a new territory by the first thousand people that migrate to it, is a matter concerning them exclusively? What kind of logic is it that argues that it in no wise concerns, if you please, the black men who are to be enslaved? Or if you are afraid to say anything about that; if you have been bedeviled for your sympathy for the negro; if noses have been turned up at you; and if you have been accused of having wanted the negro as your social equal, for a juror, to be a witness against your white brethren, or even to marry with him; if you have been accused of all this, until you are afraid to speak of the colored race;-then, I ask you, what right is there to say that the planting of free soil with slavery has no effect upon the white men that are to go there afterward as emigrants from the older states? By what right do a few of the first settlers fix that first condition beyond the power of succeeding millions to eradicate it? Why shall a few men be allowed, as it were, to sow that virgin soil with Canada thistles, or any other pest of the soil, which the farmer, in subsequent ages, cannot eradicate without endless toil. Is it a matter that exclusively concerns those few people that settle there first? Douglas argues that it is a matter of exclusive local jurisdiction. What enables him to say that? It is because he looks upon slavery as so insignificant that the people may decide that question for themselves, albeit they are not fit to decide who shall be their governor, judge, or secretary, or who have been any of their offiThese are vast national matters, in his estimation; but the little matter, in his estimation, is the planting. of slavery there. That is of purely local interest, which nobody should be allowed to say a word about. It is a great national question that Sammedary shall be appointed by the President as Governor of Kansas, that cers. he may go there for a year or two, and come away without there being left behind him a sign for good or evil of his having been there; but the question of planting slavery on that soil is a little, local, unimportant matter, that nobody ought to be allowed to speak of. Such an expression is absolutely shameful. Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human comforts and necessaries are drawn. There is a difference of opinion about the elements of labor in a society. Some men assume that there is a necessary connection between capital and labor, and that connection draws within it all of the labor of the community They assume that nobody works unless capital excites him to work. They begin next to consider what is the best way for capital to be used to induce people to work. They say that there are but two ways; one is, to hire men and to allure them to labor by their own consent, and the other is, to buy the men, and drive them to labor. This latter is slavery. Having assumed so much, they proceed to discuss the question of whether the laborers themselves are better off in the condition of slavery or of hired laborers; and they usually decide that they are better off in the condition of slaves. 糖 In the first place, I say that that whole theory is a mistake. That there is a certain relation between capital and labor I admit. That it does exist, and rightfully exist, and that it is proper that it should exist, I think is true. I think, in the progress of things, that men who are industrious, and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own interests, should, after a while, accumulate capital, and then should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and also, if they choose, when they have accumulated it, use it to save themselves from actual labor, by hiring other people to labor for them. In doing so, they do not wrong the man they employ, for they find young men who have not of their own land to work upon, or shops to labor in, and who are benefited by working for others in the capacity of hired laborers, receiving their capital for it. Thus, a few men that own capital, hire others, and thus establish the relation of capital and labor rightfully; a relation of which I make no complaint. But I insist that the relation, after all, does not embrace more than one-eighth of all the labor of the country. At least seven-eighths of the labor is done without relation to it. 緑 Take the State of Ohio. Out of eight bushels of wheat, seven are raised by those men who labor for themselves, aided by their boys growing to manhood, neither being hired nor hiring, but literally laboring upon their own hook, asking no favor of capital, of hired laborer, or of the slave. That is the true condition of the larger portion of all the labor done in this community, or that should be the condition of labor in wellregulated communities of agriculturists. Thus much for that part of the subject. : Again the assumption that the slave is in a better condition than the hired laborer, includes the further assumption that he who is once a hired laborer always remains a hired laborer; that there is a certain class of men who remain through life in a dependent condition. Then they endeavor to point out that when they get old they have no kind masters to take care of them, and that they fall dead in the traces, with the harness of actual labor upon their feeble backs. In point of fact that is a false assumption. There is no such thing as a man who is a hired laborer, of a necessity, always remaining in his early condition. The general rule is otherwise. I know it is so, and I will tell you why. When at an early age, I was myself a hired laborer, at twelve dollars per month; and therefore I do know that there is not always the necessity for actual labor because once there was propriety in being so. My understanding of the hired laborer is this: A young man finds himself of an age to be dismissed from parental control; he has for his capital nothing, save two strong hands that God has given him, a heart willing to labor, and a freedom to choose the mode of his work and the manner of his employer; he has got no soil nor shop, and he avails himself of the opportunity of hiring himself to some man who has capital to pay him a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. He is benefited by availing himself of that privilege. He works industriously, he behaves soberly, and the result of a year or two's labor is a surplus of capital. Now he buys land on his own hook; he settles, marries, begets sons and daughters, and in course of time he too has enough capital to hire some new beginner. In this same way every member of the whole community benefits and improves his condition. That is the true condition of labor in the world, and it breaks up the saying of these men that there is a class of men chained down throughout life to labor for another. There is no such case unless he be of that confiding and leaning disposition that makes it preferable for him to choose that course, or unless he be a vicious man, who, by reason of his vice, is, in some way prevented from improving his condition, or else he be a singularly unfortunate man. There is no such thing as a man being bound down in a free country through his life as a laborer. This progress by which the poor, honest, industrious, and resolute man raises himself, that he may work on his own account, and hire somebody else, is that progress that human nature is entitled to, is that improvement in condition that is intended to be secured by those institutions under which we live, is the great principle for which this government was really formed. Our government was not established that one man might do with himself as he pleases, and with another man too. I hold that if there is any one thing that can be proved to be the will of God by external nature around us, without reference to revelation, it is the proposition that whatever any one man earns with his hands and by the sweat of his brow, he shall enjoy in peace. I say that whereas God Almighty has given every man one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands adapted to furnish food for that mouth, if anything can be proved to be the will of Heaven, it is proved by this fact, that that mouth is to be fed by those hands, without being interfered with by any other man who has also his mouth to feed and his hands to labor with. I hold if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only and no hands, and if he had ever made another class that he had intended should do all the work and none of the eating, he would have made them without mouths and with all hands. But inasmuch as he has not chosen to make man in that way, if anything is proved, it is that those hands and mouths are to be co-operative through life and not to be interfered with. That they are to go forth and improve their condition as I have been trying to illustrate, is the inherent right given to mankind directly by the Maker. In In the exercise of this right you must have room. the filling up of countries, it turns out after a while that we get so thick that we have not quite room enough for |