7957. SLAVES, European laborers and.—
Our only blot is becoming less offensive by
the great improvement in the condition and
civilization of that race, who can now more
advantageously compare their situation with
that of the laborers of Europe. Still it is a
hideous blot, as well from the heteromorph
peculiarities of the race, as that, with them,
physical compulsion to action must be substituted
for the moral necessity which constrains
the free laborers to work equally hard. We
feel and deplore it morally and politically, and
we look without entire despair to some redeeming
means not yet specifically foreseen.
I am happy in believing that the conviction of
the necessity of removing this evil gains ground
with time. Their emigration to the westward
lightens the difficulty by dividing it, and renders
it more practicable on the whole. And
the neighborhood of a government of their
color promises a more accessible asylum than
that from whence they came.—
To William Short. Washington ed. vii, 310.
(M.
1823)
