Page:A letter on "Uncle Tom's cabin" (1852).djvu/21

17 possible for one person to lay down the exact wheel-track of duty for another. No lawyer, no man of business, could give advice in the way that writers are often expected to do; that is, to give advice in detail without having the details before them. For instance, in this case of slavery, what a man should do in one slave state may be very different from what he should do in another. Nothing is more unwise than a pedantic application of one particular theory or system to various sets of circumstances. Let any man in America say how he is surrounded in this matter, what he already thinks of it, and what manner of man he is (for that is most important), and I might "hazard a wide solution," to use Sir Thomas Browne's phrase, as to what a man so situated might most advisedly attempt.

So much for minute or detailed advice,—but there are certain general remarks which may be useful. In the first place, you must really try not to be disheartened at the magnitude of the evil. You must not suppose that you gentlemen in America are the only people who have great difficulties to contend with. With us there is want of space, and perhaps, too, want of knowledge how to use what space we have. We are crippled by laws and practices in reference to law, which