Jerks in History

[My Name Is Kate]

(11-28-2013 12:23 AM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  "The real effect of slavery, its brutalizing influence on master as well as slave, the essential barbarism of the system, and the danger to the liberty of free citizens which its continuance and extension involved, were brought home to men as by a flash of lightning.

That is what worried people more than anything, IMO. If there was no chance that the brutality would ever extend beyond the slaves, most people probably would have been more tolerant of slavery (except there were political reasons for wanting to get rid of it too.) In the end, the dominant concern was not so much for the slaves as for themselves (there are always exceptions, of course).