Mississippi Democrat. (Carrollton, Miss.) 1844-18??, 1845-01-29

0Ou, anu IL 10 DidS IlleLIOuS .IOT any Oh Ills
creatures TO set up their notions of them
in opposition TO His immediate and ac-
knowled revelation. Nor does OUR system
Of slavery outrage the most sacred domes-
| tic relations. Husbands and wives, pa
rents and children, among our slaves are
seldom separated, except fiom necessity
or crime. The same reasons induce much
more frequentseparations among the white
population, and, | imagine, in almost eve-
ry other country.
But make bold to say that the Presby-
terry of the Free Church of Glasgow, and
nearly all the Aboitionists in every part
OF the world, in denouncing our domestic
slavery, denounce a thing of which they
know absolutely nolhing-nay, which
does not even exist. You weep over the
horrors of the Middle Passage, which have
ceased, so far as we are concerned, and
over pictures of chain and lashes here,
which have no existence but in the ina
ginaton. Our sympathies are almost
equally excited by the accounts published
! by your Committee of Parliament--and
therefore true; and which have been veri-
fed by the personal observation of many
of us--if the squalid misery, loathsome
disease, and actual starvation, of multi
tudes of the unhappy laborers, not OF
Ireland only, but of Eng land-nay, of
Glasgow ITSELF Yet we never presume to
interfere with your social or municipal
regulations your aggregated wealth and
congregated misery--nor the crimes at
tendant on them, nor your pitiless laws for
their suppression. And when we see by
your official returns, that even the best
classes of English Agricultural laborers
can obtain for their support but seven
pounds Of bread and four ounces of meat
per week, and when sick or out of en-
! ployment must either starve or subsist on
charity, we cannot but look with satisfac-
ton to the condition of our slave labo-
rers, who usually receive as a weekly al
lowance, fifteen pounds of bread, and
three pounds of bacon-have their chill
dren fed without stint, and properly at
tended to-are all we'll clothed, and have
comfortable dwellings, where with their
gardens and poultry yards, they can, il
the leastindustrious, more than realize for
themselves the vain hope of the great
| French King, that he might see every
peasant in France have his fowl upon his
table on the Sabbath who, from the pro-
ceeds of their own crops, purchase even
! Injuries and finery-who labor scarcely
more than nine hours a day, on the ave-
rage Of the year--and who. in sickness,
in declining years, in infancy and decrep-
itude, are watched over with tenderness
scarcely short of parental. When we con-
template the known condition of your ope-
ratives, of whom that of your agricultural
IabOrers is perhaps the least wretched, we
are not only not ashamed of that o! our
slaves, but are always ready to challenge
a comparison, and should be highly graft
| fed 10 submit TO a reciprocal investigation,
by enlightened and impartial judges.
You are doubtless of opinion, that all
these advantages in favor of the slave, If
they exist, are more than counterbaanced
by his being deprived of his freedom
Can YOU tell me what freedom is-who
possesses i t, and how much of it is requi-
site for human happiness? Is your opera
tive, existing in the physical and moral
condition, which your own official returns
depict-deprived too of every political
right, even of that of voting at the polls
who is not cheered by the slightest hope
of ever improving his lot or leaving his
!; children to better, and who actually
t seeks the four walls of prison, the huks
and transportation, as comparative bless
ings-is he free--sufficiently free? Can
you say that this sort of freedom--the IL
berty to beg or steal; TO choose between
: starvation and prison--does or ought &c
, make him happier than our slave, situated
as have truly described him, without G
single care or gloomy forelhoughl?
! But you will perhaps say, it is not in the
Thing, but in the Name, that the magic
) resides--that there is vast difference be-
tween being called a slave and being
: made one, though equally ensIaved by
, law, by social forms, and by immutablC
: necessity. This is an ideal and sentmen
: tai distinction which it will be difficult Il
I bring the African race TO comprehend
| But if it be true, and freedom is name
! and idea, rather than reality, how many
are there then entitled even 10 that name
except by courtesy; and how many are
able to enjoy the idea In perfection?--
, Does your operative regard it as a sufi
, cient compensation for the difference be-
t tween four ounces and three pounds o
bacon? If he does, he is a rare phiIoso
pher. In your powerful Kingdom, Socla
, Grade is as thoroughly established and &C
knowledged as Military Rank. Your com
monality see among themselves serie:
of ascending classes, and, rising above
/ them all, many more, composed of mer
not whit superior to themselves in any o
the endowments of nature, who yet il