MR. BRAMAN S ADDRESS. 13 



slaves im worthy of agi-iculture. When could the splendid 

 structures of Athens have risen into their majestic proportions, 

 if the art which erected them had been thought beneath the 

 dignity and attention of a free citizen ? What improvement 

 could be expected of any art. which should be left exclusively 

 to the exercise of those who were doomed to ignorance and 

 degradation, and thrust down to the lowest place in society ? 

 And when forced labor is united with this debased condition, 

 it finishes the description. 



Now consider that for a long series of ages, almost the whole 

 agriculture of the world was conducted by slaves. It was 

 committed to the hands of those who occupied the very base 

 of the social edifice. The noble employment was associated 

 with ignorance, inferiority and wretchedness. Men have liter- 

 ally tilled the fields with the yoke upon the neck, and the 

 chain upon the foot. It seemed as if science and skill, and 

 every thing that ennobled character and art, and gave efficiency 

 to labor, were driven out of the field by the structure of socie- 

 ty and the general voice of mankind. And now that agricul- 

 ture has risen into more consideration and dignity than it 

 once enjoyed, and those, who, disdaining it as a low employ- 

 ment, turned their attention to what they deemed more hon- 

 orable pursuits, are beginning to estimate it in its true charac- 

 ter, w^hat obstacles do the lords of slaves and serfs find in their 

 attempts to produce a more efficient and improved tillage. 

 The labor of the bondman is a heavy and slow service, 

 wrung out from a most reluctant will. The most impulsive 

 motive to vigorous industry is wanting, whose place no vigi- 

 lance nor scourging can supply. You can command the winds 

 and water and vapor to do you service, like instruments wield- 

 ed by your own will and muscles. You can chisel wood, and 

 mould iron like flexile straw, into as many shapes as there are 

 forms of human thought conceiving products of utility and 

 profit ; but there is a power in the enslaved will, more uncon- 

 trollable than the elements of nature, and more inflexible 

 than bars of iron, which baffles the ingenuity of man to sub- 

 due it to its purposes. 



The heart of the slave not only lacks the mam sprmg of ni- 



