This is the same system that puts a white man's rights to his "property- "his slaves "over the welfare and freedom of a black man. Both Huck and Jim were treated as property. Due to this slaves were regularly returned to their legal owners no matter how badly these owners abused them. Therefore it is clear why Huck and Jim had become dissatisfied with the society in which they lived. Huck's family, the legal system, and the community have all failed to protect him and provide a set of beliefs and values that are consistent and satisfying to him. .
The journey played an important part in the developing of Huck's morals. Along the journey Huck is able to come to his own conclusions, unaffected by the accepted, and often hypocritical precepts of Southern culture. Huck possesses a natural personal morality that transcends his narrow social, cultural and religious customs. The journey is important because it allows Huck the freedom to follow his heart, his true conscience, and not his head, which is filled with the voices of society. The contradictions of his natural moral inclinations and social prejudice does not become evident to Huck until he is on the river away from civilization and its social views. The journey gives Huck a closer look at society from the outside. Consequently, through the journey with its pressures and reality, these social views are eventually destroyed. Huck is in constant battle with his convictions to follow his heart and his logic, which tells him to follow the social customs familiar with him. Eventually this constant conflict demands him to make a choice. Huck makes a decision to reject conventional morality in favour of what his conscience dictates. It is at this point that Huck cannot re-enter the civilized world; he has moved beyond it morally. Huck's opposition to civilization is based on some mature observations about the worth of society. While the society around him is in moral confusion, Huck knows better that the adults around him, however, he needs the guidance that a proper family and community should have offered him.