Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1858-05-01
Extracts from the Speech of Senator Ham
mond Of South Carolina.
LADoRING MEN BUT MUD sILLs

mond Of South Carolina.
LABoRING MEN But MUD sILLs.
In all social systems there must be a class to
do the mean duties, to perform the drudgery of
pte-that is, class requiring but low order
OF intellect and but little skill. Its requisites
are vigor, docility, fidelity Such class YOU
must have or you would not have that other
class which leads progress, refinement and civil
lization. 1t constitutes the very mud sils of So
ciety and Of political government; and YOU
might as well attempt to build house in the
air as to build either the one or tie other ex-
cept on mud sills. Fortunately for the south
She found a race adapted to that purpose to her
hand. a race inferior to herself, but eminently
qualified in temper, in vgor, in docility, in ca
pacity, to stand the climate to answer all her
purposes. We use them for the purpose and
call them slaves. We are old fashioned at the
south, yet it is a word discarded now by ears
polite but | vii not characterize that class at
the North with that terms but you have it ; it
is there; it is everywhere; it is ct nal
NORTHERN LABoRERs ARE But SLAVES.
The Senator from New York said Yesterday
that the whole world had abolished slavery
.iy, the name, but not the thing; and all the
powers of the earth cannot abolish it, God on
ly can do it when he repeals the fiat, "the poor
ye always have with you;'' for the man who
lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that,
and who has to put out his labor in the market
and take the best he can get for it in short,
your whole class of manual laborers and opera
tors as you call them, are slaves. The differ
ence between us is, that the slaves are hired for
life and well compensated; there is no starva-
;ion. no begging, no want of employ ment among
our people, and not too much employment Ell
ther. Yours are hired by the day, not cared
for. and scanty compensated, which NAV be
proved IN the most depiorable manner at any
hour, III any street, III any of your large towns.
Why. Sir. YOU meet more beggars in one day,
in any single street OF the city of New York,
than You would meet in life time in the whole
South. Our slaves are black, of another, infe-
rior race. The StatHs in which we have placed
them Is an elevation. They are elevated from
the condition in which God first created them,
by being made our slaves. None of that race
on the whole face of the globe can be compared
with the slaves Of the South, and they know it.
They are happy content unaspiring, and utter
ly incapable from intellectual degradation, ever
to give us any trouble by their aspirations
l,o"r slares are ichHe, Of you o,cn race; you
are brothers Of one 6iood. THEY are your equals
in natural endowmc,,ts Of intellect and they feel
CALLED by their degradation. Our slaves do not
vote We give them no political power
Yours do vote, and being the majority, they are
repositories of all your political power. lfthey
knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box
- nIOASel uH uIIi'N WIN DuNOnetS, ana
could combine, where would you be? Your So
ciety would be reconstructed, your government
reconstructed, your property divided, not as
they have mistakenly attempted to initiate such
proceedings by meeting in parks, with arms in
their hands, but by the quiet process of the bal
lot-box. ou have been making war upon us
TO our very hearth-stones How would YOU like
for us to send lecturers or agitators North, to
teach these people this, to aid and assist in COM
bining, and to lead them?
Mr.. Wilson and others-Send them along
NORTHERN LABoRERs ARE BEGGARs.
Mr.. Iiammond-You say send them North.
There is no need of that They are laundering
at our doors for homesteads of one hundred and
sixty acres of land for nothing, and Southern
Senators are supporting it. Nay, they are as
sembling as have said, with arms in their hand,
and demanding work at $1,000 year and six
hours day. Have YOU heard that the ghost of
Mendoza is stalking in the streets of our big cit
les; that the inquisition is at hand? There is
ahoat fearful.rumor that there have been con-
situations for vigilance committees. You know
what that means already. Transient and tenn
porary causes have thus far been your preserva-
ton. The West has been open to your surplus
population, and your boards of scmi-barbarian
emigrants, who are crowding in year by year.
| They make great movement and you call it
progress. Whittier? 1t is progress, but it is
| progress toward vigilance committees The
South have sustained you in great measure.
You are our factors. You bring and carry for
us. Slj0000,000 of our money passes annual
| ly through your hands. Much of it sticks; all
of it assists to keep your machinery together and
in motion. Suppose we were to discharge you;
| suppose we were to take our business out of
your hands, we should consgn you to anarchy
and poverty.
SOUTHERN RULE GLORIOUS AND BENEFICIENT.
You complain of the rule of the South That
has been another cause that has preserved you.
We have kept the Government conservative to
the great purposes of the Government. We
have placed her and kept her upon the Consti-
tuition and that has been the cause of your
peace and prosperity. The Senator from New
York says that is about to be at an end; that
YOU intend to take the Government from us;
that it will pass from our hands. Perhaps what
he says is true; it may be; but do not forget
it can never be forgotten, it is written on the
brightest page of human history-that we, the
shareholders of the South, took our country in
her infancy, and, after ruling her for sixty out
of the seventy years of her existence, we shall
surrender her to you without stain upon her
honor, boundless in prosperity incaculablc in
her strength, the wonder and the admiration of
the world. Time will show what you will make
of her, but no time can ever diminish glory, or
your responsibility.