“President Davis said, "The 'free' factory worker in Manchester or Paris- yes, in Boston as well- is free only to starve. As Mr. Hammond from South Carolina put it so pungently in the chambers of the U. S. Senate a few years ago, every society rests upon a mudsill of brute labor, from which the edifice of civilization arises. We are but more open and honest about the nature of our mudsill than other nations, which gladly exploit a worker's labor but, when he can no longer provide it, cast him aside like a used sheet of foolscap."”

— Harry Turtledove, book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 234

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Harry Turtledove48

American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian 1949

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Harry Turtledove48

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