at all against the North; every
thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are
many such things, as everybody will admit, from the South, or some
portion of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and they
do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect upon
the public mind at the North. Sir, I would not notice things of this
sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred in this
debate which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from Louisiana
addressed us the other day on this subject. I suppose there is not a
more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman who
would be more slow to give offence to anybody, and he did not mean in
his remarks to give offence. But what did he say? Why, Sir, he took
pains to run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the laboring
people of the North, giving the preference, in all points of condition,
and comfort, and happiness, to the slaves of the South. The honorable
member, doubtless, did not suppose that he gave any offence, or did any
injustice. He was merely expressing his opinion. But does he know how
remarks of that sort will be received by the laboring people of the
North? Why, who are the laboring people of the North? They are the whole
North. They are the people who till their own farms with their own
hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men. Let me say, Sir, that
five sixths of the whole property of the North is in the hands of the
laborers of the North; they cultivate their farms, they educate their
children, they provide the means of independence. If they are not
freeholders, they earn wages; these wages accumulate, are turned into
capital, into new freeholds, and small capitalists are created. Such is
the case, and such the course of things, among the industrious and
frugal. And what can these people think when so respectable and worthy a
gentleman as the member from Louisiana undertakes to prove that the
absolute ignorance and the abject slavery of the South are more in
conformity with the high purposes and destiny of immortal, rational
human beings, than the educated, the independent free labor of the
North?

There is a more tangible and irritating cause of grievance at the North.
Free blacks are constantly employed in the vessels of the North,
generally as cooks or stewards. When the vessel arrives at a Southern
port, these free colored men are taken on sho