"We believe the servitude which prevails in the south far preferable to that of the north, or in Europe. Slavery will exist in all communities. There is a class which may be nominally free, but they will be virtually slaves."—Mississippian, July 6th, 1838.
"Those who depend on their daily labor for their daily subsistence can never enter into political affairs, they never do, never will, never can."—B. W. Leigh in Virginia Convention, 1829.
"All society settles down into a classification of capitalists and laborers. The former will own the latter, either collectively through the government, or individually in a state of domestic servitude as exists in the southern states of this confederacy. If laborers ever obtain the political power of a country, it is in fact in a state of revolution. The capitalists north of Mason and Dixon's line have precisely the same interest in the labor of the country that the capitalists of England have in their labor. Hence it is, that they must have a strong federal government (!) to control the labor of the nation. But it is precisely the reverse with us. We have already not only a right to the proceeds of our laborers, but we own a class of laborers themselves. But let me say to gentlemen who represent the great class of capitalists in the north, beware that you do not drive us into a separate system, for if you do, as certain as the decrees of heaven, you will be compelled to appeal to the sword to maintain yourselves at home. It may not come in your day; but your children's children will be covered with the blood of domestic factions, and a plundering mob contending for power and conquest."—Mr Pickens, of South Carolina, in Congress, 21st Jan., 1836.
"In the very nature of things there must be classes of persons to discharge all the different offices of society from the highest to the lowest. Some of these offices are regarded as degraded, although they must and will be performed.
