Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/39

26 has done no great injury to herself or any other human being ; her offspring is not a burden but an acquisition to her owner; his support is provided for, and he is brought up to usefuhiess; if the fruit of intercourse with a free man, his condition is perhaps raised somewhat aboye that of his mother." "I do not hesitate to say, that the intercourse which takes place with enslaved females is less debasing in its effects [on man] than when it is carried on with females of their own caste, … the attraction is less, … the intercourse is generally casual, … he is less liable to those extraordinary fascinations."

" He [the slave husband] is also liable to be separated from wife or child,… but from native character and temperament, the separation is much less severely felt."

"The love of liberty is a noble passion. But, alas! it is one in which we know that a large portion of the human race can never be gratified." "If some superior power should impose on the laborious poor of this, or any other country, this [’a condition which is a very near approach to that of our slaves'] as their undeniable condition,… how inappreciable would the boon be thought." "The evils of their situation they [the slaves] but slightly feel, and would hardly feel at all if they were not sedulously instructed into sensibility." "Is it not desirable that the inferior labouring class should be made up of such who will conform to their condition without painful aspirations and vain struggles?"

"I am aware that, however often assumed, it is likely to be repeated again and again:—How can that institution be tolerable, by which a large class of society is cut off from the hope of improvement and knowledge; to whom blows are not degrading, theft no more than a fault, falsehood and the want of chastity almost venial; and in which a husband or parent looks with comparative indifference on that which to a free man would be the dishonour of a wife or child? But why not, if it produce the greatest aggregate of good? Sin and ignorance are only evils because they lead to misery." "The African negro is an inferior variety of the human