LLOYD--FAMILY OF CAPT. ANTHONY--HIS SOCIAL
POSITION--NOTIONS OF RANK AND STATION.
It is generally supposed that slavery, in the state of Maryland,
exists in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of
those harsh and terrible peculiarities, which mark and
characterize the slave system, in the southern and south-western
states of the American union. The argument in favor of this
opinion, is the contiguity of the free states, and the exposed
condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral, religious and
humane sentiment of the free states.
I am not about to refute this argument, so far as it relates to
slavery in that state, generally; on the contrary, I am willing
to admit that, to this general point, the arguments is well
grounded. Public opinion is, indeed, an unfailing restraint upon
the cruelty and barbarity of masters, overseers, and slave-
drivers, whenever and wherever it can reach them; but there are
certain secluded and out-of-the-way places, even in the state of
Maryland, seldom visited by a single ray of healthy public
sentiment--<48>where slavery, wrapt in its own congenial,
midnight darkness, _can_, and _does_, develop all its malign and
shocking characteristics; where it can be indecent without shame,
cruel without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or
fear of exposure.
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