e._, the
slave-trade] will lessen the value of slaves, and ultimately destroy the
institution. It is a sufficient answer to point to the fact, that
unrestricted immigration has not diminished the value of labor in the
Northwestern section of the confederacy. The cry there is, want of
labor, notwithstanding capital has the pauperism of the old world to
press into its grinding service. If we cannot supply the demand for
slave labor, then we must expect to be supplied with a species of labor
we do not want, and which is, from the very nature of things,
antagonistic to our institutions. It is much better that our drays
should be driven by slaves--that our factories should be worked by
slaves--that our hotels should be served by slaves--that our locomotives
should be manned by slaves, than that we should be exposed to the
introduction, from any quarter, of a population alien to us by birth,
training, and education, and which, in the process of time, must lead to
that conflict between capital and labor, 'which makes it so difficult to
maintain free institutions in all wealthy and highly civilized nations
where such institutions as ours do not exist.' In all slaveholding
States, true policy dictates that the superior race should direct, and
the inferior perform all menial service. Competition between the white
and black man for this service, may not disturb Northern sensibility,
but it does not exactly suit our latitude.
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