Clare, the best
that could be said on that point, and what I know _is_ in fact
constantly reiterated, namely, that the laboring class of the South
are in many respects, as to physical comfort, in a better condition
than the poor of England.
This is the slaveholder's stereotyped apology,--a defense it cannot
be, unless two wrongs make one right.
It is generally supposed among us that this estimate of the relative
condition of the slaves and the poor of England is correct, and we
base our ideas on reports made in Parliament and various documentary
evidence; also such sketches as "London Labor and London Poor," which
have been widely circulated among us. The inference, however,
which _we_ of the freedom party draw from it, is _not_ that
the slave is, on the whole, in the best condition because of this
striking difference; that in America the slave has not a recognized
_human_ character _in law, has not even an existence_,
whereas in England the law recognizes and protects the meanest
subject, in theory _always_, and in _fact_ to a certain
extent. A prince of the blood could not strike the meanest laborer
without a liability to prosecution, in _theory_ at least, and
that is something. In America any man may strike any slave he meets,
and if the master does not choose to notice it, he has no redress.
I do not suppose _human nature_ to be widely different in England
and America.
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