Where slavery exists, virtue and morality are swept as with a flood of corruption

The Americans may boast of the rights of man, the great law of nature, as being the basis of their constitution; they may declaim against tyranny and oppression; yet every man who becomes a slave-holder in Missouri is a tyrant of their creation … . The effects of slavery are truly appalling. Where slavery exists, virtue and morality are swept as with a flood of corruption.
~ Isaac Holmes (1823)