Who would argue that the American Colonies were well treated by the mother country, because parliament thought so?  Or that Poland was well treated by Russia, because Nicholas thought so?  Or that the treatment of the Cherokees by Georgia is proved good by Georgia notions of it?  Or that of the Greeks by the Turks, by Turkish opinions of it?  Or that of the Jews by almost all nations, by the judgment of their persecutors?  Or that of the victims of the Inquisition, by the opinions of the Inquisitor general, or of the Pope and his cardinals?  Or that of the Quakers and Baptists, at the hands of the Puritans,—­to be judged of by the opinions of the legislatures that authorized, and the courts that carried it into effect.  All those classes of persons did not, in their own opinion, abuse their victims.  If charged with perpetrating outrageous cruelty upon them, all those oppressors would have repelled the charge with indignation.

Our slaveholders chime lustily the same song, and no man with human nature within him, and human history before him, and with sense enough to keep him out of the fire, will be gulled by such professions, unless his itch to be humbugged has put on the type of a downright chronic incurable.  We repeat it—­when men speak of the treatment of others as being either good or bad, their declarations are not generally to be taken as testimony to matters of fact, so much as expressions of their own feelings towards those persons or classes who are the subjects of such treatment.  If those persons are their fellow citizens; if they are in the same class of society with themselves; of the same language, creed, and color; similar in their habits, pursuits, and sympathies; they will keenly feel any wrong done to them, and denounce it as base, outrageous treatment; but let the same wrongs be done to persons of a condition in all respects the reverse, persons whom they habitually despise, and regard only in the light of mere conveniences, to be used for their pleasure, and the idea that such treatment is barbarous will be laughed at as ridiculous.  When we hear slaveholders say that their slaves are well treated, we have only to remember that they are not speaking of persons, but of property; not of men and women, but of chattels and things; not of friends but of vassals and victims; not of those whom they respect and honor, but of those whom they scorn and trample on; not of those with whom they sympathize, and co-operate, and interchange courtesies, but of those whom they regard with contempt and aversion and disdainfully set with the dogs of their flock.  Reader, keep this fact in your mind, and you will have a clue to the slaveholder’s definition of “good treatment.”  Remember also, that a part of this “good treatment” of which the slaveholders boast, is plundering the slaves of all their inalienable rights, of the ownership of their own bodies, of the use of their own limbs