14. “Free and Slave Labor,” 19 North British Review (August 1853): 238-47.


Review of two books concerning slavery in the United States: The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet B. Stowe, and The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice by William Goodall. This review addresses the argument that slaves in the United States are better cared for, more comfortable, and more contended than the free laboring class in Europe. “Our principal object [in this review] has been to combat the assertion, that American slaves are happier than many British free people; to refute the calumny, that our Government and our wealthy classes do not as much for their labourers of this country, as the slave-legislatures do for theirs; and to remind those in Europe and the States, who desire to see free labour substituted for American slavery, of the triumphs which, through God’s blessing, were gained by popular opinion, when slave-labour was abolished by European governments in obedience to its voice.”