Four millions of people would become purchasers of all the
various articles of manufacture and commerce, in place of the few
coarse, simple necessaries, laid in for them in gross by the planters.
Here is the solution of the vexed industrial question. The indisposition
to labor is overcome in a healthy nature by instincts and motives of
superior force, such as the love of life, the desire to be well clothed
and fed, the sense of security derived from provision for the future,
the feeling of self-respect, the love of family and children, and the
convictions of duty. These all exist in the negro, in a state of greater
or less development. To give one or two examples. One man brought
Captain Hooper seventy dollars in silver, to keep for him, which he had
obtained from selling pigs and chickens,--thus providing for the future.
Soldiers of Colonel Higginson's regiment, having confidence in the same
officer, intrusted him, when they were paid off, with seven hundred
dollars, to be transmitted by him to their wives, and this besides what
they had sent home in other ways,--showing the family-feeling to be
active and strong in them.
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