Thus, SIXTEEN human beings were deliberately and publicly murdered, by assembled crowds, in different parts of the State of Mississippi, within little more than one WEEK, in open defiance of the laws and Constitution of the State.
Tappan highlights the alarming frequency of mob violence in Mississippi, emphasizing the disregard for legal processes.
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Has it ever happened that the mass of any people were rich enough to keep, for their own convenience, such expensive laborers--as southern slaves?
It, is however, worthy of remark, that its cultivation affords a livelihood to only a small proportion of the free inhabitants; and scarcely to any of those we are now addressing.
No other cause can be assigned than slavery, which drives from your borders many of the virtuous and enterprising, and at the same time deters emigrants from other States and from foreign countries from settling among you.
You are moreover aware that the great capitalists of the South have their wealth chiefly invested in plantations and slaves, and not as with us in commerce and manufactures.