Well, then, passing from that, everybody in the North reads; and everybody reads whatsoever the newspapers contain; and the newspapers, some of them, especially those presses to which I have alluded, are careful to spread about among the people every reproachful sentiment uttered by any Southern man bearing at all against the North; every thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are many such things, as everybody will admit, from the South, or some portion of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and they do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect upon the public mind at the North.  Sir, I would not notice things of this sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred in this debate which struck me very forcibly.  An honorable member from Louisiana addressed us the other day on this subject.  I suppose there is not a more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman who would be more slow to give offence to anybody, and he did not mean in his remarks to give offence.  But what did he say?  Why, Sir, he took pains to run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the laboring people of the North, giving the preference, in all points of condition, and comfort, and happiness, to the slaves of the South.  The honorable member, doubtless, did not suppose that he gave any offence, or did any injustice.  He was merely expressing his opinion.  But does he know how remarks of that sort will be received by the laboring people of the North?  Why, who are the laboring people of the North?  They are the whole North.  They are the people who till their own farms with their own hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men.  Let me say, Sir, that five sixths of the whole property of the North is in the hands of the laborers of the North; they cultivate their farms, they educate their children, they provide the means of independence.  If they are not freeholders, they earn wages; these wages accumulate, are turned into capital, into new freeholds, and small capitalists are created.  Such is the case, and such the course of things, among the industrious and frugal.  And what can these people think when so respectable and worthy a gentleman as the member from Louisiana undertakes to prove that the absolute ignorance and the abject slavery of the South are more in conformity with the high purposes and destiny of immortal, rational human beings, than the educated, the independent free labor of the North?

There is a more tangible and irritating cause of grievance at the North.  Free blacks are constantly employed in the vessels of the North, generally as cooks or stewards.  When the vessel arrives at a Southern port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police or municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel is again ready to sail.  This is not only irritating, but exceedingly unjustifiable and oppressive.  Mr. Hoar’s mission, some time ago, to South Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint.  The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional; and as the cases occur constantly and frequently, they regard it as a great grievance.