"'It must do! It won't do!' keeps us where we are, and where we are
always complaining that we never have done. You know I speak
frankly, Mr. Scranton-women may say what they please;-and let me
tell you, that when you do your duty it will do. Hard times never
were harder than when everybody thought them hard. We must infuse
principle into our poor people; we must make them earnest in
agricultural pursuits; we must elevate the character of labour; we
must encourage the mechanic, and give tone to his pursuits; and,
more than all, we must arrest the spread of conventional nonsense,
and develope our natural resources by establishing a system of paid
labour, and removing the odium which attaches itself to those who
pursue such avocations as the slave may be engaged in. My word for
it, Mr. Scranton, there's where the trouble lies. Nature has been
lavish in her good gifts to the south; but we must lend Nature a
helping hand,--we must be the women of the south for the south's
good; and we must break down those social barriers clogging our
progress. Nature wants good government to go along with her, to be
her handfellow in regeneration; but good government must give Nature
her rights. This done, slavery will cease to spread its loathsome
diseases through the body politic, virtue will be protected and
receive its rewards, and the buds of prosperity will be nourished
with energy and ripen into greatness."
Mr. Scranton suggests that the nigger question was forced upon him,
and thinks it better to change the conversation. Mr. Scranton was
once in Congress, thinks a deal of his Congressional experience, and
declares, with great seriousness, that the nigger question will come
to something one of these days. "Ah! bless me, madam," he says,
adjusting his arms, "you talk-very-like-a-statesman. Southerners
better leave all this regenerating of slaves to you. But let me say,
whatever you may see in perspective, it's mighty dangerous when you
move such principles to practice. Mark me! you'll have to pull down
the iron walls of the south, make planters of different minds, drive
self out of mankind, and overthrow the northern speculator's
cotton-bag love. You've got a great work before you, my dear
madam,--a work that'll want an extended lease of your life-time.
Remember how hard it is to convince man of the wrong of anything
that's profitable. A paid system, even emancipation, would have been
a small affair in 1824 or 1827. Old niggers and prime fellows were
then of little value; now it is different. You may see the obstacle
to your project in the Nashville Convention or Georgia platform-"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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