Indiana American. [volume] (Brookville, Ind.) 1833-1861, 1855-02-16

kee is working creature. lie is the
honey-bee Of mankind. Only Work
is royal among us. 1t carrie, the
sceptre, andchanges all nations by its
touch. opening its treasures. and dis
closing its secrets.
+, But with all this industry, you shall
find nowhere on earth so little drudg-
ing work as in the North. 1t is not
tho seryitude Of the hands to material
nature. 1t is the glorious exercise Of
mind upon nature. They vex nature
with incessapt opportunities. They
are always prying, and thinking, and
trying.
In California. gold is found in quartz
formations. But, in New England,
and the free inventive north, in the ge-
ology of industry, gold is found every
wherein ryo straw and bonnets, In
leather and stone, in wool, felts and
cloths: in wood. in stone, and in very
ice. tits wrapped upin the beggar's
raiment, which unroll in our mills into
paper--yesterday. a beggar's feculent
rags; to-day, newspaper, conveying
the worlds daily life into twenty thou.
sand families. And so great are the
achievements Of labor that everybody
honors il. Itstands among us as an
invisible dignity. Four spirits there
are thatrulo in New England-religious
social virtue. intelligence, and work;
and this last takes something from
them oil. and Is their physical expon-
ont. So thatnot only Is work honor
ed and honorable, but the want Of IL is
an implied discredit. The presump-
ton 10 always against a man who does
uot labor.
In the South, tho very reverse is
true, rs q genreal proposition.
It's true, because labor Is tho pecu-
liar badge Of Slavery. II does not
stand. rs with us. a symbol Of intelli-
gence, but n symbol OF stupid seryi-
tude. II is tho business Of those
whom the law puts out Of the pale ol
society and accounts ohattels, and who,
by the opinion OF society. are at the
bottom. and under the feet Of respect.
able men. To work Is. therefore, pri.
ma facie evidences oI degradation. II
Is ranking oneself with a slave by do
ing a slaves tasks; rs eating u beggar's
crust with him would be beggar's Eel.
lowship.
But this is not the whole reason, mol
the chiefest and more potent reason oI
the difference between public feeling
about work North and South.
The ideas Of men in The South dc
not inspire any such tendency. Men
are judged there not by what they are
to be. but by what they can now do
Only such things as have an echo in
them, that reveberate in the ear of pub
lie opinion. that produce an effect o
notice, honor advancement IN the
opinions of men, are relished. In the
North. men are educated to be some
thing. in the South to seem something
The North tends TO doing--the South
to appearing. And both tendencies
spring from The root Of opposite theo'
ries OF men and notions of society.
And it is this innate, hereditary in
disposition to work that, after all, is
the greatest obstacle to emancipation
Laziness in the South and money in
the North are the bulwarks of Slavery
To take away a planters slaves is to
cut of his hands. There is where he
kept his work. There is none of il in
himself And it is this. too. which
leads to the contempt which southern
people feel for northern men. They
are working men, and work is favored
10 the Southerner with ideas of igno-
miny. Of meanness, of vulgar lowness,
Neither can they understand how a
man who works all his life long can be
high-minded and generous, intelligent
and refined.
Not only is there this contrast in dig
nifty of work, buteyen more-in right:
of industry. Work, in the North, has
responsibilities that are prodigious ed
ucators. We ordain that man shall
have the fullest chances, and then he
shal. have the results Of his activity
He shall take all he can make, or he
shall take the whole result Of incidence
It's double education. II inspires
labor by hope of fruition. and intensi
6es II by the fear Of non-fruition.-
The South have their whole body o
laborers at work without either respon
sibiliIy. They cut it OF at both ends
They virtually say 10 the slave, in re
ality, "Be lazy, for all that you carr
shall do you no good; be lazy, for
when you are old and helpless we are
bound to take care Of vou."
Itis this apparent care for the help
lessness Of slaves. that has won th'
favor of many northern men, and o
some who ought TO have known bette
the effect Of taking oil from men The
responsibility Of labor. in both ways
its fruition and its penalty. Once de
clare in New York that Government
would take care Of poverty and ole
age, so rs to make IL honorable, and !
would be a premium upon improyi
dencr. With US, IL Is expected tha
every man will work, will care, vii
lay up. will deliver his family from
public cherity. There is. to be sure
an Aims House to catch oil who, b,
misfortune or improyidence. fall thro'
But such is the public opinion in fayol
OF personal independence springinl
from industry. that a native born Am
erican citizen had rather die than gs
to an Aims House. Foreigners arr
our staple paupers. Our charity feeds
tho poor wre,ches whom foreign sla