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Show 112 DF..SPOTISl\1 man is the proprietor of his own muscles and intellect · but as these commodities however valuable, are not the subject of bargain and sale in the market, they are not usually reckoned as property. Compare the tax valuations of the slave-holding states with that of the free states, and it will be discovered, that almost the only kind of property, in the usual acceptation of that word, which ex ists at the South, is, the land, and the buildings upon it. Exclude the slaves, and the amount of what is called personal property existing in those sta tes, is exceed in gly small; and upon examination it will be found to fall greatly short of the amount of debt always due to the North and to Europe. In estimating the ac tu al wealth of the slave-holding states, the amount of this debt ought aiways to be taken into account. A great part of the banking capital of those states is borrowed ; and so of the money invested in rail-roads and other public works. A large proportion of the planters have beside great private debts of their own, secured by mortgage upon their plantations and slaves, many of them being little better than tenants at will to some northern capitalist, to whom all their property in fact belongs. As the Southern States possess advantages of soil and climate peculiar to themselves, it bec_omes an interesting inquiry, what is the cause of tins compara· tive poverty? I. Political economists have generally agreed that labor is the sole source of wealth. Whether this doctrine be literally and absolutely true, may perhaps be doubted; it is however beyond all doubt, that labor is a very principal source of value. The great motive to labor, the great indnce.rnent to exertion , that motive, that indnccmcnt whJCh has raised man from the primiti vc barbarism of the woods to such degrees of refinement and civilization as have yet been attained, has been, e:r:pccl(~tion of reu;a!d. There is in this motive a sort of creat1ve power, w!JJch seems to give new strength and alacrity. It even JN AMERICA. 113 possesses the capacity of making labor deli ghtful. The only oth?r mot1ve powerful enough to overcome the natural t~dolcncc of man, is th~ fear of punish:ment; but that IS a melancholy and m1 serablc motive which se~ms to add a ne:v distastefu lness to labor, and to Wither up. the energtes of those whom it influences. Now wtth respect to the whole unprivileged class, that IS to say the rnnctpallaboring class in the slavcholdmg st~tcs, thc1~ only z:notive to industry, is this ~~co~d, thts ~n feeb hng .mo ttve , the fear of punishment. I hmr labor Is compulstve and reluctant, and its results are proportiOnably small. With respect to the other laboring class at the south to wit, the poor whites, their industry is paralyzed by a fatal preJudice which regards manual labor as the badge of a ~er~ile con?ition, and therefore as disgraceful,- a preJUdtce winch not even the expectation of r~war~ ~s strong ~nou~h to overcome. It is a prejudtce stm!lar to th1s whtch has operated in no small d.egrce to keep Spain in a stationary state two centuncs behind the civilization of the rest of E~rope. But even ~pam m tins respect, is more fortunate than the Amencan slave holding states. It is the mechanic arts \Vhich . the Spaniards regard as derogatory, whereas agnculture 1s comparatively respectable. In ~he slave holdmg states of America, agricultural labor lS the most derogatory of all, because the labor of the field most assimilates the condition of a freeman to that of a slave. Whenever such notions prevail they are fatal to public prosperity. Poverty keeps' pace Wllh pnde. i Take the slave-holding states together, and the free y~abitants are about .twice as numer?us ~s the .slaves. t all the great arttcles of productiOn m whwh the baealth ?f the slave-lwlding states consists, cotton, to- ! c~o, nee, sugar and flour, are produced almost exc US!vcly by slave labor. t What then is the occupation of the free? One class, he hlarger slave-masters, contribute absolutely nothing to t e public stock. They hardly bestow a thought 10* |