Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 31
science 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 terns
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."
TO MISS HENRIETTA SARGENT.
NORTHAMPTON, 1838.
Why do you not write? Are you ill? "Are you
sorry with me," as the little French girl used to say;
or what is the matter? I really hunger and thirst to
hear from you....
My husband and I are busy in that most odious of
all tasks, that of getting signatures to petitions. We
are resolved that the business shall be done in this
town more thoroughly than it has been heretofore.
But, " Oh Lord, sir! "
I have never been so discouraged about abolition
as since we came into this iron-bound Valley of the
Uonnecticut. I have ceased to believe that public
opinion will ever be sincerely reformed on the question till long after emancipation has takenl place. I
mean that for generatious to come there will be a
very large minority hostile to the claims of colored
people; and the majority will be largely composed of