Juvenile Department. Edward and Mary.

JUVENILE DEPARTMENT.

For the Liberator.

EDWARD AND MARY.

'Why do you call that new frock of yours, that you seem so proud of, your free frock, Mary?' said Edward Middleton to his sister on the morning after his return from boarding-school; 'and what did you mean last evening by talking of free sugar and free cakes?'

'Don't you know,' answered his sister,—'no, I forgot,—you have been so long from home that I suppose you do not know, that we have taken to using free things lately, that is, such as are made by free laborers instead of slaves.'

'What is that for?'

'Because it is very wicked, you know, Edward, to keep people in slavery, and make them work all day as hard as they can, beside often treating them very badly, and then not pay them a cent of their earnings.'

'But they are fed, and clothed, and taken care of,' interrupted Edward.

'I do not think you would like to be so fed, and clothed, and taken care of,' answered Mary; 'only, at best, a blanket and a little straw to lie on, and nothing but corn and rice, with sometimes a little soup of salt fish, to eat all the year round; and often not enough of that. You thought it very bad to be sick last winter, though you had a kind mother to nurse you, and everything done to make you comfortable;—how would you like to be beaten to your work, as some of the poor slaves are, as long as you were able to stand, and when you were suffered to lie down, have no soft bed, nor scarcely any attention paid you?'

'I am neither a slave nor a negro,' answered Edward, coolly.

'No, but you are a human being, Edward, and so are they; and I should suppose you would have the same feelings; but if you think the color of the skin a matter of so much consequence,' added she laughing, 'you ought to be very careful of your complexion; you have tanned monstrously since you were last at home, I assure you, and, according to your own rule, you cannot expect us to like you quite so well as formerly.'

Edward smiled. 'Well, Mary,' said he, 'I acknowledge that I do not think that the mere color of a man's face can be a very reasonable excuse for treating him ill. But the southern slaves are the property of their masters, sis; and if it was wrong, do you think the laws would allow them to be kept in slavery?'

'But you forget, Edward, that the masters of the slaves, the owners of this property, as they call it, have a great share in making the laws, and they will be sure to have such as suit themselves. It is the very circumstance of its being lawful, father says; which makes slavery so much more disgraceful to our country. Would you not be very much ashamed, if you were a man, and in Europe, and any one there was to ask you, if men and women in the United States were not advertised for sale in the newspapers, and driven about the country in herds like cattle, and sold, too, just like them, at public auction? And you know you could not deny that it was the truth!'

Edward colored and looked rather uneasy, for the honor of his country was a point on which he was particularly sensitive. But he was not willing yet to give up, and his mortification gave a slight degree of asperity to his tone as he replied—

'White people never are sold here; and the slaves have never been used to anything else; beside, Mary, the blacks are naturally inferior to us.'

'Oh, Edward, how can you think so! they are human beings, created by the same God, and with the same sort of minds as ourselves; but they have never had any such advantages of education as we have, for, in the slave states, you know, they are not even allowed to learn to read and write; and here, though they are free, people have always been too much prejudiced against them, to give them a fair chance of shewing their talents; beside, they have mostly been too poor, when they were young, particularly, to spare the time, or to go to the expense of much learning.'

'And if they had as fair a chance of being well educated, do you think they would ever have as much sense as the white people?'

'Yes, certainly I do. There are instances enough to prove it, and if you will let me, I will show you some of them.'

'Very well; but I do not promise to be convinced, though,' said Edward, 'I dare say,' added he laughing, 'you will give up the notion of not using any more slave produce first. I do not think you will long hold out against the temptation of cakes and molasses candy.'

'We shall see,' answered Mary, quietly.

'Yes, we shall see, no doubt,' said Edward, again laughing. 'But, Mary, you have not yet told all your reasons for not liking slave produce. If slavery is wicked, what have you to do with it? Do you expect to abolish it?'

'No, to be sure not, myself alone; but if nobody would buy anything that was raised by slave labor, their masters would be glad to set them free, and have them to their work, so that they might sell their crops But I had much rather go without preserves, and cakes, and all such things, than to eat such as are made with slave sugar; for I cannot help thinking all the time, that perhaps some poor slave has been beaten almost to death, on account of the very morsel I may be eating; and I think, too, that if slavery is wicked, it must be wrong to use the things that encourage the master to keep his slaves.'

'Well, I think you will soon be tired of it, Molly,' said Edward, as he put on his hat and left the room.

Edward did not forget the subject of their conversation, nor would his sister have suffered it to pass from his memory had he been inclined to do so. She wished to conquer his prejudices, and as he had hazarded a prediction of her instability, he made use of every opportunity to advance its fulfillment. But Mary was not so easily laughed out of her principles as he had expected. Both her resolution and temper were proof against all the attacks of temptation, teasing and ridicule; and her firmness gradually inspired her brother with more respect for her sentiments. There was less of contempt mingled with the good nature with which he listened to her conversation on her favorite topic; and from attending merely to oblige her, to the various proofs which she was at somepains to collect and produce to him, of the mental equality of the colored race, he began to read, and to listen with considerable interest; and at length even to assist her in her researches, and sometimes to supply her with arguments to use against himself. He had looked over the 'Account of the Africas Free School in New-York,' and acknowledged that George Allen's essay was as good as he could have written himself;—he had read some of Phillis Wheatley's and George Norton's poetry—Mott's Sketches of the People of Color had afforded them several evenings of very agreeable entertainment, with which Edward was as much gratified as his sister. Mary told him the story of the Spanish painter slave, Juan de Pausa, and read to him the most interesting passages of Brissot de Warville's Memoir of the Black of America; and Edward, at last, frankly owned himself almost convinced. He was sitting one morning, after breakfast, with his mother and sister, looking over a volume of Montgomery's Poems, when the following lines in the 'West Indies' arrested his attention—

'When Clarkson his victorious course began,
Unyielding in the cause of God and man,
Wise, patient, persevering to the end.
No guile could thwart, no power his purpose bend;
He rose o'er Africa like the sun in smiles,
He rests in glory on the western isles.'

'Mother,' said he, when he had finished reading it, 'I have often heard of Clarkson;—will you tell me something about him?'

'He was one of the earliest, the most active, and the most useful advocates for the abolition of the African Slave trade,' answered his mother. 'When he was a young man, and a student at the university of Cambridge, the question, "Is it right to make slaves of others, against their will?" was given to the students as a subject for a latin prize easay. Clarkson was a young man of talents, and as he had gained the premium on the preceding year, he was particularly anxious to do so on this, as a failure would have been esteemed disgraceful.

'Then he was not very much interested in the subject on which he wrote?' enquired Edward.

'No; he had probably never thought much more about it than you had of American slavery when you came home from school; but he had no sooner become, in some degree, acquainted with it, than he was filled with horror at the atrocities which it presented to his view. His essay was finished, and received the distinction for which it contended, but he could not drive from his mind the thought of all the oppression and cruelties that were practised by his countrymen, upon their unoffending fellow creatures. The sufferings of the poor Africans were continually before him. He became exceedingly anxious that the British public might be awakened to a sense of the wickedness they were encouraging; but at this time he was not acquainted with any one who sympathized in his feelings, and it seemed to him almost impossible that a single individual, and he so young a man too, should be able to bring about any change in a traffic which had been so long authorized by the government, and with which the interest of many of his countrymen were closely connected. However, he resolved to translate his essay into English, and have it published, which he did, and was, by this means, introduced to several persons of the same sentiments as himself; and finding it was necessary for the advancement of the cause, that some persons should devote to it probably his whole life, he generously gave himself up for that purpose.'

'It was a noble resolution!' exclaimed Edward, while his eye kindled with his increasing interest; 'did he succeed, mother?'

'He did; but it was not till after a long and weary struggle, during which, his time, his health, and his talents, were are all bestowed upon this one great object. But he was rewarded for all when he saw his labors successful, and his country purified from the disgrace and guilt of trading in human flesh.'

'Cannot you tell me anything more about it?' asked Edward.

'I could, but if you wish to know anything' further, you had better read the Abridgment of his History of the Abolition, which you will find in your father's Library.'

'Mother, is American slavery really so bad—so bad as it is represented?' said Edward, hesitatingly, like one who fears the confirmation of some unpleasant presage.

'I believe it is, my dear, quite as bad as the worst pictures have portrayed it. It is not very easy to exaggerate the atrocity of this system. We cannot deny, either to ourselves or the world, that two millions of our countrymen are kept in a state of the most abject slavery; that the infamous traffic in human flesh is countenanced by the Government; and that parents and children, brothers and sisters, and husbands and wives are forcibly separated from each other, and sold to strangers by the sheriff's officer, or the auctioneer. Edward! how would you feel to see me daily driven out into the fields to labor, by the horsewhip of a merciless overseer, and sometimes, for a trifling fault, or when, perhaps, I had sunk down, exhausted from toil, to see me beaten till the lash was red with my blood?'

'Mother!' exclaimed Edward, starting up and flinging his arms round her, while the tears sprang to his eyes, and his cheeks flushed to the color of crimson.

'Yet this,' continued his mother, 'is what many of the poor negro women have to submit to, and what their sons are obliged to behold in silence; and the African children are said to be remarkably attached to their parents, Edward,' she proceeded, in a low impressive voice, after a momentary pause, while she put aside the hair from his forehead and stooped to touch it with her lip,—'if you live to be a man, you will have it in your power to tread in the steps of Clarkson,—to assist in removing this disgrace from your country, and to aid in rescuing the poor negro mothers and sisters from a state of degradation and suffering, which you start from beholding your own reduced to, even in idea.'

Edward released himself from the circling arm of his mother, and stood, for a moment, as if he was endeavoring to gather his thoughts and feelings into more distinctness. 'Mother,' said he, at length, 'I feel now what the command means, that we should do as we would be done by. And if ever I am a man, and slavery is not abolished then, you shall see that I have not forgotten what you have told me to day.

E.M.C.