ealth in
its purchase price and in its harness and the vehicle. The service
received is the return, the compensation for the payment made. That is
money invested and repaid in service. The price was in accordance with
the service the animal would be able to render. For more and better
service a higher price must be paid.

There must be an expenditure to secure the service of a chattel slave.
The purchase price must be paid and the tools and material or
plantation must be supplied before his services are available. The
price paid is in accordance with a reasonable estimate of the service
the slave will be able to render during life. The outlay is made in
consideration of an equivalent in service.

A loan is made for the same purpose and secures the same result. The
price of the horse or slave must be paid before the service can be
claimed. The loan must be made before there can be a pretext of a
claim upon the services of the borrower.

There is this difference, however, that the purchaser pays for the
services he expects to receive; he makes a real outlay for what is to
be given him. The usurer pays nothing, he does not give a farthing; he
makes no outlay; he merely changes the deposit from the bank vault, or
his strong box, to his victim, and requires from him such an ample
security that it is as safe in his hands as remaining in the vault.
That he has bought the service of the borrower as another bought the
service of the horse or chattel slave is untrue. He has given no
equivalent. He retains every farthing of his wealth safely deposited
with his victim. The service he receives does not diminish the value
of his property nor discharge any portion of his claim.

The usurer, like all those who appropriate the labors of their slaves,
claims that he is a real benefit to his borrower. He has given him an
opportunity of advancement that he could not otherwise have had. He
points to him possibly with some degree of pride, especially if he
seems greatly prospered. The owner of colored slaves pointed to his
well-fed and well-clothed and happy people, merry in their cabins, and
made a claim that was equally plausible; that these people are far
better off and far happier than they could be in freedom.

Their well-kept, happy, care-free condition did not make them freemen.
They were slaves, though they may have been happy. They were slaves,
though they preferred bondage to being their own masters. The
usurer's prosperous v