“From these bright anticipations they have been ruthlessly snatched, and plunged into freedom utterly unprepared! Are there no tears in Castle Garden? Ought not the Union Committee to spend something for a trifle of crape? Eight innocent fellow-chattels changed into fellow-_beings_! No kind master have they now. The tender relation is sundered. Our bereaved master and mistress must depart slaveless and alone. Having been worked for so long, and tended and taken care of, it is doubtful whether they will be able to take care of themselves now. Much as we sympathize with them, we do not consider their affliction at all comparable to that of the late happy slaves. These poor creatures are free, and we are assured in the highest quarter that no greater evil than that can well befall the slave population. They have degraded themselves. They have refused to be ‘_content_ rather.’ In all the world they cannot find a man who _owns_ them. They are now to sneak through life, like white men, owning themselves! They must have had some awful moments of compunction when the conviction first flashed upon them that they owned their own hands, trod upon their own feet, put their clothes upon their own shoulders, and felt that thing throbbing under their ribs to be their own heart. Some natural feelings must have shot through the maternal heart as she pressed her own babe to her own breast, and dropped her own tears upon its dusky cheek.... “Only one woman can be found faithful in this emergency. Their former mistress alone has appealed to their conscience and adjured them to return to her! Where were the teachers, the chaplains, the casuists, the lawyers, that a little time ago choked the press with beatitudes of slavery? ‘His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs; they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.’ “In reply to Mrs. Lemmon’s appeal the deluded slave-woman drew herself up, and, pressing her child to her breast, said, ‘_I had rather be free!_’ What! not value the radiant mercies of slavery more than that? The creature is crazy! Slaves in their senses are always contented. They are mere pets. The Uncle Toms of Virginia do nothing but look after the children, or sit in sunny nooks and smoke their stubbed pipes. The Aunt Phillises are always fat, rollicking cooks, bursting with laughter. Nobody is happy but slaves. The poor masters have all the care and burden, slaves all the glee and leisure....