FullReads

The boy, with a cheerful readiness, read, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” and the mother gently stilled the noisy baby, to listen to the holy words. Then all kneeled, while the father, with simple earnestness, poured out his soul to God.

They had but just risen–the words of Christian hope and trust scarce died on their lips–when, lo! the door was burst open, and two men entered; and one of them, advancing, laid his hand on the father’s shoulder. “This is the fellow,” said he.

“You are arrested in the name of the United States!” said the other.

“Gentlemen, what is this?” said the poor man, trembling.

“Are you not the property of Mr. B., of Georgia?” said the officer.

“Gentlemen, I’ve been a free, hard-working man these ten years.”

“Yes; but you are arrested, on suit of Mr. B., as his slave.”

Shall we describe the leave taking–the sorrowing wife, the dismayed children, the tears, the anguish, that simple, honest, kindly home, in a moment so desolated? Ah, ye who defend this because it is law, think, for one hour, what if this that happens to your poor brother should happen to you!

* * * * *

It was a crowded court room, and the man stood there to be tried–for life?–no; but for the life of life–for liberty!

Lawyers hurried to and fro, buzzing, consulting, bringing authorities,–all anxious, zealous, engaged,–for what? To save a fellow-man from bondage? No; anxious and zealous lest he might escape; full of zeal to deliver him over to slavery. The poor man’s anxious eyes follow vainly the busy course of affairs, from which he dimly learns that he is to be sacrificed–on the altar of the Union; and that his heart-break and anguish, and the tears of his wife, and the desolation of his children are, in the eyes of these well-informed men, only the bleat of a sacrifice, bound to the horns of the glorious American altar!

* * * * *

Again it is a bright day, and business walks brisk in this market. Senator and statesman, the learned and patriotic, are out, this day, to give their countenance to an edifying, and impressive, and truly American spectacle–the sale of a man! All the preliminaries of the scene are there; dusky-browed mothers, looking with sad eyes while speculators are turning round their children, looking at their teeth, and feeling of their arms; a poor, old, trembling woman, helpless, half blind, whose last child is to be sold, holds on to her bright boy with trembling hands. Husbands and wives, sisters and friends, all soon to be scattered like the chaff of the threshing floor, look sadly on each other with poor nature’s last tears; and among them walk briskly, glib, oily politicians, and thriving men of law, letters, and religion, exceedingly sprightly, and in good spirits–for why?–it isn’t they that are going to be sold; it’s only somebody else. And so they are very comfortable, and look on the whole thing as quite a matter-of-course affair, and, as it is to be conducted to-day, a decidedly valuable and judicious exhibition.

And now, after so many hearts and souls have been knocked and thumped this way and that way by the auctioneer’s hammer, comes the instructive part of the whole; and the husband and father, whom we saw in his simple home, reading and praying with his children, and rejoicing in the joy of his poor ignorant heart that he lived in a free country, is now set up to be admonished of his mistake.

Now there is great excitement, and pressing to see, and exultation and approbation; for it is important and interesting to see a man put down that has tried to be a free man.

“That’s he, is it? Couldn’t come it, could he?” says one.

“No; and he will never come it, that’s more,” says another, triumphantly.

“I don’t generally take much interest in scenes of this nature,” says a grave representative; “but I came here to-day for the sake of the principle !”

“Gentlemen,” says the auctioneer, “we’ve got a specimen here that some of your northern abolitionists would give any price for; but they shan’t have him! no! we’ve looked out for that. The man that buys him must give bonds never to sell him to go north again!”

“Go it!” shout the crowd; “good! good! hurrah!” “An impressive idea!” says a senator; “a noble maintaining of principle!” and the man is bid off, and the hammer falls with a last crash on his heart, his hopes, his manhood, and he lies a bleeding wreck on the altar of Liberty!

Such was the altar in 1776; such is the altar in 1850!

[THE END]
Harriet B. Stowe’s Short Story: The Two Altars, Or Two Pictures In One