"I tell you, Mr. Chairman, that God's sun does not shine upon a nobler, prouder, more prosperous, and elevated class of people, than the non-slaveholders of the South."
This, I think, will be news to many non-slaveholders in the gentleman's district. Thomas Jefferson tells us that man is an imitative animal; therefore, if the assertion of the gentleman from Mississippi be correct, we must wonder why slaveholders do not relieve themselves of their negroes, that they may become equally noble, proud, prosperous, and elevated, with the non-slaveholder. Who can compare with them on this side of Paradise? With them, the millennium can be no object of desire, since
"Not a wave of trouble rolls
Across their peaceful breasts."
Still there must be some malice in their hearts, for the honorable gentleman states that they (the non-slaveholders) hold slavery in the hollow of their hands; surely, were they benevolent, they would close their hands and crush out the "institution," that their slaveholding fellow-citizens might become as prosperous and as happy as themselves.
The assertion is frequently made, that white men cannot work in the hot latitudes of the South, and this is offered as a reason why there should be black slaves there. The gentleman knocks one of the strongest props from under the institution. He tells us white men work, and raise not only cotton, but corn and potatoes. He also informs us that after the cotton, corn, and potatoes, are raised, the strong, brave man drives the plow through the fallow ground. It will be seen that work during the summer has not produced the lassitude and enervation that it has been claimed is produced in white men by labor. We are still further informed, that the fallow ground turned up by the strong, brave man, discloses something more valuable than the gold of California—"'Tis the sparkles of liberty!" We have heard of the sparkles of liberty that are made manifest to the non-slaveholders of the South. The poor laboring man at Columbia, South Carolina, when streams of blood issued from the furrows plowed in his naked back by a cow-hide in the hands of a negro, saw some of the sparkles of liberty, when, bleeding, exhausted, besmeared with tar, and covered with feathers, he was thrust into the cars, and left to perish in the cold. He had, no doubt, a vivid idea of the liberty that is enjoyed by non-slaveholders in the South, when he remembered that these cruelties and barbarities were inflicted on him for expressing a rational and honest opinion relative to this "peculiar institution."
The statements, and doubtless convictions, of the honorable member from Mississippi, differ singularly from those of Senator Clay, of Alabama, who tells us that, in his State, "we may behold numerous fine houses, once the abode of intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or else tenantless and dilapidated; that we may see fields, once fertile, covered with foxtail and broom-sedge—moss growing on the walls of once thrifty villages, and may find that 'one only master grasps the whole domain' which once furnished homes for a dozen white families."
Hear, also, Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, who says of the non-slaveholders of his State:
"They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plundering fields or folds, or, too often, by what is far worse in its effects, trading with slaves, and leading them to plunder for their benefit."
The opinions already quoted from many of the wise men of the South go far to demonstrate that the gentleman from Mississippi is entirely mistaken. There is, however, another test by which we can try the accuracy of what the gentleman has said about the non-slaveholders of the South. The census report of 1850 shows this important fact: that of the white men in the slave States over twenty-one years of age, there is about one in every twelve that cannot read and write; while in the free States there is only one out of every forty-five. It must also be remembered, that a very large number of those in the free States who cannot read, came originally from the slave States. Take, for instance, Massachusetts, where there are but very few persons from the slave States, if any, and there is only one in seven hundred and seventy-eight that cannot read and write. Take Indiana and Illinois—States that have large populations from the slave States—Indiana, one in every fourteen cannot read; in Illinois, one in every twenty-one and a half; and if any one will take the trouble to examine, it will no doubt be found that this ignorance exists almost entirely where the population from the slave States largely predominates. I will venture the assertion, that there can scarcely be a man found in the State of Ohio, that was born there, who possesses intellect capable of cultivation, that cannot read; while a very large portion of those ignorant men in the slave States were "to the manor born."
It must also be borne in mind that, in making the estimate of the free States, the men that perform all the labor are included. In the slave States, the men who do nearly all the work are not included. I do not know that any great good can come of making these comparisons. But when the gentleman tells us that the non-slaveholders in his State are the most prosperous and the most elevated of mankind, the inquiry is at once presented to the mind, how elevated in the scale of existence can a man be who can neither read nor write?