This is _one_ of the reasons why slave labor is so much less efficient than free labor. The former can never compete with the latter; and while the greater service is performed with cheerfulness, the smaller is extorted by fear. Just as certain as that the locomotive can outrun the horse, and the lightning outspeed the locomotive, just so certain is it that he who is animated by the hopes and the rewards of freedom will outstrip the disheartened and fear-driven slave. The intelligent freeman can afford to live well, dress decently, and occupy a comfortable tenement. A scanty subsistence, a squalid garb, a mean and dilapidated hovel, proclaim the degradation of the slave. The slave states gain millions of dollars every year from the privations, the mean food, clothing, and shelter to which the slaves are subjected; and yet they grow rich less rapidly than states where millions of dollars are annually expended for the comforts and conveniences of the laborer. More is lost in production than is gained by privation. A universal concomitant of slavery is, that it makes white labor disreputable. Being disreputable, it is shunned. The pecuniary loss resulting from this is incalculable. Dry up the myriad headsprings of the Mississippi, and where would be the mighty volume of waters which now bear navies on their bosom, and lift the ocean itself above its level, by their outpouring flood? Abolish those sources of wealth, which consist in the personal industry of every man, and of each member of every man’s family, and that wide-spread thrift, and competence, and elegance, which are both the reward and the stimulus of labor, will be abolished with them. Forego the means, and you forfeit the end. You must use the instrument if you would have the product. Nothing but the feeling of independence, the conscious security of working for one’s self and one’s family, will, in the present state of the world, make labor profitable. I know it has been recently said in this capital, and by high authority, that, with the exception of menial services, it is not disreputable at the south for a white man to labor. There are two ways, each independent of the other, to disprove this assertion. One of them consists in the testimony of a host of intelligent witnesses acquainted with the condition of things at the south. I might quote page after page from various sources; but, as the assertion comes from a gentleman belonging to South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN, of the Senate,] I will meet it with the statement of another gentleman belonging to the same state. I refer to Mr. William Gregg, of Charleston, a gentleman who is extensively acquainted with the social condition of men, both north and south.