The Sable Cloud: A Southern Tale with Northern Comments

For sleek inhumanity, for utter perversion of the higher religious sense, for complacent sophistry, for jumble and confusion of statement and reasoning, and for most unseemly pleasantry, "The Sable Cloud" surpasses any work on slavery that we have ever read. One goes on in it with a feeling at once of amazement, of indignation and shame, that such a libel upon the instincts of the human heart, upon the Scriptures, and upon the spirit of the Savior, could have been the work of a New England clergyman. The author echoes and re-enforces the most extravagant claim of the slavery propagandists. Slavery, as he presents it, is a necessary, a beautiful, and a holy relation ; good for the slave, good for the master, good for the country, and destined to endure as long as time lasts. Slave-holding elevates the moral standard, gives man more respect for woman, fulfills the Law, and illustrates the Gospel.