the existence of an enslaved class of more relaxed
morals?

It is mostly the warm passions of youth, which give rise to licentious
intercourse. But I do not hesitate to say, that the intercourse which
takes place with enslaved females, is less depraving in its effects,
than when it is carried on with females of their own caste. In the first
place, as like attracts like, that which is unlike repels; and though
the strength of passion be sufficient to overcome the repulsion, still
the attraction is less. He feels that he is connecting himself with one
of an inferior and servile caste, and that there is something of
degradation in the act. The intercourse is generally casual; he does not
make her habitually an associate, and is less likely to receive any
taint from her habits and manners. He is less liable to those
extraordinary fascinations, with which worthless women sometimes
entangle their victims, to the utter destruction of all principle, worth
and vigor of character. The female of his own race offers greater
allurements. The haunts of vice often present a show of elegance, and
various luxury tempts the senses. They are made an habitual resort, and
their inmates associates, till the general character receives a taint
from the corrupted atmosphere. Not only the practice is licentious, but
the understanding is sophisticated; the moral feelings are bewildered,
and the boundaries of virtue and vice are confused. Where such
licentiousness very extensively prevails, society is rotten to the
heart.

But is it a small compensation for the evils attending the relation of
the sexes among the enslaved class, that they have universally the
opportunity of indulging in the first instinct of nature, by forming
matrimonial connections? What painful restraint--what constant effort to
struggle against the strongest impulses are habitually practiced
elsewhere, and by other classes? And they must be practiced, unless
greater evils would be encountered. On the one side, all the evils of
vice, with the miseries to which it leads--on the other, a marriage
cursed and made hateful by want--the sufferings of children, and
agonizing apprehensions concerning their future fate. Is it a small good
that the slave is free from all this? He knows that his own subsistance
is secure, and that his children will be in as good a condition as
himself. To a refined and intellectual nature, it may not be difficult
to practice the restraint of which I have