sel from the traitor who conspires to secure
that ruin ?
All I ask is that when the gentleman's ar-
gument goes to the white people of the State
his authority shall go with it. However, the
gentleman bad no other recourse. There is no
authority for the statement save only in the
interest of the spirit of slavery.
Now, what is the statement? That when
the slaves are freed they will flock North or into
this State from the South, and their labor will
be brought immediately into competition with
white labor; and as applied to this State,
they will flock into the Northern counties and
the competition will occur there. That is to
say, when the slaves are freed all labor in the
districts of country where slavery existed will
at once and forever cease. The planter will
gaze placidly forth upon his untilled lands,
and it is to be hoped will learn wisdom from
the contemplation. The mill will cease to
grind its accustomed grist, and the stream
unchecked will run smoothly on to the sea.
The morning sun will be heralded by the hum
of industry no more forever, and the evening
come serenely down upon a landscape stag-
nate with repose. This is not my picture, it
is theirs, and they may profit by it until they
have learned the following lesson, to wit :
Wherever there is land to be tilled the la-
borer will be there to till it; that there are
not now enough laborers for the work to be
performed; that it will pay the planters of
the South better to keep the laborers that they
have, than to hunt for others that they cannot
get; that the natural affection of the negro
for the place of his birth is proverbial, and so
far as he is concerned will not permit him to
leave it of bisown volition; that if they—
the planters—wish to drive them away, other
people will buy the land deserted for the want
of labor, and bring the laborers back to it.
In a country like ours it is simple nonsense
to talk about even the possibility of distress
or permanent inconvenience from competition
in labor. Temporary inconveniences from
temporary causes may and do occur, but they
even almost universally occur in the more
intellectual fields of labor to which it is not
expected that the negro race will or can as-
pire. My only reason for noticing this argu-
ment at all is that it seems to be used with so
much earnestness by the opposition as to al-
most demand an answer.
The gentleman from Charles (Mr. Edelen)
repeals the complaint of the gentleman from
Prince George's (Mr. Clarke) on a former oc-
casion, and appeals to us in piteous tones to
behold the swarms of free negroes about
Washington.
Do the gentlemen forget that there is a war
of huge proportions raging in this country ?
and that there are some things called inci-
dents connected with all wars? Do they ex-
pect a war to be altogether an amiable per-
formance, and to be attended with no little |
inconveniences? Do they regret that these
poor fugitives have at last found a haven ?
that hunted and bounded from the earliest
period of their existence they might once at
least before they die realize the truth that God
reigns and is just?
I know it is a wonderful page in our re-
cord. For generations past the cold North
star was the only index to the slave, hope-
lessly bound, of some dream-land of freedom
away in the icy region towards which it was
the guide; but never before in all their
dreary lives was there a haven near at, hand.
To the Athenian slave there were the temples
of Eumenides and of Theseus into which the
master dare not follow him. Cannot the gen-
tlemen rejoice with me that there is at least
one haven of rest for these fugitives from the
lash? a Paradise lo them? I commend to
the gentlemen a more careful avoidance of
this trifling with sacred words, it may, in-
deed, be to these wanderers a foretaste of
eternity. God knows, and He only !
The spirit of hatred against the race and
which extends to all the opponents of the sys-
tem of slavery, is as much to be deprecated
as any other development of the institution ;
and this leads me to some inquiry into the
causes of that spirit and the nature and char-
acter of its expression. It is founded, in
my judgment, in the improperly cultivated
pride of our nature, and was manifested in all
times. It has been the source of more evils to
the human family than probably any other
one cause. I allude to the idea that some
men are born superior to others—that idea,
the tendency of which has always been to
create a privileged class; that teaches the doc-
trine that some men are better, higher in the
scale of being, by reason of their birth alone;
that some are at once illustrious because their
ancestors were illustrious.
Now, sir, I stand here as a plebian in this
fight. In the readings of my boyhood, I
always took sides with the plebians against
'the patricians; suffered with them in their
sufferings; resented with them the indigni-
ties offered to their class by their assumed su-
periors; followed them in the wars of the
Roundheads against the Cavaliers, and joined
them in their death cry against Charles I,
the crowned representative of their oppres-
sors, and the stricken and defeated exemplar
of their vindication.
I know and have felt the charm that at-
taches to the idea. It is the first impulse of
our nature to pride ourselves more upon that
which we inherit, or have through no effort
of our own, than upon that which we ac-
quire. We defer to genius rather than to
cultivated talent, and pride ourselves more
upon what we know by intuition than upon
that which we demonstrate by reasoning, it
is the savor of labor that offends us; and
we rejoice in the possession of that which |
