I am not an Abolitionist.

That is to say, I consider that slaves on a properly managed estate, like ours for instance, are just as well off as are the laborers on an estate in Europe; but I should certainly like to see laws passed to protect them from ill-treatment.

Why, in England there are laws against cruelty to animals; and a man who brutally flogged a dog or a horse would get a month's imprisonment with hard labor.

I consider it a disgrace to us that a man here may ill-treat a human being worse than he might in England a dumb animal." "You know, Vincent," his mother said more quietly, "that I object as much as you do to the ill-treatment of the slaves, and that the slaves here, as on all well-conducted plantations in Virginia, are well treated; but this is not a time for bringing in laws or carrying out reforms.

It is bad enough to have scores of Northerners doing their best to stir up mischief between masters and slaves, without a Southern gentleman mixing himself up in the matter.