The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-07-14


Capital States-Eabor States.
If Mr.. Stewards speech at Rochester
won to the Republican party the great bo-
dy of Anti-Slavery votes in the State of
New York, and thus saved the party, it is
equally true that his speech in the Senate,
based upon the terms Capital States" and
Labor States" alienated from him, per
sonally, Anti-Slayery sympathy and sup
port, and thus, indirectly, baulked his NOM
ination at Chicago, and-cost him the Pre-
sidency. We say indirectly baulked his
nomination at Chicago, for while his defeat
in the convention was the result of other
combinations, it was on this Senate speech
that these combinations mainly rested their
f0othoId.
The speech in the Senate was, in the
general belief, d retrocession OF backing
down" from the speech at Rochester, and
in this view men regarded the speaker as
awanting in the firmness Of character re-
quired by the head and front of the party,
and the 'backing-down" was regarded as
bid for tho presidency. 1t lika tho IA
nous Raleigh letter Of Henry Clay. Itwas
the trumpet giving an uncertain sound On
the eve-nay, in the midst-of the bat
tie.
No part of the speech in the Senate pro-
duced a wider hostile criticism than the
terms capital States" for "slave States,"
and "labor States" for "free States" 1t
was at once taken for granted that Mr..
Seward substituted the term "capital States'
for ''slave States" out of tender regard for
the feelings of the South, where, in like
manner, the word servant" is used in place
of the harsher word "Slave" The public
at once concluded that if Mr.. Seward, in
prospect of office, became so deferential to
the South, then Mr.. Seward in office would
probably have been one more added to the
ignoble list of Northern doughfaces Even
the best-edited, the fairest and best-inform-
ed of the Republican newspapers-the N.
Y. Evening Post"-went along with the
popular current in this uncharitable criti-
cism, and even spoke of the term as new
and not felicitous invention of the distin-
guished Senator
Now, it SO happens that the terms were
neither new nor an invention of Mr.. Sew
ards They were used by publicists ma
ny years ago, and the fault lay not in the
recalcitration, or, as the Bowery boys would
say, the "backing-down," of Senator Sew
ard, but in the ignorance of his critics.
In the "North American Review" for
July, 1860, is learned and able article
on Slavery Among the Romans" being
review of the Historic de lEsclavage dams
rAntiquite, par III. Wallon-Paris, 1847,"
and in part of Mommsen's "R0mische Ge-
schichte" From the latter work, pub
lished before Wallon's, the reviewermakes
the following quotation: "I'hen began
the second campaign of capital against la
Dor, or what in antiquity is essentially the
same, against peasant husbandry. !
The capitalists no longer lent on interest,
as this process in itself ceased to be prac-
ticable, since the small proprietor had now
no need of any considerable surplus, and
besides was not simple and radical enough;
but they bought up the peasant home
steads, and changed them at best to farms
cultivated by slaves This was still called
agriculture; it was, in point of fact, essen
tally the employment of capital in the
production of the fruits of the earth. -
Il1ontmSen az supra, vol. 1, p S32
"Time only made the condition of things
worse; capital waged war upon labor" -
Ibid. @
This quotation places the terms in a
clearer light than we find them in Senator
Stewards speech. Both the works, and es-
pecially that of WALTON, must be of very
great interest We regret that their scare
ity and high price place them beyond our