I assert
_most unhesitatingly_, that the religion of the south--as I have
observed it and proved it--is a mere covering for the most horrid
crimes; the justifier of the most appalling barbarity; a
sanctifier of the most hateful frauds; and a secure shelter,
under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal
abominations fester and flourish. Were I again to be reduced to
the condition of a slave, _next_ to that calamity, I should
regard the fact of being the slave of a religious slaveholder,
the greatest that could befall me. For all slaveholders with
whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I
have found them, almost invariably, the vilest, meanest and
basest of their class. Exceptions there may be, but this is true
of religious slaveholders, _as a class_. It is not for me to
explain the fact. Others may do that; I simply state it as a
fact, and leave the theological, and psychological inquiry, which
it raises, to be decided by others more competent than myself.
Religious slaveholders, like religious persecutors, are ever
extreme in their malice and violence.
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