public sentiment of slavery exerts even over the best-constituted minds.
Neither Mr. Jones nor any other Christian minister would feel it right that the eternal happiness of their own children should be thus placed in the power of any man who should have money to pay for them. How, then, can they think it right that this power be given in the case of their African brother?
Does this not show that, even in case of the most humane and Christian people, who theoretically believe in the equality of all souls before God, a constant familiarity with slavery works a practical infidelity on this point; and that they give their assent to laws which practically declare that the salvation of the servant's soul is of less consequence than the salvation of the property relation?
Let us not be thought invidious or uncharitable in saying, that where slavery exists there are so many causes necessarily uniting to corrupt public sentiment with regard to the slave, that the best-constituted minds cannot trust themselves in it. In the northern and free states public sentiment has been, and is, to this day, fatally infected by the influence of a past and the proximity of a present system of slavery. Hence the injustice with which the negro in many of our states is treated. Hence, too, those apologies for slavery, and defences of it, which issue from Northern presses, and even Northern pulpits. If even at the North the remains of slavery can produce such baleful effects in corrupting public sentiment, how much more must this be the case where this institution is in full force!
The whole American nation is, in some sense, under a paralysis of public sentiment on this subject. It was said by a heathen writer that the gods gave us a fearful power when they gave us the faculty of becoming accustomed to things. This power has proved a fearful one indeed in America. We have got used to things which might stir the dead in their graves.
When but a small portion of the things daily done in America has been told in England, and France, and Italy, and Germany, there has been a perfect shriek and outcry of horror. America alone remains cool, and asks, "What is the matter?"
Europe answers back, "Why, we have heard that men are sold like cattle in your country."
"Of course they are," says America; "but what then?"
"We have heard," says Europe, "that millions of men are forbidden to read and write in your country."
"We know that," says America; "but what is this outcry about?"
"We have heard," says Europe, "that Christian girls are sold to shame in your markets!"
"That isn't quite as it should be," says America; "but still what is this excitement about?"
"We hear that three millions of your people can have no legal marriage ties," says Europe.
"Certainly that is true," returns America; "but you made such an outcry, we thought you saw some great cruelty going on."
"And you profess to be a free country!" says indignant Europe.
"Certainly we are the freest and most enlightened country in the world,—what are you talking about?" says America.
"You send your missionaries to Christianize us," says Turkey; "and our religion has abolished this horrible system."
"You! you are all heathen over there,—what business have you to talk?" answers America.
Many people seem really to have thought that nothing but horrible exaggerations of the system of slavery could have produced the sensation which has recently been felt in all modern Europe. They do not know that the thing they have become accustomed to, and handled so freely in every discussion, seems to all other nations the sum and essence of villany. Modern Europe, opening her eyes and looking on the legal theory of the slave system, on the laws and interpretations of law which define it, says to America, in the language of the indignant Othello, If thou wilt justify a thing like this,
"Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
On Horror's head horrors accumulate;
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;
For nothing canst thou to damnation add
Greater than this."
There is an awful state of familiarity with evil which the apostle calls being "dead in trespasses and sins," where truth has been resisted, and evil perseveringly defended, and the convictions of conscience stifled, and the voice of God's Holy Spirit bidden to depart. There is an awful paralysis of the moral sense, when deeds unholiest and crimes most fearful cease any longer to affect the nerve. That paralysis, always a fearful
