Richard Hildreth

“ In the third place, I have omitted no occasion of inspiring a high idea of my valor. Thus have I succeeded in subjecting all Japan to my authority, which I govern with a mildness equal to the courage displayed in subduing it. I have especially caused the effects of my tenderness to be felt by the laborers who cultivate the earth. All my severity is reserved for those who deviate from the paths of virtue. Nothing is more tranquil than Japan at this moment, and it is this tranquillity which makes it strong. ”

“ Private travellers, whether they travel on foot or on horseback, must retire out of the way,—those who hesitate about it being compelled to it by the officers,—and, bareheaded, humbly bowing, wait in the next field till our whole retinue is gone by. I took notice of some country people, who do not only retire out of the way, but turn us their back, as not worthy to behold us,—the greatest mark of civility a Japanese can possibly show. None, or but few, of these public marks of honor and respect are shown us in our journey over the great island Nippon. ”

“ As the sale proceeded, it was curious, but at the same time most distressing, to observe the anxiety of the unhappy slave. When the slave-trader took the lead, his jaw fell, his eyes rolled wildly, and he seemed the very picture of despair; but when the Virginian bid higher, a gleam of pleasure shot across his face, the tears ran down his cheeks, and his earnest "God bless you, master!" was enough to touch the hardest heart. He interrupted the sale by his cries and vociferations, and not even the whip could keep him still. ”

“ And, however it seems incredible to remember such infinite particulars as this book is full of, yet an easy memory holdeth strong impressions of good and bad, especially new-whetted, filed, furbushed, with so many companions in misery, their best music in their chains and wanderings being the mutual recounting of things seen, done, and suffered. More marvel is it, if a liar, that he should not forget himself and contradict his own relations. ”

“ To blindfold their own consciences, and to avoid-the possibility of a judicial investigation, each man of an attacking party takes care to see none of the others when they fire; and no one goes to the place to ascertain how many have been killed or disabled. The poor wretches who are not so fortunate as to be shot dead upon the spot, are left to the lingering torments of thirst, fever, starvation and festering wounds; and when at length they die, their skeletons lie bleaching in the Carolina sun, proud proofs of slave-holding civilization and humanity. ”

“ It is a sight exceedingly curious and worthy of admiration, to see all the persons who compose the numerous train of a great prince, clad, the pike-bearers, the norimono-men and livery-men only excepted, in black silk, marching in an elegant order, with a decent, becoming gravity, and keeping so profound a silence that not the least noise is to be heard, save what must necessarily arise from the motion and rushing of their dresses, and the trampling of the horses and men. ”

“ I was not looked upon, as I suppose they now look upon a slave, who knows how to read and who exhibits some marks of sense and ability, as a dreadful monster breathing war and rebellion, and plotting to cut the throats of all the good people in America; I was regarded rather as a sort of prodigy — like a three legged hen, or a sheep with four eyes; a thing to be produced and exhibited for the entertainment of strangers. ”

“ Shall the control, not only of our politics and legislation, but of our newspapers, our churches, our literature, our public sentiment, pass into the hands of the hard, the cruel, the tyrants by nature, the mercenary, the scoffers at justice and human rights, the sleek, comfortable time-servers, equally ready, for a consideration, to read prayers to God or to the devil? or shall the votaries of human advancement, the friends of man, the true servants of the God of love, have liberty to live, speak, and labor among us? ”

“ If one of his servants was guilty of any thing, which in a slave, is esteemed especially enormous; such as running away, repeated theft, idleness, insolence or insubordination, major Thornton sent him off to be sold, By a strange, but common inconsistency, this man of feeling, who could not bear to whip a slave, or to see him whipped, or even to have him whipped on his own plantation, felt no scruples at all, at tearing him from the arms of his wife and children, and setting him up at public sale, to fall into the hands of any ferocious master, who might chance to purchase him! ”

“ She began with a long string of questions about what colonel Moore had said and done; but when Cassy did not seem inclined to give her any answer, she laughed, and thanked her, and told her she need not trouble herself, for she had been peeping and listening at the key-hole, the whole time. She said, she could not imagine, why Cassy made such a fuss. In a very young girl it might be excusable; but in one as old as she was, and a married woman too, she could not understand it. Such is the morality, and such the modesty to be expected in a slave! ”

“ In a short time, I made myself quite a favorite; and my master having taken a fancy to me, I was more indulged perhaps, than any servant on the place. But this could not make me happy.
Human happiness — with some very limited exceptions — is never in fruition, but always in prospect and pursuit. It is not this, that, or the other situation that can give happiness. Riches, power or glory, are nothing when possessed. It is the pleasure of the pursuit and the struggle, it is the very labor of their attainment, in which consists the happiness they bring. ”

“ Thy need is great — and great shall be his efforts; — that love is little worth which disappointment tires, or danger daunts.
Yes; — I have resolved it. I will revisit America, and through the length and the breadth of the land, I will search out my child. I will snatch him from the oppressor's grasp, or perish in the attempt. Should I be recognized and seized? — It is not in vain that I have read the history of the Romans; I know a way to disappoint the tyrants; the guilt be on their heads! I cannot be a slave the second time. ”

“ We mounted, and had already taken the road to Carleton-Hall, when my master seemed to recollect that I had just found a wife from whom I had been long separated; and it began to occur to him, that possibly we might take some pleasure in being indulged with a little of one another's company. He gave me joy of my discovery, with an air half serious, half jocose, — as if in doubt whether a slave were properly entitled to a master's serious sympathy, — and remarked, in a careless tone, that perhaps I would like to spend the remainder of the day at Poplar-Grove. ”

“ Whatever she might know, she discovered in it no impediment to my marriage with Gassy. Nor did I; for how could that same regard for the decencies of life — such is the soft phrase which justifies the most unnatural cruelty — that refused to acknowledge our paternity, or to recognize any relationship between us, pretend at the same time, and on the sole ground of relationship, to forbid our union? But I knew that Cassy felt, rather than reasoned; and though born and bred a slave, she possessed great delicacy of feeling. ”

“ It is a common saying that a plantation seldom remains in the same family beyond the third generation. It is out of this class of the poor that the new proprietors spring up; and it is into this class of the poor that the families of the former proprietors subside. But consider how this class of the poor is sunk, deteriorated, and weighed down by slavery! No wonder that in wealth, industry, intelligence, every thing that makes a community respectable, we are so far behind the free states. ”

“ At the pie of the picture books, the committee grew very solemn, and the chairman cast another look over the top of his spectacles, half of pity and half of reproach, at the Yankee merchant, whose teeth began to chatter worse than ever, and who rolled up the whites of his great eyes in as perfect an agony as if he had just been caught in the very act of horse stealing or forgery. ”

“ Why can’t we allow freedom to the negroes as well as to the Trish or the Germans? But with the inveterate prejudices of our people, it seems useless to preach that doctrine. The poorest, meanest, and most degraded of our whites would be all up in arms at the very idea of it. The more low, brutal, and degraded a white man is, the more strenuously does he insist on the natural superiority of the white men, and the more he is shocked at the idea of allowing freedom to the ‘niggers.’ Our colonization system of emancipation yields to this invincible feeling. ”

“ There are slaves in many other countries; but no where else is oppression so heartless and unrelenting. No where else, has tyranny ever assumed a shape so fiendish. No where else is it, of all the world beside, the open aim of the laws, and the professed purpose of the masters, to blot out the intellects of half the population, and to extinguish at once and forever, both the capacity and the hope of freedom. ”

“ Sad indeed it is, that the noblest resolution and the loftiest stubbornness of soul is compelled so often to yield to the base necessities of animal nature, and from a paltry and irrational fear of death, — of which tyrants have ever known so well to take advantage, — to sink down from the lofty height of heroic virtue, to the dastard submissiveness of a craven and obedient slave! ”

“ You who have loved as we loved, — you who have parted as we parted, with no hope ever to meet again, — you who have met as we met, brought together by accident or by Providence, — you, and only you, may imagine the emotions that swelled my heart as I pressed the hand, and felt the presence, and basked in the sympathy of a woman, and a wife, as dear. ”

“ She now comprehended his brutal purpose; — and giving one look of mingled horror and despair, sunk senseless to the ground. Peter was sent for water. He dashed it in her face, and she soon revived. They placed her on her feet, and colonel Moore again put the whip into her hand and repeated his orders. She threw it down, as if the touch had stung her; and looking him full in the face, the tears, all the while, streaming from her eyes, she said in a tone firm, but full of entreaty, "Master, he is my husband!" ”

“ Those who are always idle can never know the true luxury of idleness, the real pleasure with which he who has been pushed to work against his will, relaxes his strained muscles, and delivers himself up to the delight of doing nothing. I used to lie for hours, in a dreamy sort of indolence, outstretched upon the shady slope, enjoying the sweet consciousness of being my own master, and luxuriating in the idea that I need come or go at no one's bidding, ‘put might work or be idle as suited my own good will. No wonder that emancipated slaves are inclined to indolence. ”

“ The infant boy had all his mother's beauty; and only he who is a father, and as fond a husband too as I was, can know the feelings with which I pressed the little darling to my heart.
No! — no one can know my feelings, — no one, alas, but he, who is, as I was, the father of a slave. The father of a slave! ”

“ Walking was too lazy a pace for him; if there was any occasion to go from one part of the field to another, it was to be in a run. Ann had perhaps forgotten, at all events, she was not complying with this ridiculous piece of plantation discipline. This was no sooner observed by the overseer, than he rode up to her; cursed her for a lazy vagabond; and commenced beating her over the head with his whip. Thomas happened to be working close by. He felt every stroke ten times as keenly as though it had lighted upon his own shoulders. ”

“ Though all men have not the same objects of pursuit, all are impelled and sustained by the same hope of success. Nothing can satisfy the lofty desires of one man, but influence, fame, or power, the myrtle wreath or laurel crown; another aims no higher than to rise from abject poverty to a little competency, or, if his ambition is of another sort, to be the chief person in his native village, or the oracle of a country neighborhood. How different are these aims! — and yet, the impulse that prompts them, is the same. ”