Chittenango Falls, Dec. 20. 1849

Chittenango Falls, Dec. 20. 1849

Letter from A.W. Nourse to Samuel Ringgold Ward on free labor

BRO. WARD,--I have long been convinced that it is inconsistent for me to pray, and talk, and vote against slavery, and then bolster up that diabolical system, by purchasing and consuming the products of slave labor. It is one of the plainest of all plain questions, that if the slaveholder could find no market for his plunder, he would be glad to let the oppressed go free. Who then are responsible for the existence and extension of slavery, if those who purchase and use this worse than stolen property are not? I have been pained and almost vexed at the course abolitionists take on this question; while they profess abundance of sympathy for the poor, suffering, bleeding slave,--while they denounce the slaveholder and his abettors in no measured terms; they themselves will use those very articles to produce which the slave suffers and bleeds; and the oppressors arm is strengthened to ply the gory lash.

Among the arguments used in favor of consuming the products of slave labor, are, that those articles are more easily and cheaply obtained; that the products of free labor cost too much, that they are difficult to be got hold of. Now to me it looks as though every pound of cotton produced by slav labor, costs more than all the gold in California could pay for, if the whole territory were a solid mass;--it costs no less than the price of blood.

But to discuss this question is not the chief object of this communication. I wish to inquire of you or some of your correspondents, where and how, those who despise the "gain of oppression," can obtain the products of free labor. Could not a free labor store be established in Syracuse.

Yours, &c.,
A.W. NOURSE
This subject deserves attention. Our opinion is that a pedlar of free labor goods, might supply a great many families.--ED IM. CIT

A.W. Nourse

1.2.1850