Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Europe -- Description and travel
the guilt of the system, and be thus morally strengthened in their
condemnation of it.' To that there can be no objection; but still the
state of society is such that we cannot at once dispense with all the
products of slave labor. We may, however, be doing what we
can--examining the ways and methods by which this end may be brought
about; and, at all events, we need not be deterred from self-denial, nor
shrink before minor obstacles. If with foresight we participate in the
encouragement of slave labor, we must hold ourselves guilty, in no
unimportant sense, of sustaining the system of slavery. I will
illustrate my argument by a very simple method. Suppose two ships arrive
laden with silks of the same quality, but one a pirate ship, in which
the goods have been obtained by robbery, and the other by honest trade.
The pirate sells his silks twenty per cent. cheaper than the honest
trader: you go to him, and declaim against his dishonesty; but because
you can get silks cheaper of him, you buy of him. Would he think you
sincere in your denunciations of his plundering his fellow-creatures, or
would you exert any influence on him to make him abandon his dishonest
practices? I can, however, put another case in which this inconsistency
might, perhaps, be unavoidable. Suppose we were in famine or great
necessity, and we wished to obtain provisions for our suffering
families: suppose, too, there was a certain man with provisions, who, we
knew, had come by them dishonestly, but we had no other resource than to
purchase of him. In that case we should be justified in purchasing of
him, and should not participate in the guilt of the robbery. But still,
however great our necessity, we are not justified in refusing to examine
the subject, and in discouraging those who are endeavoring to set the
thing on the right ground. That is all I wish, and all the resolution
contemplates; and, happily, I find that that also is what was implied in
the address. I may mention one other method alluded to in the address,
and that is prayer to Almighty God. This ought to be, and must be, a
religious enterprise. It is impossible for any man to contemplate
slavery as it is without feeling intense indignation; and unless he have
his heart near to God, and unless he be a man of prayer and devotional
spirit, bad passions will arise, and to a very great extent neutralize
his efforts to do good. How do you suppose such a religious feeling has
been preserved in the book to which the address refers? Because it was
written amid prayer from the beginning; and it is only by a constant
exercise of the religious spirit that the good it had effected has been
accomplished in the way it has. There is one more subject to which I
would allude, and that is unity among those who desire to emancipate the
slave. I mean a good understanding and unity of feeling among the
opponents of slavery. What gives slavery its great strength in the
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