louisa picquet, the octoroon: or inside views of - Negro Artist

Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon 48
"Abolition" eyes? Alas for those tell-tale mulatto, and quadroon, and octoroon
faces! They stand out unimpeached, and still augmenting as God's testimony to
the deep moral pollution of the Slave States. We may shudder at the
"heathenism" of a Turkish harem, and send missionaries to convert the
Mohammedans; we may stand aghast at the idea of twenty thousand Syrian
women sold to supply the harems of the Mussulmans, and pour out our money
like water to relieve or release them; but wherein is all this a whit worse than
what is constantly practiced, with scarce a word of unfavorable comment, in our
own "Christian" (?) land? If there is any difference, it is certainly in favor of the
Turk; for neither his concubines nor his children by them are slaves; while, in
this country, our chivalrous "southern gentlemen" beget thousands of slaves;
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and hundreds of the children of our free white citizens are sold in the southern
slave markets every year.
III.--The failure of Mr. Cook, with his large cotton plantation, and the
subsequent sale of his slaves by the sheriff (probably to pay some
"conservative" New York merchant), illustrates the "happy condition" of these
slaves who have such "kind masters," but are, nevertheless, liable to be sold for
debt at the auction-block, not only upon the death of their master, but at any
time during his life; and then, as in this case, brothers and sisters, parents and
children, wives and husbands (if there be any such), must part to meet no more
in this world.
"But these," says one, "are the evils of slavery, to which I am as much opposed
as you are." Verily, they are the "evils," but they are just such "evils" as
necessarily belong to the system, and inhere in it, and without which slavery
never did and never can exist. While the tree stands it will bear just these fruits,
and no other. To sustain the system, therefore, or to practice under or apologize
for it, is virtually to abet all its abominations. There is no escape from this
conclusion.
What, then, is the duty of the American citizen who loves his country--the
Christian citizen, especially? Ought he not to sot his face against this giant
wrong in every possible way? Can he even hold his peace concerning it, and be
innocent? Ought he not to use all his influence, socially, ecclesiatically, and
politically, to undermine and destroy it? Should he not speak and write against
it, pray and protest against it, give and vote against it, till it shall wither under
24.03.2006