As I met, on the occasion I have just referred to, an individual who knew I had felt an interest in endeavouring to establish the school for the education of negro children, the result of which I have already mentioned, I was apprehensive that the contretemps would have exposed me to the unpleasantness of at least being shunned afterwards as a man entertaining principles inimical to southern interests—­and, however resolute I felt to pursue an independent course while I remained in Charleston, I could not shake off a fear I vaguely entertained of a public recognition by a deeply prejudiced and ignorant populace, who, once set on, do not hesitate to proceed to disagreeable extremes.  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.  These are, however, rare occurrences, and, when they do happen, are usually confined to men of sterling religious principles, who, like that great exception, the respectable class of people called Quakers, in America, refuse, from a conviction of the enormity of the evil, to recognize as members those who hold or traffic in slaves.

It is through the influence of such men that the iniquities of the system become exposed to public view, and remedies are sometimes, in flagrant cases of cruelty, applied.  The legislatures of the several slave states, however, have given such absolute dominion, by a rigorous code of laws, to the owner, that the greatest enormities may be committed almost with impunity, or at least with but a remote chance of justice having its legitimate sway.

The mass of slave-owners are interested in concealing enormities committed by their fellows, and are backed by a venal press, which, whether bribed or not (and there is every reason to suspect that this is often the case), puts such a construction on outrage, by garbled reports, as to turn the tide of sympathy from the victim to the perpetrator.  No editor, possessing the least leaven of anti-slavery principles, would be patronized; and it not infrequently happens that such men are mobbed and driven perforce to leave the slave, for the more northern or free, states.  Here they stand a better chance, but, in many instances, the prejudice, it is said, follows their course, and southern influence occasions their bankruptcy or non-success.