s 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 shore, by the police or
municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel
is again ready to sail. This is not only irritating, but exceedingly
unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr. Hoar's mission, some time ago to South
Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint.
The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional; and as
the cases occur constantly and frequently they regard it as a grievance.

Now, sir, so far as any of these grievances have their foundation in
matters of law, they can be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so
far as they have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment,
in mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to
endeavor to allay