consequent degradation, are sunk in a state of the most brutish
ignorance and stupidity; and as for the pretense that their moral and
mental losses are made up to them by the secure possession of food and
clothing (a thing no moral and intellectual being should utter without a
blush), it is utterly false. They are hard worked, poorly clothed, and
poorly fed; and when they are sick, cared for only enough to fit them
for work again; the only calculation in the mind of an overseer being to
draw from their bones and sinews money to furnish his employer's income,
and secure him a continuance of his agency.

It is true that on this estate they are allowed some indulgence and some
leisure, and are not starved or often ill-treated; but their indulgences
and leisure are no more than just tend to keep them in a state of safe
acquiescence in their lot, and it does not do that with the brighter and
more intelligent among them. There is no attempt made to improve their
condition; to teach them decency, order, cleanliness, self-respect; to
open their minds or enlighten their understandings: on the contrary,
there are express and very severe laws forbidding their education, and
every precaution is taken to shut out the light which sooner or later
must break into their prison-house.

Dear Emily, if you could imagine how miserable I feel surrounded by
people by whose wrong I live! Some few of them are industrious, active,
and intelligent; and in their leisure time work hard to procure
themselves small comforts and luxuries, which they are allowed to buy.
How pitiable it is to think that they are defrauded of the just price
of their daily labor, and that stumbling-blocks are put in the way of
their progress, instead of its being helped forward! My mind is
inexpressibly troubled whenever I think of their minds, souls, or
bodies. Their physical condition is far from what it should be, far from
what their own exertions could make it, and there is no improving even
that without calling in mental and moral influences, a sense of
self-respect, a consciousness of responsibility, knowledge of rights to
be possessed and duties discharged, advantages employed and trusts
answered for; and how are slaves to have any of these? There is no
planting even physical improvement but in a moral soil, and the use of
the rational faculties is necessary for the fit discharge of the
commonest labor. Alas, for our slaves! and alas, alas, for us! I feel
half di