xt7pk06wx974 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7pk06wx974/data/mets.xml Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896 1852  books b92ps2954u41852dv22009 English J. P. Jewett : Boston, Mass. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Plantation life --Southern States --Fiction. African Americans --Southern States --Fiction. Slavery --Southern States --Fiction. Slaves --Southern States --Fiction. Political fiction. Didactic fiction. Uncle Tom s cabin; or, Life among the lowly. text Uncle Tom s cabin; or, Life among the lowly. 1852 2009 true xt7pk06wx974 section xt7pk06wx974 
  
  
  
  
  
  
U NCLE TOM'S C ABIN;
OE,

LIFE

AMONG
BY

T H E LOWLY.

HARRIET

BEECHER

S TOWE.

VOL.
TWENTY-FIFTH

II.
THOUSAND.

BOSTON: JOHN P. J E W E T T
CLEVELAND,

&

COMPANY.

OHIO:

J EWETT, PROCTOR & WORTIIINGTON.

1852.

  
  
1

TABLE

OF VOL.

CONTENTS. II.
   

*
XIX.
CONTINUED, .

CHAPTER MISS
OPHELIA'S EXPERIENCES

A N D OPINIONS,

5

CHAPTER
TOPSY,

XX.
32

CHAPTER
KENTUCK,

XXI.
53

CHAPTER
"THE GRASS WITHERETH     THE

XXII.
FADETH," . . . 60

FLOWER

CHAPTER
HENRIQUE

XXIII.
70

CHAPTER
FoRESHADOWDJGS,

XXIV.
80

CHAPTER
THE LITTLE EVANGELIST,    

XXV.
.89

CHAPTER
%, DEATH,

XXVI.
96

CHAPTER
"THIS IS T H EL A S T OF EARTH,"

XXVII.
1 14

CHAPTER
RE-UNION,

XXVIII.
124

CHAPTER
THE UNPROTECTED,

XXIX.

i
144

CHAPTER
THE SLATE WAREHOUSE,

XXX.
154

1

  
I

T

CONTESTS.
CHAPTER XXXI.
.168

THE

MIDDLE

PASSAGE,

CHAPTER
DARK PLACES,

XXXII.
1 7 6

CHAPTER
CASSY, . ^

XXXIII.
1 8 8

CHAPTER
TnE QUADROON'S STORY

XXXIV.
l^
8

CHAPTER
THE TOKENS

XXXV.
2 1 3

CHAPTER
ElIMELINE A N D CASSY,

XXXVI.
222

CHAPTER
LIBERTY,

XXXVII.
2 31

CHAPTER
THE VICTORY

XXXVIII.
240

CHAPTER
THE STRATAGEM,

XXXIX.
264

CHAPTER
THE MARTYR

XL.
267

CHAPTER
THE YOUNG MASTER,

XLI.
276

CHAPTER
AN AUTHENTIC GHOST STORY,

XLII.
285

CHAPTER
RESULTS

XLIII.
2 94

CHAPTER
THE LIBERATOR,

XLIV.
. 305

CHAPTER
CONCLUDING REMARKS,

XLV.
310

  
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN*
OB,

LIFE

AMONG

THE

LOWLY.

CHAPTER XIX.
MISS O H P E L L i ' s E X P E R I E N C E S A N D OPINIONS, CONTINUED.

" T O M , y ou n eedn't get me the horses. go," she said.

I don't want to

" W h y not, Miss E v a ? " " These things sink into my heart, Tom," said E v a ,     " they sink into my heart," she repeated, earnestly. "I don't want to go ; " and she turned from Tom, and went into the house. A few days after, another woman came, i n old Prue's place, to bring the rusks ; Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen. " L or ! " said Dinah, " what's got P r u e ? " " P rue is n't coming any m ore," said the woman, mysteriously. " W hy not ? " said Dinah. "She an't dead, is she ? " " W e d oesn't exactly know. S he's down c ellar," said the woman, glancing at Miss Ophelia. A fter Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks, Dinah followed the woman to the door. " What has got Prue, any how ? " she said.
V OL. I I.
1*

  
6

U NCLE TOM'S CABIN : OR,

The woman seemed desirous, yet reluctant, to speak, and answered, in a low, mysterious tone. " W e l l , you mustn't t ell nobody. P rue, she got drunk g j     d they had her down cellar,    and thar they left her all day,    and I hearn 'em saying that t h e s e s had got to her,    and she's dead ! "
a nj an

D inah held up her hands, and, turning, saw close by her side the spirit-like form of Evangeline, her large, mystic eyes dilated with horror, and every drop of blood driven from her lips and cheeks. " L o r bless u s ! Miss E v a ' s gwine to faint away! What got us all, to let her har such talk ? Her pa '11 be r ail m ad." " I shan't faint, Dinah," said the child, firmly; "and whj. should n't I hear it ? It an't so much for me to hear it, as for poor P rue to suffer i t . " " Lor sakes! i t is n't for sweet, delicate young ladies, like you,   these yer stories is n't; i t ' s enough to k ill 'em ! " E va sighed again, and walked up stairs with a slow and melancholy step. M iss Ophelia anxiously inquired the woman's story. D inah gave a very garrulous version of it, to which Tom added the particulars which he had drawn from her that morning. " A n abominable business,    perfectly horrible!" she exclaimed, as she entered the room where St. Clare lay reading his paper. " P ray, what iniquity has turned up now? " said he. " What now? why, those folks have whipped Prue to death! " said Miss Ophelia, going on, with great strength of detail, into the story, and enlarging on its most shocking particulars.   

  
L IFE A MONG T H E LOWLY.

7

" I thought it would come to that, some t ime," said St. Clare, going on w ith his paper. " Thought so !     an't you going to do anything about it? "     said M iss Ophelia. " H a v e n ' t you got any selectmen, or anybody, to interfere and look after such matters? " " I t ' s commonly supposed that the property interest is a sufficient guard in these cases. I f people choose to r uin their own possessions, I don't know what's to be done. I t seems the poor creature was a thief and a drunkard; and so there won't be much hope to get up sympathy for her." " I t is perfectly outrageous,    it is horrid, Augustine ! It w ill certainly bring clown vengeance upon you." " M y dear cousin, I didn't do it, and I can't help i t ; I would, i f I could. If low-minded, b rutal people w ill act l ike themselves, what am I to do ? They have absolute control; they are irresponsible despots. There would be no use in i nterfering; there is no law that amounts to anything practically, for such a case. The best we can do is to shut our eyes and ears, and let it alone. I t ' s the only resource left u s." " H o w can you shut your eyes and ears? let such things alone?" How can you

" M y dear c hild, what do you expect? H ere is a whole class,   debased, uneducated, indolent, provoking,   put, w ithout any sort of terms or conditions, entirely into the hands of such people as the majority in our world are; people who have neither consideration nor self-control, who have n't even an enlightened regard to their own interest,    for that's the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course, in a community so organized, what can a man of honorable and humane feelings do, but shut his eyes a ll he can, and harden his h eart? I can't buy every poor wretch I see. I

  
8

U NCLE TOM'S CABIN : OR,

can't t urn knight-errant, and undertake to redress every individual case of wrong in such a city as this. The most I can do is to try and keep out of the way of i t . " S t. Clare's fine countenance was for a moment overcast; he looked annoyed, but suddenly calling up a gay smile, he said, " Come, cousin, don't stand there looking like one of the F ates; y ou've only seen a peep through the curtain,    a. specimen of what is going on, the world over, in some shape or other. If we are to be prying and spying into all the dismals of life, we should have no heart to any tiring. ' T is like looking too close into the details of Dinah's kitchen; " and S t. Clare lay back on the sofa, and busied himself with his paper. M iss Ophelia sat down, and pulled out her knitting-work, and sat there grim with indignation. She knit-and k nit, but while she mused the fire burned ; at last she broke out     " I tell y ou, Augustine, I can't get over things so, if you can. I t ' s a perfect abomination for you to defend such a system,    that's my mind ! " " W hat now ? " said St. Clare, looking up. hey?" " A t it again,

" I say i t ' s perfectly abominable for you to defend such a s ystem!" said Miss Ophelia, with increasing warmth. " / defend it, my dear lady? Who ever said I did defend i t ? " said St, Clare. " O f course, you defend i t ,     y ou all do,    a ll y ou Southerners. What do you have slaves for, if you d on't? " " A r e you such a sweet innocent as to suppose nobody i n this world ever does what they don't think is right? Don't you, or did n't you ever, do anything that you did not think quite right?"

  
L IFE A MONG T H E LOWLY.

y

" I f I do, I repent of it, I hope," said M iss Ophelia, r attling her needles w ith energy. " S o do I , " said St. Clare, peeling his orange; " I ' m repenting of it all the time." " What do you keep on doing it for ? " " D i d n ' t y ou ever keep on doing wrong, after you'd repented, my good c ousin?" " W e l l , only when I've been very much tempted," said M iss Ophelia. " W e l l , I ' m very much tempted," said St. C lare; " that's j ust my difficulty." " B ut I always resolve 1 won't, and I try to break off." " W e l l , I have been resolving I won't, off and on, these ten y ears," said St. C lare; " b u t I haven't, some how, got clear. H ave you got clear of a ll y our sins, cousin ? " " Cousin A ugustine," said M iss Ophelia, seriously, and l aying down her knitting-work, " I suppose I deserve that y ou should reprove my short-comings. I know all you say is true enough; nobody else feels them more than I d o; but it does seem to me, after all, there is some difference between me and you. It seems to me I would cut off my right hand sooner than keep on, from day to day, doing what I thought was wrong. But, then, my conduct is so inconsistent w ith m y profession, I don't wonder you reprove m e." " 0 , now, cousin," said Augustine, sitting down on the floor, and l aying his head back in her lap, " don't take on so awfully serious ! You know what a good-for-nothing, saucy boy I always was. I love to poke you up,    that's a l l ,     j ust to see you get earnest. I do think y ou are desperately, distressingly good; i t tires me to death to think of i t . "

  
10

U NCLE TOM'S CABIN: OB,

" B ut this is a serious subject, my boy, Auguste," said M iss Ophelia, laying her hand on his forehead. " D ismally so," said he; " and I w ell, I never want to talk seriously in hot weather. What w ith mosquitos and a ll, a fellow can't get himself up to any very sublime moral flights; and I believe," said St. Clare, suddenly rousing h imself up, "there's a theory, now! I understand now why northern nations are always more virtuous than southern ones,    I see into that whole subject." " 0 , Auguste, you are a sad r attle-brain! " " A m 1 1 W ell, so I am, I suppose; but for once I w ill be serious, now; but you must hand me that basket of oranges;     you see, you '11 have to ' stay me w ith flagons and comfort me w ith apples,' if I ' m going to make this effort. Now," said Augustine, drawing the basket up, " I '11 b egin: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a fellow to hold two or three dozen of his fellowworms in captivity, a decent regard to the opinions of society requires     " " I don't see that you are growing more serious," said M iss Ophelia. " W a i t ,     I ' m coming on,    y o u ' l l hear. The short of the matter is, cousin," said he, his handsome face suddenly settling into an earnest and serious expression, " on this abstract question of slavery there can, as I t hink, be but one opinion. Planters, who have money to make by i t ,     c lergymen, who have planters to please,    politicians, who want to rule by it,'   may warp and bend language and ethics to a degree that shall astonish the world at their ingenuity; they can press nature and the B ible, and nobody knows what else, into the service; but, after all, neither they nor the world believe in it one particle the more. It comes from the devil,

  
L IFE A MONG T H E LOWLY.

11

t hat's the short of i t ;     a n d , to my mind, i t ' s a pretty respectable specimen of what he can do in his own l ine." M iss Ophelia stopped her k nitting, and looked surprised; and S t. Clare, apparently enjoying her astonishment, went on. " Y ou seem to wonder ; but if you w ill get me f airly at it, I '11 make a clean breast of i t. T his cursed business, accursed of God and man, what is i t 1 S trip i t of all its ornament, r un i t down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is i t 1 W hy, because m y brother Quashy is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and strong,    because I know how, and can do i t ,     therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and give him only such and so much as suits my fancy. Whatever is too hard, too d irty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set Quashy to doing. Because I don't l ike work, Quashy s hall work. Because the sun burns me, Quashy s hall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the money, and I w ill spend it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk over dryshod. Quashy shall do my w ill, and not his, all the days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at last, as I find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery is. I defy anybody on earth to read our slave-code, as it stands in our law-books, and make anything else of it. T alk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse ! A n d the only reason why \ the land don't sink under it, l ike Sodom and Gomorrah, is because i t is used i n a way infinitely better than it is. For p ity's sake, for shame's sake, because we are men born of women, and not savage beasts, many of us do not, and dare not,   Ave would scorn to use the f ull power which our savage laws put into our hands. A n d he who goes the furthest, and does the worst, only uses w ithin l imits the power that the law gives him."

  
12

U NCLE TOM'S CABIN: OB,

S t. Clare had started up, and, as his manner was when excited, was walking, with hurried steps, up and down the floor. H is fine face, classic as that of a Greek statue, seemed actually to burn with the fervor of his feelings. His large blue eyes flashed, and he gestured with an unconscious eagerness. M iss Ophelia had never seen him in this mood before, and she sat perfectly silent. " I declare to you," said he, suddenly stopping before his cousin " ( i t ' s no sort of use to talk or to feel on this subject), but I declare to you, there have been times when I have thought, if the whole country would sink, and hide all this injustice and misery from the light, I would w illingly sink with i t. When I have been travelling up and down on our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every b rutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,    when I have seen such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and w omen,     I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the human race ! " " Augustine ! Augustine! " said M iss Ophelia, " I ' m sure y ou 've said enough. I never, in my life, heard anything like this, even at the N orth." " A t the N orth! " said St. C lare, w ith a sudden change of expression, and resuming something of his habitual careless tone. " Pooh! your northern folks are cold-blooded ; you are cool in everything! You can't begin to curse up h ill and clown as we can, when we get f airly at i t . " " W ell, but the question is," said M iss Ophelia. " 0 , yes, to be sure, the question is,    and a deuce of a question it i s ! How came you i n this state of sin and

  
L IFE AMONG T H E LOWLY.

13

m isery? W ell, I shall answer in the good old words you used to teach me, Sundays. I came so by ordinary generation. M y servants were my father's, and, what is more, my mother's ; and now they are mine, they and their increase, which bids fair to be a pretty considerable item. M y father, y ou know, came first from New E ngland; and he was just such another man as your father,    a regular old Roman,    upright, energetic, noble-minded, w ith an iron w ill. Y our father settled down in New E ngland, to rule over rocks and stones, and to force an existence out of Nature; and mine settled i n Louisiana, to rule over men and women, and force existence out of them. M y mother." said St. Clare, getting up and w alking to a picture at the end of the room, and gazing upward with a face fervent w ith veneration, "she was divine! D on't look at me s o !     y o u know what I mean ! She probably was of mortal b irth; but, as far as ever I could observe, there was no trace of any human weakness or error about her; and everybody that lives to remember her, whether bond or free, servant, acquaintance, relation, all say the same. Why, cousin, that mother has been all that has stood between me and utter unbelief for years. She was a direct embodiment and personification of the New Testament,     a l iving fact, to be accounted for, and to be accounted for i n no other way than by its t ruth. 0 , mother ! mother ! " said S t. Clare, clasping his hands, in a sort of transport; and then suddenly checking himself, he came back, and seating himself on an ottoman, he went on : " M y brother and I wore twins; and they say, you know, that twins ought to resemble each other; but we were in all points a contrast. He had black, fiery eyes, coal-black h air, a strong, fine Roman profile, and a r ich brown complexion. I had blue eyes, golden h air, a Greek outline, and fair c oinVOL. IT.

2

  
14

UNCLE TOM'3 CABIN; OR,

plexion. H e was active and observing, I dreamy and inactive. H e was generous to bis friends and equals, but proud, dominant, overbearing, to inferiors, and utterly unmerciful to whatever set itself up against him. T ruthful we both were ; he from pride and courage, I from a sort of abstract ideality. W e loved each other about as boys generally do,    off and on, and i n general;   he was my father's pet, and I my mother's. " There was a morbid sensitiveness and acuteness of feeling i n me on all possible subjects, of which he and my father had no hind of undei standing, and w ith w hich they could have no possible sympa by. But mother did ; and so, when I had quarrelled with A lfred, and father looked sternly on me, I used to go olF to mother's room, and sit by her. I remember just how sh e used to look, with her pale cheeks, her deep, soft, serious eyes, her white dress,    she always wore white; and I used to think of her whenever I read i n Revelations about the saints that were arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. She had a great deal of genius of one sort and another, particularly in music; and she used to sit at her organ, playing fine old majestic music of the Catholic church, and singing w ith a voice more l ike an angel than a mortal woman; and I would lay my head clown on her lap, and cry, and dream, and feel,   oh, immeasurably!     things that I had no language to say ! " I n those days, this matter of slavery had never been canvassed as it has now; nobody dreamed of any harm in it. " M y father was a born aristocrat. I t hink, i n some preexistent state, he must have been in the higher circles of spirits, and brought all his old court pride along w ith h im; for it was ingrain, bred in the bone, though he was originally of poor and not in any way of noble family. M y brother was begotten in his image.

  
L IFE A MONG T H E LOWLY.

15

" N o w , an aristocrat, you know, the world over, has no human sympathies, beyond a certain line in society. In E n g land the line is in one place, in Burmah in another, and in A merica i n another; but the aristocrat of all these countries never goes over i t. W hat would be hardship and distress and injustice i n his own class, is a cool matter of course in another one. M y father's dividing line was that of color. Among his equals, never was a man more just and generous; but he considered the negro, through all possible gradations of color, as an intermediate l ink between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of justice or generosity on thi3 hypothesis. I- suppose, to be sure, if anybody had asked h im. plump and fair, whether they had human immortal souls, he might have hemmed and hawed, and said yes. But my father was not a man much troubled w ith s piritualism; religious sentiment he had none, beyond a veneration for God, as decidedly the head of the upper classes. " W e l l , m y father worked some five hundred negroes ; he was an inflexible, d riving, punctilious business man; everything was to move b y system,    to be sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision. Now, if you take into account that a ll this was to be worked out by a. set of lazy, twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives, in the absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anything but ' shirk,' as you Vermonters say, and y o u ' l l see that there might n aturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that looked horrible and distressing to a sensitive c hild, l ike me. " Besides all, he had an overseer,    a great, t all, slabsided, two-fisted renegade son of Vermont   (begging your p ardon).    who had gone through a regular apprenticeship in hardness and brutality, and taken his degree to be admitted

  
16

U NCLE T Oll'S CABIN; OK,

to practice. M y mother never could endure him, nor I ; but he obtained an entire ascendency over my father ; and this man was the absolute despot of the estate. " I was a little fellow then, but I had the same love that I have now for all kinds of human things,    a k ind of passion for the study of humanity, come i n what shape it would. I was found in the cabins and among the field-hands a great deal, and. of course, was a great favorite; and all sorts of complaints and grievances were breathed in my ear; and I told them to mother, and we, between us, formed a sort of committee for a redress of grievances. We hindered and repressed a great deal of cruelty, and congratulated ourselves on doing a vast deal of good, t ill, as often happens, my zeal overacted. Stubbs complained to my father that he couldn't manage the hands, and must resign his position. Father was a fond, indulgent husband, but a man that never flinched from anything that he thought necessary; and so he put down his foot, l ike a rock, between us and the field-hands. H e told my mother, in language perfectly respectful and deferential, but quite explicit, that over the house-servants she should be entire mistress, but that w ith the field-hands he could allow no interference. He revered and respected her above a ll l iving beings ; but he would have said it all the same to the v irgin M ary herself, if she had come i n the way of his system. " . I used sometimes to hear my mother reasoning cases with h im,    endeavoring to excite his sympathies. He would listen to the most pathetic appeals with the most discouraging politeness and equanimity. ' It all resolves itself into this,' he would say; must I part with Stubbs, or keep him 1 Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, and efficiency,    a thorough business hand, and as humane as the general run.
1

  
L IFE A MONG T H E LOWLY.

17

W e can't have perfection; and if I keep him, I must sustain his administration as a whole, even i f there are, now and then, things that are exceptionable. A l l government includes some necessary hardness. General rules w ill bear hard on particular cases.' This last maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty. After he had said that, he commonly drew up his feet on the sofa, l ike a man that has disposed of a business, and betook himself to a nap, or the newspaper, as the case might be. The fact is, my father showed the exact sort of talent for a statesman. He could have divided Poland as easily as an orange, or trod on Ireland as quietly and systematically as any man l iving. A t last my mother gave u p, in despair. I t never w ill be known, t ill the last account, what noble and sensitive natures l ike hers have felt, cast, utterly helpless, into what seems to them an abyss of injustice and cruelty, and which seems so to nobody about them. It has been an age of long sorrow of such natures, in such a hell-begotten sort of world as ours. What remained for her, but to t rain her children in her own views and sentiments ? W ell, after a ll y ou say about t raining, children w ill grow up substantially what they are b y nature, and only that. From the cradle, A lfred was an aristocrat; and as he grew up, instinctively, a ll his sympathies and all his reasonings were in that line, and a ll mother's exhortations went to the winds. A s to me, they sunk deep into me. She never contradicted, in form, anything that my father said, or seemed directly to differ from h im; but she impressed, burnt into my very soul, w ith a ll the force of her deep, earnest nature, an idea of the dignity and worth of the meanest human soul. I have looked in her face with solemn awe, when she would point up to the stars i n the evening, and say to me, ' See there, Auguste !

  
ft

U NCLE T OJl'S C ABIN; OR,

the poorest, meanest soul on our place w ill be l iving, when a ll these stars are gone forever,    w ill l ive as long as God l ives!'     " She had some fine old paintings; one, in particular, of Jesus healing a blind man. They were very fine, and used to impress me strongly. ' See there, Auguste, she would say; 'the blind man was a beggar, poor and loathsome ; therefore, he would not heal him afar off! H e called him to h im, and put his hands on him! Eemember this, my boy.' I f I had lived to grow up under her care, she might have stimulated me to I know not what of enthusiasm. I might have been a saint, reformer, m artyr,    but, alas! alas! I went from her when I was only thirteen, and I never saw her again ! " S t. Clare rested his head on his hands, and did not speak for some minutes. After a while, he looked up, and went on: " W h a t poor, mean trash tins whole business of human virtue is ! A mere matter, for the most part, of latitude and longitude, and geographical position, acting w ith natural temperament. The greater part is nothing but an accident! Y our father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a town where all are, in fact, free and equal; becomes a regular church member and deacon, and in due time joins an A bolition society, and thinks us all l ittle better than heathens. Y et ho is, for all the world, in constitution and habit, a duplicate of my father. I can see it leaking out in fifty different ways,   just that same strong, overbearing, dominant spirit. Y ou know very well how impossible it is to persuade some of the folks in your village that Squire S inclair does not feel above them. The fact is, though he has fallen on democratic times, and embraced a democratic theory, he is to

  
L IFE A MONG T H E LOWLY.

19

the heart an aristocrat, as much as my father, who ruled over five or six hundred slaves." M iss Ophelia felt rather disposed to c avil at this picture, and was laying down her k nitting to begin, but St. Clare stopped her. " N ow, I know every word you are going to say. I do not say they were a like, i n fact. One f ell into a condition where everything acted against the natural tendency, and the other where everything acted for i t ; and so one turned out a pretty w ilful, stout, overbearing old democrat, and the other a w ilful, stout old despot. I f both had owned plantations in Louisiana, they would have been as l ike as two old bullets cast in the same mould." " W h a t an undutiful boy you are ! " said M iss Ophelia. " I don't mean them any disrespect," said St. Clare. " Y o u know reverence is not my forte. But, to go back to my history : " W hen father died, he left the whole property to us t win boys, to be divided as we should agree. There does not breathe on God's earth a nobler-souled, more generous fellow, than A lfred, i n all that concerns his equals; and we got on admirably w ith this property question, without a single unbrotherly word or feeling. We undertook to work the plantation together; and A lfred, whose outward life and capabilities had double the strength of mine, became an enthusiastic planter, and a wonderfully successful one. " B ut two years' t rial satisfied me that I could not be a partner i n that matter. To have a great gang of seven hundred, whom I could not know personally, or feel any individual interest in, bought and driven, housed, fed, worked l ike so many horned cattle, strained up to m ilitary precision,     the question of how little of life's commonest enjoyments

  
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U NCLE T Oll'S CABIN : OR,

would keep them in working order being a constantly recurring problem,    the necessity of drivers and overseers,   the ever-necessary whip, first, last, and only argument,    the whole thing was insufferably disgusting and loathsome to me; and when I thought of my mother's estimate of one poor human soul, it became even f rightful! " I t ' s all nonsense to talk to me about slaves enjoying a ll this ! To this day, I have no patience w ith the unutterable trash that some of your patronizing Northerners have made up, as in their zeal to apologize for our sins. We all know better. T ell me that any man l iving wants to work all his days, from day-dawn t ill dark, under the constant eye of a master, without the power of putting forth one irresponsible volition, on the same dreary, monotonous, unchanging *toil, and a ll for two pairs of pantaloons and a pair of shoes a year, with enough food and shelter to keep him in working orjder ! A ny man who thinks that human beings can, as ^3neral thing, be made about as comfortable that way as any other, I i wish he might try it. I ' d buy the dog, and work him, w ith a clear conscience! " " I always have supposed," said M iss Ophelia, " that you, a ll of you, approved of these things, and thought them right,     according to Scripture." " H umbug! We are not quite reduced to that yet. A lfred, who is as determined a despot as ever walked, does not pretend to this k ind of defence;     no, he stands, high and haughty, on that good old respectable ground, the right of the strongest; and he says, and I think quite sensibly, that \ the American planter is ' only doing, in another form, what the E nglish aristocracy and capitalists are doing by the lower classes;' that is, I take it, appropriating them, body and bone, soul and spirit, to their use and convenience. He

  
L IFE A MONG T H E LOWLY.

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defends b oth,    and I think, at least, consistently. H e says that there can be no high civilization without enslavement of the masses, either nominal or real. There must, he says, be a lower class, given up to physical toil and confined to an animal nature; and a higher one thereby acquires leisure and wealth for a more expanded intelligence and improvement, and becomes the directing soul of the lower. So he reasons, because, as I said, he is born an aristocrat;    so I don't believe, because I was born a democrat." " H o w in the world can the two things be compared?" said M iss Ophelia. " The E nglish laborer is not sold, traded, parted from his family, whipped." " H e is as much at the w ill of his employer as if he were sold to him. The slave-owner can whip his refractory slave to death,    the capitalist. can starve him to death. A s to family security, it is hard to say which is the worst,    to h ave-file's children sold, or see them starve to death at home." " B ut i t ' s no k ind of apology for slavery, to prove that it i sn't worse than some other bad thing." " I d idn't give it for one,    nay, I ' l l say, besides, that ours is the more bold and palpable infringement of human r ights; actually buying a man up, l ike a horse,    looking at his teeth, cracking his joints, and t rying his paces, and then paying down for h im,    having speculators, breeders,- traders, and brokers in human bodies and souls,   sets the thing before the eyes of the civilized world in a more tangible form, though the thing done be, after a ll, i n its nature, the same; that is, appropriating one set of human beings to the use and improvement of another, without any regard to their own." " I never thought of the matter in this light," said M iss Ophelia.

  
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UNCLE TOM'S CABIN: OK,

" W ell, I 've travelled in England some, and I 've looked over a good many documents as to the state of their lower classes; and I really think there is no denying A lfred, when he says that his slaves are better off than a large class of the population of England. You see, you must not infer, from what I have told you, that Alfred is what is called a hard master; for he isn't. He is despotic, and unmerciful to insubordination; he would shoot a fellow down w ith as l ittle remorse as he would shoot a buck, if he opposed h im. But, i n general, he takes a sort of pride in having his slaves comfortably fed and accommodated. " When I was with h im, I insisted that he should do something for their instruction; and, to please me, he did get a chaplain, and used to have them catechized Sunday, though,