We have thus, fellow-citizens, offered you the testimony of figures, as to the different state of society under freedom and slavery; suffer us now to present you pictures of the two regions, drawn not by abolitionists, but by Southern artists, in unguarded hours.
In this statement, Tappan emphasizes the importance of evidence from Southern artists to illustrate the realities of society under slavery.
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It has been the policy of the slaveholders to keep entirely out of sight their own numerical inferiority, and to speak and act as if their interests were those of the whole community.
We might as well talk of poor men owning herds of cattle and studs of horses, as gangs of negroes.
If we are permitted to apply this rule in testing the moral condition of the South, the result will not be favorable.
Slavery is maintained by you whom it impoverishes and degrades, not by those upon whom it confers wealth and influence.