Mudsill

This word, in its allusion to the working classes so called, had its origin in Senator Hammond’s speech: see the first quotation.

1863.  See SWAP.

1858.  In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mudsill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mudsill.—Mr. J. H. Hammond of S. Carolina, U.S. Senate, March 4: Cong. Globe, p. 71, App.—Speech as revised by himself.

1858.  In [that southern] section, the “mudsills of society” are slaves, who would use power, if they had it, to repay long years of wrong and degradation; with us the “mudsills,” the labouring men, are in power already, and using it … to increase blessings which are common to all.—Mr. Pottle, of N.Y., House of Repr., March 22: id., p. 1251.

1861.  The muster roll of the Tar River Rangers contains the names of sixty four men, only five of whom were able to write their own names. These are the cavaliers who sneer at the Northern “mudsills.”—N.Y. Comml. Advertiser, n.d.

1861.  Let the mud-sills be thankful that the soap, water, and towel argument balances in their favor.—Knick. Mag., lviii. 267 (Sept.).

1862.  [The secessionists] speak of the labouring millions of the free States as “the mudsills of society,” as “a pauper banditti,” as “greasy mechanics and filthy operatives.”—Mr. George W. Julian of Indiana, House of Repr., Jan. 14: Cong. Globe, p. 328/3.

1862.  

1863.  It pleased certain Southern orators and writers to characterize [the North] as the abode of “mudsills” and “tinkers.”—O. J. Victor, ‘The History … of the Southern Rebellion,’ ii. 93.