or
starved into submission to their will. She may have had religious
principles inculcated by some pious mother or grandmother, or some good
mistress; she may have a lover, whose good opinion and peace of mind are
dear to her heart; or the profligate men who have power over her may be
exceedingly odious to her. But resistance is hopeless.

The poor worm
Shall prove her contest vain. Life's little day
Shall pass, and she is gone!

The slaveholder's sons are, of course, vitiated, even while boys, by the
unclean influences every where around them. Nor do the master's daughters
always escape. Severe retributions sometimes come upon him for the wrongs
he does to the daughters of the slaves. The white daughters early hear
their parents quarrelling about some female slave. Their curiosity is
excited, and they soon learn the cause. They are attended by the young
slave girls whom their father has corrupted; and they hear such talk as
should never meet youthful ears, or any other ears. They know that the
woman slaves are subject to their father's authority in all things; and in
some cases they exercise the same authority over the men slaves. I have
myself seen the master of such a household whose head was bowed down in
shame; for it was known in the neighborhood that his daughter had selected
one of the meanest slaves on his plantation to be the father of his first
grandchild. She did not make her advances to her equals, nor even to her
father's more intelligent servants. She selected the most brutalized, over
whom her authority could be exercised with less fear of exposure. Her
father, half frantic with rage, sought to revenge himself on the offending
black man; but his daughter, foreseeing the storm that would arise, had
given him free papers, and sent him out of the state.

In such cases the infant is smothered, or sent where it is never seen by
any who know its history. But if the white parent is the _father_, instead
of the mother, the offspring are unblushingly reared for the market. If
they are girls, I have indicated plainly enough what will be their
inevitable destiny.

You may believe what I say; for I write only that whereof I know. I was
twenty-one years in that cage of obscene birds. I can testify, from my own
experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well
as to the blacks. It makes white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons
violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters,