My view of Christianity is such, that I think no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against the monstrous… - Harriet Beecher Stowe

Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow — the shadow of law. So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to a master — so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil — so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery.

I am braver than I was, because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks.

Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes!