They were often lazy and shiftless, but they never deified laziness and shiftlessness or made them into a cult.

The one thing they prized beyond all others was their personal freedom, the right of the individual to do whatsoever he saw fit.

Indeed they often carried this feeling so far as to make them condone gross excesses, rather than insist upon the exercise of even needful authority.

They were by no means entirely logical, but they did see and feel that slavery was abhorrent, and that it was utterly inconsistent with the theories of their own social and governmental life.

As yet there was no thought of treating slavery as a sacred institution, the righteousness of which must not be questioned.