The Slave's Idea Of Freedom

The following eloquent passage is taken f rom a speech delivered in the Assemblv of Virginia, by James McDowell, the present Governor of thal Suite : - " You may place the slave where you picase ; you may dry up toyour utmost the fountains of his feeling, the spring of his thought - you may yoke him to vour labor as an ox whicli livelli only to work, and worketh on!y to live : you may put hi:n under any process, which, vvilhout destroying his vahío as a slave, will debase and crush hiin as a rationa] being- you may do this, and the idea that he vvns bom to be free will survive it all. It is allicd to his hope of immortality ; it is ihe etherial part of his nature which oppression cannot rcacli, it is a torch it up in his soul by ihe hand of Deity, ond never rneant to be extinguished by the hand of man."