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Freedom's Sunny Plains, and having once drunk of its celestial "stream whereof maketh glad the city of our God;" afterward reduce this man to Slavery, it is next to an impossibility to retain him in Slavery.
Slavery! That single word, what volumes does it speak! It speaks of chains, of whips and tortures, compulsive labour, hunger and fatigue, and all the miseries our frail bodies can suffer. It speaks of haughty power and insolent comments, of insatiate avarice, of pampered pride and purse-proud luxury, and of the cold indifference and scornful unconcern with which the oppressor looks down upon his victims. It speaks of crouching fear, though John Mason had none, because he was a superior man, above the level of his race. It speaks of low, mean cunning, and treacherous revenge, which it entails upon its vassals. It speaks of humanity outraged and manhood degraded. The social charities of life, the sacred ties of father, wife, and child trampled under foot; aspirations crushed, hope extinguished, and the light of knowledge sacrilegiously put out. It speaks of man deprived of all that makes him amiable or noble,—stripped of his soul, and sunk into a beast. There it leaves him, in the prison-house of ignorance, a ghost-like form. To this fate their children are born. May heaven have mercy on them, for man has none.
