|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
 |
||||
|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
|
|
||||
|
“Mr. Wilson, I know all this,” said George. “I do run a risk, but-” he threw open his overcoat, and showed two pistols and a bowie-knife. “There!” he said, “I’m ready for ‘em! Down south I never will go. No! if it comes to that, I can earn myself at least six feet of free soil,- the first and last I shall ever own in Ken- tucky!” “Why, George, this state of mind is awful; it’s getting really desperate, George. I’m concerned. Going to break the laws of your country!” “My country again! Mr. Wilson, you have a country; but what country have I, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are there for us? We don’t make them,- we don’t consent to them,- we have nothing to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us down. Haven’t I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don’t you tell us all, once a year, that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed? Can’t a fellow think, that hears such things? Can’t he put this and that together, and see what it comes to?” Mr. Wilson’s mind was one of those that may not unaptly be represented by a bale of cotton,- downy, soft, benevolently fuzzy and confused. He really pitied George with all his heart, and had a sort of dim and cloudy perception of the style of feeling that agitated him; but he deemed it his duty to go on talking good to him with infinite pertinacity. “George, this is bad. I must tell you, you know, as a friend, you’d better not be meddling with such notions; they are bad, George, very bad, for boys in your |
