19.]
The translation of Say's book into English evoked a reply to his views on
slavery by Adam Hodgson, an Englishman with anti-slavery bent who had made
an American tour; but his essay, though fortified with long quotations,
was too rambling and ill digested to influence those who were not already
desirous of being convinced.[5] More substantial was an essay of 1827 by
a Marylander, James Raymond, who cited the experiences of his own
commonwealth to support his contentions that slavery hampered economy by
preventing seasonal shiftings of labor, by requiring employers to support
their operatives in lean years as well as fat, and by hindering the
accumulation of wealth by the laborers. The system, said he, could yield
profits to the masters only in specially fertile districts; and even there
it kept down the growth of population and of land values.[6]
[Footnote 5: Adam Hodgson, _A Letter to M. Jean-Baptiste Say, on the
comparative expense of free and slave labour_ (Liverpool, 1823; New York,
1823).]
[Footnote 6: James Raymond, _Prize Essay on the Comparative Economy of Free
and Slave Labor in Agriculture_ (Frederick [Md.], 1827), reprinted in the
_African Repository_, III, 97-110 (June, 1827).
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