with an owner and be a horse, in a
stable, and at work, than a horse roaming in search of food, chased away
everywhere. The comparison is between horse and horse, and man and man."

"You make me think," said Mrs. North, "of an interesting passage in a
late magazine, written by a lady. She was on a voyage to Cuba. She
arrived at Nassau. She says, 'There were many negroes, together with
whites of every grade; and some of our number, leaning over the side,
saw for the first time the raw material out of which Northern
Humanitarians have spun so fine a skein of compassion and sympathy. You
must allow me one heretical whisper,--very small and low. Nassau, and
all we saw of it, suggested to us the unwelcome question whether
compulsory labor be not better than none.'"[3]

[Footnote 3: _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1859, p. 604.]

"There is," said I, "this great question of right, with some, as to
slavery: As the State has a right to interpose and send vagrant children
to school, has the world a right to interpose, in certain cases, and
send certain races to labor for the good of mankind? This was the
question which broke upon the lady's mind. It is very interesting to see
the question thus stated, and to notice the graceful touch of apology,
and of playfulness, in the manner of stating it. There was risk, and
even peril, in making the suggestion, but, withal, some moral courage.
Still a lady may sometimes venture where it might not be safe for a
gentleman to go.

"But the question between us is not, 'Freedom or slavery,' in the
abstract, nor, Whether it is right, in any case, to reduce a people to
slavery; but, What is best for our slaves? All your proofs that freedom
is better than slavery in the abstract, are nothing to the point."

"It is the foulest blot on our nation in the eyes of the world," said
Mr. North, "that we have four millions of human beings in bondage."

"Have you read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin?'" I inquired.

"Ask me," said he, pleasantly, "if I know how to read. Every lover of
liberty and hater of oppression has read 'Uncle Tom.'"

"That is very far from being true," said I; "but still, you like Uncle
Tom as a character, do you?"

"You astonish me," said he, "by making a question about it. He is the
most perfect specimen of Christianity that I ever heard of."

"Among the martyrs," said I, "have you ever found his superior?"

"No, Sir!" was his energetic answer.

"Now," said I, "what made Uncle Tom the pa