toiling by her side, and another child not
born; I will say nothing of the press-gang which fills the navy of
Britain--the conscription which makes the army of France--the terrible
floggings--the awful court-martial--the quick sentence--the
lightning-shot--the chain, and ball, and every-day lash--the punishment of