“‘Well,’ says ‘Lecta, ‘I wouldn’t strike another stroke to day.’ And then to be undiscovered, she goes up to a neighbor’s and stays there all day. So at night I goes home, and does my chores the best way I could. So I carries in a handful of wood, and master says, ‘how much wood you cut, nigger?’ ‘I don’t know, Sir.’ ‘One load?’ ‘I don’t know, Sir.’ ‘How many trees you cut down!’ ‘One, Sir.’ ‘You cut it up?’ ‘No, Sir.’ ‘Well, tell me how much you have cut, dam quick, tu.’ ‘One log off, Sir.’ At that he catches up his cane, and throws on his great coat, and fetches a heavy oath, and starts off for the woods. I sets down in the corner, with a dreadful ticklin’ round my heart; and the children kept a lookin’ out of the winder, to see him comin’, and in he comes, _frothy_, he was so mad. Mistress says to him, ‘possup,’ which means, ‘stop,’ I ‘spose, and then he went into the other room to supper.
Finally, I crawls into my nest of rags, and I laid on my face all night, I couldn’t lay any other way; and next mornin’ after tryin’ several times, I made out to git up and go down, and do my chores.
“Arter breakfast, Mr. Abers, his brother-in-law, come down, and says he, ‘Gideon, what’s your notion in torturin’ this boy, so? If you want to kill him, why not take an axe and put him out of his misery?’ Master says, ‘is it any of your business?’ ‘Yis, Sir, ’tis my business, and the business of every human bein’ not to see you torture that boy so. You know he’s faithful, and every body knows it, and a smarter boy you can’t find any where of his age.[9] Master then colours up, with wrath, and says, ‘you or any body else, help yourself! I’ll do with my nigger as I please—he’s my property, ☜ and I have a right to use my own property, as I please. You lie, that it’s any of your business to _interfere_ with my concerns.’[10]
Here is Abolition, and its opposition in a nut-shell. Abolitionists, are those who claim that if a fellow-man is suffering, it is the _business_ of his brother to help him, if possible, and in the best way he can. Accordingly, we lift up our voice against the abominations that are done in this land of _chains, and whips, and heathenism, and slaves_! Who are our opposers, and revilers, and enemies? They are men who _don’t believe it to be their business_, to interfere with the rights of the slave breeder, and slave buyer, and slaveholder, of the United States. Their creed will let them stand by and look at a brother bleeding, and groaning, and dying under a worse than high-way robbery, and yet ’twill bind their arms if they would extend a helping hand—’twill stop their mouths if they wish to plead for the dumb. Oh! my soul! who that respects the claims of humanity, ain’t ashamed to disgrace man so? What philanthropist who wants to see all men rise high in virtue, and happiness, ain’t ashamed to hold one set of principles for _men_ in _freedom_, and another for _men in chains_. What christian don’t blush, to urge as an excuse for chilling and freezing his sympathies for the slave, “the legislation of the country forbids me to help a brother in distress.”