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How can different theories of public opinion explain Douglass's…

- - - - Here Douglass argues that public opinion has to come from a humane community to promote morals. He therefore implies that public opinion does not always side with morality.
- - - - Since Baltimore was a society of majority non-slaveowners, the society through which slaveowners viewed themselves did not completely align with their own views. By viewing their slave owning through the perspectives of non-slaveowners (aka the mirror of their society), they were encouraged to be less violent.
- - - - Marx's use of the word lost is important. He implies that qualities like shame and conscience can be lost and therefore gained in public opinion. By this account, public opinion is somewhat cyclical in nature.
- - - - "All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility." (Mill, 163)
        
        Stuck in a society that generally mirrored their opinions, slaveowners rarely considered dissenting opinions. In doing so, they quickly disregarded the validity of abolitionists' arguments. Historically, change has been made when people consider differing opinions.
    - - This suggests that if slaveowners lived in different environments (ex. an abolitionist family instead of an echo chamber of pro-slavery sentiments), they probably would not own slaves.
        
        By Mill's logic, slaveowners should be far less confident in the practice of slavery. By ignoring dissenting opinions they have assumed themselves to be infallible, but Mill also proves that their opinions are largely environment-dependent. This environmental dependency lessens any idea of a "total truth."