It is the fitness of things that makes the African a slave. His brawny
limbs, seconding and aiding the intellect of the superior race,
constitute the left hand and foot of labor. Slavery is the left hand
of our body politic. Free labor is the right hand. Intellect is the
head. All combined, constitute a power which is felt and feared by the
foes of this Republic. Hence their endeavor to detach one portion from
the other, and thus weaken the whole. To change the position of the
slave is to interrupt or reverse the order of nature.
"What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repined
To serve, mere engines of the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame;
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing Mind of All ordains."