Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1858-11-19
THE PRo-sLAvRRY PARTY.
SPEECH OF MR. SEWARD.
Delivered at Roehsstsr on Monday, Oct. as. .ss

fELLoW-CfIIZEKS: The unmiStakahl
outbreaks of zeal which occur ell around m
show that you are earnest men-aRd such
man am l. Let Us, therefore, ut least for
time, pass BY all secondary and collater,
questions, whether of personal or of a ger
eral nature, and consider the main subject q
the present canvass. The Democratic par
ty-or, to speak more aecuratsly-the part
which wears that attractive name, il in DO.
session of the Federal Government. Th
Republicans propose to disiodge that part
and dismiss il from i,s high trust.
The main subject then IL, whether ,h
Democratic party deserves TO retain th
confidence Of the American people. In At
tempting to prove it unworthy, / think tha
am actuated By no prejudices against Ia,
party, or by prePossessions in favor Of thl
adversary; for l have learned, BY some ex
Perience, that virtue and patriotism, and vics
and selfshness, are found in all parties, ana
that they differ less in their mot ives than il
the policies they pursue. sS
Our country is n theatre, which exhibits
in fall operation, two radically different po-
litic2l systems; the one restin z on the basis
of servile or Slave Laber, the other on the
basis ef voluntary labor of freemen.
The laborers who are enslaved are all ne,
groes, or persons more or less Of purely Al.
riean derivation. But this Is only acciden.
tai. The principle of the system is, thai
labor in every society, BY whomsoever per
formed, is necessarily uDinselIectual, Rroyel-
ing and base, and that the laboreY, equally
for his own good and for the welfare Of the
nj <,s.rxhR A<z-
boring man, whether native or foreigner, ia
not enslaved only because he cannot, as yet
be reduced to bondage.
You need not be told now that the Slave
System is the older Of the two, and thai
once it was universal.
The emancipation of our own ancestors,
Cancasans and Europeans, as they were,
hardly dates beyond period of five hundred
years. The great melioration of human
society which modern times exhibit, is main
ly due to the substitution OF the system OF
voluntary labor, which has already taken
place. Fhis African slave system Is one,
which, in its origin and growth, has been al
together foreign from she habits Of ttSe races
which colonized these States and established
civilization here. Il was Introduced on this
new continent as an esgine df conquest, and
for the establishment of Monarchicai Power
by the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and was
rapidly extended over all South Ameriea,
Central America, Louisiana and Mexico.
Its legitimate fruits are seen in the poverty,
imbecility and anarchy which ow pervades
all Portuguese and Spanish America. The
Free Labor system 10 of German extraction,
and il was established in our country by en-
igrants from Sweden, Holland, Germ any,
Great Britain and ireland.
We justly ascribe to the influences of
the free labor system the strength. wealth,
greatness, intelligence End freedom which
the whole American people now enjoy
One of the chief elements OF the value Of
human life is freedom in the pursuit of hap
Piness! Fhe slave system is not only intol-
Grant, unjust and in nhussan toward the labor
er, whom, only because he is q la5oFer, il
loads down with chain and converts into raer-
chaneise, but scarcely less so to the free
man, to- whom, emily because he is laborer
from necessity, il denies facilities for en-
ployment, and whom it expels from the COM
mnnity because it cannot enslave and convert
ly improvident and ruinous, because, as q
general truth, communities prosper and
flourish or droop and decline in just the de-
gree that they practice the primary duties of
justice and humanity. The free labor sys-
tenn conforms to the divine law of equality,
which is written in the hearts and conscien-
ces of mem and therefore is always and ev-
erywhere benefcent.
The slave system is one Of constant dan>
ger, dissrust, suspicion and watchfulness. Ii
4ebases those whose toll alone can produce
wealth and resources for defence, to the
lowest degree of which human nature is ca
sable, to gTard against mutiny and insurrec-
ion, and thus wastes energies which other
wise might be employed in the nutioRal de-
mt and aggrandisement.
The free labor system educates all alike,
and by opening the fields of industrial en-
oloy ments and all the departure Ets of ,autber-
ty, to the unchecked ard cfdal slsaIft Of
II classes of men, at once secures universal
and brings into the highest
possible activity all the physical, moral ard
social energies of the whole State. In
States where the slave systsm prevails, the
masters, directly or indirectly, secure all po-
itical power, and constitute ruling aristoc-
.acy. In the States where the free labor
system prevails, universal suffrage necessari-
y obtains, and the State inevitably becomes,
sooner or later, republic or democracy.
Russia yet maintains Slavery, and is
iespotism. Most of the other European
States have abolished Slavery and adopted
The system oi FREQ Labor. 1t was the an
tagonistic political tendencies Of the two
systems which the first Napoleon was con-
when he predicted that Europe
you.,d ultimately be either all Cossack or all
Never did human sngncity ul-
Ter more pregnant truth. The two sys-
TENS are at once percciTed TO be incongruous,
But they are moro than ircGngruous, they
are incompatible. They never have Perma-
nently existed together in one country, and
they never can. II would be easy to den=
onstrate this impossibili,y. from the irrecon-
cilable CONTRACTS between thoiF great princi-
pies and characteristics. But the expert
ence OF Mankind has conclusiyoly establish
ed it. Slavery, az have already intinated,
existed in every State in Europe. Free La
Dor has supplan.ed 1t everywhere except in
Russia and Turkey. Siaio necessities, de-
veloped in modern times, are now obliging
even those two nations to encourage and
employ Frco Labor, and already, despotiC as
they are, we find them engaged in abolish
ing Slavery. In the United States, Slavery
came into collision with Free Labor at the
close of the las. century, and fell before 1t
in New Eogland, New York, New Jersey
and nnsylyvania, but triumphed over 1t et-
fectualiy, and excluded it for period yet
undetermined, from Virginia, the Carolinas
and Georgia. Indeed so incompatible are
the two systems, TINT every new State which
is organized within our overwhelming do
main makes its first political act choice ot
the one and an exclusion OF the other, even