Slavery destroys, or vitiates, or pollutes, whatever it touches. No interest of society escapes the influence of its clinging curse. It makes Southern religion a stench in the nostrils of Christendom; it makes Southern politics a libel upon all the principles of republicanism; it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honorable profession of letters.
George Fitzhugh, Hinton Rowan Helper (1960). “Ante-bellum writings of George Fitzhugh and Hinton Rowan Helper on slavery”
