22. Dickens harshly condemned America’s toleration of slavery
Dickens divided the supporters of slavery in America into three classes. The first he called the “more moderate and rational owners of human cattle”, who had inherited the system and recognized its evils, though they were economically trapped within. The second was all “those owners, breeders, users, buyers and sellers of slaves, who will, until the bloody chapter has a bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all hazards”, a prescient vision of civil war. To Dickens, the third class consisted of those who “will not tolerate a man above me: and of those below, none must approach too near”. Dickens reported the last group as the least influential, but nonetheless present.
To Dickens, the second class, which he called “the miserable aristocracy spawned of a false republic”, was most responsible for the enduring institution of slavery in America. Dickens condemned public opinion of slavery, “Public opinion has made the laws, and denied the slaves legislative protection. Public opinion has knotted the lash, heated the branding-iron, loaded the rifle, and shielded the murderer”. To Dickens, all in America were guilty of allowing the institution of slavery to exist, even the most ardent abolitionists. Dickens supported his arguments with dozens of ads copied from American newspapers, one example of which read, “Ran away, my man Fountain. Has holes in his ears, a scar on the right side of his forehead, has been shot in the hind part of his legs, and is marked on the back with the whip”.