56 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 North. They are the people who cultivate thgir 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. That 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
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