The slaveholders form a powerful landed aristocracy, banded together for the preservation of their own privileges, and ever endeavoring, for obvious reasons, to identify their private interests with the public welfare.
Tappan describes slaveholders as a powerful aristocracy that seeks to align their private interests with the public good, critiquing their influence on society.
Share
More from Lewis Tappan
In the place of your present contempt, and degradation, and misery, honor, and wealth, and happiness court your acceptance.
Now is the time, fellow-citizens, to assail the foe.
The institution which oppresses you is suffering from the decrepitude of age, and is the scorn and loathing of the world.
Out of the slave region, patriots and philanthropists, and Christians of every name and sect abhor and execrate it.