There will indeed be individuals who may seem to form exceptions to this rule, in every state of society. The laborer, whose superior strength or skill commands more than the average of wages, will have something to spare. So too, he who, from prudence or coldness, remains unmarried; because his wages are established according to an average of the necessities of the laboring class, from a part of which he keeps himself exempt. Such a man, if industrious, frugal, provident and thrifty, will improve in condition, and eventually _emerge from the class of laborers into that of employers_. But the condition of _the class_ remains unchanged. As _he_ rose from it, some one, unperceived, came into it, to supply his place; and others to meet the new demand occasioned by the addition of one more to the number of employers. Thus it is, and so it must be, that the proportional number of the laboring class never diminishes, while society advances; and, the more rapid the advancement of the whole, the greater the proportion of laborers to employers, and the greater the competition for employment. There is, of course, a progressive reduction in the price of labor, accompanying this progressive increase of the number condemned, by impealable laws, to this low and hard condition.--There they are, forever toiling and sweating in the dark and cheerless abodes of poverty, aliens to the society in which they breathe, whose comforts are ever in an inverse ratio to the sum of general prosperity. But "in this lowest depth there is yet a lower deep." While superior strength and skill, and exemption from family burdens, enable some to escape to the upper air, others, under the pressure of disease, infirmity and numerous children, sink into that gulph from which there is no return. Of these we take no note. The few whom fortune favors, come with _eclat_ upon the stage of higher life, and are pointed out as brilliant examples of the blessings of a system of free labor. The countless victims of her malice "Drop from existence like the withered leaf That from the summer tree is swept away, Its loss unseen." This compendious view of the condition of what is called "_free labor_," in the various stages of society, is verified by the observations and explained by the researches of the political economists. I take it as I receive it from them, confirmed in my conviction of its truth, by my own experience and reflections. Let us place along side of this a view of the condition of slave labor, as ascertained by observation, and by the laws that determine that condition. Of slave labor then, as of free labor, it may be said, that its wages are food and raiment for the laborer of to-day, and for those future laborers who are rising up to supply the future demand. Thus much they have in common. I shall not pretend to point out all the differences between the two, but shall remark on some of the most obvious and important.