As his remarks were reported by the stenographers at the time, they contained some very insulting allusions to the free laborers of the Northern States, whom Mr. Calhoun spoke of in the most contemptuous terms as serfs and vassals, far beneath the negro bondmen of the South in moral degradation.
Slavery is such an evil that it withers what it touches.
If anyone desires an illustration of the opposite influences of slavery and freedom, let him look at the two sister States of Kentucky and Ohio. On the one hand, the air is vocal with the mingled tumult of a vast and prosperous population. This is the State which, but a few years ago, slept in the unbroken solitude of nature. The forest spread an interminable canopy of shade over the dark soil, on which the fat and useless vegetation rotted at ease, and through the dusky vistas of the wood only savage beasts and more savage men prowled in quest of prey. The whole land now blossoms like a garden.