But this is a subject on which I do not mean to dilate; it has
been lately treated most judiciously by a far abler hand. [See
Captain Hall's Travels in America.] Its effects on the moral
feelings and external manners of the people are all I wish to
observe upon, and these are unquestionably most injurious. The
same man who beards his wealthier and more educated neighbour
with the bullying boast, "I'm as good as you," turns to his
slave, and knocks him down, if the furrow he has ploughed, or the
log he has felled, please not this stickler for equality. There
is a glaring falsehood on the very surface of such a man's
principles that is revolting. It is not among the higher classes
that the possession of slaves produces the worst effects. Among
the poorer class of landholders, who are often as profoundly
ignorant as the negroes they own, the effect of this plenary
power over males and females is most demoralising; and the kind
of coarse, not to say brutal, authority which is exercised,
furnishes the most disgusting moral spectacle I ever witnessed.
In all ranks, however, it appeared to me that the greatest and
best feelings of the human heart were paralyzed by the relative
positions of slave and owner. The characters, the hearts of
children, are irretrievably injured by it. In Virginia we
boarded for some time in a family consisting of a widow and her
four daughters, and I there witnessed a scene strongly indicative
of the effect I have mentioned.
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