Domestic Manners of the Americans

Trollope’s commentary on slavery intensifies in this section as she stays with a family just north of Washington. Slavery is described as a “glaring falsehood” that is “revolting” and at its most demoralizing among the “poorer class of landowners.” Trollope describes the way that enslavers wield their authority over the enslaved as “coarse” and “brutal” and “the most disgusting moral spectacle I ever witnessed” (191).

Since Trollope is now at the heart of the territory where slavery is an accepted way of life, and something she has an opportunity to witness every day, she feels even stronger condemnation. Her harrowing account of the careless treatment of a poisoned enslaved girl on a farm in Chapter 22 is used to bolster her argument about the cruelty of slavery.

Another aspect of American society that Trollope has occasion to criticize in this section is Americans’ obsession with politics. Trollope believes that this excessive devotion to the political process breeds a spirit of blind partisanship that destroys true ethics and moral feeling. She accuses of Americans of routinely engaging in “dishonest transactions” and links this to their worship of political power at all costs.

Trollope contrasts such an enthusiasm with the more old-fashioned value of “chivalry” as it exists in Europe, tied to moral sensitivity and honesty. Trollope makes it clear that for her, such moral values can only be cultivated in a society where natural inequalities of rank and social class exist, and in which higher social classes can provide moral example and set the tone for all of society. Thus, for Trollope, higher social standing is directly tied to superior moral virtue.