w all, it is so. I have agreed to sell Tom and Harry both; and I don’t know why I am to be rated, as if I were a monster, for doing what every one does every day.” He doesn’t see himself as a monster for the sole act of keeping slaves against their will or even breaking their families apart, he sees it as selling a bit of property, something he has to do for the good of his family and assets. Stowe targeted white slave owners in her novel and brought to light the ideals that abolitionists had fought so hard to get through slave supporters’ heads, that owning slaves was morally wrong. Keeping a person against their will is wrong. Slaves are people too and they have a God-given right to freedom, just like the rest of us. Douglass too, described his disgust for so-called Christians who owned slaves. “No better illustration of the unchaste, demoralizing, and debasing character of slavery can be found, than is furnished in the fact that this professedly Christian slaveholder (Mr. Covey), amidst all his prayers and hymns, was shamelessly and boastfully encouraging and actually compelling, in his own house undisguised and unmitigated fornication as a means of increasing his stock.” Douglass despised the fact that people like Mr. Covey and not to mention ministers, who supported slavery considered themselves men of God.Stowe revealed depressing ideas held by both slaves and slaveholders about how slaves deserved to be treated and that slaves should be happy if they are in a situation where they aren’t being whipped, tied up, or sexually assaulted. Many slaves felt privileged living in a house where the master didn’t physically abuse them. Some slaves like Douglass were never satisfied, but Douglass too described that hope was the only thing that allowed him to make it through the nasty situations. The reason most slaves felt this way was because they had no other choice. Douglass knew thi...
