ghter would be asked, by way of application to his
moving discourse, if she would like some of them to come some time and
share her home and food.

Thus continually to that rising family there was unfolded the horror of
the slavery system. That horror had faded in the minds of many in the
Northern States whose ancestry had held freedom dear; while in the
Southern States, for the most part, the possession of your fellow
creatures as if they were so much farm stock had become too familiar a
feature of common life to evoke any conscientious misgiving, much less
shame. The enormous additions to the cotton trade had made slave
labour increasingly gainful, and the capital invested in this living
property was immense. Careful rearing of slaves for the market as well
as their purchase brought wealth to many, and fierce was the resentment
when any one publicly criticized the institution. There was by no means
an absence of humane regard far the wellbeing of the negroes; a kind of
patriarchal tenderness towards them was distinctly 'good form.' But
there was the deadly fact that they were human goods and chattels, with
no civil rights worth mentioning--for laws in their defence were
practically worthless, seeing they could not appear as witnesses in the
court. Public whipping-houses were provided for the expeditious
correction of the refractory, and a mere suspicion of intent to escape
was legal justification for the use of the branding-irons upon their
flesh. If they did contrive to escape there were dogs bred on purpose
to hunt them down. If the slave resisted his master's will he might be
slain, and the law would not graze the master's head. Domestic
security he had none, for wife might be wrenched from husband or child
from mother according to the state of the market. And, strangest of
all to our ears, the pulpits of the South extolled slavery as appointed
of Heaven, and solemnly quoting the prophecy that Ham should be the
servant of his brethren, the pulpiteer would ask who would dare to
resist the will of God Most High? Not content to hold their views
tenaciously, the slave-holders and their followers dealt out
threatenings and slaughter to all who by lip or pen opposed them. The
household of Brown pondered all this invasion of the great natural
right of freedom, and with one accord pined for the opportunity of
checking, or, it might be, ending it.

It is on record how they were taught to repeat their father's vo