Allow it to be theoretically wrong to be a slave,--it is, under existing circumstances, protection and a blessing, compared with any arrangement which has yet been proposed.

I have not sufficient patience to argue with those, North or South, who contend for slavery as a normal condition.

I should be called at the North "pro-slavery;" but the North is in a passion on this subject.

I am not, and I never can be, an advocate for this relation, in itself, but as a present necessity.
I once heard a speaker at an anti-slavery meeting at home say, "They tell us how elevated the blacks are, how intelligent, how pious; that shows how fit they are for freedom, how wrong it is to hold such people in bondage.

As much as you raise the slaves in our opinion, you deepen the guilt of the slave-holder." This used to dwell much on my mind.