Slavery Ordained of God by D.D. Rev. Fred. A. Ross
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mad, (here some one said, "All at the same time?") yes--all at the same
time. Bad in its theology, bad in its morality, bad in its temporary evil influence here in the North, in England, and on the continent of Europe; bad, because her isolated cruelties will be taken (whether so meant by her or not) as the general condition of Southern life,--while her Shelbys, and St. Clairs, and Evas, will be looked upon as angel-visitors, lingering for a moment in that earthly hell. The _impression made by the book is a falsehood_. Sir, why do your Northern church-members and philanthropists buy Southern products at all? You know you are purchasing cotton, rice, sugar, sprinkled with blood, literally, you say, from the lash of the driver! Why do you buy? What's the difference between my filching this blood-stained cotton from the outraged negro, and your standing by, taking it from me? What's the difference? You, yourselves, say, in your abstractions, there is no difference; and yet you daily stain your hands in this horrid traffic. You hate the traitor, but you love the treason. Your ladies, too,--oh, how they shun the slave-owner _at a distance_, in _the abstract_! But alas, when they see him in the _concrete_,--when they see the slave-owner _himself_, standing before them,--not the brutal driver, but the splendid gentleman, with his unmistakable grace of carriage and ease of manners,--why, lo, behold the lady says, "Oh, fie on your slavery!--what a _wretch_ you are! But, indeed, sir, I love your sugar,--and truly, truly, sir, _wretch_ as you are, I love you too." Your gentlemen talk just the same way when they behold our matchless women. And well for us all it is, that your good taste, and hearts, can thus appreciate our genius, and accomplishments, and fascinations, and loveliness, and sugar, and cotton. Why, sir, I heard this morning, from one pastor only, of two or three of his members thus intermarried in the South. May I thus give the mildest rebuke to your inconsistency of |
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