Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn't get there.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at work - they seem to go through the motions of labor without putting strength into them. They keep their powers in reserve for their own use at night, perhaps.
But I do not admit the comparison between your slaves and even the lowest class of European free labourers, for the former are allowed the exercise of no faculties but those which they enjoy in common with the brutes that perish.
Once you're a Virginian, you're always a Virginian.
I am a planter - a cotton planter. I am a Southern man and a slaveholder - a kind and a merciful one, I trust - and none the worse for being a slaveholder.
Virginians want you to work across the aisle.
Would any one believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them.
Wealthy men, too, like several of those in our neighborhood, had so many slaves that they were compelled to buy other plantations on which to employ them.
If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.
Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet.
I sedulously refrained from doing anything that would incite slaves to run away from their masters.