To take away a planter's slaves is to cut off his hands.
Henry Ward Beecher: “To take away a planter's slaves is to cut off his hands.”
Editor's note · Context
This quote metaphorically describes the dependence of Southern planters on their slaves for their livelihood.
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If the South shall give to the country a policy derived from her heathen notions of men, there will be such a peace as men have overdrugged with opium, that deep lethargy just before the mortal convulsions and death!
Having once given forth this spirit of liberty, now fading out of our Southern States, the North should again come forth and refill the poisoned veins that have been drinking the hemlock of Despotism with the new blood of Liberty!
And aroused by that spirit, there shall spring up the yet unaroused hosts of men that have not bowed the knee to Baal--and we will war it to the knife, and knife to the hilt.
Two great powers that will not live together are in our midst, and tugging at each other's throats.