22 10 250 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Meetings and Events Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Boston Bazaar (Event) Subject The topic of the resource Mention of Free Produce Associations in event description Description An account of the resource Nearly eight columns of the Liberator of last week are occupied with an account of this Bazaar. By this official report, we learn that the receipts (we suppose the gross receipts, for nothing is said of expenses) amount to three thousand dollars - a sum less than that received from the Bazaar last year - a circumstance elaborately accounted for in the report. The conservatism of Boston is dwelt upon in quite a philosophical strain, in which the case of poor Sims (the fugitive slave) is woven with much skill and effect. The exclusion of the Bazaar from old Faneuil Hall is, very properly, made the subject of extended remark. The glaring pro-slavery spirit and partiality of the city authorities are fearlessly set forth, and must cover them with shame and reproach. It seems that those worthies could grant the use of Faneuil Hall, on half toll, to the Catholic Fair, and refuse it to abolitionists even when offered the whole price which they had fixed as the rent rate. The Bazaar, from the report, does not seem to have lacked British contributions. "Our friends in Great Britain had, with one or two exceptions, exceeded the generosity of previous years. Wherever a deficiency had occurred, it has been supplied with fresh and unlooked-for laborers. Boxes of great variety and value were received from the following places in Great Britain: London, Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, New-castle-upon-Tyne, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Dublin, and Cork. These included donations from Bath, Frenchay, Chatham, Bolton, and other towns in England, and from Dundee, Sterling, Crieff, Comrie, Milnathrob and Kinross in Scotland." In speaking of the catholicity and breadth of the American A.S. Society, the report says: "As we have said elsewhere, a recognition of the sinfulness of slavery, and the duty of its immediate abolition, is the basis on which its operations rest, the tie which unites in harmonious fellowship a great multitude of men and women, differing, perhaps, in various degrees, on every other subject. No religious or political test is allowed. On its platform, men and women, blacks and whites, natives and foreigners, Christians and infidels, have the same rights, and are by their presence committed to nothing but a warfare on slavery." Theoretically, this is true; PRACTICALLY it is far from the truth. The time was, we know, when " harmonious fellowship" with the American Anti-Slavery Society was the " recognition of the sinfulness of slavery, and the duty of its immediate abolition," but this time has passed. No such qualifications as these, can secure such " harmonious fellowship;" and this, we believe, the writer of the above well knows. - The " recognition " of the pro-slavery character of the U.S. Constitution, and a bitter hatred of "the Liberty Party," are far safer passports to " harmonious fellowship" with that Society, than is the " recognition of the sinfulness of slavery, and the duty of its immediate abolition." As an evidence of the exceeding coolness of this writer, take the following: In closing this paper, necessarily brief and inadequate, we feel that our whole duty were not discharged, did we not renewedly commend the American A.S. Society to the donations and sympathies of all who are seeking to find the only real and efficient anti-slavery instrumentality that the country affords. Free Soil parties, Vigilance Committees, Associations for the Improvement of the Colored Race, Free Produce Associations , Schools for Colored Children, - all and each of these do a partial, and some of them a praiseworthy work, in aid of the anti-slavery enterprise. But they are only collateral, and dependent for their vital breath on the life created by this organization. " The only real and efficient anti-slavery instrumentality that the country affords!" Sister, here we think you are mistaken. In this Protestant country, it will not do to deal in " onlys." There are so many " efficient anti-slavery instrumentalities, it scarcely looks modest for any one among them, to arrogate to itself the Romish appellation of " only." We believe that the American A.S. Society is doing a great and good work; and, as far as its members will allow us, we are disposed to co-operate with it; still, we think that our anti-slavery "vitality" is not imparted to us by that organization. There is a Power that supplies that "vitality,' independent of all human organization; and that Society might fall to pieces tomorrow, and strange as it may seem, the anti-slavery cause would survive it. Oh! when will men and women cease to worship the Form, instead of the Power - look, with becoming humility upon the works of their own hands? Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Frederick Douglass' Paper Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2.5.1852 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Articles, Letters to the Editors, etc. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Cotton Question: Free Versus Slave Labor, A Paper Read at the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science Description An account of the resource Social Science Congress. (Extracted from The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, October 11th, 1865.) THE REV. SELLA MARTIN, New York, a coloured gentleman, read a paper under the title of "Free Labour--the Cotton Question." He gave a very interesting description of the cotton culture in America, and mentioned some of the improvements which had already been introduced since free labour had been substituted for slave labour in the United States. He then entered into a clever and ingenious argument against the objections which had been made to the emancipation of the Negro, on the ground of the alleged inferiority of the race. The paper was a remarkably pointed and well-written one, and was received with loud applause. At the close, Mr. BOLT moved a vote of thanks to Mr. MARTIN. (Applause.) Mr. JOHN NOBLE, Liverpool, seconded the motion, and mentioned that Mr. MARTIN had done. (Hear, hear, and applause.) It was worthy of the greatest possible praise. He (Mr. Jeffrey) was sure, and he mentioned it in no offensive spirit, the gentleman had negro blood in his vein, and in his own person he stood before them giving the lie direct to the impossibility of the Negro being liefted to the social position of the white man. (Applause.) He trusted Mr. MARTIN would live many years, and would long go on putting on paper such sentiments as he had given utterance to that day, and that they might have the widest possible circulation. (Loud applause.) THe motion was also supported by Mr. POLLARD URQUHART, M.P., and carried unanimously. Mr. MARTIN, in acknowledging the vote of thanks, mentioned that he was in this country at present as a deputation from the Freedmen's Aid Society, and that for some time he had opportunities, almost every day, of speaking ont he subject which he had now treated. THE COTTON QUESTION. MY LORD, NOTWITHSTANDING the unrealized desire of those who, in their dream of success, saw cotton enthroned and crowned king; such a king as would make even England bend the supple hinges of the knee to procure his favour; notwithstanding the unrealized dream that England would make haste to do him honour by aiding in securing his success, or become his ally in misfortune, there is much truth in the assertion of his adherents, that Cotton is King. The cotton that grows in the pod, the labourer who picks it, the gin that cleans it, the press that packs it into bales, the ship that transports it, the commission merchant, the manufacturer, the labourer at the loom, the printer of its patterns, the dry-good merchant, the people who wear it, the rag-picker who gathers it when it is worn out, the paper-maker who uses the rags in manufacture, the stationer who sells the paper, the writer who transfers his thoughts to it, the printer who prints the thoughts, the ink-maker who depends up on its use, the bookseller who disposes of the works, and those who read the printing upon the paper,--all these, in their commercial relations and aspects, countenance the claim of his majesty, if not to a kingdom, at least to a very large principality. Shall he be a despot or a constitutional monarch? that is the question,--a question, the immediate issues of which affect the political bearings and prosperity of America; at the same time affecting, and that not very remotely, the mercantile success of the three foremost nations of Christendom. In seeking a solution of this problem, let us inquire briefly what is cotton, and how it is cultivated. What is Cotton? It is a plant with a strong and vigorous root, a quickly-growing, rank and prolific stalk, with an abundant, capricious, but valuable product. The soil on which it grows must be prolific, but not too rank. The ground on which it is for the first time produced, must be chastened by maze and pumpkins, which are gross in their nature. So exhausting is cotton, that the land on which it grows must be left to rest every third year at least. And even then, the stalk--which, on account of its gross cellular formation, its rank juices, and its weakness of fibre, decays as quickly as it grows--the stalk, or its chemical equivalents, must form the manure which makes possible a second crop. The nature of this plant requires three things in its production. It requires promptitude in planting, constancy of attendance while growing, and great application in the gathering. Its culture is attended by these evils, namely, malaria in its locality, and rheumatic tendencies in its gatherers, on account of the dew that hangs about its pods and its abundant leaves, which keeps the hands and garments of its gatherers wet for many hours in the early morning. It is also generally exhausting to the whole system of the labourer, since to preserve the weight and quality of the cotton, he must work not only all day, but late at night, to press into bales the picking of the preceding day, as it will either become mouldy from the dampness, or dry and brittle in fibre from the quick evaporation of the dew when exposed to the sun. There are three kinds of cotton: known as Midland, Upland, and Sea Island. The lowest of this class is that produced on lands which, though not the best for cotton, will pay best with a cotton crop. The next is that produced on what is called the prairie lands of the States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi--lands of such a rich though clayey character, that the feet of the beasts and labourer have to be cleaned of it every half hour, to enable them to continue their toil, so heavy is the weight. Then there is the finest species, the most expensive but the most injurious to human life in its cultivation, called the Sea Island cotton, produced only on the Sea Islands adjacent to the State of South Carolina. This cotton requires peculiar conditions. It requires the sea-weed for manure, and the influence of the Gulf stream to bring it to its state of superiority over all other cottons. It always brings nearly double, and sometimes quadruple, the price of any other. But, as I intimated, these conditions are secured at terrible expense to its producers. Where it grows, terrible fevers prevail--fevers contagious and deadly to the [?], and deteriorating even to the native. So [?], that during slavery the average negro-life on the Sea Isalnds was not more than severn years, nor in any other Cotton region more than nine years. Th rapid decay of the sea-weed, and the humid air produced by the Gulf stream especially, breed and perpetuate the deadly malaria. It is doubted very much by many whether any constitution but that of the Negro could be employed in the production of this cotton, as his constitution carries with it, by descent from a tropical race, a natural adaptedness to such conditions as I have mentioned, and possesses a vitality that throws off the diseases peculiar to this atmosphere. Be that as it may, it is certain that no other labourer is now so acclimatised as the Negro to conditions which seem to be indispensable to the production of all cottons in a more or less degree. For, though contagious diseases, rheumatism, and general debility, do not prevail in other cotton localities to the same extent as in the Sea Islands, they are still known to prevail to some extent in all cotton-growing districts. It may be, and I think it is possible, that free labour will find some means of defeating the evils heretofore attendant upon the cultivation of cotton in respect to climatic conditions and diseases. Skill, we all know, or must see, was impossible with slave labour.The more complicated the machinery put into the hands of the slave, the greater his excuse for not understanding the use of it, and the greater his temptation to break it, that he might rest while it was being mended; and in the proportion of pressure put upon the Negro to get the most work out of him in a given time, in that same proportion was the soil exhausted, so as to need a stimulant which was unhealthy for the land and the labourer. But with, the return of peace, companies are being formed to gather the sea-weed necessary to perpetuate the prolificacy of the Sea Islands, rather than to wait for the sea-weed to come to them as was the case during Slavery; and Chemistry is at work, through the aid of free capital, and liberty-loving Science, in the effort to rob the sea-weed of all but its powers to enrich the soil. And when steam and other improved agencies are put to work upon those rich prairies of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, it will be found that there is not only a great saving of Negro life, but that white men as well as coloured men, can aid in furnishing to the world a class of cotton only to be got from America. In view of what science has already achieved, there is no doubt that cotton may be made to grow so high under the inventive genius of free labour in stimulating the soil, and that too without any detriment in fibre, that the back-breaking and deforming position of constant stooping in picking it may be rendered unnecessary? Who can doubt that waterproof garments will be adopted under the care, forethought, economy, and humanity of free labour, so as to prevent rheumatism and other diseases heretofore unavoidable to the cotton producer? And when these improvements come, there will come with them a better class of cotton. It will be cleaner of sand, which the slave put in in former times to make the weight that his taskmaster required of him. It will be longer and more tenacious of fibre, through more scientific manuring and more artistic ginning, and the world will get more of it on account of the new impulse under which the Negro will work, and the addition of skilled labourers which freedom will bring. These are not speculations, but assertions capable of proof by statistics, for which I only go to one spot of experiment. On the Sea Islands, since the beginning of the war, and in one single year, the cotton was so improved in every respect, and so increased in quantity by the freedmen employed by the United States' Government, that it realized £120,000 by Free Negro labour; and the Negroes themselves there, purchased one-third of the estates that were sold by the government, on account of the unpaid taxes. I am sorry to say that this is true only of these Sea Islands and a few other localities; but this is no fault of the Negroes of the Federal Government. On acount of the South being so devastated by war, and the war ending too late to plant crops this season, little cotton has been planted, indeed, little of all things has ben planted; so that while I have the honour to speak to you to-day, many poor whites, and still more of the Negro race, are dying of starvation, exposure, and lack of medical attention. But though liberty has come to the Negro at this fearful cost, and, though English as well as American charity is taxed for his present relief--to which, thank God, both nations are nobly responding--though, I repeat, his liberty may be leaner than his slavery for the present, the members of this Association have this reason for rejoicing, that henceforth the stoppage of cotton will not chill the energy of the manufacturer, nor starve the household of the operative in Lancashire, through slavery trying to prove its shameless and tyrannical boast that Cotton is King, even at the expense of involving the nations in war. In turning to the aspect of this paper that concerns the Negro as a free labourer, no one can understand the pleasure with which I make the statement which I am now about to make, unless he has been a slave.--My LORD,--the American Slave is free: the Negro, as to his social existence, has risen from the degradation of chattelhood to the privileges and responsibilities of manhood. And the question which it will require the next few years to solve, is: Does this change involve a blessing or a curse to his race? Is he inherently and irretrievably inferior as a man? And if so, is he, therefore, unfit to grapple with the difficulties of freedom, or to disprove his natural adaptedness to slavery, or to overcome ites terrible traces upon him? There is no reason to account him naturally inferior, except on the Darwinian theroy, that all races, at some period of development, are inferior. But even though that theory were allowed to be true, it would prove too much, since it would take away the only claim for the Negro's enslavement, that, namely, of inherent inferiority. For, if the Negro is in a transition state from the brute to the man, he is simply where all races have been at some point of their history; and if any other race has finally risen to superiority, so may the Negro race eventually rise. But refusing to accept this theory for the white race, I reject it in the case of the Negro; and until some one catches and exhibits a specimen of speaking ourangs-outangs, or of a speechless race of men, or till I am shown a gorilla with a thumb that is not as long as its fingers, I shall continue to reject it. Nay, while we have black men like Soloque of Hayti, who can be as despotic as white men; and like Benson of Liberia, who are as able in statesmanship; and men amongst us as brilliant as Frederick Douglass and as dull as Dogberry, I must be excused for adopting the opposite theory.  But admitting the Negro to be inferior, how does that justify enslaving him, especially if we mean to hold our theory about the superiority of the white race, and to reap the results of it, since the inferiority of the Negro necessitates an inferior form of labour, an inferior social fabric, and inferior political appliances, from all of which the white man must suffer even more than the Negro? Brutality may be restrained when driving a mere brute; but when the labourer has not only the feelings of a brute to be excited, but the determination of a man to resist, the driver must himself become a brute through the constant necessity of coercion. Further, the form of labour applied to such a being must in itself be inferior. If the labourer does not progress in the arts, the employer cannot progress in the science of labour. The form of labour must therefore remain stationary, which, in our time, is the same as being retrogade in character. It may be right to deny marriage to a semi-brute, but it cannot be right to adopt a form of social existence that tempts the superior race to disregard marraige themselves, and to show that disregard in connection with semi-brutes in having progeny by them. For, if the negro woman is not a brute, it is a strange thing to say that she is one, seeing the members of the superior race are often the fathers of her children; and if she is a brute, for them to be the fathers of her children is a thing stranger still. Then, too, if the superior race may become thus inferior without perceiving it, a shrewd suspicion may be allowed that the race accounted inferior by them may be equal without their recognizing it.  Still further: to plead the inferiority of the victim of Slavery is to stand in the way of all political advancement. For if the Negro can be made and kept happy only at the expense of hampering the progressive tendencies of free government for white men--if a white man who is opposed to the negro's enslavement must be driven away from his enterprise and his residence when he would improve the law for white men--if, in short, the life of a white man is not worth as much as the life of a negro's, where slavery exists, provided the white man refuses to be degraded by yielding to the terms of slavery, then, I say, the inferiority of the Negro is recognised and practised upon at fearful expense. For the white man is thus made as inferior as the Negro: if not so inherently, he is practically, and with a curse greater than even the Negro fears or feels. I submit that the Negro has no right to be happy and contented as a bondsman, at such fearful expense to the superior race. I am prepared now for the rejoinder that this alternative is not necessary, since the Negro may leave the vicinity of the white people. But this yields the whole argument. If the Negro may go away from the white people, he may be free; and if he may be free, white superiority does not require negro inferiority to set it off. My argument does not interfere with the question of where he may go, but only with that of where he shall stay.  Our position, then, is this: That freedom is a good thing for all, the Negro included; that his inferiority is no sound argument for his enslavement, since it makes his enslaver inferior; that he is not inferior, except from circumstances. But were these positions false, what then? The negroes are free, and it would cost as much blood and treasure to re-enslave them as it has already cost to free them. Shall we allow prejudices which have been rebuked by Providence to stand in the way of the white man's advancement, by throwing them as obstructions in the way of the Negro's elevation? We are told by some that Emancipation may be right, but that the method of accomplishing it in America was wrong. We are told it cost too much blood, suffering, and treasure. Well, that may be. But that was the choice of the superior race, and if their wisdom was not equal to the task without this sacrifice, that only proves that they are not so superior to the Negro after all: for had the method been left to him, he would have laid down his chains without shedding, or causing to be shed, one drop of blood. We are told that Emancipation ought to have been gradual and not immediate. Well, all that we can say, seeing such objectors have done nothing else but say,--it was not gradual; neither is this any fault of the Negro's. But if this be an evil, there is a partial remedy left for it: especially if those who speak of it desire to cure, rather than to be captious about it. The remedy is this: that go I and able men of the superior race should carry or send to these negroes the aids and elements of knowledge, and so try to make up by the number of volunteers, and by the amount of aid, for the lack of preparation which attended the Negro's entrance into freedom. Nor is it the fault of the Negro or his friends that Emancipation was not gradual but immediate: for those who approved of his enslavement continued to reject all offers to that end. It is remarkable that whenever even slave-holders have had to deal with this question by practice rather than by theory, they have discarded gradual emancipation as impracticable. In the West India Islands the gradual had to be abandoned for the immediate system. When the District of Columbia had to deal with the question, Emancipation was immediate; and this also was the case in Missouri and Maryland: and in this the people of these States only followed the example set them by the great Creator and Emancipator, in the model act of Hebrew emancipation. It is further objected that the negroes are lazy, because of the tropical influences that still linger in them, and on account of the habits engendered by slavery. Well, the claim which I set up for his equal humanity, compels me to admit, apart from his tropical tendencies or his slavish habits, that he may be lazy. I have seen so many lazy men among white people, and I have seen them indulge their laziness at such fearful expense to truth, virtue, and uprightness, that I am quite prepared to believe that the Negro may be lazy also. But I have known so many negroes escaping to the cold and rigorous climate of Canada and the Northern States, where they knew they would have to work even harder than in slavery,--I have seen so many of them, by night-work and secret acquisition, purchase their freedom, and continue to work till they had purchased that of their whole family,--I have seen so many wealthy coloured people in the North, working against prejudice and proscription, up to positions of ease and affluence,--that I never would have believed that a negro was lazy, had I not seen so many lazy white men. But why should this fact stand in the way of practical men? If the negro is not entirely a brute, he may, upon the Darwinian theory, eventually become a man; and supposing that impossible, we have seen that it is too great a hinderance to the material progress, and at too great a cost to social purity and political economy, for the white race to bring itself down to the only terms on which the Negro can be kept a slave. The alternative then being, that the Negro must go free; and the fact being, that he is at least a progressive brute, what nobler work can scientific minds be engaged in, than helping to prove the soundness of their own theory about ethnological development, and the wise arrangement of Providence, that even the lowest races may be uplifted by the help of the superior. But if this theory is unsound, and that held by others is true, that "God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth;" then, inasmuch as you would like help out of degradation, if in the Negro's present condition, and would wish to be aided in effacing the traces of bondage, and would long for assistance in forming habits of self-reliance and feelings of self-respect. "Do unto others even as ye would that they should do unto you." But apart from theory, this whole matter affects the objects for which this Association exists, in a most practical way. The world needs cotton. It is better for mankind that it should be got by free than by slave labour. Cotton may be got by free labour--from a race that understands its cultivation--that is acclimatised to its locality. Britain needs cotton more than all the world beside: because, having got wealthy by it, her various industries must be carried on by its sufficient supply. By taking the right view of the social problem which I have so imperfectly touched upon, both America and Africa, through the aid of Africo-Americans, will lay their treasures of this staple at the feet of Britain, and the race ot which her best minds and hearts have been devoted in its suffering, will rise up to call her blessed. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rev. Sella Martin of New York Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Extracted from The Sheffield Daily Teleb Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freedmen's Aid Society (Glasgow: Thomas Street, Printer and Stationer, 52 Argyle Street) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865, October Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Articles, Letters to the Editors, etc. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource THE EXPENSE AND STERILITY OF SLAVE LABOR Description An account of the resource There is not an aspect in which slavery can be considered that does not show a deleterious working of the system upon the best interests of the southern States. We have already dwelt at length upon some of these features. There is one to which all honest-minded men of those States, who have visited the North, must be fully sensible. This is the sterility of the slave labor system in the matter of home comforts and convenience. To our mind, it is astonishing that southern planters and farmers can be willing to receive back so little for their money. There are thousands and thousands of journeymen mechanics in New England whose houses are palaces compared with the dwellings of hundreds of slave-holders in the South. During our recent tour in that section of the Union, we saw and heard enough to justify this statement. We were assured that many a planter, with fifty and sometimes with a hundred slaves, still lived in a low log house, without any of the little elegancies and comforts which fill and surround the homes of northern artisans. A gentleman whom we visited on his estate, a man of refined taste, education and manners, and who owned seventy or eighty slaves, dwelt with much feeling upon this difference. He had sojourned for awhile during the previous summer in a small, busy manufacturing town in one of the most sterile of the New England States, and had been deeply impressed with the appearance of wealth and competence which the homes of the farmers presented to his view. In every direction from the centre, or village part of the town, he saw their large white houses, with green windowblinds, generally embowered in graceful shrubbery, festooned with flowers and shaded by rows of maple or elm trees--all looking like the abodes of elegant luxury, thrift and wealth. And these establishments were often facing each other from opposite sides of the same road. It seemed a marvel to him that so many homes of such a character could be sustained on so small a space. Here were a dozen all in sight, occupying, in the aggregate, hardly a thousand acres; yet the smallest and poorest of them quite equalled his own in convenience and comfort, though he owned about two thousand acres in the South, and nearly one hundred negroes. There was the bright, white school-house, in which the children of these farmers, and every child in the district, recived an education that fitted them for all the ordinary occupations of life. What an agricultural community this to be planted upon a thousand acres of naturally thin-soiled land! What a yeomanry to stand up, in all the strength and sterling attributes of intelligence, virtue and independence, in a space half the size of his own plantation! What a crop of large two-story houses, capacious and well filled barns and out-houses, cattle, sheep and swine, horses, carriages, and properties real and personal, for such an area! What a growth of mind, genius, vritue and human individuality to be spread over such a small compass of territory! No one better than a southern planter could appreciate the difference between such a district and one of equal size occupied by a single white family and one hundred slaves. We believe from the observations of the gentleman to whom we have alluded, that Southern men of intelligence, who visit the northern States, carry back with them the impressions which he received. If these lines should, perchance, reach a few of their number, we would earnestly and respectfully invite them to review with us two or three points of difference between the working of the slave labor system and that industrial economy which produces results so surprising to them in the Northern States. Let us look together more closely at the elements of that thrift, prosperity and comfort which seems to surround and fill the home of the free-labor farmer of New England. Perhaps he owns one hundred acres of mountain, meadow, arable and pasture land. The winters are long and cold, and large stocks of fuel for his house and fodder for his cattle must be provided. He may owe a few hundred dollars for his farm, and its whole value be $3000. He is a man perhaps of forty years of age, with a family of half a dozen children; the oldest son being sixteen. His yoke of bright-eyed Devonshire steers, and horse of all work, constitute the rest of his labor-material. For six months of the year, his own hands, and those of this boy, and the strength of this "three cattle team," perform unaided all the work bestowed on his one-hundred-acre farm. They plow and cross-plow the land for all the grain-crops in fall and spring. The axes of father and son keep stroke at the root of the mountain oak or maple, in winter, and they convey it home, compactly corded on the ox-sled, down the winding path of beaten snow. All the work of winter, early fall and spring, they themselves perform. No expenditure, of any account, is incurred for hired labor during this period; while, for at least three months, all the children are at school. About the first of May, perhaps, the farmer engages an industrious, able bodied man to work for him for six months--to plant, hoe, mow and reap. Probably he is a young, unmarried man, who is taken into the farmer's house as one of the family; he sits with them at the same table, rides to church in the same carriage, and sits in the same pew on the Sabbath. He is perhaps training himself and laying up money for owning and tilling a farm. He is practising the most rigid economy; and endeavors to take up as little of his wages as possible during the term for which he is engaged, that he may have it all in a lump at the end, to deposite in the savings-bank, or to loan out on interest. Perhaps he will not draw more than $10 for the whole period of six months. If he is unwell, and loses a few days, the loss is deducted from his wages. Thus the farmer has all the value of his labor for the best half of the year, with but very little expenditure during that period. He realises its full results before he is called to pay the stipulated wages. He "turns over" the value of that labor once or twice, before the full pay-day. He sells all he can spare of the crops sown, planted, and gathered by the aid of his hired man, before this disbursement. So far from paying for his labor in advance, as does the southern planter, his hired man virtually lends it to him for several months without interest. And this is the best agricultural labor in the world. It is the intelligent, faithful, trusty industry of a man who intends to cultivate a farm of his own some time or other. The farmer works with him. Their hoes keep stroke with each other in the cornfield; their scythes in the meadow, their sickles in harvest. This parity and fellowship gives a dignity to agricultural labor in New England, and in the Free States generally, which it wears in no other country, in no other occupation on the face of the earth. The broad blue sky of heaven seems to look down with its blandest smile and blessing upon this copartnership; and Heaven grant it may never be dissolved; that none of the heartless artificialities that are slowly introducing the castes of European civilization, may mar the pure beauty of this New England syste. This is the first jewel of her glory; and long as her green hills look the blue firmament in the face, may they wear each around its brow this peculiar coronet of human industry. May this glory never, never depart from her. May she guard it as the apple of her eye. If our voice could reach the men of her hills, we would implore them to hold to this old Puritan democracy or labor as the peculiar jewel of the New World. They cannot conceive how it thrills and swells the heart of a New Englander with emotions of gladness and virtuous pride, while travelling through the agricultural districts of Europe, to turn away in thought from the caste condition of labor which he sees in every field, to that noble fellowship of industry that sows and reaps the harvests of his native land. Whatever changes and habits increasing wealth and its appetite for luxuries may introduce into the large sea-board towns of the North, far-reaching back among the virtuous hills and green vallies, Heaven grant that this old Pilgrim-father democracy of toil may exist unchanged. There may the labor which Providence demands as its copartner in feeding, clothing and blessing man--may that labor never be out-housed or side-tabled or badged with any caste-mark by those who employ it.  We believe our southern readers will excuse this parenthetical digression from the argument to which we had intended to confine our observations. They may easily conceive that the Free-Labor Farming system of the North may inspire such sentiments of admiration in those who have grown up in daily view of its working and results. We have adverted to the impressions which a cotton planter received from a glance at the condition of a dozen homesteads planted upon half the space of his own estate. Almost in his own words, we have expressed the surprise he felt on seeing such a society of intelligent families, with children enough to fill a district school, living in a state of comfort and elegance unknown to himself, and all deriving their support and competence from a farm not exceeding, in the aggregate, a thousand acres of land. We have endeavored to show that this remarkable production of human sustenance and comfort must be ascribed, not to the superior nature of the soil, but to the character of the labor applied to its cultivation. This, we are confident, they will clearly see and freely admit, and deduce from the fact that inference which should be so useful to themselves. If, for a moment, they entertain a doubt in reference to the real cause of the contrast between the results of their industrial economy and that of the Free States, let them imagine their own system applied to New England agriculture. Suppose that each of the dozen farmers to whom we have adverted, were obliged to buy an able-bodied slave to begin with, and pay in advance a thousand dollars for him; that is, to pay down on the spot, at the out-set, for labor to be performed twenty or thirty years hence, if the man lived so long--to buy a precarious human life, which might terminate in a month, at such a price! Not one of those farmers, if the law permitted it, could afford to till his land in this way. Under slavery, few one-hundred-acre homsteads could be sustained in the North. The system would decimate the agriculturists; so that there would not be families enough in a space of ten square miles to fill a district school. Look at its inevitable working for a moment. Here is a man who has purchased or inherited a farm in New Hampshire or Connecticut, worth, say, $3000. Assume that his house, barn and agricultural implements are in satisfactory condition for the first year, that he has provisions enough to carry his family on to the next harvest, and sufficient fodder for his cattle. The spring opens, and planting time is at hand. With $50 ready money in hand, he may safely commence operations. With this small sum, and a credit to the same amount at the village store, he may hire an able-bodied young man to labor for him until his crops are gathered in the autumn. A few dollars, perhaps, on an average, $3 per month, are all that he may be asked to pay for wages until these crops are sold. How small the capital invested in labor under this system! Now change it for that of the South, and see what would become of that farmer. You bring him a human being, subject to all the sudden and fatal ills which flesh is heir to, and say: "Buy this man, and pay $1000 down for him, before he has struck a blow or earned a cent for you. He is strong and sound, and may live to work on your farm many years; but it is true he may sicken and die next week, or run away to-morrow. Inasmuch as he is not to have a farthing of his purchase-price himself, or any compensation for his toil, you must extort with the scourge what hope of reward would induce him to perform." Is it not easy to conceive how a New England farmer would reply to this proposition? Would he not be likely to say, "It is impossible for me to invest so much money in labor in advance of its performance, even if the law or my own conscience would allow me to purchase and hold a man as a slave. A thousand dollars to be paid down for labor spread over a space of twenty or thirty years, if the man lives, and to terminate in a month if he should then die or run away! It is impossible. I cannot raise the money, nor run such a risk if I had the means. I would sell my farm before I would undertake to cultivate it at such an outlay and hazard." And doubtless he and thousands like him would sell their farms rather than till under such a system. We are confident that one-third of all the farmers in New England would change their occupations, if each were obliged to pay in advance on the first of May the wages of one hired man for six months; not that each could not raise $200 for such a purpose, but from the repugnance which they would feel to the principle, and from the great inconvenience in carrying it out. The difference between Southern and Northern Agriculture, and the difference between the two sections in almost every fact and feature, should be ascribed to the labor employed in each, and not to difference of sun and soil. There is no reason on earth why ten cotton farms may not be planted on a space of one thousand acres in Georgi and Alabama, supporting ten white families with children enough to fill a district school. There is no more necessity for planters living in log houses, in either of those States, than there is for the farmers of Massachusetts or Vermont doing the same. There never can be an intelligent yeomanry, or an agricultural population of sufficient compactness of residence in the Southern States to form a coherent society, support schools, churches, &c., until the Free Labor system is fully adopted. Under Slavery the whole agricultural territory of those States will be occupied by a few great planters, being hardly within telescopic sight of each other, and a few miserably poor and ignorant white families, supporting themselves by hunting, fishing, and growing vegetables on their small patches of land. Free Labor would change all this, and cover all the South with those homesteads which make the glory and greatness of New England. Burrit's Citizen of the World Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Reprinted from Burrit's Citizen of the World Friends' Intelligencer 14:43, p. 680 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1.9.1858 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Meetings and Events Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Fair. Description An account of the resource THE FAIR. This endeavor of the women of Boston, to replenish the treasury of the cause, has been more successful than any former one of a similar nature. The fair of 1834 produced $300; of 1835, $350; of 1836, $600; and the present one of 1837, $850. This regular increase is an index of the progress of the principles. As the movement within goes on, the <xsl-text></xsl-text>hands <xsl-text></xsl-text>are moved with it. These fairs are beneficial in another view than a financial one. They increase the interest of abolitionists themselves in a cause, which, because its principles are of universal application, cannot be <xsl-text></xsl-text>too much loved; <xsl-text></xsl-text>and they excite an interest where none before existed, in the minds of the surrounding community. Many as individual, who would never have read an Anti-Slavery publication, or entered a lecture room, has been induced by curiosity, or the demands of the Christmas or New Year's holiday, to visit this annual scene of abolition business; and has left it with a juster appreciation of the motives, and a clearer comprehension of the measures, of those whom misrepresentation has led him to misunderstand. The fair, this year, was a scene of quiet animation. It was an obedience of the triform injunction:—'Be diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.' In one part of the spacious vestry of the Marlborough chapel, (put in readiness for the occasion by the active kindness of Mr. Sears, to whom the fair is much indebted,) might be heard an animated discussion over the book and print table, as to the tendency of 'pictorial representations' of slavery. In another, by the table of refreshments, might be observed an equally spirited one, touching the effect of abstaining from the products of slave labor. <xsl-text></xsl-text>Here <xsl-text></xsl-text>might be seen a group of youthful faces, never before seen in Anti-Slavery regions, examining the antique modelled monumental vases, inscribed to the memory of LOVEJOY; and listening with a 'keener rush of blood' to the tale of his devotedness: and <xsl-text></xsl-text>there <xsl-text></xsl-text>, amid the confusion of gay toys, and the chat of the crowd, might be seen older and graver brows, thought-struck by the noble verses of Bulwer and Whittier, used as mottoes and inscriptions. There was a reticule with this inscription: A NEW-ENGLAND MOTHER. When Mrs. Lovejoy heard of the death of her son, she replied, 'Tis well! I would rather my son had fallen a martyr to his cause, than that he had proved recreant to his principles.'— A touching illustration of the 'appropriate sphere' of Woman. The reverse bore- ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY, a member of the ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, who was murdered defending the freedom of the Press at Altos, Illinois, November 7, 1837. 'In the evil days before us, And the trials yet to come— In the shadows of the prison, And the cruel martyrdom— We will think of thee, O brother! And thy sainted name shall be In the blessing of the captive, And the anthem of the free.' Other articles bore the beautiful prose Hymn of Mrs. Barbauld, 'Thou who sittest pining in captivity, weeping over thy sick child! though no one seeth thee, God seeth thee!'—to which so many owe it that they have, from childhood, been abolitionists in the abstract, and that they were ready to move with the grand movement to abolish it. Most of the <xsl-text></xsl-text>little <xsl-text></xsl-text>implements of housewifery were covered with appropriate mottoes and devices. When pincushions are periodicals, and needle-books are tracts, discussion can hardly be stifled, or slavery perpetuated. Some cradle quilts and other articles from friends is Reading, were finished with drawings and mottoes in indelible ink. A <xsl-text></xsl-text>pungent article <xsl-text></xsl-text>from friends in Ashburnham, demands notice for the felicitous inscription on the bag:—'The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard-seed, which a man planted,' &c. &c. A little pair of infant's socks were marked, 'the widow's two mites.' Will those who have <xsl-text></xsl-text>but <xsl-text></xsl-text>two mites to give, recollect that the price for which these sold will circulate information and argument, whose returns of influence and effort for the slave <xsl-text></xsl-text>may <xsl-text></xsl-text>be more than all the large sums thrown into the treasury? Most of the articles met a ready sale, particularly the beautiful ones from Manchester, by Geo. Thompson; from Darlington, by A.E. Grimke; and from Glasgow, by Jane Smeal. These were a great attraction. The balance of the pledge of $1000, made by the Boston Female to the Massachusetts Society, amounting to $592, was next day paid over. Grateful acknowledgments are due to the same generous friends of the slave, who furnished refreshments and superintended the arrangements of the last year's fair—Mr. R. Goss and Mr. J.E. Fuller. The fair is also under obligations to Mr. Whipple of Newburyport, for a donation of books, and to two ladies of Boston for a well-timed and plentiful supply of raisins, cake and confectionary. The throng of purchasers during the whole two days, the constant and unconstrained decorum on the part of both buyers and sellers, the complete success of the sale, and the disregard of the degrading prejudice against color, showed by the absence of complexional distinctions, all unite to render this a most satisfactory and interesting occasion, and one which it is hoped will annually occur. M.W.C. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource M.W.C. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Liberator 2:8, p. 6 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1.12.1838 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poetry Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Farmer (A Song) Description An account of the resource A farmer's life is the life for me, I own I love it dearly; And every season, full of glee, I take its labors cheerly - To plough or sow, To reap or mow, Or in the barn to thrash, sir, All's one to me, I plainly see 'Twill bring me health and cash, sir. The lawyer leads a harass'd life, Much like that of a hunted otter, And 'tween his own and others' strife, He's always in hot water - For foe or friend, A cause defend, However wrong, must he, sir - In reason's spite, Maintain 'tis right, And dearly earn his fee, sir. The doctor's styled a gentleman, But this I hold but humming; For; like a tavern waiting man, To every call "he's coming" - Now here, now there, Must he repair, Or starve, sir, by denying - Like death himself, Unhappy elf, He lives by others' dying. A farmer's life, then, let me live, Obtaining while I lead it, Enough for self, and some to give To such poor souls as need it. I'll drain and fence, Nor grudge expense, To give my land good dressing - I'll plough and sow, Or drill in row, And hope from heaven a blessing. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource J.J. Barker; Sung at a meeting of the Agricultural Society at New Brunswick Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Colored American Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1839.08.31 https://productsoffreelabor.com/files/original/f1f12d3b0cfd980a5c982abc7f4d82eb.jpeg 2a568e0265da67e892037d035f18f30a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Articles, Letters to the Editors, etc. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Free Labor Movement (Article) Description An account of the resource One of the saddest features of American Slavery, is its mournful reaction upon the whole country, both north and south. Its influence surrounds us like the atmosphere; we gather around the social board, and one of the first things which meets our gaze, is some luxury wrung from the reluctant, trembling hands of the crushed and weary slave. We enter the wardrobe and the sighs and groans of the slave are lingering around the seams of our clothes, and floating amid the folds of our garments. But who will say, when Carolina's rice, with snowy whiteness, tempts the taste, perhaps the hands that gathered this were severed form some loved and lost embrace? Who will gaze upon the manufactured cotton, and see the stain, the stain of blood and tears upon its warp and woof? Who will look beneath the delicate proportions of the sugar cane, and see the stinging ad clotted lash, and on their surface, trace the agony of years? Our moral influence against slavery must be weakened, our testimony diluted, if, while we denounce slavery as robbery of the basest kind, oppression of the most shameful stamp, an aggression upon the very citadel of life, robbing a human heart of its liberty and fights, its energies and manhood, we are constantly demanding rice from the swaps, cotton form the plantations and sugar from the deadly mills, even if every rood and acre, on which they grew, had been the scene of outrage, injustice, and crime, even if the soil on which they were raised, were red with blood and wet with servile tears, even if desolate bosoms were trampled upon to produce them, bleeding, or weary hearts crushed to procure them. Taking this view of the matter, we may hail the free labor movement, as a harbinger of hope, and ensign of progress, and a means of proving the consistency of our principles, and the earnestness of our zeal. By so-doing we may prove to the south, that we not only denounce slavery as robbery and piracy, but we are endeavoring to shake our hands from sharing in its spoils, and participating in its crimes. By so doing may we not set influences at work to girdle the deadly upas of slavery, and compel it to wither and die, for want of sustenance and support? And under the auspices of free and intelligent labor , the south may yet blossom and bloom like the rose, and slavery cease to write upon the land, cursed is the ground for my sake. FRANCIS ELLEN WATKINS. LEWISTON, Me., 1855. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Frederick Douglass' Paper Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6.29.1855 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Articles, Letters to the Editors, etc. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Free Labor Movement (Article) Description An account of the resource FREDERICK DOUGLASS' ESTEEMED FRIENDS: I have been giving thy address at Corinthian Hall, another reading. I value it for the view it takes of the great field of anti-slavery, and that taken from the "standpoint" occupied by the Liberty party. I am at a loss to understand how any strict abolitionists can object to its principles, as defined in that address, especially if " it makes a clean sweep of slavery EVERYWHERE." The "Free Labor people" are also spoken of in that address. I felt really thankful that they were obtaining a little more attention, for the sake of their principles. Allowing the Liberty Party to e the right hand of anti-slavery, the Free Labor movement, will put in a claim to be considered one of its fingers, and, peradventure, may some day be invited to a place " up higher ." The "Free Labor people" are understood to reassert the doctrine, that slavery cannot be legalized anywhere neither in Congress nor out of Congress neither in the cotton-field nor out of the cotton-field neither in the cotton-mill nor on the counter of the store -keeper nor in anti-slavery bazaars nor on the tables nor backs of those who cry aloud, and "spare not," when they are denouncing slavery in all its ramifications. Free labor people claim the right to prefer the "higher law," that says, 'the laborer is worthy of his hire" to the "lower law," that says, "price must be consulted before principle." Accordingly, when a slaveholder offers them a bale of cotton he has whipped out of the labor of some "Uncle Tom," they say, to sell or buy, that cotton, cannot be legalized without the owner's consent that that cotton has been obtained through fraud and cruelty of the deepest tint we cannot buy it or use it without acknowledging the legality of the transaction or acting the part that is down below any respectful attention. "The hire of the laborer that has been kept back by fraud, crieth" out of that bale of cotton, and all the eloquence or arguments that expediency can use, cannot stifle that heart sickening moan! Under these impressions, they cannot go to the slaveholder with a protest against his unholy calling, or to the slave, and affect sympathy for him, and then turn round and falsify it all by becoming accomplices it the guilt. They are willing to hope that their "society is quietly doing its work;" but a part of the work it undertakes, is by no means agreeable, however necessary it may be; it is not agreeable to attempt to show, that to go before the world, with well written addresses, setting forth what some honest, thorough-going anti-slavery people did some years ago, at great personal sacrifice, and trying to make anti-slavery capital out of it, while the speakers are, at the same time, justifying themselves in purchasing stolen cotton, to run their mills upon, or fill up their stores , or ornament their person with, is mere twaddle, and can no more aid in the abolition of slavery, than the beating the wind with a fan, can drive back the tempest. They have long been converts to the doctrine so well expressed in thy paper of the 30th, ult., viz.: "Christianity does not modify or regulate iniquity. It seeks to abolish it. It is a gross reflection upon its purity, to even insinuate that it tampers, it the least degree, with any species of iniquity." Hence, they believe it to be the duty of the church to take this anti-slavery business in hand, and to see if the members of each of its branches are acting up to the principles it has after mature deliberation adopted, regardless of the plea set up by custom or convenience. Being willing to be tested themselves in this way, they see no impropriety in testing the anti-slavery of the day in the same manner, wherever it proclaims itself. We frequently meet with persons who, when we endeavor to set before them the claims of the Free Labor movement, reply, of the correctness of your principles, there can be non doubt. I admit it fully; and if you will come and open a Free Labor store in this place, I will give you my patronage; and I have no doubt you would be well sustained, if you could sell your goods as low as other goods are selling; there are a great many anti-slavery people in this place. So said the people to Robert Fulton, when he made his first attempt with his "tiny bark" on the Hudson. There can be no doubt but it would be a great accommodation to the public to travel in that way. We shall keep an eye upon you, and if you succeed, you may rely upon our patronage. But, sys Fulton, no thanks to you for such patronage; the patronage that will be useful to me is what I can feel the benefit of at the present time! Free Labor people wish to avoid censoriousness in themselves, and take no comfort in seeing it indulged by others. They intend to use great plainness of speech, without being uncourteous. They aim at calling the attention of anti-slavery people to a few facts they deem worthy of more notice than they have hitherto obtained. Cotton growing, by slave labor, and slave breeding, have grown up side by side of each other, and are believed to be ultimately connected. There is no necessity in going to slaveholders for our supply of cotton; it is believed there were nearly 100,000 bales of that a commodity raised last year, in the Southern States, by non-slaveholding planters . This cotton might have been selected, (a portion of its was,) purchased t the current price of other cotton, manufactured and sol to ultra abolitionists; and through this means the non-slaveholding planter might be made to understand that they, too, had sympathizers in the free States. There is no necessity in mixing the free grown with the slave-grown cotton, in the process of manufacturing. There is a cotton-mill now in operation near Philadelphia, under the care of respectable, trustworthy men, G.W. Taylor and others, where the free grown cotton alone is used, and where fabrics suitable for domestic use are now in the process of manufacture. With these facts before them, Free Labor people feel warranted in asking everyone pledged o the side of freedom Will the moral law sustain you in giving the preference to slave-grown cotton? In concluding my long letter, (I have not room to speak of the premiums for free -grown cotton, that will probably be paid this year by the friends of this movement,) allow me to express my desire, that all our anti-slavery organizations may be brought back to first principles. Let us have a new organization (if needful) with " no political , ecclesiastical, nor commercial union with slaveholding," for our motto ! Very restfully, thy friend, HENRY MILES, Cor. Sec'y of Free Produce Association of Western Vermont. MOUKTON, April 5, 1855. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Henry Miles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Frederick Douglass' Paper Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 4.20.1855 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Articles, Letters to the Editors, etc. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Free Labor Movement (Article) Description An account of the resource This feature of the anti-slavery enterprise appears to be gaining friends where it is thoroughly investigated. Like all other departments of philanthropy it is beset with difficulties, real and imaginary, and those of the latter class are believed to be far the most numerous. It is presumed that no earnest friend of the immediate and peaceful abolition of American Slavery doubts the necessity of making his practice and his profession agree in all practicable cases, if he would have his remonstrances produce the effects he desires. He must perceive the depreciating effect upon the force of his argument addressed to the actual holder of slaves which a voluntary participancy with him in the convenience of slaveholding would unavoidably produce . He does not need to be informed that the money patronage which the slaveholder receive in return for the produce of the labor of his slaves greatly outweighs in many cases the verbal arguments directed against this system. The abolitionist that reflects upon the subject in this manner sees the necessity of going to the slaveholder with hands as clean as he can possibly make them. And wherever a slaveholder, yielding to the pressure of those arguments or to independent reflection, resolves to step across the line that divides Slavery from Freedom, the abolitionists feels bound to recognize the change to extend the hand of friendship to him, not only ecclesiastically and politically, but also commercially by giving him the preference before his neighbor who persist in the opposite course. A glance at the history of slave-breeding and cotton growing in the United States shows him they have been closely connected that the money patronage the slaveholder received in one year (1853) amounted for the article of cotton alone to near $120,000,000. A little further investigation, and the necessity of contributing to his patronage under which he has believed himself laboring in some particulars, entirely disappears . He learns that nearly 100,000 bales of cotton have been of late annually produced by free labor in America, of this 800 bales were sent into the market last year by German planters in Texas. That from the all the accounts from these non-slaveholding planters, we learn, that they are watching with much interest the demonstration of sympathy for them in the preference that may be given to the production of their labor, and they are holding themselves ready to respond to the demand that would follow that preference. One hundred thousand bales of free labor cotton would give one hundred millions of yards of cotton fabrics of various qualities, sufficient, it is supposed, for an ample supply to every abolitionist that has an Anti-Slavery Backbone. Then we have one cotton mill in operation in Ohio, and another in Pennsylvania under the charge of trustworthy men, in which nothing but free grown cotton is to be used; and with ordinary management, and the support which abolitionists can give them, the necessity for wearing a slave grown cotton shirt will be reduced to half a cent per yard, or two cents per shirt. Next we have the efforts that are being made for procuring flax from the hitherto unvalued flax-straw, produced in growing flaxseed, and the noble contribution to the stock of free labor productions brought into the market by the Fall River Linen Co. With these things before us, we regard the necessity for using Slave-grown cotton as simply imaginary. The coming Anti-Slavery Convention, it is hoped, will not pass over without some attention to his subject.* For the argument in favor of this moment and other particulars see Burrett's Citizens of the World , published by G.W. Taylor of Philadelphia. HENRY MILES, Cor. Sec't Free Produce Ass. Of Western Vermont. * It will be seen by the following resolutions that the convention did give attention to his important subject. Whereas , the Non-slaveholding planters of the South deserve the sympathies of abolitionist; and, whereas, these sympathies can, in many cases be most effectually extended through the medium of commerce; therefore, Resolved , That it is desirable to manifest our sympathies for such planters, by encouraging the culture of free labor productions, in preference to those produced by the labor of slaves. That we regard the German Settlers in Texas, and elsewhere, who are cultivating the soil by their own free labor, as especially deserving our approbation; and the eight hundred bales of cotton produced in Texas, last year, as an indisputable argument for free labor in the South. That we look with interest upon all well-directed efforts, in the non-slaveholding states, for raising products that may successfully compete with slave-products, and we regard it as particularly desirable that the culture and manufacture of flax, by free men should, if possible, be brought into successful competition with slave-grown cotton. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Henry Miles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Frederick Douglass' Paper Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9.21.1855 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poetry Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Humble Petition. Of the West India Planters to the People of England, With Every Englishman's Answer Description An account of the resource LITERARY. THE HUMBLE PETITION. OF THE WEST INDIA PLANTERS TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND, WITH EVERY ENGLISHMAN'S ANSWER. Come, buy our rich produce, ye Englishmen, buy! We have excellent sugar, and coffee, and spice; But we want a good market, so pray you draw nigh, (For we're nothing without you; and give us our price. It is true that our fields are still cultured by slaves, And their sweat and their blood is aye wrung from their backs, By the flesh-rending cart-whip, applied to the knaves; For they wouldn't work else, all these indolent blacks. It is true, they are flogged till their muscles are bare, And whenever they vex us—'t is all at our will; You may see on their bodies full many a scar, Just excepting the few we may happen to kill. And although they don't marry, together they live, Till it suits us the one or the other to sell; Then the parents, or children, to market we drive, As we do other beasts; though they do n't bear it so well. When their kind-hearted friends have come over the main, To instruct them in virtue and care for their good, We as promptly enjoin them to go back again; If they don't, we soon let out their traitorous blood. So we won't let them learn; nay, we flog them for praying, And pull all their preaching shops down to the ground. Who would let such asses be constantly braying, Such dens of sedition be open around? But you will not, on this account, think of not dealing? About such <xsl-text></xsl-text>mere brutes <xsl-text></xsl-text>you won't make a bother? You don't mean to resent the small sin of man-selling? Or if you are <xsl-text></xsl-text>saints, <xsl-text></xsl-text>you won't feel for a brother? You'll not claim <xsl-text></xsl-text>their <xsl-text></xsl-text>freedom, because <xsl-text></xsl-text>you <xsl-text></xsl-text>are free? You 're not going for the rights of the <xsl-text></xsl-text>Negro <xsl-text></xsl-text>to care? Such days of romance we thought never to see, And we 're ruined, quite ruined, at once, if you are. O buy our slave produce, free Englishmen, buy! If you suffer such scruples, 't will rot on the ground: Of the twice-taxed free sugar the price is so high, You can't get it so cheap by a penny a pound. EVERY ENGLISHMAN'S ANSWER. Go, and loosen the captives! No longer will I Spend a farthing, thou human-flesh-monger, with thee: For the sake of a penny, I never will buy E'en an ounce of thy sugar, <xsl-text></xsl-text>till Negroes are free.<xsl-text></xsl-text> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Liberator Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12.7.1833 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poetry Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Illumination, or Glorification of Wrong and Outrage (Poem) Description An account of the resource My heart is sick with disappointed hopes, This robber-war has loosen'd all its props, I fondly hoped the public heart and mind Were feeling brotherhood for all mankind, That Christian principles of love and peace Were wide diffused, and that all wars would cease; That these pure principles, opposed to strife, Had set just value on the human life; But the low standard of our public presses, Decks robber-war in patriotic dresses, Shouts "glorious victory" -- with joyful cry -- At wholesale murder of the deepest die! For what was this vile robber-war began, But to make room for trafficking in man, To spread the hateful curse of slavery o'er Wide fertile plains where freedom reigned before? But we can now exult o'er thousands slain, O'er wounded thousands agonized with pain, And o'er desponding hearts of thousands more, Bereft of all that sweetened life before. Can Christians glory in the deep distress, Of brethren in their utter hopelessness? -- In early times, true Christian converts strove To bless mankind through offices of love. If pressed to war, they then could answer right, I am a Christian, therefore cannot fight; The term admits but one interpretation, True love to God, and man in every station. Now Christians, calld, can fight in vilest cause, And for their murders ask the world's applause; Get up illuminations, shout huzzas,  And bid defiance to Christ's holy laws. Your shining lights are but portentous gloom-- A dark foreboding of the times to come, When the dire evils of this murderous war, And robber-slavery must be answered for. Then, all these impious pageantries will cease, These daring insults to the Prince of peace. Ah! when will that bright gospel day break in, When men will cease to glorify their sin? Upper Darby, 4th mo.19th, 1847  G.S. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource G.S. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Non-Slaveholder 2:6, pp. 120 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6.1847