Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

To the average republican mind he simply justifies the criticism, and prolongs that attitude which seems to most Americans so cringing; and which does more than any one difference, perhaps, to transmit from one generation to another the alienation between the two races. When some defender of slavery once claimed, in Dr. W. E. Channing's presence, that the slaves of our Southern States were contented, that great moralist answered, “You have stated the crowning argument against the system.” It is the worst part of any degrading practice that it makes men accustomed to its working. It may be that no sensible Englishman ever sees in this a want of consideration for himself personally-that is a small matter; but if he does not see in it something which is insulting to the dignity of human nature itself he differs inconceivably from a sensible American. A cast-iron etiquette like this puts a ceremony above a man ; a descent above a character; and above all, a social rule above that instinct of hospitality which bids even the Bedouin Arab and the American Indian give the guest the place of honor at his board. In the long series of social insults which General Grant, according to his