rs when the bride
departs, identified with the history of the family, provided for in the
will, a support guaranteed to her by law in sickness and old age, and
that, too, not in a pauper establishment, but in her owner's home, and
when the parents die, if she survives, taken by some branch of the
family or neighbor from regard to her and to them; her moral and
religious character improved under their training, a respectable
standing in society conferred upon her by her connection with them, her
religious privileges sacredly secured to her, any insult redressed as
though it were the family's personal affair; she a partaker of their
food and of all their comforts, and followed to her grave with respect
and love; or, for the sake of 'priceless liberty,' 'heaven's best gift
to man,' would you prefer to see her seated under the iron fence of a
park, an old umbrella tied to the pickets for her shelter, and she, in
rain and sunshine, selling 'Old Dan Tucker,' 'Jim Crow, Illustrated,'
and pea-nuts, and sleeping you know not where? Which lot would you
choose for a child? Which is best for this world and the next? In one
case, she is 'owned,' she is 'a slave;' and in the other, she is a free
woman."

"You have no right," said he, with some warmth, "to take the best
condition in slavery, and the very worst in freedom, and compel me to
choose."

"'Best condition in slavery!'" said I; "is there any 'best' in being a
slave, in not being free? Does it admit of degrees? Is not being 'owned'
such a curse, such an unmixed iniquity in its essence, that to compare
its best estate with the worst in freedom, is like comparing the best
devil with the most inferior saint? Is not a devil's nature incapable of
comparison as good, better, best, with anything which is not, in its
nature, devilish? According to your conversation just now, it seemed as
though being 'owned' always implied an unmitigated transgression; and
now when I inquire whether you would prefer degradation to the iniquity
of being 'owned' in comfort and usefulness, respectability and
happiness, you shrink from the question. If freedom in the abstract is
the best thing under the sun, of course you will prefer it to everything
else. No happy condition, no happy prospect for this life, and the life
to come can, in your view, make being 'a slave,' as you call it, capable
of being compared with this abstract privilege of being free. In this
you and your friends labor under a huge mi