Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-09-18


arrogant, exclusive, selfish, tenacious, an
just, jealous of everything which will not
submit.
II has for many years bound the State
politically to the policy impressed on the
Government by the negro interest of the
planting States, with which the industry
of Msryiaad has NO identity, and dragged
it away from its natural association with
the great free l4bor States, whose manu-
featuring, mining, commercial and agri-
cultural industry is identical with ours,
require the same laws, policy aud protec-
ton, against which the planting States
have Waged incessant war for thirty years.
1t has ostrscised every public man who
refused to submit to its domination and
defend it's power. No one has been able
TO maintain himself in public life any
where in the State who has refused to give
the watchword at its demand
If any ventured to revolt, the hue and
cry was made against the traitor to this
power, and no weapon was too foul to be
welded TO his destruction.
Originally treated by law and regarded
by the people as an evil, moral and politi-
cal, to be res,Ticted till it could be exter-
minated, when it..became a power its per-
manence and expansion were the conditions
of stability; and they who welded the
power turned all their energies to its con-
solidation.
The interests of the owner were then
secondary considerations; they were mere
Iy the instruments of ambition, TO be sac.
rifced, if necessary, in the strife, from
which it might emerge successful or in
which it might succumb.
If it failed the owner lost his property,
bat that was the fate of war and of small
moment to any one but the owner and he
was taught to submit to the policy, because
it was for his ultimate good The yoke
was forced on his neck-he soon learned
to bear it, meekly first, then proudly.
The slave interest now excludes free
white labor from the farms of the slave
holning counties; aud the masters profit
by the exclusion, at the expense of both
the free white laborer and the smaller
landowner, who are dependent on slave
holding monopoly for much of their labor.
More labor is needed, but white labor
shrinks from contact with slave labor
and the masters have an interest in repell-
ing it 1; and they succeed by making free
labor hold the level of the slave.
This slave competition is the only dan
eerous competitor. II has already sscri-
hced free labor to its domination; and its
destruction is the surest way to promote
the interests of free labor. Its intelligence
activity, economy, will ensure It's supre.
macy, so soon as the ban of the slaVehold-
ers' contempt and the monopoly of the
interest are removed. =
They who despise free labor and inso-
lently place free mechanics on the footing
of their slaves will be the first to prejudice
the men of the mechanical Glasses against
by suggesting that il means
negro equality, social equality, fpolitical
privileges, negro competition with white
labor; they will talk of the laziuess and
of free negroes; their swarrning
into cities for theft and beggary. Atleast,
they will say, let emancipation be mot
adopted without colonization.
But do they consider free labor nos0 above
slave labor? Do they not look down on it
With contempt Has this not always been
vowed by their confederates in Congress
Are there not not0 more free negroes than
llaves in Maryland, yet they have neither
Iocial nor political equality.
The slave interest tells free labor to OPP
pose emancipation becruse it brings negro
abor into competition with white labor.
The very object of emancipation is to
end that competition in its most powerful
and only dangerous form-the competition
of negro labor held by masters, and
brought into competition with white labor
for the benefit of the masters.
What will the competition of the negroes
freed, divided, ignorant, dependent,
without capital, without political influence
-be in comparison with the master own
ing those negroes, forming a monopoly of
nearly all the agricultural labor of the
counties, an oligarchy controlling
the policy of the State for the promotion
of their slave interest at the expense of the
free labor of the State?
1t is to be expected that the power poss-
essed of the Government of the State will
not yield without a struggle. The evil
spirit will not come forth without tearing
the victim it has so long possessed The
incarnation of demagogueism, it will dis
play all its arts In defence Of its power;
and they who wish to assert against it the
principles of republican liberty aud sound
political economy must not be slow to
recognize the Proteus in his DISCUSSES.
These views preside over the political
domination whose organization is now the
Constitution of the State.
Their principles inspire the sympathy
with the rebellion which disgrace and dis
credit the State, defiIed it with the blood
of the 10Th of April, so nearly plunged us
into the gulf where Virginia now writhes,
and even made the Legislature, elected by
the loyal men of Maryland, dumb. Before
the rebellion it was charged to brand and
punish, yet prompt to menace the Govern.
ment if it exertsd its undoubted preroga.
tive to remove slavery from the District,
and bold to prolong the power of the oil
garchy by defeating the bill for Consti-
tutional Convention.
The slayeholdtng interest, if consulted
and left free, would not have rebelled; but
1t was tmbued with the principles inculcat-
ed by their political leaders, and when
they acted the Shareholders had no ground
of resistance.
They yielded reluctantly, and then COW
cred their reluctance by zeal, aad sought
to strengthen their interests by devotion
to course which has been their ruin.