21 should find, probably, if we could, pursue the inquiry strictly and accurately, that Massachusetts herself is more interested m the profits of slave labor, and subsists a larger number of people upon it, than do, perhaps, the States of Maryland or Missouri, or even some otherslave States which I might enumerate. / Not only this; but those who thus make slavery profitable by creating the demand for the products of slave ktbor, are as much responsible for the institution as we are who own the slaves. The deadliest blow that could be dealt to slavery would be to refuse to receive the products of slave labor. Do that, and you' destroy the demand which.makes it profitable. Do that, and, so far-as Old England or New England are concerned, you would do it at only a pecuniary expense; but it would cost us not merely money, but our social and political happiness. They could do that at a mere pecuniary expense;' but will they do it, or have-they done it? Why, sir, it is a lit i Ie remarkable that, in this very philippic which Macaulay uttered against the institution of slavery in Virginia and North Carolina, he was engaged in the work,in which he succeeded, ofrepeali ng the discrimination againstsla vc-grown sugar, which had been made for the benefit of their own colonies, upon whom they had forced emancipation. Lie- not only made it to force the repeal of that discriminating duty-, but he succeeded; and England did repeal it, notwithstanding the obligations which she owed to Iter colonies, on whom she had forced this harsh measure, to give them, at least, that advantage in her own markers. If we examine the history of the institution, we find, as 1 have just endeavored to show, from its commencement to the present period, that those who now reproach us are as responsible as we. hi the first instance, they sold the slave and we bought him. Now,.we sell the products of his labor and they buy it. The complicity is the same; rhe prog-css is reversed, it has been said, sir, and well said, that the judgment of him was to be commended, “ Who sent the thief that stole the gold away, And punished him who pm it in his way,” Upon that principle, t submit that, if there be guilt and if there be wrong in maintaining this relation, they are as responsible for it as we are. But in point of fact there is no guilt either in the one or m the other. . The wrong is in converting that into a matter of reproach against us which is not properly the subject of reproach, and for which, if it were, they are as much responsible as we are. Mr. President, it is said that slaves are sold as chattels and as property from one to another in the States in which die institution is tolerated I know that this presents a splendid field for declamation; and if I had um known it before, I should" have known it after following Macaulay in his display upon this subject. 1 know that individual cases may be selected ,tsome of which are real, and some of which are imaginary, in which hardships and misery may be shown; but notwithstanding all that, I say the practice of selling them from one to another, and the slave trade itself, is the very safety-valve of the institution, so far as both races are concerned, in the South. It is owing to this that the slaves have been able to i make the progress which they have done. It is i through this process that they acquire the means I and facilities for emigration which are necessary for the improvement of every race that has fever made any improvement in the history of man. The stronger races satisfy this necessity of their condition by armed emigration; the weaker are made to do it by forced emigration; and history shows that the African has performed his share of that process, from an age beyond the date of the pyramids, in the caravan of the slavetrader. Some of the very routes which he then traveled are pursued by him now for the same purposes and objects as if they had been traced out for him by ! some inexorable law of nature. I We know from experience that in the southern I States it is this which has mitigated the institu- । tion and ameliorated his condition; because it is I under this, that, when population begins to press । on the means of subsistence, he is removed from ‘ a place where his labor pays but little to one in j which it pays more; not only to the master but himself Although it may seem tv be hard that ' he should be thus forced to emigrate at the will ‘ of another instead of his own, yet, when we come to scrutinize closely the process, we find that the line of emigration jvhich he pursues according to the laws of trade, is precisely that line which he would take if he were to follow only his ow*i interests. Should we not find, if we were to examine it, in the history of the emigration of I whites, as many individual instances of misery i and suffering, as many cases of separation between' I members of the same family, ns we do amongst | the slaves who are thus sold from one State to J another? 1 believe that, if we could trace tha I matter, we should find that the emigration from I the Sutherland property, m Scotland, (Mr. Ma- jcaulay’s own country,) was as involuntary in I its movement and as sad in its '••msequences to i those who made it, as any thm ever took place from Virginia or North Caroiom to the cotton States south of them. In the crowded population of the Old World, 1 belie ve we e<>uld find instances of emigration forced by circumstances which would harrow the heart fully as deeply as any that could be referred to in our Stales. Why, Mr. President, under the operation of -l-this trade, the effect has been that the moment -the negro’s labor becomes cheap in one region, [ and he gets a smaller share of the profits of his I labor, lie is transferred to another where the । profits of his labor are greater, and where, of ■ course, he gets a larger share, and where, in the I end, he receives more consideration. Stop that , trade to-morrow, and 1 believe you would inflict ‘ the greatest curse on the slave in the South that ■could be inflicted upon him. Pen him up in the i old States, and the consequence must be, either I that he must perish under the sufferings of a collision with the stronger race, when population presses too hard upon the means of subsistence, or else the whites .will abandon the country, and lea\% it to the negro and his original barbarism. Under these circumstances, if this process be one of relief and amelioration to the slave, I ask how is it that it should be the subject of so much reproach to those who permit it, and who find it necessary for the improvement of this very race that they should do so? If in truth it did deserve the reproaches which have been cast upon it—•
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