he market with horses
and pigs. If they make any objection to this arrangement, we will
break them into subjection with the cow-hide and the bucking-paddle.
They shall not be permitted to read or write, because that would be
likely to 'produce dissatisfaction in their minds.' If they attempt
to run away from us, our blood-hounds shall tear the flesh from
their bones, and any man who sees them may shoot them down like mad
dogs. If they succeed in getting beyond our frontier, into States
where it is the custom to pay men for their work, and to protect
their wives and children from outrage, we will compel the people of
those States to drive them back into the jaws of our blood-hounds."

And what do the people of the other eighteen States of that
enlightened country answer to this monstrous demand? What says
Massachusetts, with the free blood of the Puritans coursing in her
veins, and with the sword uplifted in her right hand, to procure
"peaceful repose under liberty"? Massachusetts answers: "O yes. We
will be your blood-hounds, and pay our own expenses. Only prove to
our satisfaction that the stranger who has taken refuge among us is
one of the men you have agreed among yourselves to whip into working
without wages, and we will hunt him back for you. Only prove to us
that this woman, who has run away from your harem, was bought for a
concubine, that you might get more drinking-money by the sale of the
children she bears you, and our soldiers will hunt her back with
alacrity."

Shame on my native State! Everlasting shame! Blot out the escutcheon
of the brave old Commonwealth! Instead of the sword uplifted to
protect liberty, let the slave-driver's whip be suspended over a
blood-hound, and take for your motto, Obedience to tyrants is the
highest law.

Legislators of Massachusetts, can it be that you really understand
what Slavery _is_, and yet consent that a fugitive slave, who seeks
protection here, shall be driven back to that dismal house of
bondage? For sweet charity's sake, I must suppose that you have been
too busy with your farms and your merchandise ever to have imagined
yourself in the situation of a slave. Let me suppose a case for you;
one of a class of cases occurring by hundreds every year. Suppose
your father was Governor of Carolina and your mother was a slave.
The Governor's wife hates your mother, and is ingenious in inventing
occasions to have you whipped. _You_ don't know the reason why,
poor child!