Edwin Epps:
If something rubs you wrongly, I offer you the opportunity to speak on it.
Bass:
[exhales]
Well, you ask plainly, so I will tell you plainly. What amused me just then was your concern for my wellbeing in this heat when, quite frankly, the condition of your laborers...
Edwin Epps:
The condition of my laborers?
Bass:
It is horrid.
Edwin Epps:
The hell?
[chuckles]
Bass:
It's all wrong. All wrong, Mr. Epps.
Edwin Epps:
They ain't hired help. They're my property.
Bass:
You say that with pride.
Edwin Epps:
I say it as fact.
Bass:
If this conversation concerns what is factual and what is not, then it must be said that there is no justice nor righteousness in their slavery. But you do open up an interesting question. What right have you to your niggers, when you come down to the point?
Edwin Epps:
What right?
Bass:
Mmm
Edwin Epps:
I bought 'em. I paid for 'em.
Bass:
Well, of course you did, and the law says you have the right to hold a nigger. But begging the law's pardon, it lies. Suppose they pass a law taking away your liberty, making you a slave. Suppose.
Edwin Epps:
That ain't a supposable case.
Bass:
Laws change, Epps. Universal truths are constant. It is a fact, a plain and simple fact, that what is true and right is true and right for all. White and black alike.
Edwin Epps:
You comparing me to a nigger, Bass?
Bass:
I'm only asking, in the eyes of God, what is the difference?
Edwin Epps:
You might as well ask what the difference is between a white man and a baboon.
[chuckles]
Edwin Epps:
I seen one of them critters in Orleans. Know just as much as any nigger I got.
Bass:
Listen, Epps, these niggers are human beings. If they are allowed to climb no higher than brute animals, you and men like you will have to answer for it. There is an ill, Mr. Epps. A fearful ill resting upon this nation. And there will be a day of reckoning yet.
