My pathway became much more
smooth than before; my condition was now much more comfortable. When I
could get no calking to do, I did nothing. During these leisure times,
those old notions about freedom would steal over me again. When in
Mr. Gardner's employment, I was kept in such a perpetual whirl of
excitement, I could think of nothing, scarcely, but my life; and in
thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty. I have observed this
in my experience of slavery,--that whenever my condition was improved,
instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire
to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I
have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a
thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision,
and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be
able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel
that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases
to be a man.
I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I
contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my
own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver
every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned
it,--not because he had any hand in earning it,--not because I owed it
to him,--nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to
it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up.
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