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Show 186 THE CONTRAST. especially, I found that the quantity of work procured from the slaves was even much less than I had anticipated. I understood that in a body of slaves on any estate, the proportion in active service, at any given time, is nut greater in America than it was in the West Indies. There are the old, the infirm, the sick, the shammers of sickness, the mothers of young infants, the numerous children, &c. &c. All these belong to the dead weight, and they leave about one-third of the black population in actual operation. Now, this operative class has no stimulus to labor, except compulsion, i. e. the whip; and people neither will nor can perform by compulsion, an average quantity of continuous work. That they should do so, is con· trary to the laws of nature-to the constitution, not only of the negro, but of mankind in general. The result is, that many of the cotton and rice planters of Georgia and South Carolina, are contenting them· selves with half a day's work from their negroes. Their task is finished by twelve, one, or two o'clock; and for the rest of the day they are left to themselves. Most willingly do 1 allow that this arrangement is to the credit of the benevolence of their masters, though I fear that this prevailing kindness has its many painful exceptions ; but the plain fact is that the slave cannot, without great violence, do more, or much more, than be is now doing. Compel him to perform the task of a freeman, and you drive him to death. True indeed it is that driving to death, whether more or less rapidly, is a frequent concomitant of slavery. Tbe exaction by brute force of such an amount of labor, as entails the unnatural wearing up of the Ia· THE CONTRAST . . 187 borers, With a correspo n d.r ng excess of . formerly a common circu . mortahty, was . . mstance m th B .. Indtes; It is dreadfully Pr eva Ie nt in c eb nttsh West be doubted that numero . u a; nor can it us mstances f · be found in the slave-stat es o f N orth °A It a. re still to cially in those which are z·n th e praclt. menca-espe- ,/! • supplies of slaves firesh alzlfi 1 ce f!J Importing ' G resn as th from other parts of the u, . ey are wanted, nwn. But m argument is addressed to th b Y present h ld at etter class f 1 o ers, whose profe,s sion an d m. tenti · ·0 s ave-exact from their slaves a gre t . on It Is, not to . · a er quantity f k conststs with the obJ'ect f . 0 wor than . 0 preservmg th · . av. erage conditon of health an d v.t gor. Them m a fatr wtll, I am satisfied be w')J' ese persons ' 1 mg to confe h does not and cannot perform h com ~s, t at a slave half the work of a free I b y . pulswn, more than · a orer of equal the inducement of w·tges WI ' powers, under ' · Jere the 1 • to labor which survives d 1 on Y stunulns I . . un er s avery-1 I .w np-ts withdra' wn ' th e wor k of cou . b mean . t Je m proportion. I can easil b I' t se ecomes ltght my friend Isaac E H I y eMteve that the slaves of ' ' · o mes C f who would not if he ld 'I I . . . or Charleston, . , con Je p It hu t fl I GUiet and easy life M· h . r a y, ead a · · '1Y t ey contm t · pnvilege, until they are fi II . ue o enJoy that h na y set fre 1 I t en, that the , k b . e · t appears nor o tamed· from . b d . hundred slaves in a 0 Y of three your southern st t many cases bee t' d a es, cannot, in ' .s 1mate as · fair day's labor more m quantity than the , on wages of · that is of Cl'.t fi ' one-sixth of the number ' J':l •Y reemen. ' Tl~at which was true in the da J . turaltst, is equ·tll . ys of limy the na-b ' Y certatn now "T . Y slaves," says th· . · o culttvate land at anctent writer' "I·s th e worst |