When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the constitution? and again ratified and strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? Do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individuals and local communities they may have done so; but not by the sanction of government; for that has always been true to Southern interests.
Leaving out of the view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North, there will be thousands and tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and opened up as sacrifices upon the altar of ambition,—and for what, we ask again? It is for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common ancestry cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of Right, Justice, and Humanity? And, as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesman and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government,—the most equal in its rights,—the most just in its decisions—the most lenient in its measures: and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun in heaven ever shone upon.
Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three quarters of a century, in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are round us with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed—is the height of madness, folly and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote. A. H. Stephens.
CCXC.
"THE HIRELING LABORERS" OF THE NORTH.
The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hammond] exclaims: "The man who lives by daily labor, your whole hireling class of manual laborers, are essentially slaves; and they feel galled by their degradation." What a sentiment is this to hear uttered in the councils of this democratic republic! This language of scorn and contempt is addressed to senators who were not nursed by a slave; whose lot it was to toil with their own hands,—to eat bread, earned, not by the sweat of another's brow, but by their own.
Sir, should the Senator and his agitators and lecturers come to Massachusetts, on a mission to teach our "hireling class of manual laborers," our "slaves," the "tremendous secret of the ballot-box," and to help "combine and lead them," these stigmatized "hirelings" would reply to the Senator and his associates: "we are freemen; we are the peers of the gifted and the wealthy; we know 'the tremendous secret of the ballot-box;' and we mould and fashion these institutions that bless and adorn our free Commonwealth! These public schools are ours, for the education of our children; these libraries, with their accumulated treasures, are ours; these multitudinous and varied pursuits of life, where intelligence and skill find their reward, are ours. Labor is here honored and respected, and great examples incite us to action.
"All around us, in the professions, in the marts of commerce, on the exchange where merchant princes and capitalists do congregate, in these manufactories and workshops where the products of every clime are fashioned into a thousand forms of utility and beauty, on these smiling farms fertilized by the sweat of free labor, in every position of private and of public life,—are our associates, who were but yesterday what you call 'hireling laborers,' and therefore, 'essentially slaves!' In every department of human effort are noble men who sprang from our ranks,-men whose good deeds will be felt, and will live in the grateful memories of men, when the stones reared by the hands of affection to their honored names shall crumble into dust. Our eyes glisten and our hearts throb over the bright, glowing, and radiant pages of our history that record the deeds of patriotism of the sons of New England who sprang from our ranks, and wore the badges of toil. While the names of Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Nathaniel Greene, and Paul Revere, live on the brightest pages of our history, the mechanics of Massachusetts and New England will never want illustrious examples to incite us to noble aspirations and noble deeds.
"Go home, sir, and say to your privileged class, which you vauntingly say leads progress, civilization, and refinement, that in the opinion of the 'hireling laborers' of Massachusetts, if you have no sympathy for your African bondsmen, you should, at least, sympathize with the millions of your own race, whose labor your have dishonored and degraded by slavery! You should teach your millions of poor and ignorant white men, so long oppressed by your policy, the 'tremendous secret that the ballot-box is stronger than an army with banners!' You should 'combine' and lead them to the adoption of a policy which shall secure their own emancipation from a degrading thraldom!" H. Wilson.