The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-11-13

ny an all-DOunulul DEITY, man only Tor long
years is utterly dependent for food, shelter, and
clothing, upon the labor of those who precede
him And 50 far from regarding labor rs a
curse, see in it above all things the fayoritism
of God. Animals are clothed with but sim
gle yestment; their residences or retreats are
fixed their food is eternally the same. But
there is no limit to the variety, in comfort and
taste of the human dress Our dwellings rise
from the cabin to the palace, in structure and
ornaments whilst our food in variety and del
icacy, is only bounded by the wide reach of the
human mind, in its hold upon science and the
development Of the resources of the soil.
Labor, then. is an eternal and benefcent law
of our being Upon ITS honor depends its etti-
cheney: and upon both depend the numbers,
the prosperity and happiness of civilized society.
When then. you plant slavery ina State. You do
that thing which tends most powerfully, in con-
stutional law, to dishOnor labor and render it
Inefficient Before Il man will serve another,
with no inducement but the fear of punishment,
the spirit Of seltrespect must be utterly extin-
guishcd-he must be degraded below the beasts
And the slave has ever been regarded as the
basest of men, and the object not only of con-
tempt but hatred-because, in yielding up his
own liberty, he subtracts so much strength from
the mass of men, and to that extent endangers
the liberty of all others And by Il necessary
association of ideas. whatever the slave touches
has impaired to it something Of his own dis
honor appeal to the experience Of men--to
those who have been in the free and i'm the
slave States. Here, all those Offices which slaves
in greatest number and most habitually per-
form, are avoided as far as possible by the mass
of whites who are compelled to labor And in
kind if not in degree, at whatever remove from
the slave labor is still looked upon with dis
gust, and idleness is regarded as badge of so
cial elevation.
John Quincy Adams said he regarded the
profession of the law no more honorable than
the business of shOe-makng In the eye OF
reason, the shOe-blacker is rs honorable as the
shoemaker, and if Adams be right as honor
able as the lawyer 1t is slavery, and slavery
only, in its myriad forms, which degrades the
labOrer
When edited the True imerican in this city,
found the wives and daughters of the small
shop-keepers, mechanics and others, who had
ont, thor outrics the stems ard payements, and |
bringing 4BateAfso on l,,ihlr> NO., -, t1de
& sE,- - - b - :
wound their sentiments a social equality |
Master-workmen tell me that the best Journey |
men leave the State AZ soon rs they are married |
In the free States, on the contrary the wife and
daughter and lover 90 up-headed TO the dis
charge of domestic duties-made more lovely in
the eyes of all. by the conscious glow of duty
performed The Shareholders and rich avoid
labor entirely They are idles by profession,
and drones upon society; whilst at distance,
.all classes initiate them ldleness is the mother
Of ruin to the State and restitution to indvid- |
uals There are no promises in the book of
Nature or Revelation for the idler Its career
is deformity in person, stupidity in intellect de-
prayity in morals. Its end is poverty and death |
Not less than twenty persons, Of all ages, sexes
and cOOrs. have come to violent ends in this |
State, in three months in a population of one |
million! Such terrible result is the best COM
mentary upon slavery and its vtiating effects
In the North, every grade in wealth, from the
highest to the lowest have suitable employment
for their children. In manufactures in agri-
culture and commerce, rs well as in the learned
professions there is room for all and only the
man of business is hOnOred
Here the evil Of dishonored labor is not con-
fined to us, DEMONSTRATING class, butreaches
masters also. Theson and daughter cannot by
them be put to work alongside of the de-
graded slave, who is Of course an unfit asso-
ciate. The professions are full to starvation
The consequence is, sons and daughters are
brought up in idleness and eifemnacy mind,
body, and estate, go to wreck Thus slavery.
like the tabled shirt of Nessua, which was ex-
pected to bring pleasure and comfort in the
use, but maddens its unhappy possessor at last
Unfortunately for the labOrcrs the evils of
slavery are not confined to mere sentiments or
association of ideas, but they come home to
every one whether in the field or in the Workshop
and ruin him by the competition of unpaid |
wages! This is proved by the retardation or
expulsion of the whites in all slave States By
the census of the United States, the whole pop
ulation doubles in about every twenty-five years
Take the previous censuses of the people Of
Kentucky, and you will find that we ought in
1851 to have had two millions instead of eight
hundred thousand whites Our sister State of
Ohio of about the same area of land, with long
er winters, less fertile soil and mineral
wealth, although our junior by many years,
has her two millions of people. Slavery, then,
has expelled one million people from the State
do not now consider the amount of human
suffering which this curse has caused! For if
happiness depends mostly, not upon absolute
but relative, wealth-and the man is happiest
who is steadily improving his condition-who
can estimate the misery of the million of peO-
pie continually decreasing in means, till at last
they see their homes pass into the hands OF
strangers, and themselves driven into exile-a
punishment in all Governments deemed suffi-
cient for the greatest of crimes! ] choose to re-
gard it merely as n matter of dollars and cents :;
and as labor il the admitted source OF all
wealth. we have lost one half OF our productive
power--one million of laborers have gone, one
remains. If we regard man as productive
machine simply-the white valued no higher
| than the slave, at an average OF three hundred
dollars we have lost possibly productive
power OF capital of three hundred million Of
dollars This is not all we have placed two
hundred thousand African slaves in place of
the same number of white freemen. Now, our
fathers of the South when the Federal Constitu-
ton was formed, contended. no doubt truly that
the slave was only half ~ productive as the
white; and that therefore, in taxation two
slaves ought to be counted as but one white.
This is good authority at least against our
opponents. In the substitution OF slaves Tor Tree
men, then, we have placed one hundred thou
sand paupers in tho State; for whilst ~ ma
chimes they are fed, clothed and sheltered, nj
the Same cost rs whites only producing half "
much, it is IA if one hundred thousand wer,
supported out of the aggregate wealth, from
the bone and sincw, and the sweat of the face
of the great mass of laborers, black and white
And every two slaves imported into the State
for the Shareholders subject us to that also,
} and every two born impose an additional
Q pauper upon us Again these emigrants have
/ taken out more or less of the money of the coun
| try--say three hundred dollars each and w
have lost three hundred millions more of thu
, actual accumulated capital of the country-a
. much as all the balance of the wealth. real an,
. personal, as shown by the census
/ But the same causes which retard xOpula
/, ton hinder education In the free States six