Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-08-17

publication but for the verifcaton Of this
statement, is at the service of the World) was
( induced some years since to buy an estate in
Eastern Virginia, reputed rich in gold lie
| employed a foreman to develop it, hired TWEEN
! five or thirty Of the poor whites, residing
upon or adjacent to it, to assist as aborers
and came here to attend to other business
, But few weeks had elapsed when he receiv-
ed dispatch from his foreman, urging him
to hurry back tn Louisa county and help the
said foreman out of trouble. He promptly
obeycd, and, soon after reaching his estate,
was waited upon by three gentlemen, who
proclaimed themselves committee from the
neighboring proprietorS, appointed to notify
MN that he must not employ white labor on
his estate, but must hire or buy slaves. He
Ventured to remonstrate-urged that he had
imported no laborers into Virgi. ia-that his
men were all natives of the state and fixed
residents OF the vicinage, &C., but was cut
short by the spokesman (now the rebel Gen
Jenkins, with curt reminder that they had
not proposed to argue the point-that it was
not the policy of Virginia to encourage white
labor where slaves were to be had-and that
they only desired to know whether he pro.
posed to comply with their demand or take
the consequences of refusal. Here one of
the white labOrers-a respectable, worthy
citizen, over fifty years of age, who hap
pcned to be present or passing to
intcrpose the query But what are zee to do
to support our families ?-'DOn't you know
enough to hold your ,tongueT responded the
! ciOn of chivalry, with such a look as he might
have bestowed on toad who had undertaken
to lecture him on trigonometry. The Poor
White was cowed into abject silence; the New
Yorker said that he had no choice, SO he sub
/ mtted with the best possible grace, dismissed
his white Vlrgnians to their sorry huts and
ragged, unschooled children, and proceeded
| 10 hire the negroes of his dOmneering neigh
! bors as he needs must. He was paying the
whites eighty cents in cash per day; they
told him they would gladly work for sixty
cents rather than be thrown off but, though
! ne wanted their work and they wanted his
money, they were all under the yoke of an
| iron despotism, and had to Succumb."
There is rescue to be accomplished; the
constitutional rights of every working man
are to be secured. Long enough has he
been despoiled Of those rights and seen them
trodden under foot by a mean, lazy, wicked,
and now rebellious aristocracy. The consti-
tuition secures to every man the right to work
in every state of this Union that right,
! tllIouSh all THESE years, mas DeeH uenleu; the
door has been fast shut; but now the war
cannon have burst it open, and it only remains
for the masses of our working men TO march
down, under the shield of the constitution, to
the deliverance of their brethren, to the Sc
curing forever of their own rights and prv-
leges, though that proud aristocracy must be
crushed and anlhilated before their advanc-
ing tread. When free labor has its rights from
Maine to the gulf;-and, from ocean to
the rose, then will we sing "The Deum" and
proclaim thanksgiving for aland rescued from
destruction, for people whose God is the
Lord.