The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1862-06-18
EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH
OF
HON. S. S. COX, OF OHIO,

HON. S. S. COX, OF OHIO.
How will this immigration of the
blacks affect labor in Ohio and in the
North?
FIRST, directly, it affects our labor, as all
unproducing classes detract from the pros
perity of a community. Ohio is an agri-
cultural State. Negroes will not farm.
They prefer to laze or serve aroand towns
and cities. This is evident from the CEN
sus of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo,
Dayton, Columbus, GAINESVILLE, and Chilli
cothe, where more than three-fourths of
the blacks of Ohio are to be found. But
is it said that the plantation hands. when
free, will work the lands? Such is not
the experience on the Carolina coast. A
writer in the Boston Journal, from Port
Royal, on the 14th of May, 1862, esti-
mates that there are 10000 contrabands
on the islands. They have planted some
corn potatoes, and cotton, under the Gov
|ernment direction. The writer says:
';It is difficult to make the negroes work,
or induce them to, (if that sounds better
North, , as they find something to eat from
Massa Lincoln, and seem to feel they are
not ssfree niggers" if they work. So they
often take day or several days te them
selves, when their services perhaps are
most needed, and go to Hilton Head or
Beaufort. For instance, some ground had
been prepared for plowing and planting,
but Just as they were needed, the few men
who understood that part, went off for two
days without the least notice, thus delay
ing the planting, which was even then
late. Until some method is adopted to
make them feel the necessity of work for
their own good, Goyernment will receive
but little benefit comparatively"
+ Will they do any better North? We
know what they have done. There are
exceptions. I speak of the masses of
blacks. Have they done any better at
Fortress Monroe, or even here, under
military surveillance? Let their condition
answer Food for the present is what
they crave; and when that is had, no more
work till they crave again.
But suppose they do work, or work a
little, or part of them work we'll; what
then is the effect upon our mechanics and
laboring men? 1t is said that many of
them make good blacksmiths, carpenters,
ETC., and especially good servants. IF that
be so, there are white laborers North
whose sweat is to be coined into taxes to
ransom these negroes; and the first effect
of the ransom is to take the bread and
meat from. the families Of white laborers
If the wages of white labor are reduced,
they will ask the cause That cause will
be found in the delusive devices of mem
bers of Congress. The helps of German
and Irish descent, the workmen and me-
chanics in the shop and field, will find
some, if not all, of these negroes, bought
| by their toll, competing with them at eve
ry turn Labor will then go down to a
song. It will be degraded by such asso-
citation. Our soldiers, when they return,
100, 900 strong, to their Ohio homes, will
find these negroes, or the best of them
filing their places, telling timber, plow-
ing ground, gathering crops, &c. How
their martial laurels will brighten when
they discover the result Of their services!
Labor that now ranges at from 81 to So
per day, will fall to one-half Already,
in this District, the Government is hiring
out the fugitives at from So to So per
month, while white men are begging for
work Nor is the labor of the most Of
these negroes desirable. No system of
labor is so unless it be steady. They will
get their weeks wages, and then idle the
next week away. Many will become a
charge and nuisance upon the public
charity and county poor tax One hun
dred of the fifteen hundred negroes of
Green county, as we have seen, were drones
and scamps So in Brown county Ran.
dolph' negroes, taken to Mercer county,
were nuisances. If they are distributed
into the country, they may work for lit
tie time and for small wages, and work
we'll for time; but when work grows irk-
some, and they "become too lazy to play"
they will steal. Corn and chickens disap-
pear in their vicinage, with the facility Of
shirts from the hedges where Falstaff
marched his tatterdemallions
And for this result directly to northern
labor, what compensation is there to the
southern half of our country by their re-
moval? Herein lies the indirect effect of
their immigration upon northern labor.
By this emancipation, the labor system Of
the South is destroyed. The cotton, which
brought US S2eel l0o0, 900 per annum, a
good part of which came to Ohio to pur-
chase pork, corn, -four, beef, machinery,
&C., where is it? Gone. What of the
cotton fabric, almost as common as bread
among the laboring classes? With 4,
100000 of indolent negroes, its produc-
ton is destroyed, and the ten millions of
artizans in the world who depend upon it
for employment, and the hundred million
who depend on it for clothing, will find
the fabric advanced hundred per cent
So with sugar, and other productions of
slave labor. For all these results, labor
will curse the jostling elements which
thus distlrb the markets of the world.