SLAVERY--ITS EFFECTS ON THE FREE.
Beaten at every other quarter, we learn that a distinguished writer at
the North, is about to be put forward by the Abolitionists, to prove
that the influence of slavery is deleterious on the whites who own no
slaves.
Now, at first view it elevates those whites; for it makes them not the
bottom of society, as at the North--not the menials, the hired day
laborer, the work scavengers and scullions--but privileged citizens,
like Greek and Roman citizens, with a numerous class far beneath them.
In slave society, one white man does not lord it over another; for all
are equal in privilege, if not in wealth; and the poorest would not
become a menial--hold your horse, and then extend his hand or his hat
for a gratuity, were you to proffer him the wealth of the Indies. The
menial, the exposed and laborious, and the disgraceful occupations, are
all filled by slaves. But filled they must be by some one, and in free
society, half of its members are employed in occupations that are not
considered or treated as respectable. Our slaves till the land, do the
coarse and hard labor on our roads and canals, sweep our streets, cook
our food, brush our boots, wait on our tables, hold our horses, do all
hard work, and fill all menial offices. Your freemen at the North do the
same work and fill the same offices. The only difference is, we love our
slaves, and we are ready to defend, assist and protect them; you hate
and fear your white servants, and never fail, as a moral duty, to screw
down their wages to the lowest, and to starve their families, if
possible, as evidence of your thrift, economy and management--the only
English and Yankee virtues.
In free society, miscalled freemen fulfill all the offices of slaves for
less wages than slaves, and are infinitely less liked and cared for by
their superiors than slaves. Does this elevate them and render them
happy?
The trades, the professions, the occupations that pay well, and whose
work is light, is reserved for freemen in slave society. Does this
depress them?
The doctor, the lawyer, the mechanic, the dentist, the merchant, the
overseer, every trade and profession, in fact, live from the proceeds of
slave labor at the South. They divide the profits with the owner of the
slaves. He has nothing to pay them except what his slaves make. But you
Yankees and Englishmen more than divide the profits--you take the lion's
share. You make more money from our cotton, and tobacco, and sugar, and
indigo, and wheat, and corn, and rice, than we make ourselves. You live
by slave labor--would perish without it--yet you abuse it. Cut off
England and New England from the South American, East and West India and
our markets, from which to buy their food, and in which to sell their
manufactures, and they would starve at once. You live by our slave
labor. It elevates your whites as well as ours, by confining them, in a
great degree, to skillful, well-paying, light and intellectual
employments--and it feeds and clothes them. Abolish slavery, and you
will suffer vastly more than we, because we have all the lands of the
South, and can _command_ labor as you do, and a genial soil and climate,
that require less labor. But while in the absence of slavery, we could
support ourselves, we should cease to support you. We would neither send
you food and clothing, nor buy your worse than useless notions.