Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/97

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
FREE LABOR AND SLAVE LABOR.
83

rights subordinate to those of the slave holder? Has not the mechanic—have not the middle classes their rights?—rights incompatible with the existence of slavery?"

Sutcliff, in his Travels in North America, says: "A person not conversant with these things would naturally think that where families employ a number of slaves, everything about their houses, gardens, and plantations, would be kept in the best order. But the reverse of this is generally the case. I was sometimes tempted to think that the more slaves there were employed, the more disorder appeared. I am persuaded that one or two hired servants, in a well regulated family, would preserve more neatness, order, and comfort, than treble the number of slaves.

"There is a very striking contrast between the appearance of the horses or teams in Pennsylvania, and those in the Southern States, where slaves are kept. In Pennsylvania we met with great numbers of wagons, drawn by four or more fine fat horses, the carriages firm and well made, and covered with stout good linen, bleached almost white: and it is not uncommon to see ten or fifteen together, travelling cheerfully along the road, the driver riding on one of his horses. Many of these come more than three hundred miles to Philadelphia, from the Ohio, Pittsburg, and other places; and I have been told by a respectable friend, a native of Philadelphia, that more than one thousand covered carriages frequently come to Philadelphia market."

"The appearance of things in the slave States is quite the reverse of this. We sometimes meet a ragged black boy or girl driving a team, consisting of a lean cow or a mule, sometimes a lean bull, or an ox and a mule; and I have seen a mule, a bull, and a cow, each miserable in its appearance, composing one team, with a half naked black slave or two, riding or driving, as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon, if it may be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the team and its driver. Sometimes a couple of horses, mules, or cows, &c. would be dragging a hogshead of tobacco, with a pivot, or axle, driven into each end of the hogshead, and something like a shaft attached, by which it was drawn, or rolled along