“It is wise, too, in relation to the civilized world around us,” wrote Chancellor William Harper of South Carolina, “to avoid giving occasion to the odium which is so industriously excited against ourselves and our institutions. For this reason, public opinion should, if possible, bear down even more strongly on masters who practise any wanton cruelty on their slave.” Harper issued a warning heard across the South: “The miscreant who is guilty of this not only violates the law of God and of humanity, but as far as in him lies, by bringing odium upon, endangers the institutions of his country, and the safety of his countrymen.”

The slaveholders did not see themselves as many contemporaries or most historians have seen them. As their diaries and letters attest, they could hardly believe it when, during the War, thousands of presumably loyal and contented slaves deserted to the Yankees and told horror stories. To be a gentleman, James Holcombe told the State Agricultural Society of Virginia in 1858, meant to be a kind master. The Christian South refused to view slaves as mere chattel, and Holcombe believed public opinion would provide a guarantor against cruelties.