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

life, IN early infancy. protected, housed ana ted,
by an all-bountiful Deity, man only for long
years is utterly dependent, for food shelter, and
clothing, upon the labor of those who precede
him. And 80 far from regarding labor rs a
curse, ! see in it above all things the fayoritsm
of God. Animals are clothed with but SIN
gle yestment; their residences or retreats are
fixed their food is eternaly 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 Elf
cheney; and upon both. depend the numbers,
the prosperity and happiness of civilized society.
When, then, you plant slavery in State You do
that thing which tends most powerfully, in con-
stitutional law, to dishonor labor, and render it
inefficient. Before man will serve another,
with no inducement but the fear of punishment,
the spirit of self-respect must be utterly extin-
guished-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 a 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 in 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-making In the eye of
reason the shoe-blackcr is as 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 T'rue american in this city
/ found the wives and daughters of the small
shop-keepers mechanics and Others, who had
(ao 1900. 49,, :sE;;::2-,
! : -',7 925-;'a shgy''e,:7 apd navS'Pents and
! yssa,ira .sr}.e f,.m tlis ~ .s'-a tho ode
of slaves was yet poured into the streets to
wound their sentiments of social equality
Master-workmen tell me that the best Journey
men leave the State ~ soon rs they are married
In the free States on the contrary the wife and
daughter and lover 60 up-headed to the dis
charge of domestic dutes-made more lovely in |
the eyes of all by the conscious glow of duty
performed The shareholders and rich avoid |
labor entirely. They are idlers by profession,
and drones upon society; whilst, at distance,
all classes initiate them. Idleness is the mother
of ruin to the State and destitution to individ-
uals There are no promises in the book of
Nature or Revelation for the idler Its career
is dcformty in person, stupidity in intellect, de-
pravty in morals. It's end is poverty and death
Not less than twenty persons Of all ages, sexes
and cOlOrs. have come to violent ends in this
State, in three months, in a population of one
million! Such q terrible result is the best COM
mentary upon slavery and its yitiatng 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, as well as in the learned
professions there is room for all and only the
nah of business is honored
Here the evil Of dshonOred labor is not con-
fined to us, demonstrating class, butreaches
masters also Thcson 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 elfeminacy mind,
body, and estate 90 to wreck Thus slavery
like the tabled shirt of Nessus, which was ex-
pected to bring pleasure and comfort in the
use but maddens its unhappy possessor at last.
Unfortunately for the laborers, the evils of
slavery are not confined to mere sentiments or
Of ideas, but they come home to
every one whether in the field or in the work shop,
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 |
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, wcalth-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 suii- |
cient for the greatest of crimes | choose TO re-
gard it merely Us n matter of dollars and cents /;
and M labor is 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-thc white valued no higher
than the slave, at an average of three hundred
dollars we have lost u possibly productive
power or 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 tho South, when the Federal Constitrl-
ton was formed, commended no doubt truly, that |
the slave was only half AZ productive rs the |
white; and that therefore in taxation, two |
slaves ought to be counted as but one white
This is good authority ut least against our
opponents In the substitution of slaves for free
men, then, We have placed one hundred thou
sand paupers in the State; for whilst rs ma
chimes they are fed, clothed and sheltered, at
the same cost ~ whites, only producing half as
much, it is IA if one hundred thousand were
supported out of the aggregate wealth, from
the bone and sncw, and the sweat of the face,
of the great mass of laborers, black and white
And every two slaves imported into the State,
(ior the shareholders subject lis to that also
and every two born, impose an additional
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 we
have lost three hundred millions more Of the
actual accumulated capital of the country--as
much as all the balance of the wealth, real and
personal, as shown by the census
But the same causes which retard popula-
ton hinder education In the free Stntcs SIX