Could anything else be expected? Because slaves work, and are compelled
to it by the overseer's lash, _all_ labor necessarily partakes of the
disgrace which is thus attached to it. It is surprising how perverted
the Southern mind is upon this point. Because slavery degrades labor,
they maintain that the converse must also be true, viz., that all who
labor must unavoidably possess the spirit of slaves; and hence they
supposed that the North would not make a vigorous opposition, because
all Northerners are addicted to labor.
The truth however is this: Where labor is despised no community can
flourish as it is capable of doing; much less one with free
institutions. We might just as well talk of a body without flesh and
bones; of a house without walls or timbers; of a country without land
and water, as of free institutions without skilled and honorable labor.
It is the very ground on which they stand.
This then is another source of antagonism between slave and free
institutions.
3d. A third point, not only of difference, but also of antagonism
between slave society and free, consists in the permanent contraction or
limitation of the field of labor in the former, and its perpetual
expansion and multiplication of the branches of industry in the latter.
Not only does the slave perform as little work as he can with safety,
but besides this, the sphere in which slave labor can be profitably
employed is a limited one. Agriculture on an extensive scale, on large
plantations, is the only one that the slaveholder finds to repay him.
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