Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child
John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall, Ed.

To Francis G. Shaw.

With regard to intercourse with slave-holders, far from shunning it myself, I seek it diligently. Many and many an hour's argument, maintained with candor and courtesy, have I had with them ; and they have generally appeared to like me, though my principles naturally seemed to them stern and uncompromising. I am not so intolerant as to suppose that slave-holders have not many virtues, and many very estimable qualities; but at the same time, let me caution you against believing all their fair professions on the subject of slavery. Men who are true and honorable on all other subjects will twist, and turn, and deceive, and say what they must absolutely know to be false on this subject.

I account for the inconsistency and tergiversation of such men partly upon the supposition that conscience [31] perpetually whispers to them that the system is wrong, but is not sufficiently revered to overcome the temptation of apparent interest. Still more do I attribute it to the fact that, by education and habit, they have so long thought and spoken of the colored man as a mere article of property, that it is almost impossible for them to recognize him as a man, and reason concerning him as a brother, on equal terms with the rest of the human family. If, by great effort, you make them acknowledge the brotherhood of the human race, as a sacred and eternal principle, in ten minutes their arguments, assertions, and proposed schemes all show that they have returned to the old habit of regarding the slave as a “chattel personal.”