On the comparative Economy of Free and Slave Labour in Agriculture. By James Raymond, of Frederick, Maryland. Published by the Frederick County Agricultural Society.

THE question before us, is a branch of the general question of slavery. But perhaps it does not embrace the most fascinating topics for discussion, which are presented to the mind by the whole of that great and momentous subject. It reaches none of those elevated objections to domestic slavery, which many of the wise and good think they discover in politics, religion, or natural law. We are now simply to compare free with slave labour, as a means of cultivating the soil. We are to answer the very natural inquiry of the farmer,* which of these species of labour his own personal advantage calls upon him to employ. If we can convince him that free labour is the best, slavery, we hope, will in time go out of fashion, like an unhandy farming tool on the introduction of a new one upon an improved model.

* The word farmer is used throughout this essay to signify one who in any way carries on the business of cultivating the soil.

This, I shall endeavour to do. I shall endeavour to show that free labour is more convenient and cheaper than the labour of slaves.

One of the most important circumstances of convenience, and therefore of profit, which can be incident to farm labour, is, that it should be easily varied in its quantity. Nothing is more variable than the quantity of labour which the farmer has occasion to employ upon his farm at different times, and under different circumstances. The changes of the seasons as they severally occur, each in their turn, call upon the farmer to make corresponding changes in the quantity of his labour. He cannot conveniently or profitably employ as much labour in winter as in summer. The fluctuations of commerce is another cause which often induces the farmer to change from a kind of farming which employs a given number of hands, to a kind which would employ a much greater or less number. For example, the state of the markets may be such, that the corn and wheat growers would find it profitable to turn their attention to the growing of wool, which employs very few labourers compared to the former kinds of farming. The soil itself, also requires frequent changes in the kind of husbandry. In modern days, the great secret of good farming is supposed to consist in a proper rotation of crops. But the most important rotation is from tilling to grazing, and vice versa. The good northern farmer, after tilling his lots a few years, lays them down to grass. This he calls letting his lands rest. But if he cultivated with slave labour, whilst his lands were resting, most of his labourers would also be resting at his expense.

The inconvenience of making frequent changes in the quantity of slave labour, and of suiting its amount to the requirements of the farmer, under every circumstance, must present itself to every one who reflects upon the subject. But what is more, the moral sense of society has erected an insuperable barrier to these changes. Public sentiment denies the character of respectability to men who are in the habit of buying and selling slaves. A farmer who should purchase a large number of slaves, to perform the labour of his farm in summer, and who should sell them again when winter approaches, and so on from year to year, would be denied a respectable standing in the community. But

where labour is free, and therefore the subject of contract between the employer and the labourer, these changes are frequently taking place throughout the year. The farmer purchases labour precisely as he purchases any other commodity in the market, in such quantities and at such times as he wants it. He employs his labourers by the day, the month, or the year, as best suits his convenience or interest.

Nor does the farmer, by thus regulating the quantity of his labour to suit his own convenience, thereby discommode or impose any hardships upon the labourers. Where labour is performed by freemen exclusively, hireling labourers upon a farm are not necessarily confined to that occupation. They often unite some mechanic art, or some other employment, to that of labouring on a farm for hire during the summer months. Every species of labour being respectable, because it is all performed by freemen, when the labourer is not wanted upon the farm of his employer, he is neither precluded nor unqualified from turning his hand to something else. In one shape or another, he is constantly promoting the trifold interest of himself, his employers, and his country. He is at one time employed in the farmer's field, to supply his country with bread; at another, he "guides the tool mechanic," or perhaps he has embarked upon the "mountain wave," for the purpose of transporting the surplus production of his farm labour to some foreign port. In each of these employments, he is supporting himself, furthering the interest of property-holders, and promoting national wealth. This accounts not only for the thriving condition of the labourers and employers in free states, but also for the circumstance that free states support a much more numerous population than the slave

states.

But, it will be asked, if labourers are thus at liberty to bestow their labour when and where they please, what security has the farmer, that they will consult his convenience and interest in serving him? Talk to a Maryland farmer of free labour, and perhaps he will tell you that free labourers are capricious; that they will often take advantage of their liberty and forsake him, at the most hurrying season of his crops. Now, if there is any soundness in this objection to free labour, is it not remarkable that it should never be made, except by those farmers who work slaves?

Farmers in free states feel no apprehension that their farms will lie fallow for want of labour to till them, or that their crops when raised, will return into the earth for want of labour to gather them. The farmer is no more at the mercy of labourers where they are free, than mechanics or manufacturers in Maryland or England, are at the mercy of the journeymen they employ. In this system of universal liberty, there is a controling power, a regulating principle, which like a courteous master of ceremonies, accommodates the wants of the whole world much better than any number of individuals can be accommodated by attempting violently to help themselves. In other words, the conflicting interests and necessities of each are the accommodation and security of all.

Though this sentiment, in ́one form of expression or another, is the basis of all modern theories of human polity, I will not ask a concession of its application to the present subject. Indeed such a concession would be yielding up the discussion. To say the conflicting interests and necessities of employer and labourer would most commodiously regulate their intercourse, is to use another phraseology to express, that free labour is preferable to slave. This being the point in dispute, I will endeavour to settle it, by showing its consanguinity to a family of maxims that have not been questioned for several centuries.

Labour and the fruits of labour both possess the same commercial properties. Labour, like the fruits of labour, is property; an article of bargain and sale; a commodity in the market, and as such, possesses the same commercial nature and constitution with every other commodity that is bought and sold. All the world agree, as a general proposition, that the most effectual method of rendering every commodity which is the subject of private property, cheap, plentiful and of good quality, and of placing it within the reach of all who wish to make use of it, is to secure to the producer of the commodity all the profits he can make by producing it; by leaving him to produce it when he pleases; to sell it to whom he pleases, where he pleases, and for the most that he can get. It is by these equitable laws, this free and unshackled intercourse, that the farmer is always able to supply himself with the coffee of the West Indies, the tea of the East Indies, the carpets of Turkey, the manufactures of

Europe, in short, with every luxury and comfort which the world affords. The effect of a different system, with regard to the products of labour, may be easily illustrated. For example: Suppose the rest of the world should say to the farmers-Gentlemen, we are now too dependant on you for existence. Meat and bread, the comforts and necessaries of life, come to the rest of mankind exclusively through your hands. Perhaps you may combine to close those hands upon us, and starve all but yourselves. To prevent so melancholy an occurrence, and at all events to render ourselves independent of your caprices, we must alter the existing laws and take from you the right of disposing of your crops according to your own will and pleasure. What would be the farmers' reply? Would they not sayFellow-citizens, take your own course. What produce we have raised, under the presumption that we were to dispose of it as we pleased, you can take and make the most of. But look out for short crops next year. We do not cultivate our lands if others are to enjoy the fruits. The world remained a wilderness until the producer was rendered secure in his rights to his produce. Depart from this policy, which has filled the world with abundance, and the earth will soon revert to its original state of sterility. Now, all I ask of the farmer, is, that he should extend this reasoning on from the fruits of labour to labour itself. I ask him to believe, that the tree and the fruit are related together by one common nature. The same principle which renders it such good policy in the rest of mankind to protect the farmer in his right to his crops, renders it equally politic in the farmer to protect the labourer in the right to his labour. Labour, like wheat, is a commodity. The farmer is the consumer of labour, and the labourer is the producer. And as the rest of the world, in order to render the farmer's wheat cheap, plentiful, and of a good quality, are obliged to protect him in raising or producing it; so the farmer can render labour cheap, plentiful, and of good quality only by securing to the labourer, the raiser, the producer of the commodity, all the profits he can make by its production.

Slavery is such an extravagant departure in man from his own acknowledged policy and principles, that the contrast becomes ludicrous. The right which a man has to his own labour is the only private property which exists by natural law. By the laws