before this one saying, the modern family has been formed; before this
one saying, American slavery will disappear as European slavery has
disappeared already. With this saying, we are all advancing, we are
learning, and we shall continue to learn. Yes, the time will come, I am
convinced, when we shall see new duties rise up before us, when we
cannot with a clear conscience maintain customs, what, I know not, which
we maintain conscientiously to-day.

This carries us somewhat further, it must be granted, than a list of
fixed duties _ne varietur_; it opposes slavery in a different manner
than a sentence pronounced once for all. The Gospel took the surest
means of overthrowing it when, letting alone the reform of institutions,
it contented itself with pursuing that of sentiments; when it thus
prepared the time when the slaveholder himself would be forced to ask
what is contained in the inexhaustible saying: "What ye would that men
should do unto you, do ye also unto them." Even in the heart of the
Southern States, despite the triple covering of habits, prejudices, and
interests, this saying is making its way, and is disturbing the
consciences of the people much more than is generally believed. And the
work that it has begun it will finish; it will force the planters to
_translate_ the word SLAVERY, to consider one by one the abominable
practices which constitute it. Is it to do to others as we would that
they should do to us, to sell a family at retail? To maintain laws which
give over every slave, whether wife or maiden, to her owner, whatever he
may be, and which take away from this maiden, from this wife, the
_right_ of remembering her modesty and her duties--what do Christians
call this? To produce marketable negroes, to dissolve marriages, to
ordain adulteries, to inflict ignoble punishment, to interdict
instruction--is this doing to others what we would that they should do
to us?