tes
were steadily gaining on the Southern Slave States, and carries forward
the argument with great acuteness. "What," he asks, "has produced this
difference in the productiveness of the labor in the Northern division?
Peace and good markets have been common to both divisions; and the
laboring people in the Northern States were as free before the year 1791
as since. What, then, has stimulated the industry of the free laborers
since that period? The answer is obvious. An augmentation of capital
operating upon their free labor. It is probable there has been an
augmentation of capital throughout the United States, though I am
convinced that augmentation has been much greater in the Northern than
in the Southern. But my general remark is that an increase of capital
must be felt by the laboring people themselves to produce its full
effect in stimulating industry. The benefits of capital and good markets
in the Northern States are experienced by the men who labor; in the
Southern States this is not the case among the slaves, who make a great
proportion among the laborers. It is of little consequence to a slave
whether his master employs in business ten thousand or one thousand, or
whether he gets four dollars or two for a hundred of tobacco. In both
cases he plods on at his task with the same slow, reluctant pace. A
_freeman_, on the other hand, labors with double diligence when he gets
a high price for his produce; and this I apprehend to be a principal
cause which has in the last two years occasioned such a surprising
difference of exports in favor of the Northern States."

Webster's connection with the "Minerva" continued for about five years,
when he abandoned it as unprofitable; but his industry may be inferred
from the fact that his writings upon the paper, inclusive of
translations from foreign languages, would amount to twenty octavo
volumes.

His withdrawal from the conduct of a daily newspaper did not mean his
indifference to public affairs. Near the close of his stay in New York
he wrote "A Letter on the Value and Importance of the American Commerce
to Great Britain, addressed to a Gentleman of Distinction in London."
His aim was to emphasize the judgment that the commercial interests of
the two countries were closely interwoven, and that in the complication
of European politics the United States, if compelled to make any
alliance, was most naturally related to England. In 1802 he published
his laborious and lear