itness seem to require, that they should be selected for the
inferior and servile offices? And if this race be generally marked by
such inferiority, is it not fit that they should fill them?

I am well aware that those whose aspirations are after a state of
society from which evil shall be banished, and who look in life for that
which life will never afford, contemplate that all the offices of life
may be performed without contempt or degradation--all be regarded as
equally liberal, or equally respected.[238] But theorists cannot control
nature and bend her to their views, and the inequality of which I have
before spoken is deeply founded in nature. The offices which employ
knowledge and intellect, will always be regarded as more liberal than
those which require the labor of the hands. When there is competition
for employment, he who gives it bestows a favor, and it will be so
received. He will assume superiority from the power of dismissing his
laborers, and from fear of this, the latter will practice deference,
often amounting to servility. Such in time will become the established
relation between the employer and the employed, the rich and the poor.
If want be accompanied with sordidness and squalor, though it be
pitied, the pity will be mixed with some degree of contempt. If it lead
to misery, and misery to vice, there will be disgust and aversion.

What is the essential character of _slavery_, and in what does it differ
from the _servitude_ of other countries? If I should venture on a
definition, I should say that where a man is compelled to labor at the
will of another, and to give him much the greater portion of the product
of his labor, there _slavery_ exists; and it is immaterial by what sort
of compulsion the will of the laborer is subdued. It is what no human
being would do without some sort of compulsion. He can not be compelled
to labor by blows.[239] No--but what difference does it make, if you can
inflict any other sort of torture which will be equally effectual in
subduing the will? if you can starve him, or alarm him for the
subsistence of himself or his family?[240] And is it not under this
compulsion that the _freeman_ labors? I do not mean in every particular
case, but in the general. Will any one be hardy enough to say that he is
at his own disposal, or has the government of himself? True, he may
change his employer if he is dissatisfied with his conduct toward him;
but this is a privilege he would