The surgeon took another glass, and hemming once, returned to the
combat.
"Sir," said he, "slavery is of very ancient origin, and it seems to have
been confined to no particular religion or form of government; every
nation of civilized Europe does, or has held their fellow creatures in
this kind of _duresse_."
"You will except Great Britain," cried the colonel, proudly.
"No, sir," continued the surgeon, confidently, feeling that he was now
carrying the war out of his own country, "I cannot except Great Britain.
It was her children, her ships, and her laws, that first introduced the
practice into these states; and on her institutions the judgment must
fall. There is not a foot of ground belonging to England, in which a
negro would be useful, that has not its slave. England herself has none,
but England is overflowing with physical force, a part of which she is
obliged to maintain in the shape of paupers. The same is true of France,
and most other European countries. So long as we were content to remain
colonies, nothing was said of our system of domestic slavery; but now,
when we are resolute to obtain as much freedom as the vicious system of
metropolitan rule has left us, that which is England's gift has become
our reproach. Will your master liberate the slaves of his subjects
should he succeed in subduing the new states, or will he condemn the
whites to the same servitude as that in which he has been so long
content to see the blacks? It is true, we continue the practice; but we
must come gradually to the remedy, or create an evil greater than that
which we endure at present.
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