Under the lax moral life of the plantation, where marriage was a farce, laziness a virtue, and property a theft, a religion of resignation and submission degenerated easily, in less strenuous minds, into a philosophy of indulgence and crime.
This passage describes how the morally corrupt environment of the plantation system led to the degeneration of a religion of submission into a philosophy of indulgence and crime among some enslaved individuals.
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Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.
This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and faith and deeds of ten thousand thousand people,—has sent them often wooing false gods and invoking false means of…
So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.