"Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is no exaggeration. Simon Legree stalks abroad unrebuked in the South, and Cassies with sad stories of betrayal and humiliation are plentiful." "I do not think it possible to better the black woman morally," said Mrs. Hill. "The germs of high and lofty thought are not in her, that is certain." "Have you ever tried to put that theory to a test?" asked Mrs. McLane sharply. "I cant say that I have," returned Mrs. Hill slowly. "If the Negro is morally low, we are ourselves responsible, and God will call us to account for it. In our greed for gain we stifled every good impulse, fostered and encouraged immorality and unholy living among our slaves by disregarding the sacredness of the marriage relation. 'That which God hath joined together let no man put asunder!' We have done that. We have made a discord in the sweetest music that ever thrilled the human heart--the music of love. I believe that there is that pathos, that true poetry in Negro love-making that no other race possesses. When a child I used to love to listen to the simple and yet pathetic pleading of the Negro boy for the hand of the girl, whom to protect and defend he owned not himself. My very heart would weep when I pictured those fond hearts torn asunder by the slave trader. I could see the boy far away, in some lonely cornfield in Georgia, pause, lean upon his plow and sigh for his lost love as he listened to the cooing of the dove, while she, far away in Tennessee or in some Virginia cornfield mournfully sang as she dropped the yellow corn. 'Ebry time the sun goes down I hangs ma head an' cries.'