suit. "Who but the laborers of the land, en-
couraged by the assurance that labor is re-
spectable and honorable, have made our na-
tion what she is ?—have hooped half a conti-
nent with railroad iron; are even now, in
spite of the war, driving the iron horse snort-
ing towards the rocky mountains, and will
eventually send him whistling and roaring
to the slopes of the Pacific?
Who but they bring from the bowels of
the earth every treasure that is hidden there;
convert the fire and the water, and the light-
ning into so many additional hands with
which they manipulate and educe all the
resources of the country ?
The whole force of the slaveholding inter-
est in the South is set against this industry.
I remember once seeing a railroad in Louisi-
ana, it ran from Bayou Sara to Jackson,
Mississippi. I was riding through that coun-
try in a buggy, and was perfectly astonished
at the way it was managed. The first thing
I saw was a tank of water underneath
the track, or near it; and I could not con-
ceive what that was for. After a while the
engine came along, and the train stopped
there. Buckets were produced by the engi-
neer and fireman, and I think the conductor
also assisted in the operation, and they lifted
the water out of that tank in buckets into
the tank of the locomotive. This not only
astonished me at the time, but proved to me
how much bebind the age these people were
in comparison with the people of a country
where labor is encouraged among the intelli-
gent classes of society. One of the necessary
results of such encouragement being to pro-
mote facility in travel and trade.
Nor is it beneficent to the non-slaveholder;
on the contrary, it is to him a curse, the full
force of which he cannot know until one."
altogether without the pale of its baneful in-
fluence. There is a class of people in the
South—I mean south of Maryland—totally
unknown in a free State; and in this state-
ment I challenge contradiction. They are
called ''poor white trash," a miserable hybrid
race, neither black nor white, that is, in
class. They live generally on the barren
ridges; they own nothing, but are allowed
to live upon the edges of plantations, on the
uncultivated outskirts of other people's
lands; and so also do they hang on the
edges of society on sufferance, half poachers
and half vagabonds, and no doubt drag out
their miserable existence under the belief that
other poor white people live as they do. I
always believed that Mr. Hammond in allud-
ing to the "mudsills of the North," meant
just such a class; but there is no such class
in the North, and I can prove what I say
and defy anybody to prove the contrary.
This is no one's fault in particular. It is
the result of no particular law on the statute
book; but is simply the absolutely necessary
result of the system. |
So then, this system which we are here
assembled to obliterate, seems to me to be
aggressive and not conciliatory, malevolent
and not beneficent, even to the community
which fosters it.
Members here are pleading for the exist-
ence of this institution, and we are referred
by the gentleman from St, Mary's (Mr.
Billingsley) to Roman and Grecian slavery.
No one doubts the fact of the early existence
of slavery. There appears to be no period
in the world's history when it did not exist.
It is also equally true that the effects of the
system upon society were alike disastrous in
all times.
The institution existed in the ancient re-
publics of Greece and Rome and was sus-
tained by the same arguments that are ad-
vanced in its support to-day. It required
the same departure from humane forms of
government, and was the principal cause of
the downfall of the nations tolerating its ex-
istence. One fact is remarkable, that in so
far as any State or nation became more en-
lightened or christianized than another, the
treatment of the bondman became milder,
and the institution, generally less abhorrent.
In the Grecian States, the condition of the
slaves of Athens was far higher than that of
the helots of Sparta. The Spartan masters
we're more physically developed, and the
Athenian masters more intellectually devel-
oped.
One other fact must be noticed, that the
ground of justification taken by these anti-
christian slaveholders, was the same as that
taken by the Christian slaveholders of to-day,
namely, that they, the masters, were the su-
perior race, and were of right and by birth
entitled to enslave their interiors.
Mr. BILLINGSLEY. The gentleman does not
understand the position which I assumed
with regard to the subject, which was this :
slavery existed under the Jewish and Chris-
tian dispensation; and in illustration of that,
it existed at the time of St. Paul in a more
aggravated form than it had ever existed
here, even in our colonial period; and yet he
left nothing on record against slavery; and
consequently slavery was not a sin.
Mr. PUGH. That was another blanch of
the gentleman's argument. I shall come to
that view of it presently. The point I am
now making is, that the Grecians considered
all their enemies barbarians and inferiors.
Aristotle says, "with barbarians the family
consists of male and female slaves, but to the
Greeks belong dominion over the barbarians,
because the former have the understanding
requisite to rule, the latter the body only to
obey."
Now, sir, why did not the gentleman go
on with his statement? Why did he not
give us some of the causes of the decline and
fall of the great Roman empire'? Did he
forget, or did be purposely overlook the fact |
