The morality of _free_ society can have no application to _slave_
society. Slaveholders have made it almost impossible for the
slave to commit any crime, known either to the laws of God or to
the laws of man. If he steals, he takes his own; if he kills his
master, <149 SELFISHNESS OF MASTER THOMAS>he imitates only the
heroes of the revolution. Slaveholders I hold to be individually
and collectively responsible for all the evils which grow out of
the horrid relation, and I believe they will be so held at the
judgment, in the sight of a just God. Make a man a slave, and
you rob him of moral responsibility. Freedom of choice is the
essence of all accountability. But my kind readers are,
probably, less concerned about my opinions, than about that which
more nearly touches my personal experience; albeit, my opinions
have, in some sort, been formed by that experience.
Bad as slaveholders are, I have seldom met with one so entirely
destitute of every element of character capable of inspiring
respect, as was my present master, Capt. Thomas Auld.
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