ers, the Tilgmans, the Lockermans, and the Gipsons, are in the same
boat; being slaveholding neighbors, they may have strengthened each
other in their iron rule. They are on intimate terms, and their
interests and tastes are identical.

Public opinion in such a quarter, the reader will see, is not likely to
very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. On the contrary,
it must increase and intensify his wrongs. Public opinion seldom differs
very widely from public practice. To be a restraint upon cruelty and
vice, public opinion must emanate from a humane and virtuous community.
To no such humane and virtuous community, is Col. Lloyd's plantation
exposed. That plantation is a little nation of its own, having its
own language, its own rules, regulations and customs. The laws and
institutions of the state, apparently touch it nowhere. The troubles
arising here, are not settled by the civil power of the state. The
overseer is generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate and executioner.
The criminal is always dumb. The overseer attends to all sides of a
case.

There are no conflicting rights of property, for all the people are
owned by one man; and they can themselves own no property. Religion and
politics are alike excluded. One class of the population is too high to
be reached by the preacher; and the other class is too low to be cared
for by the preacher. The poor have the gospel preached to them, in this
neighborhood, only when they are able to pay for it. The slaves, having
no money, get no gospel. The politician keeps away, because the people
have no votes, and the preacher keeps away, because the people have no
money. The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor, and
to dispense with religion altogether.{50}

In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence, Col. Lloyd's
plantation resembles what the baronial domains were during the middle
ages in Europe. Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial influences
from communities without, _there it stands;_ full three hundred years
behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and morals.

This, however, is not the only view that the place presents.
Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be. Though separated from
the rest of the world; though public opinion, as I have said, seldom
gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain; though the whole place
is stamped with its own peculiar, ironlike individuality; and though
crimes, high-han