I don't know about you but I would rather have been one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves than have been a coal miner.
ML/NJ
Well, that's your right. A coal miner can quit, leave and go do something else. A slave can't. A coal miner's kid can go do anything with his life. A slave's kid is a slave, too. But, hey, to each his own.
I mean, you might be happy serving Jefferson, but maybe tomorrow he'd sell you to pay for some frippery at Monticello that distracts him for a week or two, and you end up stuck in a malarial swamp for a few years until you die of disease or out in the field working from sunup to sundown. Unless, of course, you didn't work hard enough, in which some sadistic bastard will open your back for you. Your spouse and children would either stay with Jefferson (if he still owns them) or they'll be sold someplace else. Maybe your beautiful young daughter will be given to one of the master's house guests to rape as his plaything. Would you ever see them again? Who cares. You don't count. You're livestock. But let's say you're smart, and you claim your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (you could have sworn that you heard that expression from someone, but from whom???) You run away. You're soon chased by dogs and worse and even if you do escape, maybe North, you have worry every single day of your life. See, the slave owners have rigged the system so that they get credited with federal representation for 3 out of every 5 of you there are, as an insult to your bondage. They have ensured that at any moment agents of the state may legally kidnap you and spirit you away back into slavery. Oh, and if you are a woman, and you have a child in, say, Vermont, years after you ran away, that child is a slave too and is kidnapped along with you. Neat, huh? When you return, will you be branded? hobbled? killed outright? Who knows. Who cares, really. You're not a person. You're just a slave. Property. A thing.
But if you'd rather be a slave, that's your business.