Chapter: Slaveholders pride themselves upon being honorable men; but if you were to
hear the enormous lies they tell their slaves, you would have small respect
for their veracity. I have spoken plain English. Pardon me. I cannot use a
milder term. When they visit the north, and return home, they tell their
slaves of the runaways they have seen, and describe them to be in the most
deplorable condition. A slaveholder once told me that he had seen a runaway
friend of mine in New York, and that she besought him to take her back to
her master, for she was literally dying of starvation; that many days she
had only one cold potato to eat, and at other times could get nothing at
all. He said he refused to take her, because he knew her master would not
thank him for bringing such a miserable wretch to his house. He ended by
saying to me, "This is the punishment she brought on herself for running
away from a kind master."

This whole story was false. I afterwards staid with that friend in New
York, and found her in comfortable circumstances. She had never thought of
such a thing as wishing to go back to slavery. Many of the slaves believe
such stories, and think it is not worth while to exchange slavery for such
a hard kind of freedom. It is difficult to persuade such that freedom could
make them useful men, and enable them to protect their wives and children.
If those heathen in our Christian land had as much teaching as some
Hindoos, they would think otherwise. They would know that liberty is more
valuable than life. They would begin to understand their own capabilities,
and exert themselves to become men and women.

But while the Free States sustain a law which hurls fugitives back into
slavery, how can the slaves resolve to become men? There are some who
strive to protect wives and daughters from the insults of their masters;
but those who have such sentiments have had advantages above the general
mass of slaves. They have been partially civilized and Christianized by
favorable circumstances. Some are bold enough to _utter_ such sentiments to
their masters. O, that there were more of them!

Some poor creatures have been so brutalized by the lash that they will
sneak out of the way to give their masters free access to their wives and
daughters. Do you think this proves the black man to belong to an inferior
order of beings? What would _you_ be, if you had been born and brought up a
slave, with generations of slaves for ancestors? I admit that the black man
_is_ inferior. But what is it that makes him so? It is the ignorance in
which white men compel him to live; it is the torturing whip that lashes
manhood out of him; it is the fierce bloodhounds of the South, and the
scarcely less cruel human bloodhounds of the north, who enforce the
Fugitive Slave Law. _They_ do the work.

Southern gentlemen indulge in the most contemptuous expressions about the
Yankees, while they, on their part, consent to do the vilest work for them,
such as the ferocious bloodhounds and the despised negro-hunters are
employed to do at home. When southerners go to the north, they are proud to
do them honor; but the northern man is not welcome south of Mason and
Dixon's line, unless he suppresses every thought and feeling at variance
with their "peculiar institution." Nor is it enough to be silent. The
masters are not pleased, unless they obtain a greater degree of
subservience than that; and they are generally accommodated. Do they
respect the northerner for this? I trow not. Even the slaves despise "a
northern man with southern principles;" and that is the class they
generally see. When northerners go to the south to reside, they prove very
apt scholars. They soon imbibe the sentiments and disposition of their
neighbors, and generally go beyond their teachers. Of the two, they are
proverbially the hardest masters.

They seem to satisfy their consciences with the doctrine that God created
the Africans to be slaves. What a libel upon the heavenly Father, who "made
of one blood all nations of men!" And then who _are_ Africans? Who can
measure the amount of Anglo-Saxon blood coursing in the veins of American
slaves?

I have spoken of the pains slaveholders take to give their slaves a bad
opinion of the north; but, notwithstanding this, intelligent slaves are
aware that they have many friends in the Free States. Even the most
ignorant have some confused notions about it. They knew that I could read;
and I was often asked if I had seen any thing in the newspapers about white
folks over in the big north, who were trying to get their freedom for them.
Some believe that the abolitionists have already made them free, and that
it is established by law, but that their masters prevent the law from going
into effect. One woman begged me to get a newspaper and read it over. She
said her husband told her that the black people had sent word to the queen
of 'Merica that they were all slaves; that she didn't believe it, and went
to Washington city to see the president about it. They quarrelled; she drew
her sword upon him, and swore that he should help her to make them all
free.

That poor, ignorant woman thought that America was governed by a Queen, to
whom the President was subordinate. I wish the President was subordinate to
Queen Justice.

 So, you might be wondering why more slaves don't run away to the North, considering how crummy the South is. Lies, lies, and more lies. Slave owners lie to their slaves about how bad life is up North. Like, a slaveholder once told Linda that he saw one of her runaway friends up North, and she was literally dying of starvation. Gee, that's weird. Because Linda has actually stayed with that friend, who's totally happy with her new free life. Of course, now there's the Fugitive Slave Law, which makes it illegal for Northerners to help runaway slaves and offers rewards for their capture and return. So, Northerners, don't injure yourself by patting your own backs, there. As long as the North enforces this law, it's also guilty of slavery.

