Were slaveholders at once to abandon the
practice of allowing their slaves these liberties, periodically,
and to keep them, the year round, closely confined to the narrow
circle of their homes, I doubt not that the south would blaze
with insurrections. These holidays are conductors or safety
valves to carry off the explosive elements inseparable from the
human mind, when reduced to the condition of slavery. But for
these, the rigors of bondage would become too severe for
endurance, and the slave would be forced up to dangerous
desperation. Woe to the slaveholder when he undertakes to hinder
or to prevent the operation of these electric conductors. A
succession of earthquakes would be less destructive, than the
insurrectionary fires which would be sure to burst forth in
different parts of the south, from such interference.
Thus, the holidays, became part and parcel of the gross fraud,
wrongs and inhumanity of slavery. Ostensibly, they are
institutions of benevolence, designed to mitigate the rigors of
slave life, but, practically, they are a fraud, instituted by
human selfishness, the better to secure the ends of injustice and
oppression.
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