The Free Labor Movement (Article)
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The Free Labor Movement (Article)
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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.
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
Henry Miles
Source
Frederick Douglass' Paper
Date
4.20.1855
Collection
Citation
Henry Miles, “The Free Labor Movement (Article),” No Stain of Tears and Blood, accessed October 22, 2026, https://productsoffreelabor.com/items/show/21.
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