Just think of it! Our churches and best people, as they call themselves,
defending the institution of slavery. When I was a little boy I used
to see steamers go down the Mississippi river with hundreds of men and
women chained hand to hand, and even children, and men standing about
them with whips in their hands and pistols in their pockets in the name
of liberty, in the name of civilization and in the name of religion! I
used to hear them preach to these slaves in the South and the only text
they ever took was "Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was
the salutation of the most merciful God to a man whose back was bleeding
that was the salutation of the most merciful God to the slave-mother
bending over an empty cradle, to the woman from whose breast a child
had been stolen--"Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was
what they said to a man running for his life and for his liberty through
tangled swamps and listening to the baying of blood-hounds, and when
he listened for them the voice came from heaven:--"Servants be obedient
unto your masters." That is civilization. Think what slaves we have
been! Think how we have crouched and cringed before wealth even! How
they used to cringe in old times before a man who was rich--there are so
many of them gone into bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of
our fear.