Though both serve as a source of labor, slave labor is treated as a property owned by the owner, where the owner has all authority over the slave, and could hit, whip or sell the slave according to their wish. Free labor on the other hand cannot be enslaved and are not properties. They are treated equally as a human who provides labor. Free labor in Seward’s opinion meant those who have freedom and are granted equal opportunity to work regardless of the social class, and later be independent. Because the free labor system grants equal chance to everyone who asks, it is able to make good use of this labor to produce the maximum possible, thus, benefiting the State. According to Seward, slavery was dangerous to democracy, because under slavery, the owner has all the power, and that leads to a small group of high class people holding all the powers. In addition, this situation causes adds to the issue of imbalance of power between the different social classes. Moreover, it contradicts with the definition of democracy, where all the citizens should hold an equal amount of power. To support his argument, Seward also mentions that when slavery is not present, everyone gets equal power to vote, and that demonstrates the idea of democracy and will lead the State to become a republic or a
Though both serve as a source of labor, slave labor is treated as a property owned by the owner, where the owner has all authority over the slave, and could hit, whip or sell the slave according to their wish. Free labor on the other hand cannot be enslaved and are not properties. They are treated equally as a human who provides labor. Free labor in Seward’s opinion meant those who have freedom and are granted equal opportunity to work regardless of the social class, and later be independent. Because the free labor system grants equal chance to everyone who asks, it is able to make good use of this labor to produce the maximum possible, thus, benefiting the State. According to Seward, slavery was dangerous to democracy, because under slavery, the owner has all the power, and that leads to a small group of high class people holding all the powers. In addition, this situation causes adds to the issue of imbalance of power between the different social classes. Moreover, it contradicts with the definition of democracy, where all the citizens should hold an equal amount of power. To support his argument, Seward also mentions that when slavery is not present, everyone gets equal power to vote, and that demonstrates the idea of democracy and will lead the State to become a republic or a