Frederick Douglass

But happily, both for the old master-class, and for the recently emancipated, there came then, as there will come now, the sober second thought.

The policy of the old master-class dictated by passion, pride, and revenge, was then to make the freedom of the negro, a greater calamity to him, if possible, than had been his slavery.

Starvation and death stared him in the face and marked him for their victim.

It touches the heart of the South through its pocket.

It is more to him than fire, swords, ballot-boxes, or bayonets.

His labor made him a slave, and his labor can, if he will, make him free, comfortable, and independent.

Since he is free he can now give it or withhold it, use it where he is, or take it elsewhere as he pleases.

This then, is the high vantage ground of the negro; he has labor; the South wants it, and must have it or perish.

An invitation to do this is about as harsh and distasteful to all their inclinations as would be an invitation to step down into their graves.

Hence it is seen that the dependence of the planters, land-owners, and old master-class of the South upon the negro, however galling and humiliating to Southern pride and power, is nearly complete and perfect.

They do not emigrate from the free North, where labor is respected, to a lately enslaved South, where labor has been whipped, chained, and degraded for centuries.

The slave system of that section has left behind it, as in the nature of the case it must, manners, customs, and conditions to which free white laboring men will be in no haste to submit themselves and their families.