Ok, for some reason I couldnt post a reply to my 1st msg. From my dumb phone, but what if this man was in love with his slave---that isnt his own slave, and wanted to marry her and make her in his eyes, his equal but his racist father disapproved of it? Would it be too far feteched to put in a story that the man and the slave were physically punished (by whipping for example) by the father and others?
I'd say that the situation would be far enough out of the norm that it would depend more on the individual characters involved. If I'm understanding correctly, the son wants to marry and make equal a slave belonging to his father? That would be extremely radical for a Bostonian even to agree to in theory, let alone a southerner to announce in practice. Um, once again, we
are talking a typical early-mid-1800s U.S. slave state, and not, for example, colonial Massachusetts, Haiti, or something?
I'd consider things like... how does the father believe the son got these ideas? Was it the slave's fault for corrupting his innocent son? Was it some abolitionist's fault for putting wild ideas in the son's head? Was it the father's own fault for raising the son wrong? The father's anger might be acted out differently in each case.
And is this something the father is ashamed of and wants to keep private, so he denies it to the neighbors? Or has he emotionally disowned his son and would be glad to have the neighbors help with punishment? Is he worried that he needs to lead the neighborhood mob, lest the neighbors suspect he's a secret abolitionist too and turn on him? Is he feeling somewhat at fault ("why'd I ever send him to Oberlin instead of South Carolina College?") and therefore trying to protect his son from the neighbors in public, while condemning the son in private? Those might also affect how the father would interact with the neighbors and therefore how the neighbors would interact with the son and slave.
But whipping and corporal punishment in general were more acceptable in the mid-19th century, and mobs sprang up to handle matters they deemed necessary, so I don't see a problem with the idea in general, if it seems realistic for the characters in particular.