The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1858-11-24

borer, it loads down with chains and con.
| verts into merchandise, but scarcely lsss %
to the freeman, to whom, only because he Il
laborer from neoessity,it denies facilities
for employment, and whom it expels from
the community because il cannot snslave and
convert him into merchandise also. 1t il
necessarily improvident and ruinons, be-
| cause, as general truth, communities pros
per and flourish or droop and decline 10 just
the degree that they practice or neglect to
practice the primary duties of justice and
humanity. rhe free labor system conforms
| to the divine law OF equality, which is
written in the hearts and conscences OF men,
and therefore is always and everywhere be-
nefcent..
| The slave system il one OF constant dan
| ger, distrust, suspicion and watchfulness. II
| debases those whose toll alone can produce
wealth and resources for defence TO the low
est degree Of which human nature is capa-
| Bile to gnard against mutiny and Insured.
| ton, and thus wastes energies which other
wise might be employed in national develop
ment and aggrandiscment.
The free-iabor system cducates al alike,
and by opening oil the fields OF Industrial
emrl yment and all the departments Of au-
thority to the unchecked aud equal rivalry Of
all Glasses OF men, at once secures univ ersal
| contentment ard brings into the highest pos
| sible activity all the physical, moral, and so.
cial energies Of the whole State. In States
| where the slave system prevails, the masters,
directly or Indirectly, secure all political
power, and constitute a ruling aristocracy.--
la the States where the free labor system
prevails, universal suffrage necessarily OBJ
tains, and the State inevitably becomes,
sooner or later, either a Republic or Dem
| ocracy.
Russia vet maintains slavery, and is q des-
potism. Most OF the other European States
have abolished slavery and adopted the sys-
TEN Of free labor.
Ii was the antagonist political tenden-
eies of the two systems which the frat Napo.
leon was contemplating when he predicted
that Europe would ultimately be either all
Cossack or all Republican. Never did hui
man sagacity utter more pregnant truth
The two systems are at once perceived to be
homogeneous. But they are more than incon-
gruous, they are incompatible. They never
have permanently existed together in one
country, and they never can. IL would be
| easy to demonstrate this impossibility, from
the irreconoilabie contrast between their
great principles and characteristics Bat the
experience Of mankind has conclusively es-
tablished it. Slavery IN have already init
mated, existed In every State in Europe
Free labor has supplanted it everywhere ex-
cept in Russia and Turkey. State necessi-
ties, developed in modern times, are now
obiging CIV en- those two nations to encourage
and employ free 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
last century. and fell before it in New Eng
land, New York, New Jersey and Pennsyi-
vania, but triumphed over it effectually, and
excluded it for period yet undetermined
from Virginia, the Caroinas, md Georgia.
Indeed, so incompatible are the two systems
/ that every new State which is organized
within our ever extending domain makes it,
| fret political net choice Of the one and the
exclusion OF the other, even ut the cost oil
OWL war, If necessary. The slave States,
without law, at the last national election
successfully forbade, within their own lin
| its, even the casting of votes for President OF
| the United States supposed to be favorable to
the establishment Of the free labor system in
new States.
| Hitherto the two systems have existed in
| different States, but side by eide, within the
| American Union. This has happened be-
cause the Union 10 conf federation Of States;
but in another aspect the United States con-
stitute only one nation. Increase of popu-
latiop, which Is filing the States out to their
very borders, together with a new and ex-
tended network of railroads and other ave-
naes, and an internal commerce which daily
becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing
the States into higher and more perfect so i
oial unity or consolidation. Thus these an
antagonistic systems are cotinually coming
into closer contact, and collisions are the re-
suit.
Shall tell you what this collision means
They who think that it is accidental, unnec
essary, the work OF interested or fanatical
agtators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake
the case altogether. 1t il an irrepressible
conflict between opposing and enduring for
ces, and 1t means that the United States must
and will, sooner or later, become either Gu
tirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a
free-iabor nation. Either the cotton and
rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar
plantations Of Louisiana will ultimately be
titled by free-labor and Charleston and New
Orleans become marts for legitimate mer-
chandise alone, or else the rye-6elds and
wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York
must again be surrendered by their farmers
to slave culture and to the production OF
slaves, and Boston and New York become
once more markets for trade in the bodies and
souls OF men. Ii Is the failure to apprehend
this great truth that induces 80 many unsuc.
cessful attempts NJ final comrromise between
the slave and free States and it is the exist.
enee of this great fact that renders oil such
pretended compromises, when made, vain and
ephemeral. Startling as this saying may APP
pear to you, sellow-cI,zens, il is by no means
an original or evena modern one. Our fore
fathers knew it to be true, and unanim ously
acted upon it when they framed the Consti-
tuition Of the United States. They regarded
the existence oil the seryile system in so many
Of the States with sorrow and shame. which
they openly confessed, and they looked upon
the collision between them, which was then
just revealing Itself, and which We are now
accustomed TO deplore, with favor and hope.
They knew that either the one or the other
system must exclusively prevail.
Unlike too many Of those who, in modern
times invoke their authority, they had choice
between the t@e. They preferred the sys.
tenn Of rec labor, and they determined 40 to
organize the government and SO 70 direct its
activity that that system should surely and
certainly prevail. For this purpose, and ma
other, they based the whole structure of gov
ernmeut traaily IN tho nrirc,vla fhat q IL :, \.