ddressing Mr. Perkins.
"A woman could be picked up and whipped, at the report of any body, on the
naked body. Why, sir, if we had such laws here, it would be whipping all
the time, (provided so infamous a law could be carried into execution.)
There is one thing certain, you made the most of slavery while you had it."

"But we have repented of all our misdeeds," said Mr. Perkins,
good-humouredly.

"Yes," said Mr. Chapman, "like the boy that stole a penny, and when he
found it wouldn't buy the jack-knife he wanted, he repented, and carried it
to the owner."

"But you must remember the times, my dear sir," said Mr. Perkins.

"I do, I do, sir," said Mr. Chapman. "The very time that you had come for
freedom yourself, you kidnapped the noble sons of the soil, and made
menials of them. I wonder the ground did not cry out against you. Now we
have been left with the curse of slavery upon us, (for it is in some
respects a curse on the negro and the white man,) and God may see fit to
remove it from us. But why don't the Abolitionists buy our slaves, and send
them to Liberia?"

"That would be against their principles," said Mr. Perkins.

"Excuse me, sir," said Mr. Chapman, "but d----n their principles; it is
against their pockets. Why don't those who write Abolition books, give the
profits to purchase some of these poor wretches who are whipped to death,
and starved to death, and given to the flies to eat up, and burned alive;
then I would believe in their principles, or at least in their sincerity.
But now the fear is for their pockets. I am a poor man. I own a few slaves,
and I will sell them to any Northern man or woman at half-price for what I
could get from a trader, and they may send them to Liberia. Lord! sir,
they'd as soon think of buying the d----l himself. You must excuse my
strong language, but this subject irritates me. Not long ago, I was in the
upper part of the State of New York, looking about me, for I do look about
me wherever I am. One morning I got up early, and walked toward the new
railroad that they were constructing in the neighborhood. I chanced to get
to the spot just in time to see a little fracas between a stout, burly
Irishman, and the superintendent of the party.

"'I thought, be Jasus,' said the Irishman, just as I approached near enough
to hear what was going on, 'that a man could see himself righted in a free
country.'

"'Go to your work,' said the superintendent, and if you say another word