Lewis Tappan: “They are the nobility of the south, and they find it expedient to…”

On the record

They are the nobility of the south, and they find it expedient to forget that there are any commoners.

Said by

Lewis Tappan

Source

Tappan characterizes slaveholders as a 'nobility' in the South, suggesting a disconnect from the majority of the population.

More from Lewis Tappan

You have lamentable experience, that such is not the case where slaveholders bear rule.

We might as well talk of poor men owning herds of cattle and studs of horses, as gangs of negroes.

But we have some official confessions, which give a still more deplorable account of Southern ignorance.

Hence with them slavery is the INSTITUTION of the SOUTH, while it is in fact the institution of only a portion of the people of the south.

Lewis Tappan: “They are the nobility of the south, and they find it expedient to forget that there are any commoners.”