Many slaveholders were otherwise good people, and their slaves were well treated. Ministers of the gospel and church-members held slaves. Some of the author's maternal relatives were slaveholders. He remembers, when a small boy, during "cruel slavery days," hearing his grandfather relate a conversation he had with a slave while on a late visit to his slaveholding brothers in Kentucky. The slave, a young man, was entering some complaint against slavery. Grandfather asked him, "Is your master kind to you?" "Yes, sir," answered the slave. "Do you have plenty to eat and wear?" "Oh, yes, sir." "Then why are you not satisfied?" "Oh, Mr. Todd, freedom, freedom."
I have a letter, dated June 2, 1861, written to my grandfather by one of his Kentucky brothers. I remember seeing this great uncle in 1865, when he was visiting in Indiana. He had administered on a brother's estate. The letter contains the following: "You wrote to know what I had done with the negroes. I sold them last March, one year ago. William Hocker bought Dicey and her youngest boy for $1,100. Franklin Todd, the son of brother Peter, bought the oldest boy for $700. I bought the second boy, the one born when you were here, for $535." My great-uncle says, in the same letter, that, on account of governmental affairs, "property" is not bringing its full value.
The people of the North were generally opposed to slavery, and great bitterness of feeling was engendered between the Northern and Southern States. Among the great leaders in the anti-slavery movement were William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips, John G. Whittier, Joshua R. Giddings, William H. Seward, and Charles Sumner. The institution of slavery had become a great power, and had interwoven itself into the social, moral, religious, and political fabrics of the country.
Whenever a territory sought admission into the Union as a State, a great controversy arose as to whether it should be admitted as a free or a slave State. The halls of Congress resounded with the eloquence of great statesmen on both sides of the question, because "there were giants in those days." A good portion of the time of Congress was taken in discussing some phase of the slavery question. Bad temper was often exhibited, and great interests were at stake. On some occasions Henry Clay would propose a compromise, which being accepted, would have a tendency to lull the storm which, sooner or later, was to burst forth in all its fury. Anti-slavery, abolition, and various organizations were formed.