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101 question affect you? It is a matter of no small moment, at least I find it so.” “Well,” said Platt, “I’ll tell you I had my eye teeth cut on that question the day I arrived here. You see I had letters of introduction to Mr. Hamilton, a planter (or farmer as he said) living two miles from town. I went immediately to his place, was cordially entertained by the ladies of the family, but Mr. Hamilton was not then at home. Mrs. Hamilton said, < you will please make this your home until he return?, which will be in three or four days.’ I soon discovered that Mrs. Hamilton was a lady of superior talents, refinement and education, a devoted Christian, while in her conversation that which you would notice first was her sound common sense and conscientious honesty of purpose. In the afternoon the ladies, except Mrs. Hamilton, had gone out for a ride, and there were only Mrs. Hamilton and the small children with me in the parlor. The common topics of conversation being exhausted and having seen some slaves about the house, I thought it might be a good time to place myself on the right sort of a platform on the slave question, inasmuch as I came from Massachusetts, where, in some sections of the State, the subject was being agitated. (This was soon after the beginning of the agitation and before the fugitive slave law was thought of.) What I said I cannot remember, for what followed obliterated from my mind not only the language I used, but the sentiment that my words expressed. I only recollect that I desired to make Mrs. Hamilton understand that I fully appreciated the beautiful arrangement of Providence in creating a people capable of appreciating the social comforts and intellectual enjoyments of our advanced civilization, with the hopes and the happiness of the Christian religion, and in relieving us of the labor necessarily attendant upon such a state of things by giving us possession of a race