The Kansas herald of freedom., 1858-05-08
Wiscellaneops.
Senator wilson's vindioaton of Free Labor.

Senator Wilson's Vindication of Free Labor.
The speech Of HENRY WILSON, of
Massachusetts,, in the United States Sem
ate, in reply to Senator Hammond, Of
South Carolina, and in vindication of Free
Labor and Free Laborers, is one of the
most mastery productions, for its pur-
pose, to which the Kansas debate gave
rise; and is as interesting as it is powerful.
It is, moreover, full of valuable statistics
and citations on various points, and de-
serves wide circulation. We present
few extracts:
But the Senator, filled with magnificent
visions of Southern power, crown cotton
"king," and tells us that if they should
stop supplying cotton for three years,
England would topple headlong, and
carry the whole civilized world with her,
save the South! ' What presumption
The South, which owns lands and slaves,
the price fuctuating with the production,
use and price of cotton, having no other
resource or means of support, would go
harmless; while the great commercial
centers of the world, with the vast accu-
mutations of capital, the products of ages
of accumulation, with varied pursuits and
skilled industry, would "topple to their
fall Sir, suppose the coffe planters of
Brazil, the tea-growers of the Celestial
Empire, and the wheat-growers on the
shores of the Black Sea and on the banks
of the Don and the Volgs, indulge in the
same magnificent illusions. / would re-
mind the Senator that the commercial
world is not governed by the cotton-pIan-
tiers of the South, the COTE planters of
Brazil, the tea-growers of the Celestial
Empire, and the wheat growers on the
shores of the Black Sea. I tell the Sem
ator that England, France, Germany,
Western Europe, and the Northern States
of this Union, are the commercial, manu-
featuring, business and monetary centers
of the world that their merchants, manu-
facturers, and capitalists grasp the globe !;
that cotton and sugar, and tea and coffee,
and wheat, and the spices of the isles of
the Oriental seas, are grown for them.
Sir, the cotton-planters of the South are
simply their agents, and they perform
their task under necessity quite as great
as their own slaves perform theirs under
the task-master's eye. would remind the
Senator that the Free States, in 1850, pro-
duced $3.50 100000 of manufactures, and
that only s52,OO0,OOO of that vast pro-
duction-only about one-seventeenth of
twas made up of cotton. Our manu-
features and mechanic arts now must ex-
coed twelve hundred million dollars, and
cotton does not make up more than sew
enty million dollars. Does the Senator
think the Free States would ''topple"
down if they should lose one-seventeenth
part of their productive industry
The productive industry of Massachu-
sets, a State that manufactures more than
one-third of all the cotton manufactured
in the country, was, in 1855, S350,0OO,-
COO; only 100000, one-thirteenth part
of it, was cotton. Does the Senator be-
lieve that State which has a productive
industry of s35o,O00OOO, about $3.50
per head for each person, would perish if
she should lose 100000 of that vast
production
1t is no matter of surprise that gentle
men who live away off ON crossroads,
where cotton blooms, should come to be-
lieye that cotton rules the world but a
few months association with the great
world would cure that delusion. "You
are our factors ,! exclaims the Senator,
"You bring and carry for us. Suppose
we were to discharge you? Suppose we
were to bring our business out of your
hands, we should consign you to anarchy
and poverty ' Sir, suppose, when the
Senator returns from this chamber to the
cotton fields, his slaves should, in their
simplicity, say to him, Massa, you only
sell de cotton we plants, we hoes, we
picks de cotton; 'spose we discharge you.
Massa" The unsophisticated "mud-
sills" would be quite as reasonable as is
the Senator. The Senator seems to think
that the cotton planters hold us in the
hollow of their hands; if they shake
them, we tremble; if they close them,
we perish.
But the Senator from South Carolina,
after browning cotton as king, with power
to bring England and all the civilized
world "toppling" down into the yawning
CULTS of bankruptcy and ruin, complacently
NSAAo toO GCAdtC anu IuS
jects of his cotton king that the greatest
strength of the south arises from the har-
mony of her political and social institu-
tions - that her forms of society are the
best in the world :" that " she has an ex-
tent of political freedom, combined with
entire security, seen nowhere on earth"
The South, he tells Us, " is satisfied, har-
menious, and prosperous" and he asks
Us if We shave heard that the ghosts of
Mendoza and Torquemada are stalking in
the streets of our great cities: that the
inquisition is at hand, and that there are
fearful rumors of consultations for vigi-
lance committees Pr Sir, this selfcom-
placency is sublime! No son of the Ce-
lestial Empire can approach the Senator
in seif-complacency. That society the
best In the world where more than three
millions of beings, created in the image
of God. are held as chattles-sunk from
the lofty level of humanity, down to the
ahiect condition of unreasoning beasts of
burden! That "society the best in the
world " where are manacles, chains and
whips, auction-blocks, prisons, blood
hounds, scourgings, lynchings and burn
ings, laws to torture the body, shrivel the
mind and debase the soul where labor
is dishonored and laborers despisedl "Po-
litical freedom in a land where woman
is imprisoned for teaching little children
to read Gods Holy Word where profess
sors are deposed and banished for oppos-
ing the extension of slavery; where pub
lie men are exiled for quoting in national
convention the words of Jefferson; where
voters are mobbed for appearing to vote
fo1 free territory; and where booksellers
are driven from the country for selling a
copy Of that mastery work of genius,
aUncle Toms Cabin p 4 land of acer-
tain security" where patrols, costing, as
in Old Virgins, more than is expended to
educate he. poor children, stalk the coun-
try to catch the faintest murmur of discon-
H. - h. kl<z,IIo,~