"I hope so, and in thirty years a great deal may happen. I mean right, and I hope God will bring things out right for me somehow." After we left Blanty's, we walked on in silence for a time. Then the Doctor spoke abruptly,--in answer to himself, probably, for neither Harry nor I had said anything:-- "What then? What then? Here is an instance of a slave capable of taking care of himself,--that is to say, of a man out of place. There are cases of as great hardship elsewhere. Are we not constantly hearing, even with us, of men who have never found their place? A Southern planter would feel himself very much out of place anywhere but where he is,--and very much out of place where he is, in changed relations with his people. Blanty is no example. Blanty has half a dozen slaves perhaps at most, with whom he works himself. He might change them into day-laborers and hardly know the difference. But Harvey, Westlake, Falter,--because they are provided for too well, as you seem to think,--will you dispossess them altogether? Why all sympathy for the black? Have not the whites a right to a share,--our own brothers by blood?" "Yes, to a large share," Harry answered. "But we are made to feel most for those who have fewest to feel for them; we offer our help first to the helpless. And would not Mr. Harvey be happier, if there were no whip or stocks on his plantation, seen or unseen? Would not Dr. Falter be happier, if his bloodhounds were kept only as curiosities? I wish them both happier,--and I wish Blanty happier, who seems all the more like a brother to me, since he can see one in Othello." "Let Blanty talk, who has a claim. If he can find men enough in his own State who agree with him, they may be able to do something. We have no part in the matter." "We take a part, when we give our sympathy to the maintainers of slavery, and withhold it from such as Shaler, our truest brothers,--from such as Blanty, and thousands like him, whom it might strengthen and embolden." "Harry, you are a Northerner. You belong to a State where you need not know that there is such a thing as slavery, if you don't inquire after it. Take your lot where it has been given to you, and be thankful." "I am neither a Northerner nor a Southerner: I am an American. If Massachusetts is dearer to me than all other States, it is only as our little farm at Rockwood is dearer to me than all other farms: I do not wish the rain to fall upon it or the sun to shine upon it more than upon others. When we met an Alabamian or a Georgian abroad, was he not our countryman? Did we not feel ourselves good Kentucks, walking through beautiful Kentucky?" "How is it, Harry, that you, who love your country so passionately, who take such pride in her institutions, such delight in her prosperity, will yet fix your eyes on her one blemish, will insist on suffering pain she hardly feels? There is enough to do. Leave slavery where it is." "It will not remain where it is."