Free Labor.

Free Labor.
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The more we dwell upon the varied and extended significance of this term, and more truthfully and completely it seems to define and comprehend the ideas and sentiments embraced and represented in the anti-slavery movement.

To chattelize man for his labor has been the great temptation and incentive to the wicked cupidity of his fellow. To obtain his toil without compensation is the motive which has rifled Africa to myriads of human beings, and perpetrated the horrors of the "middle passage," Were it not for this single object, slavery could not exist for a moment. To emancipate, to free labor, involves all that is embraced in the abolition of slavery. It expresses more than this to our mind. It puts forth a grand idea, intelligible to all the millions of the human race who earn their bread by the sweat of the brow. Labor-patient, persevering, self-rewarding, hopeful and true - is, we believe, one of the crown dignities of humanity.

If it be true, that one of the elements of the air we breathe is so vital to our existence, that we could not live an hour should it be withdrawn or tainted, it is equally true that manual labor is as vital an element of the prosperity of any community. Slavery is the most unmitigated and degrading indignity that can be inflicted on labor. It is more than a wrong, more than a cruelty; for the victims of mere wrong and cruelty often command the honor and respect, as well as sympathy of mankind. But slavery degrades, abases labor to the condition of the brute beast of burden; hence, in the countries in which it exists, every occupation involving labor is smutched with a shade of shame; hence, those born in such countries to the necessity of labor, if they have any feeling of self-respect beating in their bosoms, are forced to flee beyond the limits of the curse. But if this eclipse be total over the land of bondage, it is partial everywhere. No one may say how the estimation in which labor was held in the freest country in the world has been affected by the existence of slavery. No one may say by how many or by how few links of association the most industrious and virtuous artisan in New England or Old England is connected with the condition of the slave in the rice fields of Carolina. No one may say how insidiously and widely the idea is working its way into the political and industrial economies of the freest nations, that the condition of slavery must, somehow, be accepted as the bass line, the point of departure of their operations; that, somehow, it must determine the compensation and the honor of labor. Hence, we hear on all sides a great deal about the introduction of Coolies, or Chinese, into the different slave States, as a substitute for the enslaved Africans. But what fits them for substitutes? Why, chiefly, their capacity to live on a pennyworth of rice per day; their willingness, perhaps, to work for sixpence from sun to sun. Put this and that together in the popular rationalities of this political economy, and they mean this; if ever free labor shall cultivate the cotton, rice, of corn-fields of the south, it shall be brought down as near to the lowest level of slavery as possible, in the matter of compensation. Is that all? No! it shall be brought down as near to the level of slavery in the quality of dignity as in that of compensation itself. Slavery is to measure and determine both. Slavery is to be the base line, on which the economist is to plan; one foot of his compass, and, with the other, step off a thin parallel, on which free men may work for sixpence a-day, and live on raw turnips or a handful of rice. We earnestly hope that the working men of every free country will awake to the importance of this subject; that they will see the bearing of slavery upon their own condition; then will they perceive the length and breadth of the meaning of Free Labor. Under this banner will they rally with sympathies and interests that beat and throb with all that is precious in their earthly hopes and well-being.

- Burritt's Bond of Brotherhood.