worthy of homage, and that their
assumption of the titles of, 'Flower of Kindness,' and 'Nutmeg of
Consolation,' is conclusive evidence that they deserve such
appellations!

Was there ever a more ridiculous doctrine, than that a man's opinion
of his own actions is the true standard for measuring them, and the
certificate of their real qualities!--that his own estimate of his
treatment of others; is to be taken as the true one, and such
treatment be set down as _good_ treatment upon the strength of his
judgment. He who argues the good treatment of the slave, from the
slaveholder's _good opinion_ of such treatment, not only argues
against human nature and all history, his own common sense, and even
the testimony of his senses, but refutes his own arguments by his
daily practice. Every body acts on the presumption that men's feelings
will vary with their _practices_; that the light in which they view
individuals and classes, and their feelings towards them, will modify
their opinions of the treatment which they receive. In any case of
treatment that affects himself, his church, or his political party, no
man so stultifies himself as to argue that such treatment must be
good, because the _author_ of it thinks so.

Who would argue that the American Colonies were well treated by the
mother country, because parliament thought so? Or that Poland was well
treated by Russia, because Nicholas thought so? Or that the treatment
of the Cherokees by Georgia is proved good by Georgia notions of it?
Or that of the Greeks by the Turks, by Turkish opinions of it? Or that
of the Jews by almost all nations, by the judgment of their
persecutors? Or that of the victims of the Inquisition, by the
opinions of the Inquisitor general, or of the Pope and his cardinals?
Or that of the Quakers and Baptists, at the hands of the Puritans,--to
be judged of by the opinions of the legislatures that authorized, and
the courts that carried it into effect. All those classes of persons
did not, in their own opinion, abuse their victims. If charged with
perpetrating outrageous cruelty upon them, all those oppressors would
have repelled the charge with indignation.

Our slaveholders chime lustily the same song, and no man with human
nature within him, and human history before him, and with sense enough
to keep him out of the fire, will be gulled by such professions,
unless his itch to be humbugged has put on the type of a downright
chronic incurable. We r