CHAP. XXV.] DEGRADED POSITION OF NEGROES. 99 



one day at Saratoga, in the State of New York, 

 acting as servant at an hotel. f( Could you not get 

 higher wages,&quot; he inquired, &quot; as a saddler ?&quot; &quot; Yes,&quot; 

 answered he ; &quot; but no sooner was I engaged by a 

 boss, than all the other workmen quitted.&quot; They 

 did so, not because he was a slave, for he had long 

 been emancipated, but because he was a negro. It 

 is evident, therefore, that it requires in Georgia the 

 force of a positive statute to deprive the negro, 

 whether he be a freeman or slave, of those advan 

 tages from which, in a free State like New York, 

 he is excluded, without any legislative interference. 



I have heard apologists in the North endeavouring 

 to account for the degraded position which the negroes 

 hold, socially and politically, in the Free States, by say 

 ing they belong to a race which is kept in a state of 

 slavery in the South. But, if they really desired to 

 accelerate emancipation, they would begin by setting 

 an example to the Southern States, and treating the 

 black race with more respect and more on a footing of 

 equality. I once heard some Irish workmen complain in 

 New York, &quot;that the niggers shut them out from 

 all the easiest ways of getting a livelihood ; &quot; and many 

 white mechanics, who had emigrated from the North 

 to the Slave States, declared to me that every opening 

 in their trades was closed to them, because black arti 

 sans were employed by their owners in preference. 

 Hence, they are now using in Georgia the power 

 given to them by an exclusive franchise, to pass dis 

 abling statutes against the blacks, to prevent them 

 from engaging in certain kinds of work. In several 

 States, Virginia among others, I heard of strikes, 



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