ictim is not therefore a freeman. Though he
should prefer debt to independence, that does not make him free.

No one prefers to be in debt. Debts are chosen as the least of the
evils. The natural resources are occupied and the opportunities of
life are denied. Lands and all tools of production are withheld and
the horns of the dilemma are debt or privation. The independent spirit
shrinks from debt until the struggle of life becomes desperate, when
he turns to the other evil and is enslaved.

This is not a temptation that comes to the idle and vicious. They
could not secure a loan though they tried. An indolent, dissipated and
vicious chattel slave would not find a purchaser in the market.

It is the industrious, virtuous and economical young man that is of
value to the usurer, and the better his character, the greater his
worth. For this reason their virtues are cried up to the usurers, as
the favorable qualities of the chattel were presented in the slave
marts. To secure a loan is an evidence of confidence in his business
ability, and an evidence of the appreciation of his character. It is a
flattering compliment, and promising relief to a condition that seems
hopeless, he permits the yoke of bondage to be fastened upon him.

The usurer's slave is cheaper than the chattel. It requires less
wealth to secure an equal amount of service. A loan of five thousand
dollars at the prevailing rate of seven per cent. will bring to the
usurer more than one dollar, clear gain, for every working day. That
is as much as any one man, not professional or specially skilled, can
hope to produce with that amount of capital, after caring for himself
and his home. The borrower secures the lender from all loss, he
largely relieves him from oversight, he directs his own labors,
supports himself wholly; if sick, he supplies a substitute that the
service does not stop, and when from the infirmities of age he is no
longer able to give the required amount of service, one dollar per
day, he returns the loan in full, which may be bound upon another
victim, and thus continued forever.

In the days of chattel slavery labor was not so cheap. The price of a
strong, faithful young colored slave, and the value of the tools for
him to use, and the proportionate part of the plantation necessary for
him to work, was about equal to the above loan. Then he must be
clothed and fed; his work must be directed; if sick his labor was
lost, and he must receive