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 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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GIass_LAi4_ 
 Book T^^ 
 
It 
 

 ON THE 
 
 COMPARATIVE ECOJ^OMY 
 
 OP 
 
 
 BY JAMES ^RAYMOND, 
 
 OF FRED ERICK, MAR YMXD. 
 APPROVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE ON ESSAYS, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 S*ZIESERXCK OOUNTir AGRXCUIiTUIUili SOCIETIT^ 
 
 What makes the nations smile, 
 Improves their soil, and gives them double suns ; 
 And why they pine beneath the brightest skies, 
 In nature's richest lap. Thomson* 
 
 5 FREDERICK: 
 PRINTED BY JOHN P. THOMSON. 
 
 1827. 
 
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 THE COMPARATIVE ECONOMY 
 
 OP 
 
 PREE AND SLAVE LABOUR IN AGRIOULTURfi. 
 
 THE question before us is a branch of the general 
 question of slavery. But perliaps it does not embrace the 
 most fascinating topics for discussion, which are presented 
 to tlie mind by the whole of that great and momentous 
 subject. It reaches none of those elevated objections to 
 domestic slavery, which many of the wise and good think 
 they discover in politics, religion, or natural law. We are 
 now simply to compare free with slave labour, as a 
 means of cultivating the soil. We are to answer the 
 very natural enquiry of the farmer,* which of these spe- 
 cies of labour his own personal advantage calls upon him 
 to employ. If we can convince him that free labour i^ 
 the best, slavery, we hope, will in time go out of fashion, 
 like an unhandy Airming tool on the introduction of a 
 new one upon an improved model. 
 
 This, I shall endeavour to do. I shall endeavour to 
 chow that free labour is more convenient and cheaper 
 than the labour of slaves. 
 
 One of the most importanJ[fcj[rcum stances of conveni- 
 ence, and therefore of profit^^vhich can be incident to 
 farm labour, is, that it should be easily varied in its 
 quantity. Nothing is more variable than the quantity 
 of labour which the farmer has occasion to employ upon 
 his farm at different times and under dift'erent circum- 
 stances. The changes of the seasons as they severally 
 occur, each in their turn, call upon the farmer to make 
 corresponding changes in the quantity of his labour. He 
 cannot conveniently or profitably employ as much labour 
 in winter as in summer. The fluctuations of commerce 
 
 * Tlie word /(inner is used tliroughout this essay to signify one who in 
 •any w:ty carries on the business of cultivating the soil. 
 
is another cause which often induces the farmer to change 
 from a kind of farming which employs a given number 
 of hands, to a kind whicli would employ a much greater 
 or less number. For example, the state of the markets 
 may be such, that the corn and wheat growers would find it 
 profitable to turn their attention to the growing of wool, 
 which employs very few labourers compared to tlie for- 
 mer kinds of farming, The soiUtself, also requires fre- 
 quent changes in the kind of husbandry. In modern 
 days, the great secret of good farming is supposed to 
 consist in a proper rotation of crops. But the most im- 
 portant rotation is from tilling to grazing, and vice versa. 
 The good nortiiern farmer, after tilling his lots a few 
 years, lays them down to grass. This he calls letting 
 his lands rest. But if lie cultivated with slave labour, 
 whilst his lauds were resting, most of his labourers would 
 also be resting at his expense. 
 
 The inconvenience of making frequent changes in the 
 quantity of slave labour, and of suiting its amount to the 
 requirements of the farmer, under every circumstance, 
 must present itself to every one who reflects upon the 
 subject. But what is more, the moral sense of society 
 has erected an insuperable barrier to these changes. 
 Public sentiment denies the character of respectability 
 to men who are in the habit of buying and selling 
 slaves. A farmer who should purchase a large num- 
 ber of slaves, to perform the labour of his farm in 
 summer, and who should sell them agivin when winter 
 approaches, and so on f^^ year to year, would be de- 
 nied a respectable standing in the community. But 
 ■where labour is free, and therefore the subject of contract 
 between the employer and the labourer, these changes 
 are frequently taking place throughout the year. The 
 farmer purchases labour precisely as he purchases any- 
 other commodity in the market, in such quantities and 
 at such times as he wants it. He employs his labourers 
 by the day, the month, or the year, as best suits his con- 
 venience or interest. 
 
 Nor does the farmer, by thus regulating the quantity 
 of his labour to suit his own convenience, thereby dis- 
 commode or impose any hardships upon the labourevs, 
 
Where labour is performed by freemen exclusively, hire- 
 ling labourers upon a farm are not necessaiily confined 
 to tiiat occupation. They often unite some mechanic art, 
 or some other employment, to that of labouring on a 
 farm for hire during the summer months. Every species 
 of labour being respectable, because it is all performed by 
 freemen, when the labourer is not wanted upon the farm 
 of his employer, he is neither precluded or unqualified 
 from turning his hand to something else. In one sha^)e 
 or another, he is constantly promoting the trifold interest 
 of himself, his employers, and his country. He is 
 at one time employed in the farmer's field to supply 
 his country with bread; at another he "guides the 
 tool mechanic,'' or perhaps he has embarked upon the 
 •• mountain wave," for the purpose of transporting the sur- 
 plus production of his farm labour to some foreign port. In 
 each of these employments, he is supporting himself, fur- 
 thering the interest of property-holders, and promoting 
 national wealth. This accounts not only for the thriving 
 condition of the labourers and employers in free states, 
 but also for the circumstance that free states support a 
 much more numerous population than the slave states. 
 
 But, it will be asked, if labourers are thus at liberty to 
 bestow their labour when and where they please, what 
 security has the farmer, that they will consult his con- 
 venience and interest in serving him? Talk to a Maryland 
 farmer of free labour, and perhaps he will tell you that 
 free labourers are capricious ; that they will often take 
 advantage of their liberty and forsake him, at the most 
 hurrying season of his crops. Now, if there is any 
 soundness iu this objection to free labour, is it not re- 
 markable that it should never be made, except by those 
 farmers who work slaves? Farmers in free states feel no 
 apprehension that their farms will lie fallow for want of 
 labour to till them, or that their crops when raised, will 
 return into the earth for want of labour to gather them. 
 The farmer is no more at the mercy of labourers where 
 they are free, than mechanics or manufacturers in Ma- 
 ryland or England, are at the mercy of the journeymen 
 they employ. In this system of universal liberty, there 
 is a controuling power, a regulating principle, which like- 
 
6 
 
 a courteous master of ceremonies, accommodates tbft 
 wants of the whole world much better than any number 
 of individuals can be accommodated by attempting vio- 
 lently to help themselves. In other words, the conflict- 
 ing interests and necessities of each are the accoioiimoda- 
 tion and security of all. 
 
 Though this sentiment, in one form of expression or 
 another, is the basis of all modern theories of human poli- 
 ty, I will not ask a concession of its application to the pre- 
 sent subject. Indeed such a concession would be yield- 
 ing up the discussion. To say the conflicting interest 
 and necessities of employer and labourer would most 
 coiumodiously regulate their intercourse, is to use ano- 
 ther phraseology to express, that free labour is prefera^ 
 ble to slave. This being the point in dispute, I will 
 endeavor to settle it, by showing its consanguinity to a 
 family of maxims that have not been questioned for se- 
 veral centuries. 
 
 Labour and the fruits of labour both possess the same 
 commercial properties. Labour, like the fruits of labour, 
 is property; an article of bargain and sale; a commo- 
 dity in the market, and as such, possesses the same com- 
 mercial nature and constitution v/ith every other com- 
 modity that is bought and sold. All the world agree, 
 as a general proposition, that the most eflxictual method 
 of rendering every commodity which is the subject of 
 private property, cheap, plentiful and of good quality, and 
 of placing it within the reach of all who wish to make 
 use of it, is to secure to the producer of the commodity 
 all the profits he can make by producing it ; by leaving 
 him to produce it when he pleases ; to sell it to whom 
 he pleases, where he pleases, and for the most that he 
 can get. It is by these equitable laws, this free and un- 
 shackled intercourse, that the farmer is always able to 
 supply himself with the coffee of the West Indies, the 
 tea of the East Indies, the carpets of Turkey, the manu- 
 factures of Europe, in short, witli every luxury and 
 comfort which the world affords. The effect of a dif- 
 ferent system, with regard to the products of labour, may 
 be easily illustrated. For example : Suppose the rest 
 of the world should say to the farmers — Gentlemen, we 
 
are now too dependant on you for existence Meat and 
 bread, the comforts and necessaries of life, come to tlie rest 
 of mankind exclusively through your hands. Perhaps you 
 may combine to close those hands upon us, and starve 
 all but yourselves. To prevent so melancholy an oc- 
 currence, and at all events to render ourselves indepen- 
 dent of your caprices, we must alter the existing laws and 
 take from you the right of disposing of your crops accord- 
 ing to your own will and pleasure. What would be the 
 farmers' reply ? Would they not say — Fellow citizens, 
 take your own course. What produce we have raised, 
 under the presumption that we were to dispose of it as 
 we pleased, you can take and make the most of. But 
 look out for short crops next year. We do not cultivate 
 our lands if others are to enjoy the fruits. The world 
 remained a wilderness until the producer was rendered 
 secure in his rights to his produce. Depart from this 
 policy, which has filled the world with abundance, and 
 the earth will soon revert to its original state of sterility. 
 !Now, all I ask of the farmer, is, that he should extend 
 this reasoning on from the fruits of labour to labour 
 itself. I ask him to believe, that the tree and the fruit 
 are related together by one common nature. The same 
 principle which renders it such good policy in the rest 
 of mankind to protect the farmer in his right to his crops, 
 renders it equally politic in the farmer to protect the 
 labourer in the right to his labour. Labour, like wheat, 
 is a commodity. The farmer is the consumer of labour, 
 and the labourer is the producer. And as the rest of the 
 world, in order to render the farmer's wheat cheap, 
 plentiful, and of a good quality, are obliged to protect him 
 in raising or producing it ; so the farmer can render la- 
 bour cheap, plentiful, and of good quality only by secur- 
 ing to the labourer, the raiser, the producer of the com- 
 modity, all the profits he can make by its production. 
 
 Slavery is such an extravagant departure in man from 
 his own acknowledged policy and principles, that the 
 contrast becomes ludicrous. The right which a man 
 has to his own labour is the only private property 
 Avhich exists by natural law. By the laws of na 
 turc, the external world belonged to the human family 
 
' 8 
 
 tis teuaots in common. But while this was the case, no 
 man would bestow his own labour upon the external ob- 
 jects around him, because those objects might be taken 
 from him by some of his co-tenants, and with them would 
 go the labour he had bestov.ed. To remedy this evil, to 
 secure to man the private property he had in his own la- 
 bour, and thereby induce him to become industrious, the 
 whole external Avorld which was before held in common 
 by the human race, was divided into private property 
 also. Thus, mankind have artificially divided the whole 
 of the external world into private property for the pur- 
 pose of securing to the labourer his rights to his own la- 
 bour, and then they resort to slavery to counteract that 
 purpose ! A man's natural right to his own labour is 
 first made the basis of all artificial property ; and is then 
 sacrificed agd made the subject of that very artificial 
 property of which it is the origin and support ! 
 
 I state these counter currents in human conduct for the 
 purpose of showing that they must lead to results as oppo- 
 site as their courses. If reducing the external world to 
 private property, by securing to the labourer the reward of 
 his labour, has been the origin of commerce, agriculture, 
 the arts and sciences, if it has been the means of filling 
 the world with abundance and comfort ; slavery, by de- 
 priving the labourer of the rewards of his labour, and 
 thereby taking from him the motives to industry, must of 
 necessity be attended by contrary effects. If securing 
 to the producer of all other commodities, the profits of 
 producing, renders them cheap, and plentiful, and of good 
 quality, then it follows, that in order to render labour 
 cheap, plentiful, and of good quality, the labourer, who is 
 the producer of that commodity, must be rendered secure 
 in the profits of producing it. It would be as wise for 
 the rest of the world to attempt to provide against fa- 
 mine by taking from the farmer the disposal of his crops, 
 as it is for the farmer to attempt to provide against a scar- 
 city of labour by infringing the liberty of the labourer. 
 Leave the conflicting interests and necessities of the pro- 
 ducer and consumer of labour to regulate it in every par- 
 ticular, and the heavens may become as brass and the 
 clouds yield no rain, but the faithful hand of the free la- 
 
9 
 
 bourer will never desert the fields of the farmer. Where 
 the labourer is free, the current price and fair treatment 
 is as sure to command labour, as a fair price and fair 
 .dealing is to command corn, meat, houses, land, or any- 
 thing else. If you are particularly in want of labour, let 
 it be known by offering the smallest fraction above the 
 current price, and like other commodities under like cir- 
 cumstances, it will throng you. You may thus concen- 
 trate labour to any place, for any lawful purpose, private 
 or public, peaceful or hostile ; to cultivate the soil, dig 
 canale, make roads, erect fortifications, or liandle the 
 musket. And how grateful ought man (o be^ at finding 
 human nature so constituted, that in order to command 
 human labour, and to use it either for public or private 
 purposes, there is no necessity of su Injecting our fellow- 
 creatures to involuntary bondage. What wisdom and 
 benevolence is manifested by llie Beity in so making 
 tlie world, tjrat every thing in it, withers beneath the in- 
 fluence of slavery. With reference to farming, slavery 
 may justly be defined an nnnatuial and involuntary re- 
 lation between the farmer, the slave, and the soil, which 
 operates to the mutual destruction of all. If the slave 
 is obliged to perform involuntary labour for the master^ 
 the master is also compelled to find employment and 
 support for the slave, whether he finds him profitable or 
 otherwise. The land is also laid under an exhausting 
 system of contribution, and though out of heart from too 
 much tilling, it must nevertheless be annually visited by 
 the plough and hoe. 
 
 In matters of profit and loss, however conclusive 
 a theory may appear on paper, it may nevertheless 
 be justly suspected if it stands opposed to the prac- 
 tice of mankind. ^» The children of this world are 
 wise in their generation." Mankind are selfish, and 
 they study their interest with such care and assi- 
 duity, that as a body they are not apt to mistake it. 
 Avarice knows the road to wealth even better th;in phi- 
 losophy herself. If slave labour, then, is so palpably 
 and so extremely unprofitable, how does it happen that 
 it has been so extensively resorted to ? 
 
10 
 
 A slight attention to the circumstances under which 
 slavery was introduced into the West Indies and Ame- 
 rica, by those European nations who would not tolerate 
 it at home, will answer this question. Take England 
 for an example. When England introduced slavery 
 into her American colonies and islands, she had as much 
 free labour at home as the property holders wanted to 
 employ. Accordingly " slaves could not breathe in 
 England.'^ Their respiration could only go on in those 
 parts of her christian dominions, where free labour was 
 not to be had. England, at that time, placed great reli- 
 ance on her colonies as a source of revenue. It was her 
 settled policy to monopolize all her colonial commerce, 
 and to increase that commerce as much as possible by 
 increasing the productions of the soil. Here was a 
 widely extended territory, with a soil and climate adapt- 
 ed to the raising of the most profitable articles of com- 
 merce. But the country was not yet populated. An 
 immediate supply of labour was necessary, in order to 
 render the colonies an immediate and productive source 
 of revenue. As a momentary expedient, therefore, and 
 in order to derive a momentary advantage, England 
 commenced filling her colonies with slaves from Africa. 
 The American planters, also, consulting their immedi- 
 ate profit, and disregarding future consequences, and 
 looking upon slave labour as better than none, at first 
 fell in with the slave polii-y of England. But our fore- 
 fathers finally discovered, that if slavery expedited the 
 supply of labour on tlie one hand, it deteriorated its 
 quality on the other. They became anxious that the 
 country should poj»ulate with better inhabitants than the 
 African slave. In their colonial legislatures, they im- 
 posed heavy duties on the importation of slaves, and in 
 1772, "Virginia was encouraged to look up to the throne 
 and implore paternal assistance in averting a calamity 
 of a most alarming nature." But the throne, (I mean 
 of England) was in the habit of turning a deaf ear to 
 American prayers. The final welfare of America was 
 of small importance, compared to the immediate supply 
 of the English treasury. 
 
11 
 
 The same causes which iuduced England to prohibit 
 slavery at home, while she was pouring tliem into her 
 colonies, led Spain to pursue the same course. And so 
 of France, and all the European powers, who were sup- 
 plied witii free labour at home, but had infant colonies 
 in the AVest Indies or America, which would lie for a 
 short time without cultivation for the want of labour, 
 unless a forced, unnatural, and in tlie long run, an un- 
 j)rofitable system was resorted to, to supply the article. 
 Instead of waiting for the new world to populate with 
 labourers by the emigration of freemen, and the natural 
 increase of poj)nlation, slavery was resorted to as a more 
 speedy method of introducing labour. But the ten mil- 
 lions of inhabitants with which two hundred years have 
 peopled the United States, show how^ small must have 
 been the necessity of enslaving mankind in order to in- 
 troduce human labour into America. Labour, like all 
 other commodities, if it had been left free to regulate 
 itself by the conliicting interests and necessities of man- 
 kind, would soon have found its way to the place where 
 it was wanted, and supplied the demand. That this 
 momentary deficiency of free labour was the sole cause 
 of introducing slavery into America, appears conclusive- 
 ly from the fact, that those nations who introduced it 
 prohibited slavery at home, where there was free labour 
 enough to do the work. Slave labour could only obtain 
 where free labour was absent. The former was not able 
 to compete with the latter where the employ er had his 
 choice. . 
 
 Having accounted for the manner in which the acting- 
 part of the world have been led to employ slave labour, 
 by circumstances which caused them to violate their own 
 general rules and maxims, in matters of interest, I will 
 now attempt to add a few reasons, why free labour, from 
 the nature of things, as a general rule, must be the 
 cheapest. The natural price of all human labour, which 
 it requires no uncommon skill to perform, is barely a 
 support of the labourers. Circumstances may vary this 
 ]Mire for a time. But a bare support of the labourers is 
 the point to which the price of human labour is always 
 (ending. The reason is obvious. The population of 
 
12 
 
 any country is regulated by the means oi subsistence. 
 The means of subsistence with the labouring class is 
 their labour. If the price of labour is such that their 
 labour more than supports them, they rapidly increase 
 in numbers. This increase of labourers has a natural 
 tendency to reduce the^ price of labour, precisely as the 
 increased production of any other commodity has a ten- 
 dency to reduce its price. Thus, labourers continue to 
 increase and the prico of labour to decrease, until the 
 labour of those who have no extraordinary skill at some 
 mechanic art, or in some lucrative profession, is barely 
 sufficient to support them. If labourers multiply beyond 
 this limit pauperism endues, and becomes more and more 
 aggravated until it checks the increase of population. 
 The labour of tl»e labouring classes becomes inadequate 
 for tiieir support, and immense numbers of them must 
 perish for want of food, or be fed at the table of public 
 bounty. This is at present the case in England and in 
 most of the old countries in Europe. At the present 
 prices of labour in England, the labour of the labouring 
 classes is not sufficient to support them by several miU 
 lions of pounds sterling. This deficiency is now made 
 up b;y the poor rates ; but if the labourers were slaves, 
 it would be supplied from the private pockets of their 
 masters. Admitting, then, that a slave population will 
 do as much work as a free, and that each will consume 
 the same value of food and clothing, and the present 
 amount of the poor rates in England is the precise sum 
 w hii h the immediate employers of English labour save 
 to themselves by its being free instead of slave. 
 
 But to talk of a slave's using the economy, and doing 
 the labour of a freeman ! The word slave is but another 
 name for a lazy, wasteful, faithless fellow. It never was 
 doubted, that a man constantly stimulated by the consi- 
 derations that his character, his wages, in short, his living 
 depends upon the industry and fidelity with which he 
 labours, is much more active than he would be if he was 
 put in motion by no other stimulant than the fear of pun- 
 ishment. Free labourers are always more or less ani- 
 mated by that active principle which may be seen in its 
 full and most beautiful display by attending the plough- 
 
IS 
 
 iug match ol* our .'.ociety. There is a constant rivalship 
 among them, wlio sliall maintain the character of 
 doing tlie most work, in the shortest time, in the best 
 manner. Among slaves, this rivalship is reversed. The 
 question with them is, who shall do the least work, iu 
 the longest time, in the worst manner, and escape pun- 
 ishment. I do not claim that there is no exception to 
 these general rules. ' But these are the diifereut princi- 
 ples, with w hicli nature has furnished man, as the gene- 
 ral regulators of his conduct in the diflerent predica- 
 ments of free and slave. With regard to the expense of 
 supporting a nee or slave population, I will only re- 
 mark, thai if the food and clothing of slaves may be a 
 little coarser than that of free men, that consideration 
 is counterbalanced l>y the superior economy of free 
 men in the consumption. The motives of a poor free 
 labourer to use the strictest economy in living, and the 
 temptation of a slave to be w^asteful, are engrafted upon 
 the same principles of human nature which lead the for- 
 mer to be industrious and the latter to be idle, and they 
 operate with the same force in the one case as the other. 
 To sum up our reasoning, it amounts to this. A free 
 population of labourers cause the earth to produce vastly 
 more, and of that production they themselves consume 
 vastly less than a slave population. In either case, the. 
 labourers only deduct what they consume from what 
 thcj cause the earth, to produce, as the price of their la- 
 bour, and the remainder goes to the property holders. 
 The doctrine that a bare support of the labour- 
 ing classes of society, is the natural price of their 
 labour, may seem to lead to tiie conclusion, that a 
 poor free labourer can never rise above his poverty. 
 But such a conclusion by no means follows. We have 
 been viewing labourers as a whole class of society, and 
 not as individuals. When viewed as a member of the 
 labouring class of society, each active individual labour- 
 er is considered as incumbered with his share of the old, 
 the young, and the infirm, m hich his lal)our must sup- 
 port besides maintaining himself. But when we view 
 labourers, or any other class, as individuals, we see that 
 the burden of supporting the weak is not laid thus equal- 
 
i4f 
 
 ly upon the strong. We see strong and healthy labour- 
 ers, in the vigour of manhood, unincumbered with an 
 equal proportion of the weak and infirm. If such a la- 
 bourer, so circumstanced, could only support himself, 
 if he could lay up nothing by his industry, the weak 
 and the infirm, and those whom they encumber, could 
 not exist. Therefore, in a country where the price of 
 labour stands precisely at its natural point, where it sup- 
 ports, and only supports the labourers as a class, a 
 young, healthy labourer, who only labours for himssclf, 
 will be able to rise above his poverty. He will be able 
 to lay up each year as much as he would have to expend 
 in supporting the young, the old, the sick, and the unfor- 
 tunate, if he bore his share of these burdens. With 
 good management, the savings of one year become a 
 helping fund the next, the use of which added to the in- 
 come of his labour, quickens his pace from the vale of 
 poverty, and in a few years he finds himself among the 
 substantial property-holders of the country. 
 
 In furtherproof of the position that slave labour is ex- 
 pensive, I would ask, where has slavery principally cen- 
 tered ? In tlie most fertile countries, and in southern cli- 
 mates which grow the most profitable productions. The 
 reason is, that slavery is a tax that poor soils and cold 
 climates cannot endure. The cost of cultivating an unpro- 
 ductive soil with slaves is more than the productions of the 
 soil will bring in return. A lazy, negligent, wasteful slave, 
 upon a cold, sterile, ungrateful soil, instead of producing 
 any thin*" for the support of his master, would starve 
 himself.* But cold countries and comparatively unpro- 
 ductive soils are cultivated with free labour to great ad- 
 vantage. Switzerland, Scotland, and New England, 
 are striking examples. The freedom and character of 
 the labouring population render each of these countries, 
 to which nature has not been liberal in her gifts, popu- 
 lous and wealthy. But reduce the free labouring popu- 
 lation (if it were possible) to a state of slavery, and no 
 man can doubt the consequences that would follow. 
 Pauperism and famine would ensue, until it reduced the 
 population to the number which could live in idleness 
 and waste upon a poor, half cultivated soil. 
 
15 
 
 Lastly, let nie particularly remind the farmer, that the 
 economy, industry and good husbandry of labourers, are 
 not more eft'ectual in increasing the population of a coun- 
 try, than they are in enhancing tlic price of lands. The 
 price of land is every where aft'ected by the character and 
 number of agricultural labourers upon it. Land without 
 labourers is good for nothing. It might as well be water, 
 as the most fertile soil. It is the labourers upon the 
 sandy plains of Rhode Island, that make them bear a 
 higher price than the fertile bottoms of the Mississippi. 
 The difference in the price of lantl in old and new coun- 
 tries, is mainly owing to the circumstance, that the former 
 are filled with labourers and the later not. Some sup- 
 pose it is the presence of those who consume the produce 
 of the soil that raises the price of land. But it is the pre- 
 sence of labourers. The produce of the soil may be 
 consumed any where, but a man must be upon the soil 
 itself in order to cultivate it. For example, our flour 
 bears about the same price, whether those who consume 
 it reside in the county, in Baltimore, or in London. Let 
 all the people of Frederick county suddenly substitute a 
 different bread stuff* in the place of wheat, and if the rest 
 of the world continued to make use of wheat for bread, the 
 price of our wheat would experience no perceptible 
 change. The price of wheat remaining the same, the 
 price of the land which produces it would also remain the 
 same. But let all the labourers leave Frederick county, 
 and let it become impossible to supply their places for 
 half a century, and our lands would be worth no more 
 than lands of the same quality and advantages in a new 
 country. So clear it is, that it is the presence of labour 
 to till the land, which gives it its chief value. 
 
 But the price of land is aff'ectcd by the quality of the 
 labourers, as well as the number in the country. If the 
 labourers are so negligent, idle and wasteful that they 
 consume as much, in value, as they cause the land to pro- 
 duce, tlie land is still of no profit to the owner. The 
 value of the land is regulated by the value of the surplus 
 produce which it yields after deducting the support of 
 the lal)ourers. A man's farm, therefore, may be of no 
 value from three causes. First, that it is situated in a 
 
16 
 
 new country where there is no labour to cultivate it, oi' 
 where the quantity of laud so far exceeds the quantity 
 of labour in the country, that every man who chooses 
 can find land enough to cultivate without paying any 
 thing for the use of it. In this state of things, land, like 
 air and water every where, is one of the common ele- 
 ments. There is more than enough for every body in 
 the country to use as they please, and therefore no body 
 pays for the use of it. Secondly, a man's farm may be 
 of no value, because the quality of the soil is so indiifer- 
 ent, that the labour to cultivate it is worth as much in 
 the market, as the produce which it yields. If a farm 
 is so poor that it takes twenty dollars worth of labour, 
 at the market price of labour, to raise t\iS^:^tiollars 
 worth of produce, at the market price of proi^ace, the 
 farm can hardly be said to have any value. True, the 
 owner may labour upon his farm, and thus procure aliv 
 ing. But he lives, strictly speaking, not upon the in- 
 come of his farm, but upon the income of his labour. 
 His farm pays him no more for his labour than his neigh- 
 bour, who cultivates richer laud, is willing to pay for the 
 same labour. It follows, thirdly, from what has been 
 already said, that a rich soil, in a country where there 
 are labourers enough, may produce no income to the 
 owner, because the labourers are so idle, wasteful, and 
 negligent, that they consume as much in value as they 
 raise. This course of reasoning is fully sustained by 
 the low price of the mo^t fertile land in all new coun- 
 tries where labour is scarce ; the high price of compara- 
 tively poor land at the north, where the labouring classes 
 are the most industrious, economical and thrifty, and for 
 the depreciated price of iirst-rate lands in Maryland, 
 where the labourers are idle, and wasteful, and unfaith- 
 ful, because they are slaves. 
 
 But it is time to conclude an argument, vhich the pub- 
 lie are not prepared to believe. The period has not yet 
 arrived, for the American public to give full credence to 
 any part of the truth on the subject of slavery. But if 
 slavery continues, that period will come. Our form of 
 government, our whole policy in every particular, with 
 the exception of African slavery, is calculated to fill the 
 
17 
 
 Union with as dense a population as ever existed in any 
 country. The limit of po])ulation is the means of sus» 
 tainiug life. These means are the most fully developed, 
 and produce their utmost effect in free governments, 
 where every citizen is left in the full enjoyment of his 
 rights, and where he is permitted to push his way by the 
 exercise of all his talents, skill and strength. When, 
 from these causes, the United States shall teem with an 
 overflowing population ; when, as frequently happens in 
 all populous countries, some change in national affairs 
 shall suddenly throw the poor free labourers out of em- 
 ployment ; w hen poverty and want, hunger and cold, 
 -414 shall excite tliera to phrenzy and drive them to despera- 
 tion ; when to this shall be added the aggravating cir- 
 cumstance, that in order to sustain the system of African 
 slavery, millions of the American poor are expelled the 
 farmer's field, where it is their birth right to labour, that 
 they may live ; then will be the time, for truth to burst 
 upon a nation, which thought to reconcile the conflicting 
 powers of the moral universe: A nation which continued 
 to worship slavery as a household goddess, after it had 
 constituted liberty the presiding divinity over church 
 nnd state. 
 
 e 
 
APPBZffDIX. 
 
 I had nearly concluded my essay, when a fiiend favov 
 ed me with the second Report of the Committee of the 
 society (in London) for the mitigation and gradual aboli- 
 tion of Slavery throughout the British dominions. This 
 valuable document relates to the slavery of the British 
 possessions in the West Indies. But it also contains some 
 important facts and arguments relative to tlie abstract 
 question of the comparative economy of free and slave 
 labour. I therefore take the liberty of making such 
 extracts from the pamphlet as appear to me appropriate 
 to the present occasion, and of presenting them as an 
 appendix to my essay. 
 
 It is well known to all my readers, that sugar is an 
 article of both East and West India production. That 
 in the East Indies the cane is cultivated and the sugar 
 is manufactured by free labour; and that the same is done 
 in the West Indies by slave labour. Here then the two 
 kinds of labour come in direct competition ; and the 
 question of the comparative economy of free and slave 
 labour seems to resolve itself into the question, whether 
 the East or West India sugar planter can aflord sugar 
 at the cheapest rate. It would seem impossible to test 
 the subject we have been discussing by an experiment 
 more direct and apt than the one which the East and 
 West India planters have been making by accident. 
 
 The result of the experiment is, that the parliament 
 of England are obliged, in effect, to tax her own inha- 
 bitants to an enormous amount, in order to pension the 
 West India planter, and thereby prevent him from being 
 utterly ruined and broken up by the E?ist ladia planter 
 
19 
 
 witli his free labourers. In other words, the Englisb 
 parliament grant |o the West Indiaman a most extrava- 
 gant monopoly In the sale of his sugar iii England. 
 
 "" This monopoly, (says the Report before me,) is at present sup- 
 ported, first, by a bouiiiy of upwards of six shillings per cwl. on the 
 export of (West India) refined sugar, and which necessarily raises 
 the price not only of all such sugar exported, but of all the sugar 
 consumed ai hfcnie, to the extent of the bounty ; and, secondly, a 
 protecting dal^ of ten shillings a cwt. more on East India than on 
 West India sifgai*: thus favouring sugar grown by slave labour in 
 preference to that grown by free labour, to the extent of about^i-y 
 Jier cent, on the cost of the article." 
 
 " Now, to Ay nothing at present of the degree in which prices 
 are raised by the operation of the protecting duty, the cost of the 
 West India monopoly, aiisingby the sugar bounty alone, may be 
 estimated at about ;G 1,200,000 annually. And it is this large sum, 
 (in addition to^hatever tfiiliancement of price may be produced by 
 the proiectinsr duty) paid by the people of England to the growers 
 of sugar over and aliove what that sugar would otherwise cost, which 
 docs in fact thiefly maintain unimpaired and unreformed, the 
 Wretched system of colonial bondage." 
 
 * * * " " It is calculated that there are in the West Indies 
 about eighteen hundred sugar plantations ; among the proprietors 
 of which the twelve ht^ndrcd thousand pounds w hich the people of 
 •England are forced to pay, over and above what the same sugars 
 would cost them if the trade were free, is of course divided ; mak- 
 ing on the average about,;C700 sterliag annually to each proprietor ; 
 and this independently o|| the advantage, whatever it be, which h^ 
 derives from the protecting duty.'' 
 
 Thus it is manifest, that the West India slave holding 
 sugar planter, receives a pension from England of ^700 
 a year, to protect him from being ruined by the compe- 
 tition of the East India sugar planter, who works free 
 labour. 
 
 " An objectjou has been raised in the minds of many benevolent 
 persons, to the abolition of the West India monopoly, and of the 
 bounties and protecting duties by which it is maintained, on the 
 
20 
 
 ground that a depression in the price of slave grovvtHiroduce would 
 tend to aggravate the misery of ihe slave, and^o expose him to far- 
 ther privations, and perhaps even to starvation itself." 
 
 But the committee in their report mainflaikj^^ 
 
 " That whatever tends to raise the price of the slave grown«^ro- 
 duce of the colonies, tends in the same degree to rivet the chains, 
 and to add to the labour and misery of the slave ; while the depres- 
 sion of its price operates beneficially, both in rela^ng his bonds, 
 abating his toils, and enlarging his comforts." ^P' 
 
 In other words, the advocates of the W?st India mo- 
 nopoly maintain, that if parliament does not infferfere in 
 this East and West India rivalship, between free and 
 slave labour, the East India planter, witH|his free la- 
 bour, will ruin the West India planter, with his slaves, 
 and starve his slaves to death. But the Aoolition 80- *< 
 ciety maintain, that if parliament will withdraw their 
 interference in the rivalship betivi^n free ^d slave la- 
 bour in the East and West Indies ; if they will abolish 
 the West India monopoly, the East Intlia-^Ianters will 
 cofljpel the West India planters to set thek slaves free. 
 That if parliament will withdraw this ^700 annuity tH 
 the West India planter, in order -tq^'enablfe l^pm to stand 
 his, ground with slave labour against the East India- <^ 
 mai>^vith free labour; it will compel the West India- >» 
 man to give up the contest. Whicft of thfese opinions » 
 is correct, is totally immaterial to the present question. 
 It is agreed by both parties, that if it were mi for par- 
 liamentary interference, the slaveHabour of the West 
 Indies would not be able to cope >ftth the free labour of 
 the East Indies, for a siude year. * 
 
 .hdii ,,