If much
service is desired, they are hired to do it, and paid for it as if they
were free. The more sober portion of them spend these holidays
in earning a little money. Most of them visit and attend parties
and balls, and not a few of them spend it in the lowest dissipation.
This respite from toil is granted them by all religionists, of
whatever persuasion, and probably originated from the fact that
many of the first slaveholders were members of the Church of
England.
Frederick Douglass, who has devoted his great heart and
noble talents entirely to the furtherance of the cause of his
down-trodden race, has said-'From what I know of the effect
of their holidays upon the slave, I believe them to be among the
most effective means, in the hands of the slaveholder, in keeping
down the spirit of insurrection. Were the slaveholders at once to
abandon this practice, I have not the slightest doubt it would
lead to an immediate insurrection among the slaves. These holidays
serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the rebellious
spirit of enslaved humanity. But for these, the slave would
be forced up to the wildest desperation; and woe betide the
slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the operation
of those conductors! I warn him that, in such an event, a
spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the
most appalling earthquake.
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