The slave is always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one.
 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). copy citation

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Author Harriet Beecher Stowe
Source Uncle Tom's Cabin
Topic chance tyrants
Date 1852
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/203/203-h/203-h.htm

Context

“It is a common remark, and one that is thought to militate strongly against the character of the race, that the negro overseer is always more tyrannical and cruel than the white one. This is simply saying that the negro mind has been more crushed and debased than the white. It is no more true of this race than of every oppressed race, the world over. The slave is always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one. Legree, like some potentates we read of in history, governed his plantation by a sort of resolution of forces. Sambo and Quimbo cordially hated each other; the plantation hands, one and all, cordially hated them;” source