Free Labor Productions.
Dublin Core
Title
Free Labor Productions.
Description
In our advertising department, our readers will find the card of our friends Hoag & Wood, 377 Pearl street, New York. Having recently had the pleasure of looking over their large assortment of excellent goods, we feel more than willing to recommend them to all who would prefer to encourage free rather than slave labor. To decided advocates of universal freedom, it would seem scarcely necessary to speak of the propriety of a discrimination of this nature. Were all the professed friends of Freedom in the United States to unite in refusing to consume or traffic in the productions of slave labor, it can scarcely be doubted that such a refusal would directly affect the market value of these fruits of toil unrequited. The effect of the refusal of the Society of Friends and others in Great Britain to consume slave-grown sugars in hastening the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, itself is matter of history. The personal example, moreover, has a moral power, which is by no means to be overlooked.
The Diary of the late excellent William Allen, the friend and coadjutor of Clarkson and Wilberforce, contains the following entry, made when its author was but nineteen years of age, and to which he steadfastly adhered for forty-five years, until the complete abolition of British colonial slavery:
"When I reflect upon the tyranny and oppression exercised by my countrymen towards the poor Africans, and the many thousands yearly murdered in the disgraceful slave trade, I can but be a zealous opposer of slavery; and, indeed, I have been so for a long time, as far as lay in my power; yet one step further may be taken by me, which is wanting to COMPLETE my testimony in this respect, and which, if universally adopted, would inevitably put a stop to this enormous evil--and that is, disusing those commodities procured by the labor of slaves. And as sugar is, undoubtedly, one of the chief, I resolve, through Divine assistance, to persevere in the disuse of it until the slave trade shall be abolished."
A pleasing instance of the influence of this testimony on the part of William Allen is given by the editors of his "Life and Correspondence."
"When George W. Alexander visited Holland in 1844, to promote the abolition of slavery by the Dutch Government, P. Elout, a judge, and person of high consideration at the Hague, in conversation on the subject of slavery, said 'It is to William Allen I attribute all I have felt and done for the cause of the slave. When he was at the Hague, many years since, I was invited, together with a number of serious individuals, to take tea with him. I was then quite a youth. He took no sugar with his tea, which surprised me. I was more surprised by the reason he gave for this. He told the company that he had long abstained from the use of it, because he could not, wth peace of mind, partake of that as a gratification, for which thousands of innocent people were compelled to labor in cruel and hopeless bondage. I was struck with this example of self-denial, by so great a man as I thought him to be, in a thing so seemingly small in itself, and I was led to consider how great must be the evil of a system which could make so deep and so religious an impression upon his feelings. From that period my own sentiments have been engaged in the cause of the negro, and my efforts given to procure their emancipation in the colonies of Holland.'"
It gives use pleasure to learn that efficient measures are in train to ascertain the amount of cotton, sugar, rice, &c., now cultivated in the United States by free or paid labor, and to procure, as far as may be, a supply of such products, to meet the growing demand for them. The non-slaveholders of the South--the poor white laborers--who have hitherto found it difficult to compete with their slaveholding neighbors, will not fail to see the advantage of this movement to themselves.
The editors of the "Non-Slaveholder," in a recent article on this subject, state, as the result of actual investigation, that a large amount of free-grown cotton is already produced in the Southern States. "Let it," they say, "be selected to the exclusion of the slave-grown, by the friends of the slave, at a slightly advanced cost, if necessary, and the energies of the millions of non-slaveholder who are now degraded and oppressed by a small slaveholding oligarchy, will be aroused and stimulated to exertions which, directly and indirectly operating on the interests and the conscience of the slaveholders, and combined with foreign action and a similar course in respect to the other staple productions of slave labor, will unquestionably put an end to slavery and the slave trade."
J.G.W.
The Diary of the late excellent William Allen, the friend and coadjutor of Clarkson and Wilberforce, contains the following entry, made when its author was but nineteen years of age, and to which he steadfastly adhered for forty-five years, until the complete abolition of British colonial slavery:
"When I reflect upon the tyranny and oppression exercised by my countrymen towards the poor Africans, and the many thousands yearly murdered in the disgraceful slave trade, I can but be a zealous opposer of slavery; and, indeed, I have been so for a long time, as far as lay in my power; yet one step further may be taken by me, which is wanting to COMPLETE my testimony in this respect, and which, if universally adopted, would inevitably put a stop to this enormous evil--and that is, disusing those commodities procured by the labor of slaves. And as sugar is, undoubtedly, one of the chief, I resolve, through Divine assistance, to persevere in the disuse of it until the slave trade shall be abolished."
A pleasing instance of the influence of this testimony on the part of William Allen is given by the editors of his "Life and Correspondence."
"When George W. Alexander visited Holland in 1844, to promote the abolition of slavery by the Dutch Government, P. Elout, a judge, and person of high consideration at the Hague, in conversation on the subject of slavery, said 'It is to William Allen I attribute all I have felt and done for the cause of the slave. When he was at the Hague, many years since, I was invited, together with a number of serious individuals, to take tea with him. I was then quite a youth. He took no sugar with his tea, which surprised me. I was more surprised by the reason he gave for this. He told the company that he had long abstained from the use of it, because he could not, wth peace of mind, partake of that as a gratification, for which thousands of innocent people were compelled to labor in cruel and hopeless bondage. I was struck with this example of self-denial, by so great a man as I thought him to be, in a thing so seemingly small in itself, and I was led to consider how great must be the evil of a system which could make so deep and so religious an impression upon his feelings. From that period my own sentiments have been engaged in the cause of the negro, and my efforts given to procure their emancipation in the colonies of Holland.'"
It gives use pleasure to learn that efficient measures are in train to ascertain the amount of cotton, sugar, rice, &c., now cultivated in the United States by free or paid labor, and to procure, as far as may be, a supply of such products, to meet the growing demand for them. The non-slaveholders of the South--the poor white laborers--who have hitherto found it difficult to compete with their slaveholding neighbors, will not fail to see the advantage of this movement to themselves.
The editors of the "Non-Slaveholder," in a recent article on this subject, state, as the result of actual investigation, that a large amount of free-grown cotton is already produced in the Southern States. "Let it," they say, "be selected to the exclusion of the slave-grown, by the friends of the slave, at a slightly advanced cost, if necessary, and the energies of the millions of non-slaveholder who are now degraded and oppressed by a small slaveholding oligarchy, will be aroused and stimulated to exertions which, directly and indirectly operating on the interests and the conscience of the slaveholders, and combined with foreign action and a similar course in respect to the other staple productions of slave labor, will unquestionably put an end to slavery and the slave trade."
J.G.W.
Creator
J.G.W. (John Greenleaf Whittier)
Source
National Era 2:65, p. 49
Date
3.30.1848
Collection
Citation
J.G.W. (John Greenleaf Whittier), “Free Labor Productions.,” No Stain of Tears and Blood, accessed October 22, 2026, https://productsoffreelabor.com/items/show/119.
Embed
Copy the code below into your web page