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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless and unprotected. Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indul- gence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal in- stitution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow-the shadow of law. So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to a master,- so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kind- est owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and in- dulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil,- so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery. Mr. Shelby was a fair average kind of man, good-natured and kindly, and dis- posed to easy indulgence of those around him, and there had never been a lack of anything which might contribute to the physical comfort of the negroes on his es- tate. He had, however, speculated largely and quite loosely; had involved himself deeply, and his notes to a large amount had come into the hands of Haley, and this small piece of information is the key to the preceding conversation. Now, it had so happened that, in approaching the door, Eliza had caught enough of the conversation to know that a trader was making offers to her master for somebody. |
