Excerpt from Letter to M. Jean-Baptiste Say: On the Comparative Expense of Free and Slave Labour
Many of them, I am aware, must be familiar to you, but possibly even these may appear. in a new light, and derive some additional force, from their connexion with others which have not fallen under your observation.
The expense of slave-labour resolves itself into the annual sum, which, in the average term of the productive years of a slaves life, will liquidate the cost of purchase or rearing, and support in old age, if he attain it, with interest, and the sum annually expended in his maintenance.
If we omit, the case of purchased slaves, and suppose them to be bred on the estate, (and as breeding is now admitted to be, under ordinary circumstances, the cheapest mode of supply, your argument will gain by the supposition,) the expense of free labour will resolve itself into precisely the same elements, since the wages paid to free labourers of every kind, must be such as to enable them, one with another, to bring up a family, and continue their race.
Now it is observed by Adam Smith, "The wear and tear of a free servant, is equally at the expense of his master, and it generally costs him much less than that of a slave; The fund destined for replacing and repairing, if I may say so, the wear and tear of the slave, is commonly managed by, a negligent master, or careless overseer. That destined the performing the same office with regard to the freeman, is managed by the freeman himself.
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