This
fear was enhanced in no little degree by the operation I had witnessed,
of the tarring and feathering process practised by enraged citizens in
the Missouri country, which I have before described.
The most degrading phrase that can be applied in the south to those
white individuals who sympathize in the wrongs inflicted on the African
race, I soon found to be, that "he associates with niggers." Thus a
kind-hearted individual at once "loses caste" among his fellow citizens
and, invidious though it certainly is, many slave-owners are deterred
by this consideration, blended with a politic regard for their own
safety, from exercising that benevolence towards their dependents which
they sincerely feel; placed, as it were, under a sort of social ban,
such men artfully conceal their sentiments from the public, and, by a
more lenient treatment of their own hands, quiet their consciences;
while, at the same time, they blunt their sense of what is honest,
upright, just, and manly. Instances have occasionally occurred where men
of correct principles have so far succumbed to this sense of duty, as to
liberate their slaves.
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