"If this should not be sufficient, and the curious and incredulous inquirer should suggest that the contrast which has been adverted to, and is so manifest, might be traced to a difference of climate, or other causes distinct from slavery itself, permit me to refer him to the two States of Kentucky and Ohio. No difference of soil—no diversity of climate—no diversity in the original settlement of those two States, can account for the remarkable disproportion in their national advancement. Separated by a river alone, they seem to have been purposely and providentially designed to exhibit in their future
histories the difference, which necessarily results from a country free from, and a country afflicted with, the curse of slavery. The same may be said of the two States of Missouri and Illinois.
"Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil—it is an institution which presses heavily against the best interests of the State. It banishes free white labor—it exterminates the mechanic—the artisan—the manufacturer. It deprives them of occupation. It deprives them of bread. It converts the energy of a community into indolence—its power into imbecility—its efficiency into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious, have we not a right to demand its extermination! Shall society suffer, that the slaveholder may continue to gather his vigintial crop of human flesh? What is his mere pecuniary claim, compared with the great interests of the common weal? Must the country languish and die, that the slaveholder may flourish? Shall all interest be subservient to one?—all rights subordinate to those of the slaveholder? Has not the mechanic—have not the middle classes their rights?—rights incompatible with the existence of slavery?"
Sutcliff, in his Travels in North America, says: "A person not conversant with these things would naturally think that where families employ a number of slaves, every thing about their houses, gardens, and plantations, would be kept in the best order. But the reverse of this is generally the case. I was sometimes tempted to think that the more slaves there were employed, the more disorder appeared. I am persuaded that one or two hired servants, in a well-regulated family, would preserve more neatness, order, and comfort, than treble the number of slaves.
"There is a very striking contrast between the appearance of the horses or teams in Pennsylvania, and those in the Southern States, where slaves are kept. In Pennsylvania we meet with great numbers of wagons, drawn by four or more fine fat horses, the carriages firm and well made, and covered with stout good linen, bleached almost white; and it is not uncommon to see ten or fifteen together, travelling cheerfully along the road, the driver riding on one of his horses. Many of these come more than three hundred miles to Philadelphia, from the Ohio, Pittsburg, and other places; and I have been told by a respectable friend, a native of Philadelphia, that more than one thousand covered carriages frequently come to Philadelphia market."
"The appearance of things in the slave States is quite the reverse of this. We sometimes meet a ragged black boy or girl driving a team, consisting of a lean cow or a mule, sometimes a lean bull, or an ox and a mule; and I have seen a mule, a bull, and a cow, each miserable in its appearance, composing one team, with a half-naked black slave or two, riding or driving, as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon, if it may be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the team and its driver. Sometimes a couple of horses, mules, or cows, &c., would be dragging a hogshead of tobacco, with a pivot, or axle, driven into each end of the hogshead, and something like a shaft attached, by which it was drawn, or rolled along the road. I have seen two oxen and two slaves pretty fully employed in getting along a single hogshead; and some of these come from a great distance inland."
The inhabitants of free States are often told that they cannot argue fairly upon the subject of slavery because they know nothing about its actual operation; and any expression of their opinions and feelings with regard to the system, is attributed to ignorant enthusiasm, fanatical benevolence, or a wicked intention to do mischief.
But Mr. Clay, Mr. Brodnax, and Mr. Faulkner, belong to slaveholding States; and the two former, if I mistake not, are slave-owners. They surely are qualified to judge of the system; and I might fill ten pages with other quotations from southern writers and speakers, who acknowledge that slavery is a great evil. There are zealous partisans indeed, who defend the system strenuously, and some of them very eloquently. Thus, Mr. Hayne, in his reply to Mr. Webster, denied that the south suffered in consequence of slavery; he maintained that the slaveholding States were prosperous, and the principal cause of all the prosperity in the Union. He laughed at the idea of any danger, however distant, from an overgrown slave population, and supported the position by the fact that slaves had always been kept in entire subjection in the British West Indies, where the white population is less than ten per cent. of the whole. But the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina did not mention that the peace establishment of the British West Indies costs England two million pounds annually! Yet such is the fact. This system is so closely entwined with the apparent interests and convenience of individuals, that it will never want for able defenders, so long as it exists. But I believe I do not
misrepresent the truth, when I say the prevailing opinion at the South is, that it would have been much better for those States, and for the country in general, if slavery had never been introduced.
Miss Martineau, in her most admirable little book on Demerara, says: "Labor is the product of mind as much as of body; and to secure that product, we must sway the mind by the natural means—by motives. Laboring against self-interest is what nobody ought to expect of white men—much less of slaves. Of course every man, woman and child, would rather play for nothing than work for nothing.