Their reason for this, as alleged, was, that if free colored carpenters were encouraged, they would soon take the trade into their own hands, and poor white men would be thrown out of employment.
From his autobiography, Douglass describes the economic rationale white laborers used to justify discrimination against free black carpenters.
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It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.