The Sable Cloud | Page 8

distance that
which you could not see; he heard a voice you could not hear, giving
occasion to this show of prowess. That fearful combatant on the
highway, dear madam, is the North, and you are the distant foe. You
may affect to smile, perhaps, at the valorous attitudes, the show of
mettle in the bull, but you have no idea, as I had the honor to say before,
how sturdy is our hatred of the slave-power and how ready we are to do
battle with it. We paw in the valley, and are not afraid.
Never think to delude us, my dear lady, with the thought that slavery in
our Territories means such ladies as you owning Kates and their little
babes, and having such hearts toward them as you seem to have; for
that would take away a large part of the evil in slavery. Nor must you
expect us, in thinking of slavery as extending into our Territories, to
picture to ourselves an accomplished gentleman and lady searching a
cemetery for a spot to be the grave of a little slave-babe, and behaving
themselves as though they had feelings toward it and its mother
irrespective of the market-price of slaves. "Border Ruffians" are the

archetypes of our ideas respecting all who wish to extend slavery into
our Territories. On the score of humanity, madam, we have no
objection to you and your husband taking Kate and living in Kansas;
how perfectly harmless that might seem to many! for, no doubt, you
and Kate are perfectly happy as mistress and servant; you would need
domestics there, and how could they and you be better pleased than if
they and you were just as Kate and you now are to each other? but, O
dear madam, that would be slavery, and we are under sworn obligations
here at the North to oppose the owning of a human being with
indiscriminate hatred. Say not it seems hard that if you wish to live in
Kansas, for example, you cannot have liberty to go there with Kate,
who is as much attached to you, I make no doubt, as any Northern or
English servant is to a household. Perhaps it does seem perfectly
natural and harmless, and no doubt Kate's relation to you is as gentle
and pleasant, almost, as that of an adopted member of a family, who is
half attendant, and half companion; this we understand. You see
nothing terrible in such a relation. O dear madam, you have the
misfortune to have been born under the blinding, blighting influence of
slavery, and cannot see things in the true, just light in which they
appear to us, whose minds are unprejudiced and clear, and whose moral
sentiments on this great subject are more correct and elevated. What is
making all this trouble in our nation? I will answer you in the burning
words of a Northern clergyman in his speech at a meeting called to
sympathize with the family of John Brown, after his death by
martyrdom: "The Slave-Power itself, standing up there in all its
deformity in the sight of Northern consciences,--that is the cause,
[applause] and there the responsibility belongs."[2] Yes, you are
sinning against the Northern conscience! It is settled forever that you
are evil-doers in holding your present relation to the slave. We are
bound to hem you in as by fire, till, like a scorpion so fenced about, you
die by your own sting. We must proclaim liberty to your captives. Step
but one foot with Kate on free soil, and our watchmen of liberty, set to
break every yoke and help fugitives on their way from the house of
bondage, will be around you in troops, and shout in her ear those
electrifying and beatifying words, "You are a free woman!" There her
chains will drop; she will cease to be a slave, and become a human
being.

[Footnote 2: Boston Courier, Nov. 26, 1859.]
Must I refer to your letter once more? I hope to destroy its spell over
me. But I wish at times that I had never seen that letter. "Tell Mammy
that it is a great disappointment to me that her name is not to have a
place in my household." Your little slave-babe, Kate's child, you named
Cygnet, because Mammy's name is Cygnet, and she and your mother
grew up together, and she has been your kind, faithful servant and
friend, as much friend as servant, during all your youth till you were
married. And you seek to perpetuate her name in your own household,
and to have a little Cygnet grow up with your own little Susan. "I was
always pleased with the idea that my Susan and little Cygnet should
grow up together; but it seems best that