Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/508

 their slaves. If it shall be rejected, the emigrants will chiefly consist of the poorer and more laborious classes of society. If it be true that the prosperity and happiness of a country ought to constitute the great object of its legislators, I can not hesitate for a moment which species of population deserves most to be encouraged. In their zeal to oppose the amendment, gentlemen seem to have considered but one side of the case. If the prohibition of slavery will tend to discourage migration from the south, will not its admission have the same effect with relation to the north and east? Whence came the people, who, with a rapidity never before witnessed, have changed the wilderness between the Ohio and the Mississippi into fruitful fields, erecting there, within a period almost too short for the credence of future ages, three of the freest and most flourishing states of the Union? They came, sir, from the eastern hive, from that source of population, which, in the same time, has added more than a hundred thousand inhabitants to my own native state, besides furnishing seamen for a large portion of the navigation of the world; seamen who have unfurled your banner in every port to which the enterprise of man has gained admittance, and who, though poor themselves, have drawn rich treasures for the nation from the bosom of the deep. Do you believe that these people will settle in a country where they must take rank with negro slaves? Having neither the will nor the ability to hold slaves themselves, they labor cheerfully while labor is honorable. Make it disgraceful, they will despise it. You can not degrade it more effectually than by establishing a system whereby it shall De performed principally by slaves. The business in which slaves are principally engaged, be it what it may, soon becomes debased in public estimation. It is considered low, and unfit for freemen. Can I better illustrate this truth than by referring to a remark of the gentleman from Kentucky (Clay)? I have often admired the liberality of his sentiments. He is governed by no vulgar prejudices. Yet with what abhorrence did he speak of the performance by our wives and daughters of those domestic duties which he was pleased to call servile! What comparison did he make between the black slaves of Kentucky and the white slaves of the north, and how instantly did he strike the balance in favor of the condition of the former! If such opinions and expressions can fall, even in the ardor of debate, from that gentleman, what ideas do you suppose are entertained of laboring men by the generality of slaveholders? A gentleman from Virginia replies that they are treated with confidence and esteem, and their rights respected. I did not imagine that they were put out of the protection of the law. Their persons and property are doubtless secure from violence, or, if injured, the courts of justice are opeu to them. But in a country like this, where the people are sovereign, and every citizen is entitled to equal rights, the mere exemption from flagrant wrongs is no great privilege. No class of freemen should be excluded in this country, either by law, or by the ostracism of public opinion, more powerful than law, from competing for offices and political distinctions. A humane master will respect the rights of his slave, and, if worthy, will honor him with confidence and esteem. And it is this same measure, as I apprehend, that is dealt out in slaveholding