He explained why the antislavery petitions that filled Southern post offices so inflamed him and his constituents. “Sir,” he said, “I do firmly believe that domestic slavery regulated as ours is produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth.” If slavery was good, so too were the slaveholders: To attack slavery as an evil was to soil the honor of the owners themselves, the chivalry. If this abolitionist assault on Southern honor did not subside, he warned, the consequences would be grave.
