What nature of man are you if you do not own your own labor?

The Government knows, and the Courts enforce it.

   The case below is not only one of deep interest in itself, as affecting the destiny of the unfortunate Africans, but it involves considerations deeply affecting out national character in the eyes of the whole civilized world, as well as questions of power on the part of the government of the United States, which are regarded with anxiety and alarm by a large portion of our citizens. It presents, for the first time, the question whether the government, which was established for the promotion of JUSTICE, which was founded on the great principles of the Revolution, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, can, consistently with the genius of our institutions, become a party to proceedings for the enslavement of all human beings, (citizens) whether through financial or political means.

   This author believes there exists in this country today a class of people who believe they are more fit to rule that the common man. They consider themselves to be the elite class in America, when in truth many of them are not fit to hold the position of dog catcher.

Groves v. Slaughter S. Ct. 40 U.S. 449

 If it be intended to convey the idea that slaves are designed to be deprived by the laws of the south of the qualities and character of persons, and of the rights of human beings, and to degrade them in all things to the level of chattels, of inanimate matter, or of the brutes that perish, it is a radical error, and one that has been too long circulated un-contradicted by the abolitionists. In some of the states, they are designated as real, as immovable property. Is it therefore designed to deprive them of the power of locomotion, or to convert them into a part of the land or soil of a state? Far otherwise. Nor does their designation as personal property convert them into mere chattels, and deprive them of the character of human beings. In the South this is well understood, and no such meaning is attached to these terms, but in the North they are seized on and perverted, as if slaves were regarded and treated by us as inanimate matter. No, they are, in every thing essential to their real welfare, regarded as persons; as such they are responsible and punishable for crimes; as such to kill them in cold blood is murder; to treat them with cruelty or refuse them comfortable clothing and food, is a highly penal offence, as such they are nursed in sickness and infancy, and even in old age, with care and tenderness, when the season of labor is past. To call them chattels or real estate, no more makes them in reality land or merely inanimate matter, than to call the blacks of the north freemen, makes them so in fact. When the constitution of Mississippi, and laws made in pursuance thereof, require that slaves shall be treated with humanity, commands that they shall be well clothed and fed, and that unreasonable labor shall not be exacted, are these provisions applicable to a mere chattel, which the owner may mutilate or destroy at pleasure?  No. The master has no right to the flesh and blood, the bones and sinews of any man under the laws of the south; this is an abolition slander, and the right is to the services of the slave, so declared expressly in the laws of the south, and so recognized in the constitution of the United States, where slaves are described as "persons bound to service or labor," and so unanimously decided by the highest court of our state. Johnes' Case, Walker's Miss. Rep. 83. The right of the master is to the services of the slave, a right accruing only by virtue of the law of the state, and upon the terms therein prescribed. The rights of the master and slave are reciprocal under the laws of the south; the right of the master is the services of the slave for life, and the right of the slave as secured by law, to humane and proper treatment, to comfortable lodging, food and clothing, and to proper care in infancy, sickness and old age. These are the wages paid, and that must be paid by the master; and if the doctrine of the abolitionists be correct, that slave labor is dearer than free labor, then higher wages are thus paid in the south than in the north for the same amount of labor; and that it is much higher wages than is paid to the toiling and starving millions of Europe, no candid man will deny. Let me be accused of making no comparison between slaves and my countrymen, the free white laborers of all the states. No; they are fitted morally and intellectually for self-government, and the slaves are not so fitted; and therefore, even for their own benefit, must be controlled by others.