Page:The Under-Ground Railroad.djvu/146

126 aloud. It is a glorious thing to gaze for the first time upon a land, where a poor Slave, flying from a so-called land of liberty, would in a moment find his fetters broken, his shackles loosed, and whatever he was in the land of Washington, beneath the shadow of Bunker's Hill, or even Plymouth Rock, here he becomes a man and a brother. But even here, it is too true, they find they have only changed the yoke of oppression for the galling fetters of a vitiated public opinion. True, they come to Canada exceedingly ignorant, but who can wonder at it, born as they are to an inheritance of misery, nurtured in degradation, and cradled in oppression. With the scorn of the white man upon their souls. His fetters upon their limbs. His scourge upon their flesh. What can be expected from their offspring but a mournful reaction of that cursed system which spreads its baneful influence over both body and soul. Which dwarfs the intellect, stunts its developementdevelopment [sic], and debases the soul.

If you look upon your map, you will obviously see how Canada is divided from the United States: in some parts only by a narrow boundary. Some of the States just over the boundary are free States, yet if a fugitive Slave be found there, he is taken back to his former owner, and his bondage made still harder.

But let them be once within the Canada boundary, they are free,—they are safe,—for they are then under