Project Gutenberg's The Impending Crisis of the South, by Hinton Rowan Helper
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Impending Crisis of the South
How to Meet It
Author: Hinton Rowan Helper
Release Date: May 8, 2011 [EBook #36055]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
THE
IMPENDING CRISIS
OF
THE SOUTH:
HOW TO MEET IT.
BY
HINTON ROWAN HELPER,
OF NORTH CAROLINA.
COUNTRYMEN! I sue for simple justice at your hands,
Naught else I ask, nor less will have;
Act right, therefore, and yield my claim,
Or, by the great God that made all things,
I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd!--_Shakspeare._
The liberal deviseth liberal things,
And by liberal things shall he stand.--_Isaiah._
14TH THOUSAND.
NEW YORK:
A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER,
No. 8 SPRUCE STREET.
1859.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by
HINTON ROWAN HELPER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
J. J. REED, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER,
43 Centre Street.
To
HENRY M. WILLIS,
OF CALIFORNIA,
FORMERLY OF MARYLAND,
WOODFORD C. HOLMAN,
OF OREGON,
FORMERLY OF KENTUCKY,
MATTHEW K. SMITH,
OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY,
FORMERLY OF VIRGINIA,
AND TO THE
NON-SLAVEHOLDING WHITES OF THE SOUTH
GENERALLY,
WHETHER AT HOME OR ABROAD
THIS WORK IS MOST CORDIALLY
DEDICATED
BY THEIR
SINCERE FRIEND AND FELLOW-CITIZEN,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
If my countrymen, particularly my countrymen of the South, still more
particularly those of them who are non-slaveholders, shall peruse this
work, they will learn that no narrow and partial doctrines of political or
social economy, no prejudices of early education have induced me to write
it. If, in any part of it, I have actually deflected from the tone of true
patriotism and nationality, I am unable to perceive the fault. What I have
committed to paper is but a fair reflex of the honest and long-settled
convictions of my heart.
In writing this book, it has been no part of my purpose to cast unmerited
opprobrium upon slaveholders, or to display any special friendliness or
sympathy for the blacks. I have considered my subject more particularly
with reference to its economic aspects as regards the whites--not with
reference, except in a very slight degree, to its humanitarian or
religious aspects. To the latter side of the question, Northern writers
have already done full and timely justice. The genius of the North has
also most ably and eloquently discussed the subject in the form of novels.
Yankee wives have written the most popular anti-slavery literature of the
day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all well enough for women
to give the fictions of slavery; men should give the facts.
I trust that my friends and fellow-citizens of the South will read this
book--nay, proud as any Southerner though I am, I entreat, I beg of them
to do so. And as the work, considered with reference to its author's
nativity, is a novelty--the South being my birth-place and my home, and my
ancestry having resided there for more than a century--so I indulge the
hope that its reception by my fellow-Southrons will also be novel; that is
to say, that they will receive it, as it is offered, in a reasonable and
friendly spirit, and that they will read it and reflect upon it as an
honest and faithful endeavor to treat a subject of enormous import,
without rancor or prejudice, by one who naturally comes within the pale of
their own sympathies.
An irrepressibly active desire to do something to elevate the South to an
honorable and powerful position among the enlightened quarters of the
globe, has been the great leading principle that has actuated me in the
preparation of the present volume; and so well convinced am I that the
plan which I have proposed is the only really practical one for achieving
the desired end, that I earnestly hope to see it prosecuted with energy
and zeal, until the Flag of Freedom shall wave triumphantly alike over the
valleys of Virginia and the mounds of Mississippi.
H. R. H.
JUNE, 1857.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I.
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES 11
Progress and Prosperity of the North--Inertness and Imbecility
of the South--The True Cause and the Remedy--Quantity and
Value of the Agricultural Products of the two Sections--
Important Statistics--Wealth, Revenue, and Expenditure of the
several States--Sterling Extracts and General Remarks on Free
and Slave Labor--The Immediate Abolition of Slavery the True
Policy of the South.
CHAPTER II.
HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED 123
Value of Lands in the Free and in the Slave States--A few Plain
Words addressed to Slaveholders--The Old Homestead--Area and
Population of the several States, of the Territories, and of
the District of Columbia--Number of Slaveholders in the United
States--Abstract of the Author's Plan for the Abolition of
Slavery--Official Power and Despotism of the Oligarchy--
Mal-treatment of the Non-slaveholding Whites--Liberal
Slaveholders, and what may be expected of them--Slave-driving
Democrats--Classification of Votes Polled at the Five Points
Precinct in 1856--Parts played by the Republicans, Whigs,
Democrats, and Know-Nothings during the last Presidential
Campaign--How and why Slavery should be Abolished without
direct Compensation to the Masters--The American Colonization
Society--Emigration to Liberia--Ultimatum of the
Non-slaveholding Whites.
CHAPTER III.
SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 188
What the Fathers of the Republic thought of Slavery--Opinions
of Washington--Jefferson--Madison--Monroe--Henry--Randolph--
Clay--Benton--Mason--McDowell--Iredell--Pinkney--Leigh--
Marshall--Bolling--Chandler--Summers--Preston--Fremont--Blair--
Maury--Birney. Delaware--McLane. Maryland--Martin. Virginia--
Bill of Rights. North Carolina--Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence--Judge Ruffin. South Carolina--Extracts from the
Writings of some of her more Sensible Sons. Georgia--Gen.
Oglethorpe--Darien Resolutions.
CHAPTER IV.
NORTHERN TESTIMONY 235
Opinions of Franklin--Hamilton--Jay--Adams--Webster--Clinton--
Warren--Complimentary Allusions to Garrison, Greeley, Seward,
Sumner, and others.
CHAPTER V.
TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS 245
The Voice of England--Opinions of Mansfield--Locke--Pitt--
Fox--Shakspeare--Cowper--Milton--Johnson--Price--Blackstone--
Coke--Hampden--Harrington--Fortescue--Brougham--The Voice of
Ireland--Opinions of Burke--Curran--Extract from the Dublin
University Magazine for December, 1856--The Voice of Scotland--
Opinions of Beattie--Miller--Macknight--The Voice of France--
Opinions of Lafayette--Montesquieu--Louis X--Buffon--Rousseau--
Brissot--The Voice of Germany--Opinions of Grotius--Goethe--
Luther--Extract from the Letter of a living German writer to his
Friends in this Country--The Voice of Italy--Opinions of
Cicero--Lactantius--Leo X--The Voice of Greece--Opinions of
Socrates--Aristotle--Polybius--Plato.
CHAPTER VI.
TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES 258
Introductory Remarks--Presbyterian Testimony--Albert Barnes--
Thomas Scott--General Assembly in 1818--Synod of Kentucky--
Episcopal Testimony--Bishop Horsley--Bishop Butler--Bishop
Porteus--John Jay--Anti-slavery Churchman--Baptist Testimony--
Rev. Mr. Brisbane, of South Carolina--Francis Wayland--Abraham
Booth--Baptists of Virginia in 1789--Methodist Testimony--John
Wesley--Adam Clarke--Extracts from the Discipline for 1784, '85
and '97--Catholic Testimony--Pope Gregory XVI--Pope Leo X--The
Abbe Raynal--Henry Kemp.
CHAPTER VII.
BIBLE TESTIMONY 275
The Bible an Anti-Slavery Text-book--Selected Precepts and
Sayings of the Old Testament--Selected Precepts and Sayings of
the New Testament--Irrefragability of the Arguments here and
elsewhere introduced against Slavery.
CHAPTER VIII.
FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 281
Opening Remarks--General Statistics of the Free and of the
Slave States--Tonnage, Exports, and Imports--Products of
Manufactures--Miles of Canals and Railroads in Operation--
Public Schools--Libraries other than Private--Newspapers and
Periodicals--Illiterate White Adults--National Political Power
of the two Sections--Popular Vote for President in 1856--
Patents Issued on New Inventions--Value of Church Property--
Acts of Benevolence--Contributions for the Bible Cause, Tract
Cause, Missionary Cause, and Colonization Cause--Table of
deaths in the several States in 1850--Number of Free White
Male Persons over fifteen years of age engaged in Agriculture
or other out-door Labor in the Slave States--Falsity of the
Assertion that White Men cannot cultivate Southern Soil--White
Female Agriculturists in North Carolina--Number of Natives of
the Slave States in the Free States, and of Natives of the Free
States in the Slave States--Value of the Slaves at $400 per
head--List of Presidents of the United States--Judges of the
Supreme Court--Secretaries of State--Presidents of the Senate--
Speakers of the House--Postmasters General--Secretaries of the
Interior--Secretaries of the Treasury--Secretaries of War--
Secretaries of the Navy--Result of the Presidential Elections
in the United States from 1796 to 1856--Aid for Kansas--
Contributions for the Sufferers in Portsmouth, Va., during the
Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in the Summer of 1855--
Congressional Representation--Custom House Receipts--When the
Old States were Settled and the New Admitted into the Union--
First European Settlements in America--Freedom and Slavery at
the Fair--What Freedom Did--What Slavery Did--Average Value per
Acre of Lands in the States of New York and North Carolina.
CHAPTER IX.
COMMERCIAL CITIES--SOUTHERN COMMERCE 331
Plea for a great Southern Commercial City--Importance of Cities
in General--Letters from the Mayors of sundry American Cities,
North and South--Wealth and Population of New-York, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New-Orleans, Boston, St. Louis, Brooklyn,
Charleston, Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, Richmond,
Providence, Norfolk, Buffalo, Savannah, New-Bedford,
Wilmington--Wealth Concentrated at Commercial Points--Boston and
its Business--Progressive Growth of Cities--A Fleet of
Merchantmen--Commerce of Norfolk--Baltimore, Past, Present, and
Future--Insignificance of Southern Commerce--Enslavement of
Slaveholders to the Products of Northern Industry--Almost Utter
Lack of Patriotism in Southern Merchants and Slaveholders.
CHAPTER X.
FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE 360
Why this Work was not Published in Baltimore--Legislative Acts
Against Slavery--Testimony of a West India Planter to the
Advantages of Free over Slave Labor--The True Friends of the
South--Slavery Thoughtful--Signs of Contrition--Progress of
Freedom in the South--Anti-slavery Extracts from Southern
Journals--A Right Feeling in the Right Quarter--The Illiterate
Poor Whites of the South.
CHAPTER XI.
SOUTHERN LITERATURE 383
Instances of Protracted Literary Labor--Comparative
Insignificance of Periodical and General Literature in the
Southern States--The New-York Tribune--Southern System of
Publishing--Book-making in America--The Business of the Messrs.
Harper--Southern Journals Struggling for Existence--Paucity of
Southern Authors--Proportion of White Adults, over Twenty Years
of Age, in each State, who cannot Read and Write, to the Whole
White Population--Southern Authors Compelled to Seek Northern
Publishers--Conclusion.
CHAPTER I
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES.
It is not our intention in this chapter to enter into an elaborate
ethnographical essay, to establish peculiarities of difference, mental,
moral, and physical, in the great family of man. Neither is it our design
to launch into a philosophical disquisition on the laws and principles of
light and darkness, with a view of educing any additional evidence of the
fact, that as a general rule, the rays of the sun are more fructifying and
congenial than the shades of night. Nor yet is it our purpose, by writing
a formal treatise on ethics, to draw a broad line of distinction between
right and wrong, to point out the propriety of morality and its advantages
over immorality, nor to waste time in pressing a universally admitted
truism--that virtue is preferable to vice. Self-evident truths require no
argumentative demonstration.
What we mean to do is simply this: to take a survey of the relative
position and importance of the several states of this confederacy, from
the adoption of the national compact; and when, of two sections of the
country starting under the same auspices, and with equal natural
advantages, we find the one rising to a degree of almost unexampled power
and eminence, and the other sinking into a state of comparative
imbecility and obscurity, it is our determination to trace out the causes
which have led to the elevation of the former, and the depression of the
latter, and to use our most earnest and honest endeavors to utterly
extirpate whatever opposes the progress and prosperity of any portion of
the union.
This survey we have already made; we have also instituted an impartial
comparison between the cardinal sections of the country, north, south,
east, and west; and as a true hearted southerner, whose ancestors have
resided in North Carolina between one and two hundred years, and as one
who would rather have his native clime excel than be excelled, we feel
constrained to confess that we are deeply abashed and chagrined at the
disclosures of the comparison thus instituted. At the time of the adoption
of the Constitution, in 1789, we commenced an even race with the North.
All things considered, if either the North or the South had the advantage,
it was the latter. In proof of this, let us introduce a few statistics,
beginning with the states of
NEW YORK AND VIRGINIA.
In 1790, when the first census was taken, New York contained 340,120
inhabitants; at the same time the population of Virginia was 748,308,
being more than twice the number of New York. Just sixty years afterward,
as we learn from the census of 1850, New York had a population of
3,097,394; while that of Virginia was only 1,421,661, being less than half
the number of New York! In 1791, the exports of New York amounted to
$2,505,465; the exports of Virginia amounted to $3,130,865. In 1852, the
exports of New York amounted to $87,484,456; the exports of Virginia,
during the same year, amounted to only $2,724,657. In 1790, the imports of
New York and Virginia were about equal; in 1853, the imports of New York
amounted to the enormous sum of $178,270,999; while those of Virginia, for
the same period, amounted to the pitiful sum of only $399,004. In 1850,
the products of manufactures, mining and the mechanic arts in New York
amounted to $237,597,249; those of Virginia amounted to only $29,705,387.
At the taking of the last census, the value of real and personal property
in Virginia, including negroes, was $391,646,438; that of New York,
exclusive of any monetary valuation of human beings, was $1,080,309,216.
In August, 1856, the real and personal estate assessed in the City of
New-York amounted in valuation to $511,740,491, showing that New-York City
alone is worth far more than the whole State of Virginia.
What says one of Virginia's own sons? He still lives; hear him speak. Says
Gov. Wise:
"It may be painful, but nevertheless, profitable, to recur occasionally to
the history of the past; to listen to the admonitions of experience, and
learn lessons of wisdom from the efforts and actions of those who have
preceded us in the drama of human life. The records of former days show
that at a period not very remote, Virginia stood pre-eminently the first
commercial State in the Union; when her commerce exceeded in amount that
of all the New England States combined; when the City of Norfolk owned
more than one hundred trading ships, and her direct foreign trade exceeded
that of the City of New-York, now the centre of trade and the great
emporium of North America. At the period of the war of independence, the
commerce of Virginia was four times larger than that of New-York."
The cash value of all the farms, farming implements and machinery in
Virginia, in 1850, was $223,423,315; the value of the same in New-York, in
the same year, was $576,631,568. In about the same ratio does the value of
the agricultural products and live stock of New-York exceed the value of
the agricultural products and live stock of Virginia. But we will pursue
this humiliating comparison no further. With feelings mingled with
indignation and disgust, we turn from the picture, and will now pay our
respects to
MASSACHUSETTS AND NORTH CAROLINA.
In 1790, Massachusetts contained 378,717 inhabitants; in the same year
North Carolina contained 393,751; in 1850, the population of Massachusetts
was 994,514, all freemen; while that of North Carolina was only 869,039,
of whom 288,548 were slaves. Massachusetts has an area of only 7,800
square miles; the area of North Carolina is 50,704 square miles, which,
though less than Virginia, is considerably larger than the State of
New-York. Massachusetts and North Carolina each have a harbor, Boston and
Beaufort, which harbors, with the States that back them, are, by nature,
possessed of about equal capacities and advantages for commercial and
manufacturing enterprise. Boston has grown to be the second commercial
city in the Union; her ships, freighted with the useful and unique
inventions and manufactures of her ingenious artisans and mechanics, and
bearing upon their stalwart arms the majestic flag of our country, glide
triumphantly through the winds and over the waves of every ocean. She has
done, and is now doing, great honor to herself, her State and the nation,
and her name and fame are spoken with reverence in the remotest regions of
the earth.
How is it with Beaufort, in North Carolina, whose harbor is said to be the
safest and most commodious anywhere to be found on the Atlantic coast
south of the harbor of New-York, and but little inferior to that? Has
anybody ever heard of her? Do the masts of her ships ever cast a shadow on
foreign waters? Upon what distant or benighted shore have her merchants
and mariners ever hoisted our national ensign, or spread the arts of
civilization and peaceful industry? What changes worthy of note have taken
place in the physical features of her superficies since "the evening and
the morning were the third day?" But we will make no further attempt to
draw a comparison between the populous, wealthy, and renowned city of
Boston and the obscure, despicable little village of Beaufort, which,
notwithstanding "the placid bosom of its deep and well-protected harbor,"
has no place in the annals or records of the country, and has scarcely
ever been heard of fifty miles from home.
In 1853, the exports of Massachusetts amounted to $16,895,304, and her
imports to $41,367,956; during the same time, and indeed during all the
time, from the period of the formation of the government up to the year
1853, inclusive, the exports and imports of North Carolina were so utterly
insignificant that we are ashamed to record them. In 1850, the products of
manufactures, mining and the mechanic arts in Massachusetts, amounted to
$151,137,145; those of North Carolina, to only $9,111,245. In 1856, the
products of these industrial pursuits in Massachusetts had increased to
something over $288,000,000, a sum more than twice the value of the entire
cotton crop of all the Southern States! In 1850, the cash value of all the
farms, farming implements and machinery in Massachusetts, was
$112,285,931; the value of the same in North Carolina, in the same year,
was only $71,823,298. In 1850, the value of all the real and personal
estate in Massachusetts, without recognizing property in man, or setting a
monetary price on the head of a single citizen, white or black, amounted
to $573,342,286; the value of the same in North Carolina, including
negroes, amounted to only $226,800,472. In 1856, the real and personal
estate assessed in the City of Boston amounted in valuation to within a
fraction of $250,000,000, showing conclusively that so far as dollars and
cents are concerned, that single city could buy the whole State of North
Carolina, and by right of purchase, if sanctioned by the Constitution of
the United States, and by State Constitutions, hold her as a province. In
1850, there were in Massachusetts 1,861 native white and free colored
persons over twenty years of age who could not read and write; in the
same year, the same class of persons in North Carolina numbered 80,083;
while her 288,548 slaves were, by legislative enactments, kept in a state
of absolute ignorance and unconditional subordination.
Hoping, however, and believing, that a large majority of the most
respectable and patriotic citizens of North Carolina have resolved, or
will soon resolve, with unyielding purpose, to cast aside the great
obstacle that impedes their progress, and bring into action a new policy
which will lead them from poverty and ignorance to wealth and intellectual
greatness, and which will shield them not only from the rebukes of their
own consciences, but also from the just reproaches of the civilized world,
we will, for the present, in deference to their feelings, forbear the
further enumeration of these degrading disparities, and turn our attention
to
PENNSYLVANIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA.
An old gentleman, now residing in Charleston, told us, but a few months
since, that he had a distinct recollection of the time when Charleston
imported foreign fabrics for the Philadelphia trade, and when, on a
certain occasion, his mother went into a store on Market-street to select
a silk dress for herself, the merchant, unable to please her fancy,
persuaded her to postpone the selection for a few days, or until the
arrival of a new stock of superb styles and fashions which he had recently
purchased in the metropolis of South Carolina. This was all very proper.
Charleston had a spacious harbor, a central position, and a mild climate;
and from priority of settlement and business connections, to say nothing
of other advantages, she enjoyed greater facilities for commercial
transactions than Philadelphia. She had a right to get custom wherever she
could find it, and in securing so valuable a customer as the Quaker City,
she exhibited no small degree of laudable enterprise. But why did she not
maintain her supremacy? If the answer to this query is not already in the
reader's mind, it will suggest itself before he peruses the whole of this
work. For the present, suffice it to say, that the cause of her shameful
insignificance and decline is essentially the same that has thrown every
other Southern city and State in the rear of progress, and rendered them
tributary, in a commercial and manufacturing point of view, almost
entirely tributary, to the more sagacious and enterprising States and
cities of the North.
A most unfortunate day was that for the Palmetto State, and indeed for the
whole South, when the course of trade was changed, and she found herself
the retailer of foreign and domestic goods, imported and vended by
wholesale merchants at the North. Philadelphia ladies no longer look to
the South for late fashions, and fine silks and satins; no Quaker dame now
wears drab apparel of Charleston importation. Like all other
_niggervilles_ in our disreputable part of the confederacy, the commercial
emporium of South Carolina is sick and impoverished; her silver cord has
been loosed; her golden bowl has been broken; and her unhappy people,
without proper or profitable employment, poor in pocket, and few in
number, go mourning or loafing about the streets. Her annual importations
are actually less now than they were a century ago, when South Carolina
was the second commercial province on the continent, Virginia being the
first.
In 1760, as we learn from Mr. Benton's "Thirty Years' View," the foreign
imports into Charleston were $2,662,000; in 1855, they amounted to only
$1,750,000! In 1854, the imports into Philadelphia, which, in foreign
trade, ranks at present but fourth among the commercial cities of the
union, were $21,963,021. In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining,
and the mechanic arts, in Pennsylvania, amounted to $155,044,910; the
products of the same in South Carolina, amounted to only $7,063,513.
As shown by the census report of 1850, which was prepared under the
superintendence of a native of South Carolina, who certainly will not be
suspected of injustice to his own section of the country, the Southern
states, the cash value of all the farms, farming implements, and machinery
in Pennsylvania, was $422,598,640; the value of the same in South
Carolina, in the same year, was only $86,518,038. From a compendium of the
same census, we learn that the value of all the real and personal property
in Pennsylvania, actual property, no slaves, amounted to $729,144,998; the
value of the same in South Carolina, including the estimated--we were
about to say fictitious--value of 384,925 negroes, amounted to only
$288,257,694. We have not been able to obtain the figures necessary to
show the exact value of the real and personal estate in Philadelphia, but
the amount is estimated to be not less than $300,000,000; and as, in 1850,
there were 408,762 free inhabitants in the single city of Philadelphia,
against 283,544 of the same class, in the whole state of South Carolina,
it is quite evident that the former is more powerful than the latter, and
far ahead of her in all the elements of genuine and permanent superiority.
In Pennsylvania, in 1850, the annual income of public schools amounted to
$1,348,249; the same in South Carolina, in the same year, amounted to only
$200,000; in the former state there were 393 libraries other than private,
in the latter only 26; in Pennsylvania 310 newspapers and periodicals were
published, circulating 84,898,672 copies annually; in South Carolina only
46 newspapers and periodicals were published, circulating but 7,145,930
copies per annum.
The incontrovertible facts we have thus far presented are, we think, amply
sufficient, both in number and magnitude, to bring conviction to the mind
of every candid reader, that there is something wrong, socially,
politically and morally wrong, in the policy under which the South has so
long loitered and languished. Else, how is it that the North, under the
operations of a policy directly the opposite of ours, has surpassed us in
almost everything great and good, and left us standing before the world,
an object of merited reprehension and derision?
For one, we are heartily ashamed of the inexcusable weakness, inertia and
dilapidation everywhere so manifest throughout our native section; but the
blame properly attaches itself to an usurping minority of the people, and
we are determined that it shall rest where it belongs. More on this
subject, however, after a brief but general survey of the inequalities and
disparities that exist between those two grand divisions of the country,
which, without reference to the situation that any part of their territory
bears to the cardinal points, are every day becoming more familiarly known
by the appropriate appellation of
THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES.
It is a fact well known to every intelligent Southerner that we are
compelled to go to the North for almost every article of utility and
adornment, from matches, shoepegs and paintings up to cotton-mills,
steamships and statuary; that we have no foreign trade, no princely
merchants, nor respectable artists; that, in comparison with the free
states, we contribute nothing to the literature, polite arts and
inventions of the age; that, for want of profitable employment at home,
large numbers of our native population find themselves necessitated to
emigrate to the West, whilst the free states retain not only the larger
proportion of those born within their own limits, but induce, annually,
hundreds of thousands of foreigners to settle and remain amongst them;
that almost everything produced at the North meets with ready sale, while,
at the same time, there is no demand, even among our own citizens, for the
productions of Southern industry; that, owing to the absence of a proper
system of business amongst us, the North becomes, in one way or another,
the proprietor and dispenser of all our floating wealth, and that we are
dependent on Northern capitalists for the means necessary to build our
railroads, canals and other public improvements; that if we want to visit
a foreign country, even though it may lie directly South of us, we find
no convenient way of getting there except by taking passage through a
Northern port; and that nearly all the profits arising from the exchange
of commodities, from insurance and shipping offices, and from the thousand
and one industrial pursuits of the country, accrue to the North, and are
there invested in the erection of those magnificent cities and stupendous
works of art which dazzle the eyes of the South, and attest the
superiority of free institutions!
The North is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they must and do make
two pilgrimages per annum--one in the spring and one in the fall. All our
commercial, mechanical, manufactural, and literary supplies come from
there. We want Bibles, brooms, buckets and books, and we go to the North;
we want pens, ink, paper, wafers and envelopes, and we go to the North; we
want shoes, hats, handkerchiefs, umbrellas and pocket knives, and we go to
the North; we want furniture, crockery, glassware and pianos, and we go to
the North; we want toys, primers, school books, fashionable apparel,
machinery, medicines, tombstones, and a thousand other things, and we go
to the North for them all. Instead of keeping our money in circulation at
home, by patronizing our own mechanics, manufacturers, and laborers, we
send it all away to the North, and there it remains; it never falls into
our hands again.
In one way or another we are more or less subservient to the North every
day of our lives. In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin; in
childhood we are humored with Northern gewgaws; in youth we are instructed
out of Northern books; at the age of maturity we sow our "wild oats" on
Northern soil; in middle-life we exhaust our wealth, energies and talents
in the dishonorable vocation of entailing our dependence on our children
and on our children's children, and, to the neglect of our own interests
and the interests of those around us, in giving aid and succor to every
department of Northern power; in the decline of life we remedy our
eye-sight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with
Northern canes; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic; and,
finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern cambric,
are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern carriage,
entombed with a Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern slab!
But it can hardly be necessary to say more in illustration of this unmanly
and unnational dependence, which is so glaring that it cannot fail to be
apparent to even the most careless and superficial observer. All the world
sees, or ought to see, that in a commercial, mechanical, manufactural,
financial, and literary point of view, we are as helpless as babes; that,
in comparison with the Free States, our agricultural resources have been
greatly exaggerated, misunderstood and mismanaged; and that, instead of
cultivating among ourselves a wise policy of mutual assistance and
co-operation with respect to individuals, and of self-reliance with
respect to the South at large, instead of giving countenance and
encouragement to the industrial enterprises projected in our midst, and
instead of building up, aggrandizing and beautifying our own States,
cities and towns, we have been spending our substance at the North, and
are daily augmenting and strengthening the very power which now has us so
completely under its thumb.
It thus appears, in view of the preceding statistical facts and arguments,
that the South, at one time the superior of the North in almost all the
ennobling pursuits and conditions of life, has fallen far behind her
competitor, and now ranks more as the dependency of a mother country than
as the equal confederate of free and independent States. Following the
order of our task, the next duty that devolves upon us is to trace out the
causes which have conspired to bring about this important change, and to
place on record the reasons, as we understand them,
WHY THE NORTH HAS SURPASSED THE SOUTH.
And now that we have come to the very heart and soul of our subject, we
feel no disposition to mince matters, but mean to speak plainly, and to
the point, without any equivocation, mental reservation, or secret evasion
whatever. The son of a venerated parent, who, while he lived, was a
considerate and merciful slaveholder, a native of the South, born and bred
in North Carolina, of a family whose home has been in the valley of the
Yadkin for nearly a century and a half, a Southerner by instinct and by
all the influences of thought, habits, and kindred, and with the desire
and fixed purpose to reside permanently within the limits of the South,
and with the expectation of dying there also--we feel that we have the
right to express our opinion, however humble or unimportant it may be, on
any and every question that affects the public good; and, so help us God,
"sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish," we are determined to
exercise that right with manly firmness, and without fear, favor or
affection.
And now to the point. In our opinion, an opinion which has been formed
from data obtained by assiduous researches, and comparisons, from
laborious investigation, logical reasoning, and earnest reflection, the
causes which have impeded the progress and prosperity of the South, which
have dwindled our commerce, and other similar pursuits, into the most
contemptible insignificance; sunk a large majority of our people in
galling poverty and ignorance, rendered a small minority conceited and
tyrannical, and driven the rest away from their homes; entailed upon us a
humiliating dependence on the Free States; disgraced us in the recesses of
our own souls, and brought us under reproach in the eyes of all civilized
and enlightened nations--may all be traced to one common source, and there
find solution in the most hateful and horrible word, that was ever
incorporated into the vocabulary of human economy--_Slavery_!
Reared amidst the institution of slavery, believing it to be wrong both in
principle and in practice, and having seen and felt its evil influences
upon individuals, communities and states, we deem it a duty, no less than
a privilege, to enter our protest against it, and to use our most
strenuous efforts to overturn and abolish it! Then we are an abolitionist?
Yes! not merely a freesoiler, but an abolitionist, in the fullest sense of
the term. We are not only in favor of keeping slavery out of the
territories, but, carrying our opposition to the institution a step
further, we here unhesitatingly declare ourself in favor of its immediate
and unconditional abolition, in every state in this confederacy, where it
now exists! Patriotism makes us a freesoiler; state pride makes us an
emancipationist; a profound sense of duty to the South makes us an
abolitionist; a reasonable degree of fellow feeling for the negro, makes
us a colonizationist. With the free state men in Kanzas and Nebraska, we
sympathize with all our heart. We love the whole country, the great family
of states and territories, one and inseparable, and would have the word
Liberty engraved as an appropriate and truthful motto, on the escutcheon
of every member of the confederacy. We love freedom, we hate slavery, and
rather than give up the one or submit to the other, we will forfeit the
pound of flesh nearest our heart. Is this sufficiently explicit and
categorical? If not, we hold ourself in readiness at all times, to return
a prompt reply to any proper question that may be propounded.
Our repugnance to the institution of slavery, springs from no one-sided
idea, or sickly sentimentality. We have not been hasty in making up our
mind on the subject; we have jumped at no conclusions; we have acted with
perfect calmness and deliberation; we have carefully considered, and
examined the reasons for and against the institution, and have also taken
into account the probable consequences of our decision. The more we
investigate the matter, the deeper becomes the conviction that we are
right; and with this to impel and sustain us, we pursue our labor with
love, with hope, and with constantly renewing vigor.
That we shall encounter opposition we consider as certain; perhaps we may
even be subjected to insult and violence. From the conceited and cruel
oligarchy of the South, we could look for nothing less. But we shall
shrink from no responsibility, and do nothing unbecoming a man; we know
how to repel indignity, and if assaulted, shall not fail to make the blow
recoil upon the aggressor's head. The road we have to travel may be a
rough one, but no impediment shall cause us to falter in our course. The
line of our duty is clearly defined, and it is our intention to follow it
faithfully, or die in the attempt.
But, thanks to heaven, we have no ominous forebodings of the result of the
contest now pending between Liberty and Slavery in this confederacy.
Though neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, our vision is
sufficiently penetrative to divine the future so far as to be able to see
that the "peculiar institution" has but a short, and, as heretofore,
inglorious existence before it. Time, the righter of every wrong, is
ripening events for the desired consummation of our labors and the
fulfillment of our cherished hopes. Each revolving year brings nearer the
inevitable crisis. The sooner it comes the better; may heaven, through our
humble efforts, hasten its advent.
The first and most sacred duty of every Southerner, who has the honor and
the interest of his country at heart, is to declare himself an unqualified
and uncompromising abolitionist. No conditional or half-way declaration
will avail; no mere threatening demonstration will succeed. With those who
desire to be instrumental in bringing about the triumph of liberty over
slavery, there should be neither evasion, vacillation, nor equivocation.
We should listen to no modifying terms or compromises that may be
proposed by the proprietors of the unprofitable and ungodly institution.
Nothing short of the complete abolition of slavery can save the South from
falling into the vortex of utter ruin. Too long have we yielded a
submissive obedience to the tyrannical domination of an inflated
oligarchy; too long have we tolerated their arrogance and self-conceit;
too long have we submitted to their unjust and savage exactions. Let us
now wrest from them the sceptre of power, establish liberty and equal
rights throughout the land, and henceforth and forever guard our
legislative halls from the pollutions and usurpations of pro-slavery
demagogues.
We have stated, in a cursory manner, the reasons, as we understand them,
why the North has surpassed the South, and have endeavored to show, we
think successfully, that the political salvation of the South depends upon
the speedy and unconditional abolition of slavery. We will not, however,
rest the case exclusively on our own arguments, but will again appeal to
incontrovertible facts and statistics to sustain us in our conclusions.
But before we do so, we desire to fortify ourself against a charge that is
too frequently made by careless and superficial readers. We allude to the
objections so often urged against the use of tabular statements and
statistical facts. It is worthy of note, however, that those objections
never come from thorough scholars or profound thinkers. Among the majority
of mankind, the science of statistics is only beginning to be appreciated;
when well understood, it will be recognized as one of the most important
branches of knowledge, and, as a matter of course, be introduced and
taught as an indispensable element of practical education in all our
principal institutions of learning. One of the most vigorous and popular
transatlantic writers of the day, Wm. C. Taylor, LL.D., of Dublin, says:
"The cultivation of statistics must be the source of all future
improvement in the science of political economy, because it is to the
table of the statistician that the economist must look for his facts; and
all speculations not founded upon facts, though they may be admired and
applauded when first propounded, will, in the end, assuredly be forgotten.
Statistical science may almost be regarded as the creation of this age.
The word statistics was invented in the middle of the last century by a
German professor,[1] to express a summary view of the physical, moral, and
social conditions of States; he justly remarked, that a numerical
statement of the extent, density of population, imports, exports,
revenues, etc., of a country, more perfectly explained its social
condition than general statements, however graphic or however accurate.
When such statements began to be collected, and exhibited in a popular
form, it was soon discovered that the political and economical sciences
were likely to gain the position of physical sciences; that is to say,
they were about to obtain records of observation, which would test the
accuracy of recognized principles, and lead to the discovery of new modes
of action. But the great object of this new science is to lead to the
knowledge of human nature; that is, to ascertain the general course of
operation of man's mental and moral faculties, and to furnish us with a
correct standard of judgment, by enabling us to determine the average
amount of the past as a guide to the average probabilities of the future.
This science is yet in its infancy, but has already produced the most
beneficial effects. The accuracy of the tables of life have rendered the
calculations of rates of insurance a matter of much greater certainty than
they were heretofore; the system of keeping the public accounts has been
simplified and improved; and finally, the experimental sciences of
medicine and political economy, have been fixed on a firmer foundation
than could be anticipated in the last century. Even in private life this
science is likely to prove of immense advantage, by directing attention to
the collection and registration of facts, and thus preventing the
formation of hasty judgments and erroneous conclusions."
The compiler, or rather the superintendent of the seventh United States
census, Prof. De Bow, a gentleman of more than ordinary industry and
practical learning, who, in his excellent Review, has, from time to time,
displayed much commendable zeal in his efforts to develop the industrial
resources of the Southern and South-western states, and who is, perhaps,
the greatest statistician in the country, says:--
"Statistics are far from being the barren array of figures ingeniously and
laboriously combined into columns and tables, which many persons are apt
to suppose them. They constitute rather the ledger of a nation, in which,
like the merchant in his books, the citizen can read, at one view, all of
the results of a year or of a period of years, as compared with other
periods, and deduce the profit or the loss which has been made, in morals,
education, wealth or power."
Impressed with a sense of the propriety of introducing, in this as well as
in the succeeding chapters of our work, a number of tabular statements
exhibiting the comparative growth and prosperity of the free and slave
states, we have deemed it eminently proper to adduce the testimony of
these distinguished authors in support of the claims which official facts
and accurate statistics lay to our consideration. And here we may remark
that the statistics which we propose to offer, like those already given,
have been obtained from official sources, and may, therefore, be relied on
as correct. The object we have in view in making a free use of facts and
figures, if not already apparent, will soon be understood. It is not so
much in its moral and religious aspects that we propose to discuss the
question of slavery, as in its social and political character and
influences. To say nothing of the sin and the shame of slavery, we believe
it is a most expensive and unprofitable institution; and if our brethren
of the South will but throw aside their unfounded prejudices and
preconceived opinions, and give us a fair and patient hearing, we feel
confident that we can bring them to the same conclusion. Indeed, we
believe we shall be enabled--not alone by our own contributions, but with
the aid of incontestable facts and arguments which we shall introduce from
other sources--to convince all true-hearted, candid and intelligent
Southerners, who may chance to read our book, (and we hope their name may
be legion) that slavery, and nothing but slavery, has retarded the
progress and prosperity of our portion of the Union; depopulated and
impoverished our cities by forcing the more industrious and enterprising
natives of the soil to emigrate to the free states; brought our domain
under a sparse and inert population by preventing foreign immigration;
made us tributary to the North, and reduced us to the humiliating
condition of mere provincial subjects in fact, though not in name. We
believe, moreover, that every patriotic Southerner thus convinced will
feel it a duty he owes to himself, to his country, and to his God, to
become a thorough, inflexible, practical abolitionist. So mote it be!
Now to our figures. Few persons have an adequate idea of the important
part the cardinal numbers are now playing in the cause of Liberty. They
are working wonders in the South. Intelligent, business men, from the
Chesapeake to the Rio Grande, are beginning to see that slavery, even in a
mercenary point of view, is impolitic, because it is unprofitable. Those
unique, mysterious little Arabic sentinels on the watch-towers of
political economy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, have joined forces,
allied themselves to the powers of freedom, and are hemming in and
combatting the institution with the most signal success. If let alone, we
have no doubt the digits themselves would soon terminate the existence of
slavery; but we do not mean to let them alone; they must not have all the
honor of annihilating the monstrous iniquity. We want to become an
auxiliary in the good work, and facilitate it. The liberation of five
millions of "poor white trash" from the second degree of slavery, and of
three millions of miserable kidnapped negroes from the first degree,
cannot be accomplished too soon. That it was not accomplished many years
ago is our misfortune. It now behooves us to take a bold and determined
stand in defence of the inalienable rights of ourselves and of our fellow
men, and to avenge the multiplicity of wrongs, social and political, which
we have suffered at the hands of a villainous oligarchy. It is madness to
delay. We cannot be too hasty in carrying out our designs. Precipitance in
this matter is an utter impossibility. If to-day we could emancipate all
the slaves in the Union, we would do it, and the country and everybody in
it would be vastly better off to-morrow. Now is the time for action; let
us work.
By taking a sort of inventory of the agricultural products of the free and
slave States in 1850, we now propose to correct a most extraordinary and
mischievous error into which the people of the South have unconsciously
fallen. Agriculture, it is well known, is the sole boast of the South;
and, strange to say, many pro-slavery Southerners, who, in our latitude,
pass for intelligent men, are so puffed up with the idea of our importance
in this respect, that they speak of the North as a sterile region, unfit
for cultivation, and quite dependent on the South for the necessaries of
life! Such rampant ignorance ought to be knocked in the head! We can prove
that the North produces greater quantities of bread-stuffs than the South!
Figures shall show the facts. Properly, the South has nothing left to
boast of; the North has surpassed her in everything, and is going farther
and farther ahead of her every day. We ask the reader's careful attention
to the following tables, which we have prepared at no little cost of time
and trouble, and which, when duly considered in connection with the
foregoing and subsequent portions of our work, will, we believe, carry
conviction to the mind that the downward tendency of the South can be
arrested only by the abolition of slavery.
TABLE NO. I.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, |Indian Corn,
| bushels. | bushels. | bushels.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
California | 17,228 | | 12,236
Connecticut | 41,762 | 1,258,738 | 1,935,043
Illinois | 9,414,575 | 10,087,241 | 57,646,984
Indiana | 6,214,458 | 5,655,014 | 52,964,363
Iowa | 1,530,581 | 1,524,345 | 8,656,799
Maine | 296,259 | 2,181,037 | 1,750,056
Massachusetts | 31,211 | 1,165,146 | 2,345,490
Michigan | 4,925,889 | 2,866,056 | 5,641,420
New Hampshire | 185,658 | 973,381 | 1,573,670
New Jersey | 1,601,190 | 3,378,063 | 8,759,704
New York | 13,121,498 | 26,552,814 | 17,858,400
Ohio | 14,487,351 | 13,472,742 | 59,078,695
Pennsylvania | 15,367,691 | 21,538,156 | 19,835,214
Rhode Island | 49 | 215,232 | 539,201
Vermont | 535,955 | 2,307,734 | 2,032,396
Wisconsin | 4,286,131 | 3,414,672 | 1,988,979
|------------|-------------|------------
| 72,157,486 | 96,590,371 | 242,618,650
============================================================
TABLE NO. II.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, |Indian Corn,
| bushels. | bushels. | bushels.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | 294,044 | 2,965,696 | 28,754,048
Arkansas | 199,639 | 656,183 | 8,893,939
Delaware | 482,511 | 604,518 | 3,145,542
Florida | 1,027 | 66,586 | 1,996,809
Georgia | 1,088,534 | 3,820,044 | 30,080,099
Kentucky | 2,142,822 | 8,201,311 | 58,672,591
Louisiana | 417 | 89,637 | 10,266,373
Maryland | 4,494,680 | 2,242,151 | 10,749,858
Mississippi | 137,990 | 1,503,288 | 22,446,552
Missouri | 2,981,652 | 5,278,079 | 36,214,537
North Carolina | 2,130,102 | 4,052,078 | 27,941,051
South Carolina | 1,066,277 | 2,322,155 | 16,271,454
Tennessee | 1,619,386 | 7,703,086 | 52,276,223
Texas | 41,729 | 199,017 | 6,028,876
Virginia | 11,212,616 | 10,179,144 | 35,254,319
|------------|-------------|------------
| 27,904,476 | 49,882,979 | 348,992,282
TABLE NO. III.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Potatoes, (I. | Rye, | Barley,
| & S.) bush. | bushels. | bushels.
------------------|---------------|------------|------------
California | 10,292 | | 9,712
Connecticut | 2,689,805 | 600,893 | 19,099
Illinois | 2,672,294 | 83,364 | 110,795
Indiana | 2,285,048 | 78,792 | 45,483
Iowa | 282,363 | 19,916 | 25,093
Maine | 3,436,040 | 102,916 | 151,731
Massachusetts | 3,585,384 | 481,021 | 112,385
Michigan | 2,361,074 | 105,871 | 75,249
New Hampshire | 4,307,919 | 183,117 | 70,256
New Jersey | 3,715,251 | 1,255,578 | 6,492
New York | 15,403,997 | 4,148,182 | 3,585,059
Ohio | 5,245,760 | 425,918 | 354,358
Pennsylvania | 6,032,904 | 4,805,160 | 165,584
Rhode Island | 651,029 | 26,409 | 18,875
Vermont | 4,951,014 | 176,233 | 42,150
Wisconsin | 1,402,956 | 81,253 | 209,692
|---------------|------------|------------
| 59,033,170 | 12,575,623 | 5,002,013
============================================================
TABLE NO. IV.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Potatoes, (I. | Rye, | Barley,
| & S.) bush. | bushels. | bushels.
------------------|---------------|------------|------------
Alabama | 5,721,205 | 17,261 | 3,958
Arkansas | 981,981 | 8,047 | 177
Delaware | 305,985 | 8,066 | 56
Florida | 765,054 | 1,152 |
Georgia | 7,213,807 | 53,750 | 11,501
Kentucky | 2,490,666 | 415,073 | 95,343
Louisiana | 1,524,085 | 475 |
Maryland | 973,932 | 226,014 | 745
Mississippi | 5,003,277 | 9,606 | 228
Missouri | 1,274,511 | 44,268 | 9,631
North Carolina | 5,716,027 | 229,563 | 2,735
South Carolina | 4,473,960 | 43,790 | 4,583
Tennessee | 3,845,560 | 89,137 | 2,737
Texas | 1,426,803 | 3,108 | 4,776
Virginia | 3,130,567 | 458,930 | 25,437
|---------------|------------|------------
| 44,847,420 | 1,608,240 | 161,907
TABLE NO. V.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Buckwheat, | Beans & Peas, | Clover & Grass
| bushels. | bushels. | seeds bushels.
---------------|------------|---------------|---------------
California | | 2,292 |
Connecticut | 229,297 | 19,090 | 30,469
Illinois | 184,509 | 82,814 | 17,807
Indiana | 149,740 | 35,773 | 30,271
Iowa | 52,516 | 4,475 | 2,438
Maine | 104,523 | 205,541 | 18,311
Massachusetts | 105,895 | 43,709 | 6,087
Michigan | 472,917 | 74,254 | 26,274
New Hampshire | 65,265 | 70,856 | 8,900
New Jersey | 878,934 | 14,174 | 91,331
New York | 3,183,955 | 741,546 | 184,715
Ohio | 638,060 | 60,168 | 140,501
Pennsylvania | 2,193,692 | 55,231 | 178,943
Rhode Island | 1,245 | 6,846 | 5,036
Vermont | 209,819 | 104,649 | 15,696
Wisconsin | 79,878 | 20,657 | 5,486
|------------|---------------|---------------
| 8,550,245 | 1,542,295 | 762,265
============================================================
TABLE NO. VI.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Buckwheat, | Beans & Peas, | Clover & Grass
| bushels. | bushels. | seeds bushels.
---------------|------------|---------------|---------------
Alabama | 348 | 892,701 | 685
Arkansas | 175 | 285,738 | 526
Delaware | 8,615 | 4,120 | 3,928
Florida | 55 | 135,359 | 2
Georgia | 250 | 1,142,011 | 560
Kentucky | 16,097 | 202,574 | 24,711
Louisiana | 3 | 161,732 | 99
Maryland | 103,671 | 12,816 | 17,778
Mississippi | 1,121 | 1,072,757 | 617
Missouri | 23,641 | 46,017 | 4,965
North Carolina | 16,704 | 1,584,252 | 1,851
South Carolina | 283 | 1,026,900 | 406
Tennessee | 19,427 | 369,321 | 14,214
Texas | 59 | 179,351 | 10
Virginia | 214,898 | 521,579 | 53,155
|------------|---------------|---------------
| 405,357 | 7,637,227 | 123,517
TABLE NO. VII.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
--------------------------------------------------------
States. |Flaxseed,|Val. of Garden|Val. of Orchard
| bushels.| products. | prod'ts.
---------------|---------|--------------|---------------
California | | $75,275 | $17,700
Connecticut | 703 | 196,874 | 175,118
Illinois | 10,787 | 127,494 | 446,049
Indiana | 36,888 | 72,864 | 324,940
Iowa | 1,959 | 8,848 | 8,434
Maine | 580 | 122,387 | 342,865
Massachusetts | 72 | 600,020 | 463,995
Michigan | 519 | 14,738 | 132,650
New Hampshire | 189 | 56,810 | 248,560
New Jersey | 16,525 | 475,242 | 607,268
New York | 57,963 | 912,047 | 1,761,950
Ohio | 188,880 | 214,004 | 695,921
Pennsylvania | 41,728 | 688,714 | 723,389
Rhode Island | | 98,298 | 63,994
Vermont | 939 | 18,853 | 315,255
Wisconsin | 1,191 | 32,142 | 4,823
|---------|--------------|---------------
| 358,923 | $3,714,605 | $6,332,914
========================================================
TABLE NO. VIII.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
--------------------------------------------------------
States. |Flaxseed,|Val. of Garden|Val. of Orchard
| bushels.| products. | prod'ts.
---------------|---------|--------------|---------------
Alabama | 69 | $84,821 | $15,408
Arkansas | 321 | 17,150 | 40,141
Delaware | 904 | 12,714 | 46,574
Florida | | 8,721 | 1,280
Georgia | 622 | 76,500 | 92,776
Kentucky | 75,801 | 303,120 | 106,230
Louisiana | | 148,329 | 22,259
Maryland | 2,446 | 200,869 | 164,051
Mississippi | 26 | 46,250 | 50,405
Missouri | 13,696 | 99,454 | 514,711
North Carolina | 38,196 | 39,462 | 34,348
South Carolina | 55 | 47,286 | 35,108
Tennessee | 18,904 | 97,183 | 52,894
Texas | 26 | 12,354 | 12,505
Virginia | 52,318 | 183,047 | 177,137
|---------|--------------|---------------
| 203,484 | $1,377,260 | $1,355,827
RECAPITULATION--FREE STATES.
Wheat 72,157,486 bush. @ 1.50 $108,236,229
Oats 96,590,371 " " 40 38,636,148
Indian Corn 242,618,650 " " 60 145,571,190
Potatoes (I. & S.) 59,033,170 " " 38 22,432,604
Rye 12,574,623 " " 1.00 12,574,623
Barley 5,002,013 " " 90 4,501,811
Buckwheat 8,550,245 " " 50 4,275,122
Beans & Peas 1,542,295 " " 1.75 2,699,015
Clov. & Grass seeds 762,265 " " 3.00 2,286,795
Flax Seeds 358,923 " " 1.25 448,647
Garden Products 3,714,605
Orchard Products 6,332,914
----------- ------------
Total 499,190,041 bushels,
valued as above, at $351,709,703
RECAPITULATION--SLAVE STATES.
Wheat 27,904,476 bush. @ 1.50 $41,856,714
Oats 49,882,799 " " 40 19,953,191
Indian Corn 348,992,282 " " 60 209,395,369
Potatoes (I. & S.) 44,847,420 " " 38 17,042,019
Rye 1,608,240 " " 1.00 1,608,240
Barley 161,907 " " 90 145,716
Buckwheat 405,357 " " 50 202,678
Beans & Peas 7,637,227 " " 1.75 13,365,147
Clov. & Grass seeds 123,517 " " 3.00 370,551
Flax Seeds 203,484 " " 1.25 254,355
Garden Products 1,377,260
Orchard Products 1,355,827
----------- ------------
Total 481,766,889 bushels,
valued as above, at $306,927,067
TOTAL DIFFERENCE--BUSHEL-MEASURE PRODUCTS.
Bushels. Value.
Free States 499,190,041 $351,709,703
Slave States 481,766,889 306,927,067
----------- -----------
Balance in bushels 17,423,152 Difference in value $44,782,636
So much for the boasted agricultural superiority of the South! Mark well
the balance in bushels, and the difference in value! Is either in favor of
the South? No! Are both in favor of the North? Yes! Here we have
unquestionable proof that of all the bushel-measure products of the
nation, the free states produce far more than one-half; and it is worthy
of particular mention, that _the excess of Northern products is of the
most valuable kind_. The account shows a balance against the South, in
favor of the North, of _seventeen million four hundred and twenty-three
thousand one hundred and fifty-two bushels_, and a difference in value of
_forty-four million seven hundred and eighty-two thousand six hundred and
thirty-six dollars_. Please bear these facts in mind, for, in order to
show positively how the free and slave States do stand upon the great and
important subject of rural economy, we intend to take an account of all
the other products of the soil, of the live-stock upon farms, of the
animals slaughtered, and, in fact, of every item of husbandry of the two
sections; and if, in bringing our tabular exercises to a close, we find
slavery gaining upon freedom--a thing it has never yet been known to
do--we shall, as a matter of course, see that the above amount is
transferred to the credit of the side to which it of right belongs.
In making up these tables we have two objects in view; the first is to
open the eyes of the non-slaveholders of the South, to the system of
deception, that has so long been practiced upon them, and the second is to
show slaveholders themselves--we have reference only to those who are not
too perverse, or ignorant, to perceive naked truths--that free labor is
far more respectable, profitable, and productive, than slave labor. In the
South, unfortunately, no kind of labor is either free or respectable.
Every white man who is under the necessity of earning his bread, by the
sweat of his brow, or by manual labor, in any capacity, no matter how
unassuming in deportment, or exemplary in morals, is treated as if he was
a loathsome beast, and shunned with the utmost disdain. His soul may be
the very seat of honor and integrity, yet without slaves--himself a
slave--he is accounted as nobody, and would be deemed intolerably
presumptuous, if he dared to open his mouth, even so wide as to give faint
utterance to a three-lettered monosyllable, like yea or nay, in the
presence of an august knight of the whip and the lash.
There are few Southerners who will not be astonished at the disclosures of
these statistical comparisons, between the free and the slave States. That
the astonishment of the more intelligent and patriotic non-slaveholders
will be mingled with indignation, is no more than we anticipate. We
confess our own surprise, and deep chagrin, at the result of our
investigations. Until we examined into the matter, we thought and hoped
the South was really ahead of the North in _one_ particular, that of
agriculture; but our thoughts have been changed, and our hopes frustrated,
for instead of finding ourselves the possessors of a single advantage, we
behold our dear native South stripped of every laurel, and sinking deeper
and deeper in the depths of poverty and shame; while, at the same time, we
see the North, our successful rival, extracting and absorbing the few
elements of wealth yet remaining amongst us, and rising higher and higher
in the scale of fame, fortune, and invulnerable power. Thus our
disappointment gives way to a feeling of intense mortification, and our
soul involuntarily, but justly, we believe, cries out for retribution
against the treacherous, slave-driving legislators, who have so basely and
unpatriotically neglected the interests of their poor white constituents
and bargained away the rights of posterity. Notwithstanding the fact that
the white non-slaveholders of the South, are in the majority, as five to
one, they have never yet had any part or lot in framing the laws under
which they live. There is no legislation except for the benefit of
slavery, and slaveholders. As a general rule, poor white persons are
regarded with less esteem and attention than negroes, and though the
condition of the latter is wretched beyond description, vast numbers of
the former are infinitely worse off. A cunningly devised mockery of
freedom is guarantied to them, and that is all. To all intents and
purposes they are disfranchised, and outlawed, and the only privilege
extended to them, is a shallow and circumscribed participation in the
political movements that usher slaveholders into office.
We have not breathed away seven and twenty years in the South, without
becoming acquainted with the demagogical manoeuverings of the oligarchy.
Their intrigues and tricks of legerdemain are as familiar to us as
household words; in vain might the world be ransacked for a more precious
junto of flatterers and cajolers. It is amusing to ignorance, amazing to
credulity, and insulting to intelligence, to hear them in their blattering
efforts to mystify and pervert the sacred principles of liberty, and turn
the curse of slavery into a blessing. To the illiterate poor whites--made
poor and ignorant by the system of slavery--they hold out the idea that
slavery is the very bulwark of our liberties, and the foundation of
American independence! For hours at a time, day after day, will they
expatiate upon the inexpressible beauties and excellencies of this great,
_free_ and _independent_ nation; and finally, with the most extravagant
gesticulations and rhetorical flourishes, conclude their nonsensical
ravings, by attributing all the glory and prosperity of the country, from
Maine to Texas, and from Georgia to California, to the "invaluable
institutions of the South!" With what patience we could command, we have
frequently listened to the incoherent and truth-murdering declamations of
these champions of slavery, and, in the absence of a more politic method
of giving vent to our disgust and indignation, have involuntarily bit our
lips into blisters.
The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of the blacks, who are
bought and sold, and driven about like so many cattle, but they are also
the oracles and arbiters of all non-slaveholding whites, whose freedom is
merely nominal, and whose unparalleled illiteracy and degradation is
purposely and fiendishly perpetuated. How little the "poor white trash,"
the great majority of the Southern people, know of the real condition of
the country is, indeed, sadly astonishing. The truth is, they know nothing
of public measures, and little of private affairs, except what their
imperious masters, the slave-drivers, condescend to tell, and that is but
precious little, and even that little, always garbled and one-sided, is
never told except in public harangues; for the haughty cavaliers of
shackles and handcuffs will not degrade themselves by holding private
converse with those who have neither dimes nor hereditary rights in human
flesh.
Whenever it pleases, and to the extent it pleases, a slaveholder to become
communicative, poor whites may hear with fear and trembling, but not
speak. They must be as mum as dumb brutes, and stand in awe of their
august superiors, or be crushed with stern rebukes, cruel oppressions, or
downright violence. If they dare to think for themselves, their thoughts
must be forever concealed. The expression of any sentiment at all
conflicting with the gospel of slavery, dooms them at once in the
community in which they live, and then, whether willing or unwilling, they
are obliged to become heroes, martyrs, or exiles. They may thirst for
knowledge, but there is no Moses among them to smite it out of the rocks
of Horeb. The black veil, through whose almost impenetrable meshes light
seldom gleams, has long been pendent over their eyes, and there, with
fiendish jealousy, the slave-driving ruffians sedulously guard it.
Non-slaveholders are not only kept in ignorance of what is transpiring at
the North, but they are continually misinformed of what is going on even
in the South. Never were the poorer classes of a people, and those classes
so largely in the majority, and all inhabiting the same country, so basely
duped, so adroitly swindled, or so damnably outraged.
It is expected that the stupid and sequacious masses, the white victims of
slavery, will believe, and, as a general thing, they do believe, whatever
the slaveholders tell them; and thus it is that they are cajoled into the
notion that they are the freest, happiest and most intelligent people in
the world, and are taught to look with prejudice and disapprobation upon
every new principle or progressive movement. Thus it is that the South,
woefully inert and inventionless, has lagged behind the North, and is now
weltering in the cesspool of ignorance and degradation.
We have already intimated that the opinion is prevalent throughout the
South that the free States are quite sterile and unproductive, and that
they are mainly dependent on us for breadstuffs and other provisions. So
far as the cereals, fruits, garden vegetables and esculent roots are
concerned, we have, in the preceding tables, shown the utter falsity of
this opinion; and we now propose to show that it is equally erroneous in
other particulars, and very far from the truth in the general reckoning.
We can prove, and we intend to prove, from facts in our possession, that
the hay crop of the free States is worth considerably more in dollars and
cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the
fifteen slave States. This statement may strike some of our readers with
amazement, and others may, for the moment, regard it as quite incredible;
but it is true, nevertheless, and we shall soon proceed to confirm it. The
single free State of New-York produces more than _three times_ the
quantity of hay that is produced in all the slave States. Ohio produces a
larger number of tons than all the Southern and Southwestern States, and
so does Pennsylvania. Vermont, little and unpretending as she is, does
the same thing, with the exception of Virginia. Look at the facts as
presented in the tables, and let your own eyes, physical and intellectual,
confirm you in the truth.
And yet, forsooth, the slave-driving oligarchy would whip us into the
belief that agriculture is not one of the leading and lucrative pursuits
of the free States, that the soil there is an uninterrupted barren waste,
and that our Northern brethren, having the advantage in nothing except
wealth, population, inland and foreign commerce, manufactures, mechanism,
inventions, literature, the arts and sciences, and their concomitant
branches of profitable industry,--miserable objects of charity--are
dependent on us for the necessaries of life.
Next to Virginia, Maryland is the greatest Southern hay-producing State;
and yet, it is the opinion of several of the most extensive hay and grain
dealers in Baltimore, with whom we have conversed on the subject, that the
domestic crop is scarcely equal to one-third the demand, and that the
balance required for home consumption, about two-thirds, is chiefly
brought from New-York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. At this rate,
Maryland receives and consumes not less than three hundred and fifteen
thousand tons of Northern hay every year; and this, as we are informed by
the dealers above-mentioned, at an average cost to the last purchaser, by
the time it is stowed in the mow, of at least twenty-five dollars per ton;
it would thus appear that this most popular and valuable provender, one of
the staple commodities of the North, commands a market in a single slave
State, to the amount of seven million eight hundred and seventy-five
thousand dollars per annum.
In this same State of Maryland, less than one million of dollar's worth of
cotton finds a market, the whole number of bales sold here in 1850
amounting to only twenty-three thousand three hundred and twenty-five,
valued at seven hundred and forty-six thousand four hundred dollars.
Briefly, then, and in round numbers, we may state the case thus: Maryland
buys annually seven millions of dollars worth of hay from the North, and
one million of dollars worth of cotton from the South. Let slaveholders
and their fawning defenders read, ponder and compare.
The exact quantities of Northern hay, rye, and buckwheat flour, Irish
potatoes, fruits, clover and grass seeds, and other products of the soil,
received and consumed in all the slaveholding States, we have no means of
ascertaining; but for all practical purposes, we can arrive sufficiently
near to the amount by inference from the above data, and from what we see
with our eyes and hear with our ears wherever we go. Food from the North
for man or for beast, or for both, is for sale in every market in the
South. Even in the most insignificant little villages in the interior of
the slave States, where books, newspapers and other mediums of
intelligence are unknown, where the poor whites and the negroes are alike
bowed down in heathenish ignorance and barbarism, and where the news is
received but once a week, and then only in a Northern-built stage-coach,
drawn by horses in Northern harness, in charge of a driver dressed
_cap-a-pie_ in Northern habiliments, and with a Northern whip in his
hand,--the agricultural products of the North, either crude, prepared,
pickled or preserved, are ever to be found.
Mortifying as the acknowledgment of the fact is to us, it is our unbiased
opinion--an opinion which will, we believe, be endorsed by every
intelligent person who goes into a careful examination and comparison of
all the facts in the case--that the profits arising to the North from the
sale of provender and provisions to the South, are far greater than those
arising to the South from the sale of cotton, tobacco and breadstuffs to
the North. It follows, then, that the agricultural interests of the North
being not only equal but actually superior to those of the South, the
hundreds of millions of dollars which the commerce and manufactures of the
former annually yield, is just so much clear and independent gain over the
latter. It follows, also, from a corresponding train or system of
deduction, and with all the foregoing facts in view, that the difference
between freedom and slavery is simply the difference between sense and
nonsense, wisdom and folly, good and evil, right and wrong.
Any observant American, from whatever point of the compass he may hail,
who will take the trouble to pass through the Southern markets, both great
and small, as we have done, and inquire where this article, that and the
other came from, will be utterly astonished at the variety and quantity of
Northern agricultural productions kept for sale. And this state of things
is growing worse and worse every year. Exclusively agricultural as the
South is in her industrial pursuits, she is barely able to support her
sparse and degenerate population. Her men and her domestic animals, both
dwarfed into shabby objects of commiseration under the blighting effects
of slavery, are constantly feeding on the multifarious products of
Northern soil. And if the whole truth must be told, we may here add, that
these products, like all other articles of merchandize purchased at the
North, are generally bought on a credit, and, in a great number of
instances, by far too many, never paid for--not, as a general rule,
because the purchasers are dishonest or unwilling to pay, but because they
are impoverished and depressed by the retrogressive and deadening
operations of slavery, that most unprofitable and pernicious institution
under which they live.
To show how well we are sustained in our remarks upon hay and other
special products of the soil, as well as to give circulation to other
facts of equal significance, we quote a single passage from an address by
Paul C. Cameron, before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, North
Carolina. This production is, in the main, so powerfully conceived, so
correct and plausible in its statements and conclusions, and so well
calculated, though, perhaps, not intended, to arouse the old North State
to a sense of her natural greatness and acquired shame, that we could wish
to see it published in pamphlet form, and circulated throughout the length
and breadth of that unfortunate and degraded heritage of slavery. Mr.
Cameron says:
"I know not when I have been more humiliated, as a North Carolina farmer,
than when, a few weeks ago, at a railroad depot at the very doors of our
State capital, I saw wagons drawn by Kentucky mules, loading with
Northern hay, for the supply not only of the town, but to be taken to the
country. Such a sight at the capital of a State whose population is almost
exclusively devoted to agriculture, is a most humiliating exhibition. Let
us cease to use every thing, as far as it is practicable, that is not the
product of our own soil and workshops--not an axe, or a broom, or bucket,
from Connecticut. By every consideration of self-preservation, we are
called to make better efforts to expel the Northern grocer from the State
with his butter, and the Ohio and Kentucky horse, mule and hog driver,
from our county at least. It is a reproach on us as farmers, and no little
deduction from our wealth, that we suffer the population of our towns and
villages to supply themselves with butter from another Orange County in
New-York."
We have promised to prove that the hay crop of the free states is worth
considerably more than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp
produced in the fifteen slave States. The compilers of the last census, as
we learn from Prof. De Bow, the able and courteous superintendent, in
making up the hay-tables, allowed two thousand two hundred and forty
pounds to the ton. The price per ton at which we should estimate its value
has puzzled us to some extent. Dealers in the article in Baltimore think
it will average twenty-five dollars, in their market. Four or five months
ago they sold it at thirty dollars per ton. At the very time we write,
though there is less activity in the article than usual, we learn, from an
examination of sundry prices-current and commercial journals, that hay is
selling in Savannah at $33 per ton; in Mobile and New Orleans at $26; in
Charleston at $25; in Louisville at $24; and in Cincinnati at $23. The
average of these prices is _twenty-six dollars sixteen and two-third
cents_; and we suppose it would be fair to employ the figures which would
indicate this amount, the net value of a single ton, in calculating the
total market value of the entire crop. Were we to do this--and, with the
foregoing facts in view, we submit to intelligent men whether we would not
be justifiable in doing it,--the hay crop of the free states, 12,690,982
tons, in 1850, would amount in valuation to the enormous sum of
$331,081,695--more than four times the value of all the cotton produced in
the United States during the same period!
But we shall not make the calculation at what we have found to be the
average value per ton throughout the country. What rate, then, shall be
agreed upon as a basis of comparison between the value of the hay crop of
the North and that of the South, and as a means of testing the truth of
our declaration--that the former exceeds the aggregate value of all the
cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen slave States?
Suppose we take $13,08-1/3--just half the average value--as the multiplier
in this arithmetical exercise. This we can well afford to do; indeed, we
might reduce the amount per ton to much less than half the average value,
and still have a large margin left for triumphant demonstration. It is not
our purpose, however, to make an overwhelming display of the incomparable
greatness of the free States.
In estimating the value of the various agricultural products of the two
great sections of the country, we have been guided by prices emanating
from the Bureau of Agriculture in Washington; and in a catalogue of those
prices now before us, we perceive that the average value of hay throughout
the nation is supposed to be not more than half a cent per pound--$11.20
per ton--which, as we have seen above, is considerably less than half the
present market value;--and this, too, in the face of the fact that prices
generally rule higher than they do just now. It will be admitted on all
sides, however, that the prices fixed upon by the Bureau of Agriculture,
taken as a whole, are as fair for one section of the country as for the
other, and that we cannot blamelessly deviate from them in one particular
without deviating from them in another. Eleven dollars and twenty cents
($11.20) per ton shall therefore be the price; and, notwithstanding these
greatly reduced figures, we now renew, with an addendum, our declaration
and promise, that--_We can prove, and we shall now proceed to prove, that
the annual hay crop of the free States is worth considerably more in
dollars and cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, hemp and cane
sugar annually produced in the fifteen slave States_.
HAY CROP OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
12,690,982 tons _a_ 11,20 $142,138,998
SUNDRY PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
Cotton 2,445,779 bales _a_ 32,00 $78,264,928
Tobacco 185,023,906 lbs. " 10 18,502,390
Rice (rough) 215,313,497 lbs. " 4 8,612,539
Hay 1,137,784 tons " 11,20 12,743,180
Hemp 34,673 tons " 112,00 3,883,376
Cane Sugar 237,133,000 lbs. " 7 16,599,310
------------
$138,605,723
RECAPITULATION.
Hay crop of the free States $142,138,998
Sundry products of the slave States 138,605,723
------------
Balance in favor of the free States $3,533,275
There is the account; look at it, and let it stand in attestation of the
exalted virtues and surpassing powers of freedom. Scan it well, Messieurs
lords of the lash, and learn from it new lessons of the utter
inefficiency, and despicable imbecility of slavery. Examine it minutely,
liberty-loving patriots of the North, and behold in it additional
evidences of the beauty, grandeur, and super-excellence of free
institutions. Treasure it up in your minds, outraged friends and
non-slaveholders of the South, and let the recollection of it arouse you
to an inflexible determination to extirpate the monstrous enemy that
stalks abroad in your land, and to recover the inalienable rights and
liberties, which have been filched from you by an unprincipled oligarchy.
In deference to truth, decency and good sense, it is to be hoped that
negro-driving politicians will never more have the effrontery to open
their mouths in extolling the agricultural achievements of slave labor.
Especially is it desirable, that, as a simple act of justice to a basely
deceived populace, they may cease their stale and senseless harangues on
the importance of cotton. The value of cotton to the South, to the North,
to the nation, and to the world, has been so grossly exaggerated, and so
extensive have been the evils which have resulted in consequence of the
extraordinary misrepresentations concerning it, that we should feel
constrained to reproach ourself for remissness of duty, if we failed to
make an attempt to explode the popular error. The figures above show what
it is, and what it is not. Recur to them, and learn the facts.
So hyperbolically has the importance of cotton been magnified by certain
pro-slavery politicians of the South, that the person who would give
credence to all their fustian and bombast, would be under the necessity of
believing that the very existence of almost everything, in the heaven
above, in the earth beneath, and in the water under the earth, depended on
it. The truth is, however, that the cotton crop is of but little value to
the South. New England and Old England, by their superior enterprise and
sagacity, turn it chiefly to their own advantage. It is carried in their
ships, spun in their factories, woven in their looms, insured in their
offices, returned again in their own vessels, and, with double freight and
cost of manufacturing added, purchased by the South at a high premium. Of
all the parties engaged or interested in its transportation and
manufacture, the South is the only one that does not make a profit. Nor
does she, as a general thing, make a profit by producing it.
We are credibly informed that many of the farmers in the immediate
vicinity of Baltimore, where we now write, have turned their attention
exclusively to hay, and that from one acre they frequently gather two
tons, for which they receive fifty dollars. Let us now inquire how many
dollars may be expected from an acre planted in cotton. Mr. Cameron, from
whose able address before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, North
Carolina, we have already gleaned some interesting particulars, informs
us, that the cotton planters in his part of the country, "have contented
themselves with a crop yielding only _ten or twelve dollars per acre_,"
and that "the summing up of a large surface gives but a living result." An
intelligent resident of the Palmetto State, writing in De Bow's Review,
not long since, advances the opinion that the cotton planters of South
Carolina are not realizing more than one per cent. on the amount of
capital they have invested. While in Virginia, very recently, an elderly
slaveholder, whose religious walk and conversation had recommended and
promoted him to an eldership in the Presbyterian church, and who supports
himself and family by raising niggers and tobacco, told us that, for the
last eight or ten years, aside from the increase of his human chattels, he
felt quite confident he had not cleared as much even as one per cent. per
annum on the amount of his investment. The real and personal property of
this aged _Christian_ consists chiefly in a large tract of land and about
thirty negroes, most of whom, according to his own confession, are more
expensive than profitable. The proceeds arising from the sale of the
tobacco they produce, are all absorbed in the purchase of meat and bread
for home consumption, and when the crop is stunted by drought, frost, or
otherwise cut short, one of the negroes must be sold to raise funds for
the support of the others. Such are the agricultural achievements of slave
labor; such are the results of "the sum of all villainies." The diabolical
institution subsists on its own flesh. At one time children are sold to
procure food for the parents, at another, parents are sold to procure food
for the children. Within its pestilential atmosphere, nothing succeeds;
progress and prosperity are unknown; inanition and slothfulness ensue;
everything becomes dull, dismal and unprofitable; wretchedness and
desolation run riot throughout the land; an aspect of most melancholy
inactivity and dilapidation broods over every city and town; ignorance and
prejudice sit enthroned over the minds of the people; usurping despots
wield the sceptre of power; everywhere, and in everything, between
Delaware Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, are the multitudinous evils of
slavery apparent.
The soil itself soon sickens and dies beneath the unnatural tread of the
slave. Hear what the Hon. C. C. Clay, of Alabama, has to say upon the
subject. His testimony is eminently suggestive, well-timed, and truthful;
and we heartily commend it to the careful consideration of every spirited
Southron who loves his country, and desires to see it rescued from the
fatal grasp of "the mother of harlots." Says he:
"I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama, and in my
native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting
culture of cotton. Our small planters, after taking the cream off their
lands, unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are going
further West and South, in search of other virgin lands, which they may
and will despoil and impoverish in like manner. Our wealthier planters,
with greater means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer
neighbors, extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force.
The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give
their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many who are
merely independent. Of the $20,000,000 annually realized from the sales of
the cotton crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting the
producers, is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus the white population
has decreased and the slave increased almost _pari passu_ in several
counties of our State. In 1825, Madison county cast about 3,000 votes;
now, she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing that county, one will
discover numerous farm-houses, once the abode of industrious and
intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted and
dilapidated; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced,
abandoned, and covered with those evil harbingers, fox-tail and
broomsedge; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering walls of once
thrifty villages, and will find 'one only master grasps the whole domain,'
that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a
country in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree had
been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful
signs of senility and decay, apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas."
Some one has said that "an honest confession is good for the soul," and if
the adage be true, as we have no doubt it is, we think Mr. C. C. Clay is
entitled to a quiet conscience on one score at least. In the extract
quoted above, he gives us a graphic description of the ruinous operations
and influences of slavery in the Southwest; and we, as a native of
Carolina, and a traveler through Virginia, are ready to bear testimony to
the fitness of his remarks when he referred to those States as examples of
senility and decay. With equal propriety, however, he might have stopped
nearer home for a subject of comparison. Either of the States bordering
upon Alabama, or, indeed, any other slave States, would have answered his
purpose quite as well as Virginia and the Carolinas. Wherever slavery
exists there he may find parallels to the destruction that is sweeping
with such deadly influence over his own unfortunate State.
As for examples of vigorous, industrious and thrifty communities, they can
be found anywhere beyond the Upas-shadow of slavery--nowhere else.
New-York and Massachusetts, which, by nature, are confessedly far inferior
to Virginia and the Carolinas, have, by the more liberal and equitable
policy which they have pursued, in substituting liberty for slavery,
attained a degree of eminence and prosperity altogether unknown in the
slave States.
Amidst all the hyperbole and cajolery of slave-driving politicians, who,
as we have already seen, are 'the books, the arts, the academies, that
show, contain, and govern all the South,' we are rejoiced to see that Mr.
Clay, Mr. Cameron, and a few others, have had the boldness and honesty to
step forward and proclaim the truth. All such frank admissions are to be
hailed as good omens for the South. Nothing good can come from any attempt
to conceal the unconcealable evidences of poverty and desolation
everywhere trailing in the wake of slavery. Let the truth be told on all
occasions, of the North as well as of the South, and the people will soon
begin to discover the egregiousness of their errors, to draw just
comparisons, to inquire into cause and effect, and to adopt the more utile
measures, manners and customs of their wiser cotemporaries.
In wilfully traducing and decrying everything North of Mason and Dixon's
line, and in excessively magnifying the importance of everything South of
it, the oligarchy have, in the eyes of all liberal and intelligent men,
only made an exhibition of their uncommon folly and dishonesty. For a long
time, it is true, they have succeeded in deceiving the people, in keeping
them humbled in the murky sloughs of poverty and ignorance, and in
instilling into their untutored minds passions and prejudices expressly
calculated to strengthen and protect the accursed institution of slavery;
but, thanks to heaven, their inglorious reign is fast drawing to a close;
with irresistible brilliancy, and in spite of the interdict of tyrants,
light from the pure fountain of knowledge is now streaming over the dark
places of our land, and, ere long--mark our words--there will ascend from
Delaware, and from Texas, and from all the intermediate States, a huzza
for Freedom and for Equal Rights, that will utterly confound the friends
of despotism, set at defiance the authority of usurpers, and carry
consternation to the heart of every slavery-propagandist.
To undeceive the people of the South, to bring them to a knowledge of the
inferior and disreputable position which they occupy as a component part
of the Union, and to give prominence and popularity to those plans which,
if adopted, will elevate us to an equality, socially, morally,
intellectually, industrially, politically, and financially, with the most
flourishing and refined nation in the world, and, if possible, to place us
in the van of even that, is the object of this work. Slaveholders, either
from ignorance or from a wilful disposition to propagate error, contend
that the South has nothing to be ashamed of, that slavery has proved a
blessing to her, and that her superiority over the North in an
agricultural point of view makes amends for all her shortcomings in other
respects. On the other hand, we contend that many years of continual
blushing and severe penance would not suffice to cancel or annul the shame
and disgrace that justly attaches to the South in consequence of
slavery--the direst evil that e'er befell the land--that the South bears
nothing like even a respectable approximation to the North in navigation,
commerce, or manufactures, and that, contrary to the opinion entertained
by ninety-nine hundredths of her people, she is far behind the free States
in the only thing of which she has ever dared to boast--agriculture. We
submit the question to the arbitration of figures, which, it is said, do
not lie. With regard to the bushel-measure products of the soil, of which
we have already taken an inventory, we have seen that there is a balance
against the South in favor of the North of _seventeen million four hundred
and twenty-three thousand one hundred and fifty-two bushels_, and a
difference in the value of the same, also in favor of the North, of
_forty-four million seven hundred and eighty-two thousand six hundred and
thirty-six dollars_. It is certainly a most novel kind of agricultural
superiority that the South claims on that score!
Our attention shall now be directed to the twelve principal pound-measure
products of the free and of the slave States--hay, cotton, butter and
cheese, tobacco, cane, sugar, wool, rice, hemp, maple sugar, beeswax and
honey, flax, and hops--and in taking an account of them, we shall, in
order to show the exact quantity produced in each State, and for the
convenience of future reference, pursue the same plan as that adopted in
the preceding tables. Whether slavery will appear to better advantage on
the scales than it did in the half-bushel, remains to be seen. It is
possible that the rickety monster may make a better show on a new track;
if it makes a more ridiculous display, we shall not be surprised. A
careful examination of its precedents, has taught us the folly of
expecting anything good to issue from it in any manner whatever. It has no
disposition to emulate the magnanimity of its betters, and as for a
laudable ambition to excel, that is a characteristic altogether foreign to
its nature. Languor and inertia are the insalutary viands upon which it
delights to satiate its morbid appetite; and "from bad to worse" is the
ill-omened motto under which, in all its feeble efforts and achievements,
it ekes out a most miserable and deleterious existence.
TABLE NO. IX.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Hay, tons | Hemp, tons | Hops, lbs
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
California | 2,038 | |
Connecticut | 516,131 | | 554
Illinois | 601,952 | | 3,551
Indiana | 403,230 | | 92,796
Iowa | 89,055 | | 8,242
Maine | 755,889 | | 40,120
Massachusetts | 651,807 | | 121,595
Michigan | 404,934 | | 10,663
New Hampshire | 598,854 | | 257,174
New Jersey | 435,950 | | 2,133
New York | 3,728,797 | 4 | 2,536,299
Ohio | 1,443,142 | 150 | 63,731
Pennsylvania | 1,842,970 | 44 | 22,088
Rhode Island | 74,418 | | 277
Vermont | 866,153 | | 288,023
Wisconsin | 275,662 | | 15,930
|------------|-------------|------------
| 12,690,982 | 198 | 3,463,176
============================================================
TABLE NO. X.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Hay, tons | Hemp, tons | Hops, lbs
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | 32,685 | | 276
Arkansas | 3,976 | 15 | 157
Delaware | 30,159 | | 348
Florida | 2,510 | | 14
Georgia | 23,449 | | 261
Kentucky | 113,747 | 17,787 | 4,309
Louisiana | 25,752 | | 125
Maryland | 157,956 | 63 | 1,870
Mississippi | 12,504 | 7 | 473
Missouri | 116,925 | 16,028 | 4,130
North Carolina | 145,653 | 39 | 9,246
South Carolina | 20,925 | | 26
Tennessee | 74,091 | 595 | 1,032
Texas | 8,354 | | 7
Virginia | 369,098 | 139 | 11,506
|------------|-------------|------------
| 1,137,784 | 34,673 | 33,780
TABLE NO. XI.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Flax, | Maple Sugar | Tobacco
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
California | | | 1,000
Connecticut | 17,928 | 50,796 | 1,267,624
Illinois | 160,063 | 248,904 | 841,394
Indiana | 584,469 | 2,921,192 | 1,044,620
Iowa | 62,660 | 78,407 | 6,041
Maine | 17,081 | 93,542 |
Massachusetts | 1,162 | 795,525 | 138,246
Michigan | 7,152 | 2,439,794 | 1,245
New Hampshire | 7,652 | 1,298,863 | 50
New Jersey | 182,965 | 2,197 | 310
New York | 940,577 | 10,357,484 | 83,189
Ohio | 446,932 | 4,588,209 | 10,454,449
Pennsylvania | 530,307 | 2,326,525 | 912,651
Rhode Island | 85 | 28 |
Vermont | 20,852 | 6,349,357 |
Wisconsin | 68,393 | 610,976 | 1,268
|------------|-------------|------------
| 3,048,278 | 32,161,799 | 14,752,087
============================================================
TABLE NO. XII.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Flax, | Maple Sugar | Tobacco
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | 3,921 | 643 | 164,990
Arkansas | 12,291 | 9,330 | 218,936
Delaware | 17,174 | |
Florida | 50 | | 998,614
Georgia | 5,387 | 50 | 423,924
Kentucky | 2,100,116 | 437,405 | 55,501,196
Louisiana | | 255 | 26,878
Maryland | 35,686 | 47,740 | 21,407,497
Mississippi | 665 | | 49,960
Missouri | 627,160 | 178,910 | 17,113,784
North Carolina | 593,796 | 27,932 | 11,984,786
South Carolina | 333 | 200 | 74,285
Tennessee | 368,131 | 158,557 | 20,148,932
Texas | 1,048 | | 66,897
Virginia | 1,000,450 | 1,227,665 | 56,803,227
|------------|-------------|------------
| 4,766,198 | 2,088,687 | 185,023,906
TABLE NO. XIII.
ANIMAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
-----------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wool, | Butter and | Beeswax and
| lbs. | Cheese, lbs. | Honey, lbs.
-----------------|------------|--------------|-------------
California | 5,520 | 855 |
Connecticut | 497,454 | 11,861,396 | 93,304
Illinois | 2,150,113 | 13,804,768 | 869,444
Indiana | 2,610,287 | 13,506,099 | 935,329
Iowa | 373,898 | 2,381,028 | 321,711
Maine | 1,864,034 | 11,678,265 | 189,618
Massachusetts | 585,136 | 15,159,512 | 59,508
Michigan | 2,043,283 | 8,077,390 | 359,232
New Hampshire | 1,108,476 | 10,173,619 | 117,140
New Jersey | 375,396 | 9,852,966 | 156,694
New York | 10,071,301 | 129,507,507 | 1,755,830
Ohio | 10,196,371 | 55,268,921 | 804,275
Pennsylvania | 4,481,570 | 42,383,452 | 839,509
Rhode Island | 129,692 | 1,312,178 | 6,347
Vermont | 3,400,717 | 20,858,814 | 249,422
Wisconsin | 253,963 | 4,034,033 | 131,005
|------------|--------------|-------------
| 39,647,211 | 349,860,783 | 6,888,368
===========================================================
TABLE NO. XIV.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
--------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wool, | Butter and | Beeswax and
| lbs. | Cheese, lbs. | Honey, lbs.
--------------------|------------|--------------|-------------
Alabama | 657,118 | 4,040,223 | 897,021
Arkansas | 182,595 | 1,884,327 | 192,338
Delaware | 57,768 | 1,058,495 | 41,248
Florida | 23,247 | 389,513 | 18,971
Georgia | 990,019 | 4,687,535 | 732,514
Kentucky | 2,297,433 | 10,161,477 | 1,158,019
Louisiana | 109,897 | 685,026 | 96,701
Maryland | 477,438 | 3,810,135 | 74,802
Mississippi | 559,619 | 4,367,425 | 397,460
Missouri | 1,627,164 | 8,037,931 | 1,328,972
North Carolina | 970,738 | 4,242,211 | 512,289
South Carolina | 487,233 | 2,986,820 | 216,281
Tennessee | 1,364,378 | 8,317,266 | 1,036,572
Texas | 131,917 | 2,440,199 | 380,825
Virginia | 2,869,765 | 11,525,651 | 880,767
|------------|--------------|-------------
| 12,797,329 | 68,634,224 | 7,964,760
TABLE NO. XV.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
---------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Cotton, bales | Cane Sugar, | Rough Rice,
| of 400 lbs. | hhds. 1000lbs. | lbs.
-----------------|---------------|----------------|------------
Alabama | 564,429 | 87 | 2,312,252
Arkansas | 65,344 | | 63,179
Delaware | | |
Florida | 45,131 | 2,750 | 1,075,090
Georgia | 499,091 | 846 | 38,950,691
Kentucky | 758 | 10 | 5,688
Louisiana | 178,737 | 226,001 | 4,425,349
Maryland | | |
Mississippi | 484,292 | 8 | 2,719,856
Missouri | | | 700
North Carolina | 50,545 | | 5,465,868
South Carolina | 300,901 | 77 | 159,930,613
Tennessee | 194,532 | 3 | 258,854
Texas | 58,072 | 7,351 | 88,203
Virginia | 3,947 | | 17,154
|---------------|----------------|-------------
| 2,445,779 | 237,133 | 215,313,497
================================================================
RECAPITULATION--FREE STATES.
Hay 28,427,799,680 lbs @ 1/2 _c._ $142,138,998
Hemp 443,520 " " 5 " 22,176
Hops 3,463,176 " " 15 " 519,476
Flax 3,048,278 " " 10 " 304,827
Maple Sugar 32,161,799 " " 8 " 2,572,943
Tobacco 14,752,087 " " 10 " 1,475,208
Wool 39,647,211 " " 35 " 13,876,523
Butter and Cheese 349,860,783 " " 15 " 52,479,117
Beeswax and Honey 6,888,368 " " 15 " 1,033,255
-------------- ------------
Total 28,878,064,902 lbs., valued as above, $214,422,523
RECAPITULATION--SLAVE STATES.
Hay 2,548,636,160 lbs. @ 1/2 _c._ $12,743,180
Hemp 77,667,520 " " 5 " 3,883,376
Hops 33,780 " " 15 " 5,067
Flax 4,766,198 " " 10 " 476,619
Maple Sugar 2,088,687 " " 8 " 167,094
Tobacco 185,023,906 " " 10 " 18,502,390
Wool 12,797,329 " " 35 " 4,479,065
Butter and Cheese 68,634,224 " " 15 " 10,295,133
Beeswax and Honey 7,964,760 " " 15 " 1,194,714
Cotton 978,311,600 " " 8 " 78,264,928
Cane Sugar 237,133,000 " " 7 " 16,599,310
Rice (rough) 215,313,497 " " 4 " 8,612,539
------------- ------------
Total 4,338,370,661 lbs. valued as above, at $155,223,415
TOTAL DIFFERENCE--POUND-MEASURE PRODUCTS.
_Pounds._ _Value._
Free States 28,878,064,902 $214,422,523
Slave States 4,338,370,661 155,223,415
-------------- ------------
Balance in pounds, 24,539,694,241 Difference in value, $59,199,108
Both quantity and value again in favor of the North! Behold also the
enormousness of the difference! In this comparison with the South, neither
hundreds, thousands, nor millions, according to the regular method of
computation, are sufficient to exhibit the excess of the pound-measure
products of the North. Recourse must be had to an almost inconceivable
number; billions must be called into play; and there are the figures
telling us, with unmistakable emphasis and distinctness, that, in this
department of agriculture, as in every other, the North is vastly the
superior of the South--the figures showing a total balance in favor of the
former of _twenty-four billion five hundred and thirty-nine million six
hundred and ninety-four thousand two hundred and forty-one pounds_, valued
at _fifty-nine million one hundred and ninety-nine thousand one hundred
and eight dollars_. And yet, the North is a poor, God-forsaken country,
bleak, inhospitable, and unproductive!
What next? Is it necessary to adduce other facts in order to prove that
the rural wealth of the free States is far greater than that of the slave
States? Shall we make a further demonstration of the fertility of northern
soil, or bring forward new evidences of the inefficient and desolating
system of terra-culture in the South? Will nothing less than
"confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ," suffice to convince the
South that she is standing in her own light, and ruining both body and
soul by the retention of slavery? Whatever duty and expedience require to
be done, we are willing to do. Additional proofs are at hand. Slaveholders
and slave-breeders shall be convinced, confuted, convicted, and converted.
They shall, in their hearts and consciences, if not with their tongues and
pens, bear testimony to the triumphant achievements of free labor. In the
two tables which immediately follow these remarks, they shall see how much
more vigorous and fruitful the soil is when under the prudent management
of free white husbandmen, than it is when under the rude and
nature-murdering tillage of enslaved negroes; and in two subsequent tables
they shall find that the live stock, slaughtered animals, farms, and
farming implements and machinery, in the free States, are worth at least
_one thousand million of dollars_ more than the market value of the same
in the slave States! In the face, however, of all these most significant
and incontrovertible facts, the oligarchy have the unparalleled audacity
to tell us that the South is the greatest agricultural country in the
world, and that the North is a dreary waste, unfit for cultivation, and
quite dependent on us for the necessaries of life. How preposterously
false all such babble is, the following tables will show:--
TABLE NO. XVI.
ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, | Rye, |Ind. Corn,|Irish Potatoes,
|bushels.|bushels.|bushels.| bushels. | bush.
---------------|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
Connecticut | | 21 | | 40 | 85
Illinois | 11 | 29 | 14 | 33 | 115
Indiana | 12 | 20 | 18 | 33 | 100
Iowa | 14 | 36 | | 32 | 100
Maine | 10 | | | 27 | 120
Massachusetts | 16 | 26 | 13 | 31 | 170
Michigan | 10 | 26 | | 32 | 140
New Hampshire | 11 | 30 | | 30 | 220
New Jersey | 11 | 26 | | 33 |
New York | 12 | 25 | 17 | 27 | 100
Ohio | 12 | 21 | 25 | 36 |
Pennsylvania | 15 | | | 20 | 75
Rhode Island | | 30 | | | 100
Vermont | 13 | | 20 | 32 | 178
Wisconsin | 14 | 35 | | 30 |
|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
| 161 | 325 | 107 | 436 | 1,503
=====================================================================
TABLE NO. XVII.
ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, | Rye, |Ind. Corn,|Irish Potatoes,
|bushels.|bushels.|bushels.| bushels. | bush.
---------------|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
Alabama | 5 | 12 | | 15 | 60
Arkansas | | 18 | | 22 |
Delaware | 11 | 20 | | 20 |
Florida | 15 | | | | 175
Georgia | 5 | 18 | 7 | 16 | 125
Kentucky | 8 | 18 | 11 | 24 | 130
Louisiana | | | | 16 |
Maryland | 13 | 21 | 18 | 23 | 75
Mississippi | 9 | 12 | | 18 | 105
Missouri | 11 | 26 | | 34 | 110
North Carolina | 7 | 10 | 15 | 17 | 65
South Carolina | 8 | 12 | | 11 | 70
Tennessee | 7 | 19 | 7 | 21 | 120
Texas | 15 | | | 20 | 250
Virginia | 7 | 13 | 5 | 18 | 75
|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
| 121 | 199 | 63 | 275 | 1,360
RECAPITULATION OF ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE--1850.
FREE STATES.
Wheat 12 bushels per acre.
Oats 27 " "
Rye 18 " "
Indian Corn 31 " "
Irish Potatoes 125 " "
SLAVE STATES.
Wheat 9 bushels per acre.
Oats 17 " "
Rye 11 " "
Indian Corn 20 " "
Irish Potatoes 113 " "
What an obvious contrast between the vigor of Liberty and the impotence of
Slavery! What an unanswerable argument in favor of free labor! Add up the
two columns of figures above, and what is the result? Two hundred and
thirteen bushels as the products of five acres in the North, and only one
hundred and seventy bushels as the products of five acres in the South.
Look at each item separately, and you will find that the average crop per
acre of every article enumerated is greater in the free States than it is
in the slave States. Examine the table at large, and you will perceive
that while Massachusetts produces sixteen bushels of wheat to the acre,
Virginia produces only seven; that Pennsylvania produces fifteen and
Georgia only five: that while Iowa produces thirty-six bushels of oats to
the acre, Mississippi produces only twelve; that Rhode Island produces
thirty, and North Carolina only ten: that while Ohio produces twenty-five
bushels of rye to the acre, Kentucky produces only eleven; that Vermont
produces twenty, and Tennessee only seven: that while Connecticut produces
forty bushels of Indian corn to the acre, Texas produces only twenty; that
New Jersey produces thirty-three, and South Carolina only eleven: that
while New Hampshire produces two hundred and twenty bushels of Irish
potatoes to the acre, Maryland produces only seventy-five; that Michigan
produces one hundred and forty, and Alabama only sixty. Now for other
beauties of slavery in another table.
TABLE NO. XVIII.
VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Value of | Val. of Animals | Cash Val. of Farms,
| Live Stock. | Slaughtered. | Farm. Imp. & Mac.
---------------|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
California | $3,351,058 | $107,173 | $3,977,524
Connecticut | 7,467,490 | 2,202,266 | 74,618,963
Illinois | 24,209,258 | 4,972,286 | 102,538,851
Indiana | 22,478,555 | 6,567,935 | 143,089,617
Iowa | 3,689,275 | 821,164 | 17,830,436
Maine | 9,705,726 | 1,646,773 | 57,146,305
Massachusetts | 9,647,710 | 2,500,924 | 112,285,931
Michigan | 8,008,734 | 1,328,327 | 54,763,817
New Hampshire | 8,871,901 | 1,522,873 | 57,560,122
New Jersey | 10,679,291 | 2,638,552 | 124,663,014
New York | 73,570,499 | 13,573,883 | 576,631,568
Ohio | 44,121,741 | 7,439,243 | 371,509,188
Pennsylvania | 41,500,053 | 8,219,848 | 422,598,640
Rhode Island | 1,532,637 | 667,486 | 17,568,003
Vermont | 12,643,228 | 1,861,336 | 66,106,509
Wisconsin | 4,897,385 | 920,178 | 30,170,131
|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
| $286,376,541 | $56,990,237 | $2,233,058,619
======================================================================
TABLE NO. XIX.
VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Value of | Val. of Animals | Cash Val. of Farms,
| Live Stock. | Slaughtered. | Farm. Imp. & Mac.
---------------|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
Alabama | $21,690,112 | $4,823,485 | $69,448,887
Arkansas | 6,647,969 | 1,163,313 | 16,866,541
Delaware | 1,849,281 | 373,665 | 19,390,310
Florida | 2,880,058 | 514,685 | 6,981,904
Georgia | 25,728,416 | 6,339,762 | 101,647,595
Kentucky | 29,661,436 | 6,462,598 | 160,190,299
Louisiana | 11,152,275 | 1,458,990 | 87,391,336
Maryland | 7,997,634 | 1,954,800 | 89,641,988
Mississippi | 19,403,662 | 3,636,582 | 60,501,561
Missouri | 19,887,580 | 3,367,106 | 67,207,068
North Carolina | 17,717,647 | 5,767,866 | 71,823,298
South Carolina | 15,060,015 | 3,502,637 | 86,568,038
Tennessee | 29,978,016 | 6,401,765 | 103,211,422
Texas | 10,412,927 | 1,116,137 | 18,701,712
Virginia | 33,656,659 | 7,502,986 | 223,423,315
|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
| $253,723,687 | $54,388,377 | $1,183,995,274
RECAPITULATION--FREE STATES.
Value of live Stock $286,376,541
Value of Animals slaughtered 56,990,237
Value of Farms, Farming-Implements and Machinery 2,233,058,619
--------------
$2,576,425,397
RECAPITULATION--SLATE STATES.
Value of Live Stock $253,723,687
Value of Animals slaughtered 54,388,377
Value of Farms, Farming Implements and Machinery 1,183,995,274
--------------
$1,492,107,338
DIFFERENCE IN VALUE--FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
Free States $2,576,425,397
Slave States 1,492,107,338
--------------
Balance in favor of the Free States $1,084,318,059
By adding to this last balance in favor of the free States the differences
in value which we found in their favor in our account of the
bushel-and-pound-measure products, we shall have a very correct idea of
the extent to which the undivided agricultural interests of the free
States preponderate over those of the slave States. Let us add the
differences together, and see what will be the result.
BALANCES--ALL IN FAVOR OF THE NORTH.
Difference in the value of bushel-measure products $44,782,636
Difference in the value of pound-measure products 59,199,108
Difference in the value of farms and domestic animals 1,084,318,059
--------------
Total $1,188,299,803
No figures of rhetoric can add emphasis or significance to these figures
of arithmetic. They demonstrate conclusively the great moral triumph of
Liberty over Slavery. They show unequivocally, in spite of all the blarney
and boasting of slave-driving politicians, that the entire value of all
the agricultural interests of the free States is very nearly twice as
great as the entire value of all the agricultural interests of the slave
States--the value of those interests in the former being twenty-five
hundred million of dollars, that of those in the latter only fourteen
hundred million, leaving a balance in favor of the free States of _one
billion one hundred and eighty-eight million two hundred and ninety-nine
thousand eight hundred and three dollars_! That is what we call a full,
fair and complete vindication of Free Labor. Would we not be correct in
calling it a total eclipse of the Black Orb? Can it be possible that the
slavocracy will ever have the hardihood to open their mouths again on the
subject of terra-culture in the South? Dare they ever think of cotton
again? Ought they not, as a befitting confession of their crimes and
misdemeanors, and as a reasonable expiation for the countless evils which
they have inflicted on society, to clothe themselves in sackcloth, and,
after a suitable season of contrition and severe penance, follow the
example of one Judas Iscariot, and go and hang themselves?
It will be observed that we have omitted the Territories and the District
of Columbia in all the preceding tables. We did this purposely. Our object
was to draw an equitable comparison between the value of free and slave
labor in the thirty-one sovereign States, where the two systems,
comparatively unaffected by the wrangling of politicians, and, as a matter
of course, free from the interference of the general government, have had
the fullest opportunities to exert their influence, to exhibit their
virtues, and to commend themselves to the sober judgments of enlightened
and discriminating minds. Had we counted the Territories on the side of
the North, and the District of Columbia on the side of the South, the
result would have been still greater in behalf of free labor. Though "the
sum of all villanies" has but a mere nominal existence in Delaware and
Maryland, we have invariably counted those States on the side of the
South; and the consequence is, that, in many particulars, the hopeless
fortunes of slavery have been propped up and sustained by an imposing
array of figures which of right ought to be regarded as the property of
freedom. But we like to be generous to an unfortunate foe, and would
utterly disdain the use of any unfair means of attack or defence.
We shall take no undue advantage of slavery. It shall have a fair trial,
and be judged according to its deserts. Already has it been weighed in the
balance, and found wanting; it has been measured in the half-bushel, and
found wanting; it has been apprized in the field, and found wanting.
Whatever redeeming traits or qualities it may possess, if any, shall be
brought to light by subjecting it to other tests.
It was our desire and intention to furnish a correct table of the
gallon-measure products of the several States of the Union; but we have
not been successful in our attempt to procure the necessary statistics.
Enough is known, however, to satisfy us that the value of the milk, wine,
ardent spirits, malt liquors, fluids, oils, and molasses, annually
produced and sold in the free States, is at least fifty millions of
dollars greater than the value of the same articles annually produced and
sold in the slave States. Of sweet milk alone, it is estimated that the
monthly sales in three Northern cities, New York, Philadelphia and Boston,
amount to a larger sum than the marketable value of all the rosin, tar,
pitch, and turpentine, annually produced in the Southern States.
Our efforts to obtain reliable information respecting another very
important branch of profitable industry, the lumber business, have also
proved unavailing; and we are left to conjecture as to the amount of
revenue annually derived from it in the two grand divisions of our
country. The person whose curiosity prompts him to take an account of the
immense piles of Northern lumber now lying on the wharves and houseless
lots in Baltimore, Richmond, and other slaveholding cities, will not, we
imagine, form a very flattering opinion of the products of Southern
forests. Let it be remembered that nearly all the clippers, steamers, and
small craft, are built at the North; that large cargoes of Eastern lumber
are exported to foreign countries; that nine-tenths of the wooden-ware
used in the Southern States is manufactured in New England; that, in
outrageous disregard of the natural rights and claims of Southern
mechanics, the markets of the South are forever filled with Northern
furniture, vehicles, ax helves, walking canes, yard-sticks, clothes-pins
and pen-holders; that the extraordinary number of factories,
steam-engines, forges and machine-shops in the free States, require an
extraordinary quantity of cord-wood; that a large majority of the
magnificent edifices and other structures, both private and public, in
which timber, in its various forms, is extensively used, are to be found
in the free States--we say, let all these things be remembered, and the
truth will at once flash across the mind that the forests of the North are
a source of far greater income than those of the South. The difference is
simply this: At the North everything is turned to advantage. When a tree
is cut down, the main body is sold or used for lumber, railing or paling,
the stump for matches and shoepegs, the knees for ship-building, and the
branches for fuel. At the South everything is either neglected or
mismanaged. Whole forests are felled by the ruthless hand of slavery, the
trees are cut into logs, rolled into heaps, covered with the limbs and
brush, and then burned on the identical soil that gave them birth. The
land itself next falls a prey to the fell destroyer, and that which was
once a beautiful, fertile and luxuriant woodland, is soon despoiled of all
its treasures, and converted into an eye-offending desert.
Were we to go beneath the soil and collect all the mineral and lapidarious
wealth of the free States, we should find it so much greater than the
corresponding wealth of the slave States, that no ordinary combination of
figures would suffice to express the difference. To say nothing of the
gold and quicksilver of California, the iron and coal of Pennsylvania, the
copper of Michigan, the lead of Illinois, or the salt of New-York, _the
marble and freestone quarries of New England are, incredible as it may
seem to those unacquainted with the facts, far more important sources of
revenue than all the subterranean deposits in the slave States_. From the
most reliable statistics within our reach, we are led to the inference
that the total value of all the precious metals, rocks, minerals, and
medicinal waters, annually extracted from the bowels of the free States,
is not less than eighty-five million of dollars; the whole value of the
same substances annually brought up from beneath the surface of the slave
States does not exceed twelve millions. In this respect to what is our
poverty ascribable? To the same cause that has impoverished and dishonored
us in all other respects--the thriftless and degrading institution of
slavery.
Nature has been kind to us in all things. The strata and substrata of the
South are profusely enriched with gold and silver, and precious stones,
and from the natural orifices and aqueducts in Virginia and North
Carolina, flow the purest healing waters in the world. But of what avail
is all this latent wealth? Of what avail will it ever be, so long as
slavery is permitted to play the dog in the manger? To these queries there
can be but one reply. Slavery must be suppressed; the South, so great and
so glorious by nature, must be reclaimed from her infamy and degradation;
our cities, fields and forests, must be kept intact from the unsparing
monster; the various and ample resources of our vast domain, subterraneous
as well as superficial, must be developed, and made to contribute to our
pleasures and to the necessities of the world.
A very significant chapter, and one particularly pertinent to many of the
preceding pages, might be written on the Decline of Agriculture in the
Slave States; but as the press of other subjects admonishes us to be
concise upon this point, we shall present only a few of the more striking
instances. In the first place, let us compare the crops of wheat and rye
in Kentucky, in 1850, with the corresponding crops in the same State in
1840--after which, we will apply a similar rule of comparison to two or
three other slaveholding states.
KENTUCKY.
Wheat, bus. Rye, bus.
Crop of 1840 4,803,152 1,321,373
" " 1850 2,142,822 415,073
--------- --------
Decrease 2,660,330 bus. Decrease 906,300 bus.
TENNESSEE.
Wheat, bus. Tobacco, lbs.
Crop of 1840 4,569,692 29,550,432
" " 1850 1,619,386 20,148,932
--------- ----------
Decrease 2,950,306 bus. Decrease 9,401,500 lbs.
VIRGINIA.
Rye, bus. Tobacco, lbs.
Crop of 1840 1,482,799 75,347,106
" " 1850 458,930 56,803,227
--------- ----------
Decrease 1,023,869 bus. Decrease 18,543,879 lbs.
ALABAMA.
Wheat, bus. Rye, bus.
Crop of 1840 838,052 51,000
" " 1850 294,044 17,261
------- ------
Decrease 544,008 bus. Decrease 33,739 bus.
The story of these figures is too intelligible to require words of
explanation; we shall, therefore, drop this part of our subject, and
proceed to compile a couple of tables that will exhibit on a single page
the wealth, revenue and expenditure, of the several states of the
confederacy. Let it be distinctly understood, however, that, in the
compilation of these tables, three million two hundred and four thousand
three hundred and thirteen negroes are valued as personal property, and
credited to the Southern States as if they were so many horses and asses,
or bridles and blankets--and that no monetary valuation whatever is placed
on any creature, of any age, color, sex or condition, that bears the
upright form of man in the free States.
TABLE NO. XX.
WEALTH, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------------------------------
States. |Real and Personal| Revenue. |Expenditure.
| property. | |
----------------|-----------------|-------------|------------
California | $22,161,872 | $366,825 | $925,625
Connecticut | 155,707,980 | 150,189 | 137,326
Illinois | 156,265,006 | 736,030 | 192,940
Indiana | 202,650,264 | 1,283,064 | 1,061,605
Iowa | 23,714,638 | 139,681 | 131,631
Maine | 122,777,571 | 744,879 | 624,101
Massachusetts | 573,342,286 | 598,170 | 674,622
Michigan | 59,787,255 | 548,326 | 431,918
New Hampshire | 103,652,835 | 141,686 | 149,890
New Jersey | 153,151,619 | 139,166 | 180,614
New York | 1,080,309,216 | 2,698,310 | 2,520,932
Ohio | 504,726,120 | 3,016,403 | 2,786,060
Pennsylvania | 729,144,998 | 7,716,552 | 6,876,480
Rhode Island | 80,508,794 | 124,944 | 115,835
Vermont | 92,205,049 | 185,830 | 183,058
Wisconsin | 42,056,595 | 135,155 | 136,096
|-----------------|-------------|------------
| $4,102,172,108 | $18,725,211 | $17,076,733
=============================================================
TABLE NO. XXI.
WEALTH, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------------------------------
States. |Real and Personal| Revenue. |Expenditure.
| property. | |
----------------|-----------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | $228,204,332 | $658,976 | $513,559
Arkansas | 39,841,025 | 68,412 | 74,076
Delaware | 18,855,863 | |
Florida | 23,198,734 | 60,619 | 55,234
Georgia | 335,425,714 | 1,142,405 | 597,882
Kentucky | 301,628,456 | 779,293 | 674,697
Louisiana | 233,998,764 | 1,146,568 | 1,098,911
Maryland | 219,217,364 | 1,279,953 | 1,360,458
Mississippi | 228,951,130 | 221,200 | 223,637
Missouri | 137,247,707 | 326,579 | 207,656
North Carolina | 226,800,472 | 219,000 | 228,173
South Carolina | 288,257,694 | 532,152 | 463,021
Tennessee | 207,454,704 | 502,126 | 623,625
Texas | 55,362,340 | 140,688 | 156,622
Virginia | 391,646,438 | 1,265,744 | 1,272,382
|-----------------|-------------|------------
| $2,936,090,737 | $8,343,715 | $7,549,933
Entire Wealth of the Free States, $4,102,172,108
Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves, 2,936,090,737
-------------
Balance in favor of the Free States, $1,166,081,371
What a towering monument to the beauty and glory of Free Labor! What
irrefragable evidence of the unequaled efficacy and grandeur of free
institutions! These figures are, indeed, too full of meaning to be passed
by without comment. The two tables from which they are borrowed are at
least a volume within themselves; and, after all the pains we have taken
to compile them, we shall, perhaps, feel somewhat disappointed if the
reader fails to avail himself of the important information they impart.
Human life, in all ages, has been made up of a series of adventures and
experiments, and even at this stage of the world's existence, we are
almost as destitute of a perfect rule of action, secular or religious, as
were the erratic cotemporaries of Noah. It is true, however, that we have
made some progress in the right direction; and as it seems to be the
tendency of the world to correct itself, we may suppose that future
generations will be enabled, by intuition, to discriminate between the
true and the false, the good and the bad, and that with the development of
this faculty of the mind, error and discord will begin to wane, and
finally cease to exist. Of all the experiments that have been tried by the
people in America, slavery has proved the most fatal; and the sooner it is
abolished the better it will be for us, for posterity, and for the world.
One of the evils resulting from it, and that not the least, is apparent in
the figures above. Indeed, the _unprofitableness_ of slavery is a
monstrous evil, when considered in all its bearings; it makes us poor;
poverty makes us ignorant; ignorance makes us wretched; wretchedness makes
us wicked, and wickedness leads to the devil!
"Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven."
Facts truly astounding are disclosed in the two last tables, and we could
heartily wish that every intelligent American would commit them to memory.
The total value of all the real and personal property of the free States,
with an area of only 612,597 square miles, is one billion one hundred and
sixty-six million eighty-one thousand three hundred and seventy-one
dollars greater than the total value of all the real and personal
property, including the price of 3,204,313 negroes, of the slave States,
which have an area of 851,508 square miles! But extraordinary as this
difference is in favor of the North, it is much less than the true amount.
_On the authority of Southrons themselves, it is demonstrable beyond the
possibility of refutation that the intrinsic value of all the property in
the free States is more than three times greater than the intrinsic value
of all the property in the slave States._
James Madison, a Southern man, fourth President of the United States, a
most correct thinker, and one of the greatest statesmen the country has
produced, "thought it wrong to admit the idea that there could be property
in man," and we indorse, to the fullest extent, this opinion of the
profound editor of the _Federalist_. We shall not recognize property in
man; the slaves of the South are not worth a groat in any civilized
community; no man of genuine decency and refinement would hold them as
property on any terms; in the eyes of all enlightened nations and
individuals, they are men, not merchandize. Southern pro-slavery
politicians, some of whom have not hesitated to buy and sell their own
sons and daughters, boast that the slaves of the South are worth sixteen
hundred million of dollars, and we have seen the amount estimated as high
as two thousand million. Mr. De Bow, the Southern superintendent of the
seventh census, informs us that the value of all the property in the slave
States, real and personal, including slaves, was, in 1850, only
$2,936,090,737; while, according to the same authority, the value of all
the real and personal property in the free States, genuine property,
property that is everywhere recognized as property, was, at the same time,
$4,102,172,108. Now all we have to do in order to ascertain the real value
of all the property of the South, independent of negroes, whose value, if
valuable at all, is of a local and precarious character, is to subtract
from the sum total of Mr. De Bow's return of the entire wealth of the
slave States the estimated value of the slaves themselves; and then, by
deducting the difference from the intrinsic value of all the property in
the free States, we shall have the exact amount of the overplus of wealth
in the glorious land of free soil, free labor, free speech, free presses,
and free schools. And now to the task.
Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves, $2,936,090,737
Estimated Value of the Slaves, 1,600,000,000
-------------
True Wealth of the Slave States, $1,336,090,737
True Wealth of the Free States, $4,102,172,108
True Wealth of the Slave States, 1,336,090,737
--------------
Balance in favor of the Free States $2,766,081,371
There, friends of the South and of the North, you have the conclusion of
the whole matter. Liberty and slavery are before you; choose which you
will have; as for us, in the memorable language of the immortal Henry, we
say, "give us liberty, or give us death!" In the great struggle for wealth
that has been going on between the two rival systems of free and slave
labor, the balance above exhibits the net profits of the former. The
struggle on the one side has been calm, laudable, and eminently
successful; on the other, it has been attended by tumult, unutterable
cruelties and disgraceful failure. We have given the slave drivers every
conceivable opportunity to vindicate their domestic policy, but for them
to do it is a moral impossibility.
Less than three-quarters of a century ago--say in 1789, for that was about
the average time of the abolition of slavery in the Northern States--the
South, with advantages in soil, climate, rivers, harbors, minerals,
forests, and, indeed, almost every other natural resource, began an even
race with the North in all the important pursuits of life; and now, in the
brief space of scarce three score years and ten, we find her completely
distanced, enervated, dejected and dishonored. Slave-drivers are the sole
authors of her disgrace; as they have sown so let them reap.
As we have seen above, a careful and correct inventory of all the real and
personal _property_ in the two grand divisions of the country, discloses
the astounding fact that, in 1850 the free States were worth precisely
_two thousand seven hundred and sixty-six million eighty-one thousand
three hundred and seventy-one dollars_ more than the slave States!
Twenty-seven hundred and sixty-six million of dollars!--Think of it! What
a vast and desirable sum, and how much better off the South would be with
it than without it! Such is the enormous amount out of which slavery has
defrauded us during the space of sixty-one years--from 1789 to 1850--being
an average of about forty-five million three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars per annum. During the last twenty-five or thirty years, however,
our annual losses have been far greater than they were formerly. There has
been a gradual increase every year, and now the ratio of increase is
almost incredible. No patriotic Southerner can become conversant with the
facts without experiencing a feeling of alarm and indignation. Until the
North abolished slavery, she had no advantage of us whatever; the South
was more than her equal in every respect. But no sooner had she got rid of
that hampering and pernicious institution than she began to absorb our
wealth, and now it is confidently believed that the merchants and
negro-driving pleasure-seekers of the South annually pour one hundred and
twenty million of dollars into her coffers! Taking into account, then, the
probable amount of money that has been drawn from the South and invested
in the North within the last six years, and adding it to the grand balance
above--the net profits of the North up to 1850--it may be safely assumed
that, in the present year of grace, 1857, _the free States are worth at
least thirty-four hundred million of dollars more than the slave States_!
Let him who dares, gainsay these remarks and calculations; no truthful
tongue will deny them; no honorable pen can controvert them.
One more word now as to the valuation of negroes. Were our nature so
degraded, or our conscience so elastic as to permit us to set a price upon
men, as we would set a price upon cattle and corn, we should be content to
abide by the appraisement of the slaves of the South, and would then enter
into a calculation to ascertain the value of foreigners to the North. Not
long since, it was declared in the South that "one free laborer is equal
to five slaves," and as there are two million five hundred thousand
Europeans in the free States, all of whom are free laborers, we might
bring Southern authority to back us in estimating their value at
_sixty-two hundred million of dollars_--a handsome sum wherewithal to
offset the account of _sixteen hundred million of dollars_, brought
forward as the value of Southern slaves! It is obvious, therefore, that if
we were disposed to follow the barbarian example of the traffickers in
human flesh, we could prove the North vastly richer than the South in bone
and sinew--to say nothing of mind and morals, which shall receive our
attention hereafter. The North has just as good a right to appraise the
Irish immigrant, as the South has to set a price on the African slave. But
as it would be wrong to do either, we shall do neither. It is not our
business to think of man as a merchantable commodity; and we will not,
even by implication, admit "the wild and guilty fantasy," that the
condition of chattelhood may rightfully attach to sentient and immortal
beings.
In this connection, we would direct the special attention of the reader
to the following eloquent passage, exhibiting the philosophy of free and
slave labor, from the facile pen of the editor of the _North American and
United States Gazette_:
"In the very nature of things, the freeman must produce more than the
slave. There is no conclusion of science more certain. Under a system
which gives to a laboring man the fruit of his toil, there is every motive
to render him diligent and assiduous. If he relies on being employed by
others, his wages rise with his reputation for industry, skill, and
faithfulness. And as owner of the soil, there is every assurance that he
will do what he can to cultivate it to the best advantage, and develope
its latent wealth. Self-interest will call forth what powers of intellect
and of invention he has to aid him in his work, and employ his physical
strength to the greatest possible advantage. Free labor receives an
immediate reward, which cheers and invigorates it; and above all, it has
that chief spring of exertion, hope, whose bow always spans the heaven
before it. It has an inviolate hearth; it has a home. But it looks forward
to a still better condition, to brighter prospects in the future, to which
its efforts all contribute. The children in such a household are chief
inducements to nerve the arm of labor, that they may be properly cared
for, fed, clothed, educated, accomplished, instructed in some useful and
honorable calling, and provided for when they shall go out upon the world.
All its sentiments, religious and otherwise, all its affections for
parents and kindred, all its tastes are so many impelling and stimulating
forces. It is disposed to read, to ornament its home, to travel, to enjoy
social intercourse, and to attain these ends, it rises to higher exertions
and a stricter economy of time; it explores every path of employment, and
is, therefore, in the highest degree productive.
"How different is it with slave labor! The slave toils for another, and
not for himself. Whether he does little or much, whether his work is well
or ill performed, he has a subsistence, nothing less, nothing more; and
why should he toil beyond necessity? He cannot accumulate any property for
the decline of his years, or to leave to his children when he is departed.
Nay, he cannot toil to better the present condition of his children. They
belong to another, and not to him. He cannot supply his hut with comforts,
or embellish it with the adornments of taste. He does not read. He does
not journey for pleasure. Inducements to exertion, he has none. That he
may adapt himself to his condition, and enjoy the present hour, he deadens
those aspirations that must always be baffled in his case, and sinks down
into ease and sensuality. His mind is unlighted and untutored; dark with
ignorance. Among those who value him most, he is proverbially indolent,
thievish, and neglectful of his master's interests. It is common for even
the advocates of slavery to declare that one freeman is worth half a dozen
slaves. With every cord to exertion thus sundered, the mind benighted, the
man nearly lost in the animal, it requires no deep philosophy to see why
labor cannot be near as productive as it would be were these conditions
all reversed. Though ever so well directed by the superior skill, and
urged forward by the strong arm of the master, slave labor is necessarily
a blight to the soil--sterility follows in its steps, and not afar off.
"What a difference, plain and heaven-wide, between the outward and
interior life of a slave and of a free community, resulting directly and
palpably from this difference in its labor. The cottage-home, amid trees
and shrubbery, its apartments well adorned and furnished, books on its
shelves, and the passing literature of the day scattered around; the few,
perhaps, but well-tilled acres, belonging to the man who tills them; the
happy children with sunny prospects; the frequent school; the church
arrayed with beauty; the thriving, handsome village; the flourishing
cities and prosperous marts of trade; the busy factories; railroads,
traffic, travel--where free labor tills the ground, how beautiful it all
is in contrast to the forlorn and dreary aspect of a country tilled by
slaves. The villages of such a country are mainly groups of miserable
huts. Its comparatively few churches are too often dilapidated and
unsightly. The common school-house, the poor man's college, is hardly
known, showing how little interest is felt in the chief treasures of the
State, the immortal minds of the multitude who are not born to wealth. The
signs of premature old age are visibly impressed upon everything that
meets the eye. The fields present a dread monotony. Everywhere you see
lands that are worn out, barren and deserted, in consequence of slave
tillage, left for more fertile lands in newer regions, which are also, in
their turn, to be smitten with sterility and forsaken. The free community
may increase its population almost without limit. The capacity of slave
countries to sustain a population is soon at an end, and then, it
diminishes. In all the elements of essential prosperity, in all that
elevates man, how striking the contrast between the region that is tilled
by slave, and the region that is tilled by free labor."
For the purpose of showing what Virginia, once the richest, most populous,
and most powerful of the States, has become under the blight of slavery,
we shall now introduce an extract from one of the speeches delivered by
Henry A. Wise, during the last gubernatorial campaign in that degraded
commonwealth. Addressing a Virginia audience, in language as graphic as it
is truthful, he says:--
"Commerce has long ago spread her sails, and sailed away from you. You
have not, as yet, dug more than coal enough to warm yourselves at your own
hearths; you have set no tilt-hammer of Vulcan to strike blows worthy of
gods in your own iron-foundries; you have not yet spun more than coarse
cotton enough, in the way of manufacture, to clothe your own slaves. You
have no commerce, no mining, no manufactures. You have relied alone on the
single power of agriculture, and _such agriculture_! Your sedge-patches
outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source of wealth, has
seared the very bosom of mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on
a thousand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer through the
sedge-patches to procure a tough beef-steak. The present condition of
things has existed too long in Virginia. The landlord has skinned the
tenant, and the tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor
together."
With tears in its eyes, and truth on its lips, for the first time after an
interval of twenty years, the _Richmond Enquirer_ helps to paint the
melancholy picture. In 1852, that journal thus bewailed the condition of
Virginia:--
"We have cause to feel deeply for our situation. Philadelphia herself
contains a population far greater than the whole free population of
Eastern Virginia. The little State of Massachusetts has an aggregate
wealth exceeding that of Virginia by more than $126,000,000."
Just a score of years before these words were penned, the same paper, then
edited by the elder Ritchie, made a most earnest appeal to the
intelligence and patriotism of Virginia, to adopt an effectual measure for
the speedy overthrow of the damnable institution of human bondage. Here is
an extract from an article which appeared in its editorial column under
date of January 7th, 1832:
"Something must be done, and it is the part of no honest man to deny
it--of no free press to affect to conceal it. When this dark population is
growing upon us; when every new census is but gathering its appalling
numbers upon us; when, within a period equal to that in which this Federal
Constitution has been in existence, these numbers will increase to more
than two millions within Virginia; when our sister States are closing
their doors upon our blacks for sale, and when our whites are moving
westwardly in greater numbers than we like to hear of; when this, the
fairest land on all this continent, for soil, and climate and situation,
combined, might become a sort of garden spot, if it were worked by the
hands of white men alone, can we, ought we, to sit quietly down, fold our
arms, and say to each other, 'Well, well; this thing will not come to the
worst in our days; we will leave it to our children, and our
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, to take care of themselves, and to
brave the storm!' Is this to act like wise men? Means, sure but gradual,
systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted, for reducing the mass of
evil which is pressing upon the South, and will still more press upon her,
the longer it is put off. We say now, in the utmost sincerity of our
hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention to
this subject, nor can they give it too soon."
Better abolition doctrine than this is seldom heard. Why did not the
_Enquirer_ continue to preach it? What potent influence hushed its clarion
voice, just as it began to be lifted in behalf of a liberal policy and an
enlightened humanity? Had Mr. Ritchie continued to press the truth home to
the hearts of the people, as he should have done, Virginia, instead of
being worth only $392,000,000 in 1850--negroes and all--would have been
worth at least $800,000,000 in genuine property; and if the State had
emancipated her slaves at the time of the adoption of the Constitution,
the last census would no doubt have reported her wealth, and correctly, at
a sum exceeding a thousand millions of dollars.
Listen now to the statement of a momentous fact. The value of all the
property, real and personal, including slaves, in seven slave States,
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and
Texas, is less than the real and personal estate, which is unquestionable
property, in the single State of New-York. Nay, worse; if eight entire
slave States, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Missouri,
Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, and the District of Columbia--with all
their hordes of human merchandize--were put up at auction, New-York could
buy them all, and then have one hundred and thirty-three millions of
dollars left in her pocket! Such is the amazing contrast between freedom
and slavery, even in a pecuniary point of view. When we come to compare
the North with the South in regard to literature, general intelligence,
inventive genius, moral and religious enterprises, the discoveries in
medicine, and the progress in the arts and sciences, we shall, in every
instance, find the contrast equally great on the side of Liberty.
It gives us no pleasure to say hard things of the Old Dominion, the mother
of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and other illustrious patriots, who, as
we shall prove hereafter, were genuine abolitionists; but the policy which
she has pursued has been so utterly inexcusable, so unjust to the
non-slaveholding whites, so cruel to the negroes, and so disregardful of
the rights of humanity at large, that it becomes the duty of every one who
makes allusion to her history, to expose her follies, her crimes, and her
poverty, and to publish every fact, of whatever nature, that would be
instrumental in determining others to eschew her bad example. She has
wilfully departed from the faith of the founders of this Republic. She has
not only turned a deaf ear to the counsel of wise men from other States in
the Union, but she has, in like manner, ignored the teachings of the
great warriors and statesmen who have sprung from her own soil. In a
subsequent chapter, we expect to show that all, or nearly all, the
distinguished Virginians, whose bodies have been consigned to the grave,
but whose names have been given to history, and whose memoirs have a place
in the hearts of their countrymen, were the friends and advocates of
universal freedom--that they were inflexibly opposed to the extension of
slavery into the Territories, devised measures for its restriction, and,
with hopeful anxiety, looked forward to the time when it should be
eradicated from the States themselves. With them, the rescue of our
country from British domination, and the establishment of the General
Government upon a firm basis, were considerations of paramount importance;
they supposed, and no doubt earnestly desired, that the States, in their
sovereign capacities, would soon abolish an institution which was so
palpably in conflict with the principles enunciated in the Declaration of
Independence. Indeed, it would seem that, among the framers of that
immortal instrument and its equally immortal sequel, the Constitution of
the United States, there was a tacit understanding to this effect; and the
Northern States, true to their implied faith, abolished it within a short
period after our national independence had been secured. Not so with the
South. She has pertinaciously refused to perform her duty. She has
apostatized from the faith of her greatest men, and even at this very
moment repudiates the sacred principle that "all men are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights," among which "are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness." It is evident, therefore, that the free
States are the only members of this confederacy that have established
republican forms of government based upon the theories of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and other eminent statesmen of Virginia.
The great revolutionary movement which was set on foot in Charlotte,
Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, on the 20th day of May, 1775, has not
yet been terminated, nor will it be, until every slave in the United
States is freed from the tyranny of his master. Every victim of the vile
institution, whether white or black, must be reinvested with the sacred
rights and privileges of which he has been deprived by an inhuman
oligarchy. What our noble sires of the revolution left unfinished it is
our duty to complete. They did all that true valor and patriotism could
accomplish. Not one iota did they swerve from their plighted faith; the
self-sacrificing spirit which they evinced will command the applause of
every succeeding age. Not in vindication of their own personal rights
merely, but of the rights of humanity; not for their own generation and
age simply, but for all ages to the end of time, they gave their toil,
their treasure and their blood, nor deemed them all too great a price to
pay for the establishment of so comprehensive and beneficent a principle.
Let their posterity emulate their courage, their disinterestedness, and
their zeal, and especially remember that it is the duty of every existing
generation so to provide for its individual interests, as to confer
superior advantages on that which is to follow. To this principle the
North has adhered with the strictest fidelity. How has it been with the
South? Has she imitated the praiseworthy example of our illustrious
ancestors? No! She has treated it with the utmost contempt; she has been
extremely selfish--so selfish, indeed, that she has robbed posterity of
its natural rights. From the period of the formation of the government
down to the present moment, her policy has been downright suicidal, and,
as a matter of course, wholly indefensible. She has hugged a viper to her
breast; her whole system has been paralyzed, her conscience is seared, and
she is becoming callous to every principle of justice and magnanimity.
Except among the non-slaveholders, who, besides being kept in the grossest
ignorance, are under the restraint of all manner of iniquitous laws,
patriotism has ceased to exist within her borders. And here we desire to
be distinctly understood, for we shall have occasion to refer to this
matter again. We repeat, therefore, the substance of our averment, that,
at this day, there is not a grain of patriotism in the South, except among
the non-slaveholders. Subsequent pages shall testify to the truth of this
assertion. Here and there, it is true, a slaveholder, disgusted with the
institution, becomes ashamed of himself, emancipates his negroes, and
enters upon the walks of honorable life; but these cases are exceedingly
rare, and do not, in any manner, disprove the general correctness of our
remark. All persons who do voluntarily manumit their slaves, as mentioned
above, are undeniably actuated by principles of pure patriotism, justice
and humanity; and so believing, we delight to do them honor.
Once more to the Old Dominion. At her door we lay the bulk of the evils of
slavery. The first African sold in America was sold on James River, in
that State, on the 20th of August, 1620; and although the institution was
fastened upon her and the other colonies by the mother country, she was
the first to perceive its blighting and degrading influences, her wise men
were the first to denounce it, and, after the British power was overthrown
at York Town, she should have been the first to abolish it. Fifty-seven
years ago she was the Empire State; now, with half a dozen other
slaveholding states thrown into the scale with her, she is far inferior to
New-York, which, at the time Cornwallis surrendered his sword to
Washington, was less than half her equal. Had she obeyed the counsels of
the good, the great and the wise men of our nation--especially of her own
incomparable sons, the extendible element of slavery would have been
promptly arrested, and the virgin soil of nine Southern States, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida,
and Texas, would have been saved from its horrid pollutions. Confined to
the original states in which it existed, the institution would soon have
been disposed of by legislative enactments, and long before the present
day, by a gradual process that could have shocked no interest and alarmed
no prejudice, we should have rid ourselves not only of African slavery,
which is an abomination and a curse, but also of the negroes themselves,
who, in our judgment, whether viewed in relation to their actual
characteristics and condition, or through the strong antipathies of the
whites, are, to say the least, an undesirable population.
This, then, is the ground of our expostulation with Virginia: that, in
stubborn disregard of the advice and friendly warnings of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and a host of other distinguished patriots who
sprang from her soil--patriots whose voices shall be heard before we
finish our task--and in utter violation of every principle of justice and
humanity, _she still persists_ in fostering an institution which is so
manifestly detrimental to her vital interests. Every Virginian, whether
living or dead, whose name is an honor to his country, has placed on
record his abhorrence of slavery, and in doing so, has borne testimony to
the blight and degradation that everywhere follow in its course. One of
the best abolition speeches we have ever read was delivered in the
Virginia House of Delegates, January 20th, 1832, by Charles James
Faulkner, who still lives, and who has, we understand, generously
emancipated several of his slaves, and sent them to Liberia. Here follows
an extract from his speech; let Southern politicians read it attentively,
and imbibe a moiety of the spirit of patriotism which it breathes:--
"Sir, I am gratified to perceive that no gentleman has yet risen in this
Hall, the avowed advocate of slavery. _The day has gone by when such a
voice could be listened to with patience, or even with forbearance._ I
even regret, Sir, that we should find those amongst us who enter the lists
of discussion as its _apologists_, except alone upon the ground of
uncontrollable necessity. And yet, who could have listened to the very
eloquent remarks of the gentleman from Brunswick, without being forced to
conclude that he at least considered slavery, however _not to be defended
upon principle_, yet as being divested of much of its enormity, as you
approach it in practice.
"Sir, if there be one who concurs with that gentleman in the harmless
character of this institution, let me request him to compare the condition
of the slaveholding portion of this commonwealth--_barren, desolate, and
seared as it were by the avenging hand of Heaven_--with the descriptions
which we have of this country from those who first broke its virgin soil.
To what is this change ascribable? _Alone to the withering and blasting
effects of slavery._ If this does not satisfy him, let me request him to
extend his travels to the _Northern States of this Union_, and beg him to
contrast the happiness and contentment which prevail throughout that
country, the busy and cheerful sound of industry, the rapid and swelling
growth of their population, their means and institutions of education,
their skill and proficiency in the useful arts, their enterprise and
public spirit, the monuments of their commercial and manufacturing
industry; and, above all, their devoted attachment to the government from
which they derive their protection, _with the derision, discontent,
indolence, and poverty of the Southern country_. To what, Sir, is all this
ascribable? _To that vice in the organization of society, by which
one-half of its inhabitants are arrayed in interest and feeling against
the other half_--to that unfortunate state of society in which freemen
regard labor as disgraceful, and slaves shrink from it as a burden
tyrannically imposed upon them--to that condition of things in which half
a million of your population can feel no sympathy with the society in the
prosperity of which they are forbidden to participate, and no attachment
to a government at whose hands they receive nothing but injustice.
"If this should not be sufficient, and the curious and incredulous
inquirer should suggest that the contrast which has been adverted to, and
which is so manifest, might be traced to a difference of climate, or other
causes distinct from slavery itself, permit me to refer him to the two
States of Kentucky and Ohio. No difference of soil, no diversity of
climate, no diversity in the original settlement of those two States, can
account for the remarkable disproportion in their natural advancement.
Separated by a river alone, _they seem to have been purposely and
providentially designed to exhibit in their future histories the
difference which necessarily results from a country free from, and a
country afflicted with, the curse of slavery_.
"Vain and idle is every effort to strangle this inquiry. As well might you
attempt to chain the ocean, or stay the avenging thunderbolts of Heaven,
as to drive the people from any inquiry which may result in their better
condition. This is too deep, too engrossing a subject of consideration. It
addresses itself too strongly to our interests, to our passions, and to
our feelings. I shall advocate no scheme that does not respect the right
of property, _so far as it is entitled to be respected_, with a just
regard to the safety and resources of the State. I would approach the
subject as one of great magnitude and delicacy, as one whose varied and
momentous consequences demand the calmest and most deliberate
investigation. But still, Sir, I would approach it--aye, delicate as it
may be, encompassed as it may be with difficulties and hazards, I would
still approach it. The people demand it. Their security requires it. In
the language of the wise and prophetic Jefferson, 'You must approach
it--you must bear it--you must adopt some plan of emancipation, or worse
will follow.'"
Mr. Curtis, in a speech in the Virginia Legislature in 1832, said:
"There is a malaria in the atmosphere of these regions, which the new
comer shuns, as being deleterious to his views and habits. See the
wide-spreading ruin which the avarice of our ancestral government has
produced in the South, as witnessed in a sparse population of freemen,
deserted habitations, and fields without culture! Strange to tell, even
the wolf, driven back long since by the approach of man, now returns,
after the lapse of a hundred years, to howl over the desolations of
slavery."
Mr. Moore, also a member of the Legislature of Virginia, in speaking of
the evils of slavery, said:
"The first I shall mention is the irresistible tendency which it has to
undermine and destroy everything like virtue and morality in the
community. If we look back through the long course of time which has
elapsed since the creation to the present moment, we shall scarcely be
able to point out a people whose situation was not, in many respects,
preferable to our own, and that of the other States, in which negro
slavery exists.
"In that part of the State below tide-water, the whole face of the country
wears an appearance of almost utter desolation, distressing to the
beholder. The very spot on which our ancestors landed, a little more than
two hundred years ago, appears to be on the eve of again becoming the
haunt of wild beasts."
Mr. Rives, of Campbell county, said:
"On the multiplied and desolating evils of slavery, he was not disposed to
say much. The curse and deteriorating consequence were within the
observation and experience of the members of the House and the people of
Virginia, and it did not seem to him that there could be two opinions
about it."
Mr. Powell said:
"I can scarcely persuade myself that there is a solitary gentleman in this
House who will not readily admit that slavery is an evil, and that its
removal, if practicable, is a consummation most devoutly to be wished. I
have not heard, nor do I expect to hear, a voice raised in this Hall to
the contrary."
In the language of another, "we might multiply extracts almost
indefinitely from Virginia authorities--testifying to the blight and
degradation that have overtaken the Old Dominion, in every department of
her affairs. Her commerce gone, her agriculture decaying, her land falling
in value, her mining and manufactures nothing, her schools dying out,--she
presents, according to the testimony of her own sons, the saddest of all
pictures--that of a sinking and dying State." Every year leaves her in a
worse condition than it found her; and as it is with Virginia, so it is
with the entire South. In the terse language of Governor Wise, "all have
grown poor together." The black god of slavery, which the South has
worshipped for two hundred and thirty-seven years, is but a devil in
disguise; and if we would save ourselves from being engulphed in utter
ruin we must repudiate this foul god, for a purer deity, and abandon his
altars for a holier shrine. No time is to be lost; his fanatical adorers,
the despotic adversaries of human liberty, are concocting schemes for the
enslavement of all the laboring classes irrespective of race or color. The
issue is before us; we cannot evade it; we must meet it with firmness, and
with unflinching valor.
What it was that paralyzed the tongues of all those members of the Virgina
Legislature, who, at the session of 1831-'32, distinguished themselves by
advocating a system of emancipation, is a mystery that has never yet been
solved. Whether any or all of them shared a division of spoils with a
certain newspaper editor, we have no means of knowing; but if all accounts
be true, there was consummated in Richmond, in the latter part of the year
1832, one of the blackest schemes of bribery and corruption that was ever
perpetrated in this or any other country. We are assured, however, that
one thing is certain, and it is this: that the negro population of
Virginia was very considerably and suddenly decreased by forcible
emigration--that a large gang was driven further South, sold, and the
proceeds divided among certain renegades and traitors, who, Judas-like,
had agreed to serve the devil for a price.
We would fain avoid all personalities and uncomplimentary allusions to the
dead, but when men, from love of lucre, from mere selfish motives, or from
sheer turpitude of heart, inflict great injuries and outrages on the
public, their villainy ought to be exposed, so that others may be deterred
from following in their footsteps. As a general rule, man's moral nature
is, we believe, so strong that it invariably prompts him to eschew vice
and practice virtue--in other words, to do right; but this rule, like all
others, has its exceptions, as might be most strikingly illustrated in the
character of ---- ----, and some half-dozen or more of his pro-slavery
coadjutors. From whose hands did this man receive fifty thousand
dollars--improperly, if not illegally, taken from the public funds in
Washington? When did he receive it?--and for what purpose?--and who was
the arch-demagogue through whose agency the transfer was made? He was an
oligarchical member of the Cabinet under Mr. Polk's administration in
1845,--and the money was _used_,--and who can doubt _intended_?--for the
express purpose of establishing another negro-driving journal to support
the tottering fortunes of slavery. From the second volume of a valuable
political work, "by a Senator of thirty years," we make the following
pertinent extract:--
"The _Globe_ was sold, and was paid for, and how? becomes a question of
public concern to answer; for it was paid for out of public money--those
same $50,000 which were removed to the village bank in the interior of
Pennsylvania by a Treasury order on the fourth of November, 1844. Three
annual installments made the payment, and the Treasury did not reclaim the
money for these three years; and, though traveling through tortuous
channels, the sharpsighted Mr. Rives traced the money back to its starting
point from that deposit. Besides, Mr. Cameron, who had control of the
village bank, admitted before a committee of Congress, that he had
furnished money for the payments--an admission which the obliging
Committee, on request, left out of their report. Mr. Robert J. Walker was
Secretary of the Treasury during these three years, and the conviction was
absolute, among the close observers of the course of things, that he was
the prime contriver and zealous manager of the arrangements which
displaced Mr. Blair and installed Mr. Ritchie."
Thus, if we are to believe Mr. Benton, in his "Thirty Year's View," and we
are disposed to regard him as good authority, the Washington _Union_ was
brought into existence under the peculiar auspices of the ostensible
editor of the Richmond _Enquirer_; and the two papers, fathered by the
same individual, have gone hand in hand for the last dozen or thirteen
years, the shameless advocates and defenders of human bondage. To suppose
that either has been sustained by fairer means than it was commenced with,
would be wasting imagination on a great improbability. Both have uniformly
and pertinaciously opposed every laudable enterprise that the white
non-slaveholder has projected; indeed, so unmitigated has been their
hostility to all manual pursuits in which their stupid and vulgar slaves
can not be employed to advantage--and if there is any occupation under the
sun in which they can be employed to good advantage, we know not what it
is--that it is an extremely difficult matter to find a respectable
merchant, mechanic, manufacturer, or business man of any calling whatever,
within the bounds of their circulation.
We have been credibly informed by a gentleman from Powhattan county, in
Virginia, that in the year 1836 or '37, or about that time, the Hon.
Abbott Lawrence, of Boston, backed by his brother Amos and other
millionaires of New England, went down to Richmond with the sole view of
reconnoitering the manufacturing facilities of that place--fully
determined, if pleased with the water-power, to erect a large number of
cotton-mills and machine-shops. He had been in the capital of Virginia
only a day or two before he discovered, much to his gratification, that
nature had shaped everything to his liking; and as he was a business man
who transacted business in a business-like manner, he lost no time in
making preliminary arrangements for the consummation of his noble purpose.
His mission was one of peace and promise; others were to share the
benefits of his laudable and concerted scheme; thousands of poor boys and
girls in Virginia, instead of growing up in extreme poverty and ignorance,
or of having to emigrate to the free States of the West, were to have
avenues of profitable employment opened to them at home; thus they would
be enabled to earn an honest and reputable living, to establish and
sustain free schools, free libraries, free lectures, and free presses, to
become useful and exemplary members of society, and to die fit candidates
for heaven. The magnanimous New Englander was in ecstasies with the
prospect that opened before him. Individually, so far as mere money was
concerned, he was perfectly independent; his industry and economy in early
life had secured to him the ownership and control of an ample fortune.
With the aid of eleven other men, each equal to himself, he could have
bought the whole city of Richmond--negroes and all--though it is not to be
presumed that he would have disgraced his name by becoming a trader in
human flesh. But he was not selfish; unlike the arrogant and illiberal
slaveholder, he did not regard himself as the centre around whom everybody
else should revolve. On the contrary, he was a genuine philanthropist.
While, with a shrewdness that will command the admiration of every
practical business man, he engaged in nothing that did not swell the
dimensions of his own purse, he was yet always solicitous to invest his
capital in a manner calculated to promote the interest of those around
him. Nor was he satisfied with simply furnishing the means whereby his
less fortunate neighbors were to become prosperous, intelligent and
contented. With his generous heart and sagacious mind, he delighted to aid
them in making a judicious application of his wealth to their own use.
Moreover, as a member of society, he felt that the community had some
reasonable claims upon him, and he made it obligatory on himself
constantly to devise plans and exert his personal efforts for the public
good. Such was the character of the distinguished manufacturer who honored
Richmond with his presence nineteen or twenty years ago; such was the
character of the men whom he represented, and such were the grand designs
which they sought to accomplish.
To the enterprising and moneyed descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers it was a
matter of no little astonishment, that the immense water-power of Richmond
had been so long neglected. He expressed his surprise to a number of
Virginians, and was at a loss to know why they had not, long prior to the
period of his visit amongst them, availed themselves of the powerful
element that is eternally gushing and foaming over the falls of James
River. Innocent man! He was utterly unconscious of the fact that he was
"interfering with the beloved institutions of the South," and little was
he prepared to withstand the terrible denunciations that were immediately
showered on his head through the columns of the Richmond _Enquirer_. Few
words will suffice to tell the sequel. That negro-worshipping sheet, whose
hireling policy, for the last four and twenty years, has been to support
the worthless black slave and his tyrannical master at the expense of the
free white laborer, wrote down the enterprise! and the noble son of New
England, abused, insulted and disgusted, quietly returned to
Massachusetts, and there employed his capital in building up the cities of
Lowell and Lawrence, either of which, in all those elements of material
and social prosperity that make up the greatness of States, is already far
in advance of the most important of all the seedy and squalid niggervilles
in the Old Dominion. Such is an inkling of the infamous means that have
been resorted to, from time to time, for the purpose of upholding and
perpetuating in America the accursed institution of slavery.
Having in view all the foregoing facts, we were not in the least surprised
when, while walking through Hollywood Cemetery, in the western suburbs of
Richmond, not long since, our companion, a Virginian of the true school,
directed our attention to a monument of some pretentions, and exclaimed,
"There lie the remains of a man upon whose monument should be inscribed in
everlasting prominence the finger of scorn pointing downward." The reader
scarcely needs to be told that we were standing at the tomb of ---- ----,
who in the opinion of our friend, had, by concentrating within himself the
views and purposes of all the evil spirits in Virginia, greatly retarded
the abolition of slavery; so greatly, indeed, as, thereby, to throw the
State at least fifty years behind her free competitors of the North, of
the East, and of the West. It is to be hoped that Virginia may never give
birth to another man whose evil influence will so justly entitle him to
the reprobation of posterity.
How any rational man in this or any other country, with the astounding
contrasts between Freedom and Slavery ever looming in his view, can offer
an apology for the existing statism of the South, is to us a most
inexplicable mystery. Indeed, we cannot conceive it possible that the
conscience of any man, who is really sane, would permit him to become the
victim of such an egregious and diabolical absurdity. Therefore, at this
period of our history, with the light of the past, the reality of the
present, and the prospect of the future, all so prominent and so palpable,
we infer that every person who sets up an unequivocal defence of the
institution of slavery, must, of necessity, be either a fool, a knave, or
a madman.
It is much to be regretted that the slavocrats look at but one side of the
question. Of all the fanatics in the country, they have, of late, become
the most unreasonable and ridiculous. Let them deliberately view the
subject of slavery in all its aspects and bearings, and if they are
possessed of honest hearts and convincible minds, they will readily
perceive the grossness of their past errors, renounce their allegiance to
a cause so unjust and disgraceful, and at once enroll themselves among the
hosts of Freedom and the friends of universal Liberty. There are
thirty-one States in the Union; let them drop California, or any other new
free State, and then institute fifteen comparisons, first comparing
New-York with Virginia, Pennsylvania with Carolina, Massachusetts with
Georgia, and so on, until they have exhausted the catalogue. Then, for
once, let them be bold enough to listen to the admonitions of their own
souls, and if they do not soon start to their feet _demanding_ the
abolition of slavery, it will only be because they have reasons for
suppressing their inmost sentiments. Whether we compare the old free
States with the old slave States, or the new free States with the new
slave States, the difference, unmistakable and astounding, is
substantially the same. All the free States are alike, and all the slave
States are alike. In the former, wealth, intelligence, power, progress,
and prosperity, are the prominent characteristics; in the latter, poverty,
ignorance, imbecility, inertia, and extravagance, are the distinguishing
features. To be convinced, it is only necessary for us to open our eyes
and look at facts--to examine the _statistics_ of the country, to free
ourselves from obstinacy and prejudice, and to unbar our minds to
convictions of truth. Let figures be the umpire. Close attention to the
preceding and subsequent tables is all we ask; so soon as they shall be
duly considered and understood, the primary object of this work will have
been accomplished.
Not content with eating out the vitals of the South, slavery, true to the
character which it has acquired for insatiety and rapine, is beginning to
make rapid encroachments on new territory; and as a basis for a few
remarks on the blasting influence which it is shedding over the broad and
fertile domains of the West, which in accordance with the views and
resolutions offered by the immortal Jefferson, should have been
irrevocably dedicated to freedom, we beg leave to call the attention of
the reader to another presentation of the philosophy of free and slave
labor. Says the _North American and United States Gazette_:
"We have but to compare the States, possessing equal natural advantages,
in which the two kinds of labor are employed, in order to decide with
entire confidence as to which kind is the more profitable. At the origin
of the government, Virginia, with a much larger extent of territory than
New-York, contained a population of seven hundred and fifty thousand, and
sent ten representatives to Congress; while New-York contained a
population of three hundred and forty thousand, and sent six
representatives to Congress. Behold how the figures are reversed. The
population of New-York is three and a half millions, represented by
thirty-three members in Congress; while the population of Virginia is but
little more than one and a half millions, represented by thirteen members
in Congress. It is the vital sap of free labor that makes the one tree so
thrifty and vigorous, so capable of bearing with all ease the fruit of
such a population. And it is slave labor which strikes a decadence through
the other, drying up many of its branches with a fearful sterility, and
rendering the rest but scantily fruitful; really incapable of sustaining
more. Look at Ohio, teeming with inhabitants, its soil loaded with every
kind of agricultural wealth, its people engaged in every kind of freedom's
diversified employments, abounding with numberless happy homes, and with
all the trophies of civilization, and it exhibits the magic effect of free
labor, waking a wilderness into life and beauty; while Kentucky, with
equal or superior natural advantages, nature's very garden in this Western
world, which commenced its career at a much earlier date, and was in a
measure populous when Ohio was but a slumbering forest, but which in all
the elements of progress, is now left far, very far, behind its young
rival, shows how slave labor hinders the development of wealth among a
people, and brings a blight on their prosperity. The one is a grand and
beautiful poem in honor of free labor. The other is an humble confession
to the world of the inferiority of slave labor."
Equally significant is the testimony of Daniel R. Goodloe, of North
Carolina, who says:--
"The history of the United States shows, that while the slave States
increase in population less rapidly than the free, there is a tendency in
slave society to diffusion, greater than is exhibited by free society. In
fact, diffusion, or extension of area, is one of the necessities of
slavery; the prevention of which is regarded as directly and immediately
menacing to the existence of the institution. This arises from the almost
exclusive application of slave labor to the one occupation of agriculture,
and the difficulty, if not impossibility, of diversifying employments.
Free society, on the contrary, has indefinite resources of development
within a restricted area. It will far excel slave society in the
cultivation of the ground--first, on account of the superior intelligence
of the laborers; and secondly, in consequence of the greater and more
various demands upon the earth's products, where commerce, manufactures,
and the arts, abound. Then, these arts of life, by bringing men together
in cities and towns, and employing them in the manufacture or
transportation of the raw materials of the farmer, give rise to an
indefinite increase of wealth and population. The confinement of a free
people within narrow limits seems only to develop new resources of wealth,
comfort and happiness; while slave society, pent up, withers and dies. It
must continually be fed by new fields and forests, to be wasted and wilted
under the poisonous tread of the slave."
Were we simply a freesoiler, or anything else less than a thorough and
uncompromising abolitionist, we should certainly tax our ability to the
utmost to get up a cogent argument against the extension of slavery over
any part of our domain where it does not now exist; but as our principles
are hostile to the institution even where it does exist, and, therefore,
by implication and in fact, more hostile still to its introduction into
new territory, we forbear the preparation of any special remarks on this
particular subject.
With regard to the unnational and demoralizing institution of slavery, we
believe the majority of Northern people are too scrupulous. They seem to
think that it is enough for them to be mere freesoilers, to keep in check
the diffusive element of slavery, and to prevent it from crossing over
the bounds within which it is now regulated by municipal law. Remiss in
their _national_ duties, as we contend, they make no positive attack upon
the institution in the Southern States. Only a short while since, one of
their ablest journals--the _North American and United States Gazette_,
published in Philadelphia--made use of the following language:--
"With slavery in the States, we make no pretence of having anything
politically to do. For better or for worse, the system belongs solely to
the people of those States; and is separated by an impassable gulf of
State sovereignty from any legal intervention of ours. We cannot vote it
down any more than we can vote down the institution of caste in Hindostan,
or abolish polygamy in the Sultan's dominions. Thus, precluded from all
political action in reference to it, prevented from touching one stone of
the edifice, not the slightest responsibility attaches to us as citizens
for its continued existence. But on the question of extending slavery over
the free Territories of the United States, it is our right, it is our
imperative duty to think, to feel, to speak and to vote. We cannot
interfere to cover the shadows of slavery with the sunshine of freedom,
but we can interfere to prevent the sunshine of freedom from being
eclipsed by the shadows of slavery. We can interpose to stay the progress
of that institution, which aims to drive free labor from its own heritage.
Kansas should be divided up into countless homes for the ownership of men
who have a right to the fruit of their own labors. Free labor would make
it bud and blossom like the rose; would cover it with beauty, and draw
from it boundless wealth; would throng it with population; would make
States, nations, empires out of it, prosperous, powerful, intelligent and
free, illustrating on a wide theatre the beneficent ends of Providence in
the formation of our government, to advance and elevate the millions of
our race, and, like the heart in the body, from its central position,
sending out on every side, far and near, the vital influences of freedom
and civilization. May that region, therefore, be secured to free labor."
Now we fully and heartily indorse every line of the latter part of this
extract; but, with all due deference to our sage cotemporary, we do most
emphatically dissent from the sentiments embodied in the first part. Pray,
permit us to ask--have the people of the North no interest in the United
States as a _nation_, and do they not see that slavery is a great injury
and disgrace to the _whole country_? Did they not, in "the days that tried
men's souls," strike as hard blows to secure the independence of Georgia
as they did in defending the liberties of Massachusetts, and is it not
notoriously true that the Toryism of South Carolina prolonged the war two
years at least? Is it not, moreover, equally true that the oligarchs of
South Carolina have been unmitigated pests and bores to the General
Government ever since it was organized, and that the free and
conscientious people of the North are virtually excluded from her soil, in
consequence of slavery? It is a well-known and incontestible fact, that
the Northern States furnished about two-thirds of all the American troops
engaged in the Revolutionary War; and, though they were neither more nor
less brave or patriotic than their fellow-soldiers of the South, yet,
inasmuch as the independence of our country was mainly secured by virtue
of their numerical strength, we think they ought to consider it not only
their right but their _duty_ to make a firm and decisive effort to save
the States which they fought to free, from falling under the yoke of a
worse tyranny than that which overshadowed them under the reign of King
George the Third. Freemen of the North! we earnestly entreat you to think
of these things. Hitherto, as mere freesoilers, you have approached but
half-way to the line of your duty; now, for your own sakes and for ours,
and for the purpose of perpetuating this glorious Republic, which your
fathers and our fathers founded in septennial streams of blood, we ask
you, in all seriousness, to organize yourselves as _one man_ under the
banners of Liberty, and to aid us in _exterminating_ slavery, which is the
only thing that militates against our complete aggrandizement as a nation.
In this extraordinary crisis of affairs, no man can be a true patriot
without first becoming an abolitionist. (A freesoiler is only a tadpole in
an advanced state of transformation; an abolitionist is the full and
perfectly developed frog.) And here, perhaps, we may be pardoned for the
digression necessary to show the exact definition of the terms _abolish_,
_abolition_ and _abolitionist_. We have looked in vain for an explanation
of the signification of these words in any Southern publication; for no
dictionary has ever yet been published in the South, nor is there the
least probability that one ever will be published within her borders,
until slavery is _abolished_; but, thanks to Heaven, a portion of this
continent is what our Revolutionary Fathers and the Fathers of the
Constitution fought and labored and prayed to make it--a land of freedom,
of power, of progress, of prosperity, of intelligence, of religion, of
literature, of commerce, of science, of arts, of agriculture, of
manufactures, of ingenuity, of enterprise, of wealth, of renown, of
goodness, and of grandeur. From that glorious part of our
confederacy--from the North, whence, on account of slavery in the South,
we are under the humiliating necessity of procuring almost everything that
is useful or ornamental, from primers to Bibles, from wafers to
printing-presses, from ladles to locomotives, and from portfolios to
portraits and pianos--comes to us a huge volume bearing the honored name
of Webster--Noah Webster, who, after thirty-five years of unremitting
toil, completed a work which is, we believe, throughout Great Britain and
the United States, justly regarded as the standard vocabulary of the
English language--and in it the terms _abolish_, _abolition_, and
_abolitionist_, are defined as follows:--
"Abolish, _v. t._ To make void; to annul; to abrogate; applied
chiefly and appropriately to establish laws, contracts, rites,
customs and institutions; as to _abolish_ laws by a repeal, actual or
virtual. To destroy or put an end to; as to _abolish_ idols."
"Abolition, _n._ The act of abolishing; or the state of being
abolished; an annulling; abrogation; utter destruction; as the
_abolition_ of laws, decrees, or ordinances, rites, customs, &c. The
putting an end to slavery; emancipation."
"Abolitionist, _n._ A person who favors abolition, or the immediate
emancipation of slaves."
There, gentlemen of the South, you have the definitions of the transitive
verb _abolish_ and its two derivative nouns, _abolition_ and
_abolitionist_; can you, with the keenest possible penetration of vision,
detect in either of these words even a tittle of the opprobrium which the
oligarchs, in their wily and inhuman efforts to enslave all working
classes irrespective of race or color, have endeavored to attach to them?
We know you cannot; abolition is but another name for patriotism, and its
other special synonyms are generosity, magnanimity, reason, prudence,
wisdom, religion, progress, justice, and humanity.
And here, by the way, we may as well explain whom we refer to when we
speak of gentlemen of the South. We say, therefore, that, deeply impressed
with the conviction that slavery is a great social and political evil, a
_sin and a crime_, in the fullest sense, whenever we speak of gentlemen of
the South, or of gentlemen anywhere, or at whatever time, or in whatever
connection we may speak of gentlemen, we seldom allude to slaveholders,
for the simple reason that, with few exceptions, we cannot conscientiously
recognize _them_ as gentlemen. It is only in those rare instances where
the crime is mitigated by circumstances over which the slaveholder has had
no control, or where he himself, convinced of the impropriety, the folly
and the wickedness of the institution, is anxious to abolish it, that we
can sincerely apply to him the sacred appellation in question--an
appellation which we would no sooner think of applying to a _pro-slavery_
slaveholder, or any other pro-slavery man, than we would think of applying
it to a border-ruffian, a thief or a murderer. Let it be understood,
however, that the rare instances of which we speak are less rare than many
persons may suppose. We are personally acquainted with several
slaveholders in North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia, who
have unreservedly assured us that they were disgusted with the
institution, and some of them went so far as to say they would be glad to
acquiesce in the provision of a statute which would make it obligatory on
them all to manumit their slaves, without the smallest shadow or substance
of compensation. These, we believe, are the sentiments of all the
respectable and patriotic slaveholders, who have eyes to see, and
see--ears to hear, and hear; who, perceiving the impoverishing and
degrading effects of slavery, are unwilling to entail it on their
children, and who, on account of their undeviating adherence to truth and
justice, are, like the more intelligent non-slaveholders, worthy of being
regarded as gentlemen in every sense of the term. Such slaveholders were
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and other illustrious Virginians, who, in
the language of the great chief himself, declared it among their "_first
wishes_ to see some plan adopted by which slavery, in this country, may be
abolished by law." The words embraced within this quotation were used by
Washington, in a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 9th, 1786--a
letter from which we shall quote more freely hereafter; and we think his
emphatic use of the participle _abolished_, at that early day, is proof
positive that the glorious "Father of his Country" is entitled to the
first place in the calendar of primitive American abolitionists.
It is against slavery on the whole, and against slaveholders as a body,
that we wage an exterminating war. Those persons who, under the infamous
slave-laws of the South--laws which have been correctly spoken of as a
"disgrace to civilization," and which must be annulled simultaneously with
the abolition of slavery--have had the vile institution entailed on them
contrary to their wills, are virtually on our side; we may, therefore,
very properly strike them off from the black list of three hundred and
forty-seven thousand slaveholders, who, as a body, have shocked the
civilized world with their barbarous conduct, and from whose conceited and
presumptuous ranks are selected the officers who do all the legislation,
town, county, state and national, for (against) five millions of poor
outraged whites, and three millions of enslaved negroes.
Non-slaveholders of the South! farmers, mechanics and workingmen, we take
this occasion to assure you that the slaveholders, the arrogant demagogues
whom you have elected to offices of honor and profit, have hoodwinked you,
trifled with you, and used you as mere tools for the consummation of their
wicked designs. They have purposely kept you in ignorance, and have, by
moulding your passions and prejudices to suit themselves, induced you to
act in direct opposition to your dearest rights and interests. By a system
of the grossest subterfuge and misrepresentation, and in order to avert,
for a season, the vengeance that will most assuredly overtake them ere
long, they have taught you to hate the abolitionists, who are your best
and only true friends. Now, as one of your own number, we appeal to you
to join us in our patriotic endeavors to rescue the generous soil of the
South from the usurped and desolating control of these political vampires.
Once and forever, at least so far as this country is concerned, the
infernal question of slavery must be disposed of; a speedy and perfect
abolishment of the whole institution is the true policy of the South--and
this is the policy which we propose to pursue. Will you aid us, will you
assist us, will you be freemen, or will you be slaves? These are questions
of vital importance; weigh them well in your minds; come to a prudent and
firm decision, and hold yourselves in readiness to act in accordance
therewith. You must either be for us or against us--anti-slavery or
pro-slavery; it is impossible for you to occupy a neutral ground; it is as
certain as fate itself, that if you do not voluntarily oppose the
usurpations and outrages of the slavocrats, they will force you into
involuntary compliance with their infamous measures. Consider well the
aggressive, fraudulent and despotic power which they have exercised in the
affairs of Kanzas; and remember that, if, by adhering to erroneous
principles of neutrality or non-resistance, you allow them to force the
curse of slavery on that vast and fertile field, the broad area of all the
surrounding States and Territories--the whole nation, in fact--will soon
fall a prey to their diabolical intrigues and machinations. Thus, if you
are not vigilant, will they take advantage of your neutrality, and make
you and others the victims of their inhuman despotism. Do not reserve the
strength of your arms until you shall have been rendered powerless to
strike; the present is the proper time for action; under all the
circumstances, apathy or indifference is a crime. First ascertain, as
nearly as you can, the precise nature and extent of your duty, and then,
without a moment's delay, perform it in good faith. To facilitate you in
determining what considerations of right, justice and humanity require at
your hands, is one of the primary objects of this work; and we shall
certainly fail in our desire if we do not accomplish our task in a manner
acceptable to God and advantageous to man.
But we are carrying this chapter beyond all ordinary bounds; and yet,
there are many important particulars in which we have drawn no comparison
between the free and the slave States. The more weighty remarks which we
intended to offer in relation to the new States of the West and Southwest,
free and slave, shall appear in the succeeding chapter. With regard to
agriculture, and all the multifarious interests of husbandry, we deem it
quite unnecessary to say more. Cotton has been shorn of its magic power,
and is no longer King; _dried grass_, commonly called hay, is, it seems,
the rightful heir to the throne. Commerce, Manufactures, Literature, and
other important subjects, shall be considered as we progress.
CHAPTER II.
HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED.
Preliminary to our elucidation of what we conceive to be the most
discreet, fair and feasible plan for the abolition of slavery, we propose
to offer a few additional reasons why it should be abolished. Among the
thousand and one arguments that present themselves in support of our
position--which, before we part with the reader, we shall endeavor to
define so clearly, that it shall be regarded as ultra only by those who
imperfectly understand it--is the influence which slavery invariably
exercises in depressing the value of real estate; and as this is a matter
in which the non-slaveholders of the South, of the West, and of the
Southwest, are most deeply interested, we shall discuss it in a sort of
preamble of some length.
The oligarchs say we cannot abolish slavery without infringing on the
right of property. Again we tell them we do not recognize property in man;
but even if we did, and if we were to inventory the negroes at quadruple,
the value of their last assessment, still, impelled by a sense of duty to
others, and as a matter of simple justice to ourselves, we, the
non-slaveholders of the South, would be fully warranted in emancipating
all the slaves at once, and that, too, without any compensation whatever
to those who claim to be their absolute masters and owners. We will
explain. In 1850, the average value per acre, of land in the Northern
States was $28,07; in the Northwestern $11,39; in the Southern $5,34; and
in the Southwestern $6,26. Now, in consequence of numerous natural
advantages, among which may be enumerated the greater mildness of climate,
richness of soil, deposits of precious metals, abundance and spaciousness
of harbors, and super-excellence of water-power, we contend that, had it
not been for slavery, the average value of land in all the Southern and
Southwestern States, would have been _at least_ equal to the average value
of the same in the Northern States. We conclude, therefore, and we think
the conclusion is founded on principles of equity, that you, the
slaveholders, are indebted to us, the non-slaveholders, in the sum of
$22,73, which is the difference between $28,07 and $5,34, on every acre of
Southern soil in our possession. This claim we bring against you, because
slavery, which has inured exclusively to your own benefit, if, indeed, it
has been beneficial at all, has shed a blighting influence over our lands,
thereby keeping them out of market, and damaging every acre to the amount
specified. Sirs! are you ready to settle the account? Let us see how much
it is. There are in the fifteen slave States, 346,048 slaveholders, and
544,926,120 acres of land. Now the object is to ascertain how many acres
are owned by slaveholders, and how many by non-slaveholders. Suppose we
estimate five hundred acres as the average landed property of each
slaveholder; will that be fair? We think it will, taking into
consideration the fact that 174,503 of the whole number of slaveholders
hold less than five slaves each--68,820 holding only one each. According
to this hypothesis, the slaveholders own 173,024,000 acres, and the
non-slaveholders the balance, with the exception of about 40,000,000 of
acres, which belong to the General Government. The case may be stated
thus:
Area of the Slave States 544,926,720 acres.
Estimates {Acres owned by slaveholders 173,024,000
{Acres owned by the government 40,000,000--213,024,000
{Acres owned by non-slaveholders 331,902,720
Now, chevaliers of the lash, and worshippers of slavery, the total value
of three hundred and thirty-one million nine hundred and two thousand
seven hundred and twenty acres, at twenty-two dollars and seventy-three
cents per acre, is _seven billion five hundred and forty-four million one
hundred and forty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-five dollars_;
and this is our account against you on a single score. Considering how
your villainous institution has retarded the development of our commercial
and manufacturing interests, how it has stifled the aspirations of
inventive genius; and, above all, how it has barred from us the
heaven-born sweets of literature and religion--concernments too sacred to
be estimated in a pecuniary point of view--might we not, with perfect
justice and propriety, duplicate the amount, and still be accounted modest
in our demands? Fully advised, however, of your indigent circumstances, we
feel it would be utterly useless to call on you for the whole amount that
is due us; we shall, therefore, in your behalf, make another draft on the
fund of non-slaveholding generosity, and let the account, meagre as it is,
stand as above. Though we have given you all the offices, and you have
given us none of the benefits of legislation; though we have fought the
battles of the South, while you were either lolling in your piazzas, or
playing the tory, and endeavoring to filch from us our birthright of
freedom; though you have absorbed the wealth of our communities in sending
your own children to Northern seminaries and colleges, or in employing
Yankee teachers to officiate exclusively in your own families, and have
refused to us the limited privilege of common schools; though you have
scorned to patronize our mechanics and industrial enterprises, and have
passed to the North for every article of apparel, utility, and adornment;
and though you have maltreated, outraged and defrauded us in every
relation of life, civil, social, and political, yet we are willing to
forgive and _forget_ you, if you will but do us justice on a single count.
Of you, the introducers, aiders and abettors of slavery, we demand
indemnification for the damage our lands have sustained on account
thereof; the amount of that damage is $7,544,148,825; and now, Sirs, we
are ready to receive the money, and if it is perfectly convenient to you,
we would be glad to have you pay it in specie! It will not avail you,
Sirs, to parley or prevaricate. We must have a settlement. Our claim is
just and overdue. We have already indulged you too long. Your criminal
extravagance has almost ruined us. We are determined that you shall no
longer play the profligate, and fair sumptuously every day at our expense.
How do you propose to settle? Do you offer us your negroes in part
payment? We do not want your negroes. We would not have all of them, nor
any number of them, even as a gift. We hold ourselves above the
disreputable and iniquitous practices of buying, selling, and owning
slaves. What we demand is damages in money, or other absolute property, as
an equivalent for the pecuniary losses we have suffered at your hands. You
value your negroes at sixteen hundred millions of dollars, and propose to
sell them to us for that sum; we should consider ourselves badly cheated,
and disgraced for all time, here and hereafter, if we were to take them
off your hands at sixteen farthings! We tell you emphatically, we are
firmly resolved never to degrade ourselves by becoming the mercenary
purchasers or proprietors of human beings. Except for the purpose of
liberating them, we would not give a handkerchief or a tooth-pick for all
the slaves in the world. But, in order to show how brazenly absurd are the
howls and groans which you invariably set up for compensation, whenever we
speak of the abolition of slavery, we will suppose your negroes are worth
all you ask for them, and that we are bound to secure to you every cent of
the sum before they can become free--in which case, our accounts would
stand thus:
Non-slaveholder's account against Slaveholders 7,544,148,825
Slaveholder's account against Non-slaveholders 1,600,000,000
-------------
Balance due Non-slaveholders 5,944,148,825
Now, Sirs, we ask you in all seriousness, Is it not true that you have
filched from us nearly five times the amount of the assessed value of your
slaves? Why, then, do you still clamor for more? Is it your purpose to
make the game perpetual? Think you that we will ever continue to bow at
the wave of your wand, that we will bring humanity into everlasting
disgrace by licking the hand that smites us, and that with us there is no
point beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue? Sirs, if these be
your thoughts, you are laboring under a most fatal delusion. You can goad
us no further; you shall oppress us no longer; heretofore, earnestly but
submissively, we have asked you to redress the more atrocious outrages
which you have perpetrated against us; but what has been the invariable
fate of our petitions? With scarcely a perusal, with a degree of contempt
that added insult to injury, you have laid them on the table, and from
thence they have been swept into the furnace of oblivion. Henceforth,
Sirs, we are demandants, not suppliants. We demand our rights, nothing
more, nothing less. It is for you to decide whether we are to have justice
peaceably or by violence, for whatever consequences may follow, we are
determined to have it one way or the other. Do you aspire to become the
victims of white non-slaveholding vengeance by day, and of barbarous
massacre by the negroes at night? Would you be instrumental in bringing
upon yourselves, your wives, and your children, a fate too horrible to
contemplate? shall history cease to cite, as an instance of unexampled
cruelty, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, because the world--the
South--shall have furnished a more direful scene of atrocity and carnage?
Sirs, we would not wantonly pluck a single hair from your heads; but we
have endured long, we have endured much; slaves only of the most
despicable class would endure more. An enumeration or classification of
all the abuses, insults, wrongs, injuries, usurpations, and oppressions,
to which you have subjected us, would fill a larger volume than this; it
is our purpose, therefore, to speak only of those that affect us most
deeply. Out of our effects your have long since overpaid yourselves for
your negroes; and now, Sirs, you _must_ emancipate them--speedily
emancipate them, or we will emancipate them for you! Every non-slaveholder
in the South is, or ought to be, and will be, against you. You yourselves
ought to join us at once in our laudable crusade against "the mother of
harlots." Slavery has polluted and impoverished your lands; freedom will
restore them to their virgin purity, and add from twenty to thirty dollars
to the value of every acre. Correctly speaking, emancipation will cost you
nothing; the moment you abolish slavery, that very moment will the
putative value of the slave become actual value in the soil. Though there
are ten millions of people in the South, and though you, the slaveholders,
are only three hundred and forty-seven thousand in number, you have within
a fraction of one-third of all the territory belonging to the fifteen
slave States. You have a landed estate of 173,024,000 acres, the present
average market value of which is only $5,34 per acre; emancipate your
slaves on Wednesday morning, and on the Thursday following the value of
your lands, and ours too, will have increased to an average of at least
$28,07 per acre. Let us see, therefore, even in this one particular,
whether the abolition of slavery will not be a real pecuniary advantage to
you. The present total market value of all your landed property, at $5,34
per acre, is only $923,248,160! With the beauty and sunlight of freedom
beaming on the same estate, it would be worth, at $28,07 per acre,
$4,856,873,680. The former sum, deducted from the latter, leaves a balance
of $3,933,535,520, and to the full extent of this amount will your lands
be increased in value whenever you abolish slavery; that is, provided you
abolish it before it completely "dries up all the organs of increase."
Here is a more manifest and distinct statement of the case:--
Estimated value of slaveholders' lands after slavery} $4,856,783,680
shall have been abolished }
Present value of slaveholders' lands 923,248,160
--------------
Probable aggregate enhancement of value $3,933,535,520
Now, Sirs, this last sum is considerably more than twice as great as the
estimated value of your negroes; and those of you, if any there be, who
are yet heirs to sane minds and honest hearts, must, it seems to us, admit
that the bright prospect which freedom presents for a wonderful increase
in the value of real estate, ours as well as yours, to say nothing of the
thousand other kindred considerations, ought to be quite sufficient to
induce all the Southern States, in their sovereign capacities, to abolish
slavery at the earliest practical period. You yourselves, instead of
losing anything by the emancipation of your negroes--even though we
suppose them to be worth every dime of $1,600,000,000--would, in this one
particular, the increased value of land, realize a _net profit_ of over
_twenty three hundred millions of dollars_! Here are the exact figures:--
Net increment of value which it is estimated will}
accrue to slaveholders' lands in consequence } $3,933,535,520
of the abolition of slavery }
Putative value of the slaves 1,600,000,000
-------------
Slaveholders' estimated net landed profits of eman. $2,333,535,520
What is the import of these figures? They are full of meaning. They
proclaim themselves the financial intercessors for freedom, and, with that
open-hearted liberality which is so characteristic of the sacred cause in
whose behalf they plead, they propose to pay you upward of three thousand
nine hundred millions of dollars for the very "property" which you, in all
the reckless extravagance of your inhuman avarice, could not find a heart
to price at more than one thousand six hundred millions. In other words,
your own lands, groaning and languishing under the monstrous burden of
slavery, announce their willingness to pay you all you ask for the
negroes, and offer you, besides, a bonus of more than twenty-three hundred
millions of dollars, if you will but convert those lands into free soil!
_Our_ lands, also, cry aloud to be spared from the further pollutions and
desolations of slavery; and now, Sirs, we want to know explicitly whether,
or not, it is your intention to heed these lamentations of the ground? We
want to know whether you are men or devils--whether you are entirely
selfish and cruelly dishonest, or whether you have any respect for the
rights of others. We, the non-slaveholders of the South, have many very
important interests at stake--interests which, heretofore, you have
steadily despised and trampled under foot, but which, henceforth, we shall
foster and defend in utter defiance of all the unhallowed influences which
it is possible for you, or any other class of slaveholders or
slavebreeders to bring against us. Not the least among these interests is
our landed property, which, to command a decent price, only needs to be
disencumbered of slavery.
In his present condition, we believe man exercises one of the noblest
virtues with which heaven has endowed him, when, without taking any undue
advantage of his fellow-men, and with a firm, unwavering purpose to
confine his expenditures to the legitimate pursuits and pleasures of life,
he covets money and strives to accumulate it. Entertaining this view, and
having no disposition to make an improper use of money, we are free to
confess that we have a greater penchant for twenty-eight dollars than for
five; for ninety than for fifteen; for a thousand than for one hundred.
South of Mason and Dixon's line we, the non-slaveholders, have 331,902,720
acres of land, the present average market value of which, as previously
stated, is only $5,34 per acre; by abolishing slavery we expect to enhance
the value to an average of at least $28,07 per acre, and thus realize an
average net increase of wealth of more than _seventy-five hundred millions
of dollars_. The hope of realizing smaller sums has frequently induced men
to perpetrate acts of injustice; we can see no reason why the certainty of
becoming immensely rich in real estate, or other property, should make us
falter in the performance of a _sacred duty_.
As illustrative of our theme, a bit of personal history may not be out of
place in this connection. Only a few months have elapsed since we sold to
an elder brother an interest we held in an old homestead which was willed
to us many years ago by our dear departed father. The tract of land,
containing two hundred acres, or thereabouts, is situated two and a half
miles west of Mocksville, the capital of Davie county, North Carolina, and
is very nearly equally divided by Bear Creek, a small tributary of the
South Yadkin. More than one-third of this tract--on which we have plowed,
and hoed, and harrowed, many a long summer without ever suffering from the
effects of _coup de soleil_--is under cultivation; the remaining portion
is a well-timbered forest, in which, without being very particular, we
counted, while hunting through it not long since, sixty-three different
kinds of indigenous trees--to say nothing of either coppice, shrubs or
plants--among which the hickory, oak, ash, beech, birch, and black walnut,
were most abundant. No turpentine or rosin is produced in our part of the
State; but there are, on the place of which we speak, several species of
the genus Pinus, by the light of whose flammable knots, as radiated on the
contents of some half-dozen old books, which, by hook or by crook, had
found their way into the neighborhood, we have been enabled to turn the
long winter evenings to our advantage, and have thus _partially_ escaped
from the prison-grounds of those loathsome dungeons of illiteracy in which
it has been the constant policy of the oligarchy to keep the masses, the
non-slaveholding whites and the negroes, forever confined. The fertility
of the soil may be inferred from the quality and variety of its natural
productions; the meadow and the bottom, comprising, perhaps, an area of
forty acres, are hardly surpassed by the best lands in the valley of the
Yadkin. A thorough examination of the orchard will disclose the fact that
considerable attention has been paid to the selection of fruits; the
buildings are tolerable; the water is good. Altogether, to be frank, and
nothing more, it is, for its size, one of the most desirable farms in the
county, and will, at any time, command the maximum price of land in
Western Carolina. Our brother, anxious to become the sole proprietor,
readily agreed to give us the highest market price, which we shall publish
by-and-bye. While reading the Baltimore _Sun_, the morning after we had
made the sale, our attention was allured to a paragraph headed "Sales of
Real Estate," from which, among other significant items, we learned that a
tract of land containing exactly two hundred acres, and occupying a
portion of one of the rural districts in the southeastern part of
Pennsylvania, near the Maryland line, had been sold the week before, at
_one hundred and five dollars and fifty cents_ per acre. Judging from the
succinct account given in the _Sun_, we are of the opinion that, with
regard to fertility of soil, the Pennsylvania tract always has been, is
now, and perhaps always will be, rather inferior to the one under special
consideration. One is of the same size as the other; both are used for
agricultural purposes; in all probability the only _essential_ difference
between them is this: one is blessed with the pure air of freedom, the
other is cursed with the malaria of slavery. For our interest in the old
homestead we received a nominal sum, amounting to an average of precisely
_five dollars and sixty cents_ per acre. No one but our brother, who was
keen for the purchase, would have given us quite so much.
And, now, pray let us ask, what does this narrative teach? We shall use
few words in explanation: there is an extensive void, but it can be better
filled with reflection. The aggregate value of the one tract is $21,100;
that of the other is only $1,120; the difference is $19,980. We contend,
therefore, in view of all the circumstances detailed, that the advocates
and retainers of slavery, have, to all intents and purposes, defrauded our
family out of this last-mentioned sum. In like manner, and on the same
basis of deduction, we contend that almost every non-slaveholder, who
either is or has been the owner of real estate in the South, would, in a
court of strict justice, be entitled to damages--the amount in all cases
to be determined with reference to the quality of the land in question. We
say this because, in violation of every principle of expediency, justice,
and humanity, and in direct opposition to our solemn protests, slavery was
foisted upon us, and has been thus far perpetuated, by and through the
diabolical intrigues of the oligarchs, and by them alone; and furthermore,
because the very best agricultural lands in the Northern States being
worth from one hundred to one hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre,
there is no possible reason, except slavery, why the more fertile and
congenial soil of the South should not be worth at least as much. If, on
this principle, we could ascertain, in the matter of real estate, the
total indebtedness of the slaveholders to the non-slaveholders, we should
doubtless find the sum quite equivalent to the amount estimated on a
preceding page--$7,544,148,825.
We have recently conversed with two gentlemen who, to save themselves from
the poverty and disgrace of slavery, left North Carolina six or seven
years ago, and who are now residing in the territory of Minnesota, where
they have accumulated handsome fortunes. One of them had traveled
extensively in Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, and other adjoining
States; and, according to his account, and we know him to be a man of
veracity, it is almost impossible for persons at a distance, to form a
proper conception of the magnitude of the difference between the current
value of lands in the Free and the Slave States of the West. On one
occasion, embarking at Wheeling, he sailed down the Ohio; Virgina and
Kentucky on the one side, Ohio and Indiana on the other. He stopped at
several places along the river, first on the right bank, then on the left,
and so on, until he arrived at Evansville; continuing his trip, he sailed
down to Cairo, thence up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Des Moines;
having tarried at different points along the route, sometimes in Missouri,
sometimes in Illinois. Wherever he landed on free soil, he found it from
one to two hundred per cent. more valuable than the slave soil on the
opposite bank. If, for instance, the maximum price of land was eight
dollars in Kentucky, the minimum price was sixteen in Ohio; if it was
seven dollars in Missouri, it was fourteen in Illinois. Furthermore, he
assured us, that, so far as he could learn, two years ago, when he
traveled through the States of which we speak, the range of prices of
agricultural lands, in Kentucky, was from three to eight dollars per acre;
in Ohio, from sixteen to forty; in Missouri, from two to seven; in
Illinois, from fourteen to thirty; in Arkansas, from one to four; in Iowa,
from six to fifteen.
In all the old slave States, as is well known, there are vast bodies of
land that can be bought for the merest trifle. We know an enterprising
capitalist in Philadelphia, who owns in his individual name, in the State
of Virginia, _one hundred and thirty thousand acres_, for which he paid
only _thirty-seven and a half cents_ per acre! Some years ago, in certain
parts of North Carolina, several large tracts were purchased at the rate
of _twenty-five cents_ per acre!
Hiram Berdan, the distinguished inventor, who has frequently seen freedom
and slavery side by side, and who is, therefore, well qualified to form an
opinion of their relative influence upon society, says:
"Many comparisons might be drawn between the free and the slave
States, either of which should be sufficient to satisfy any man that
slavery is not only ruinous to free labor and enterprise, but
injurious to morals, and blighting to the soil where it exists. The
comparison between the States of Michigan and Arkansas, which were
admitted into the Union at the same time, will fairly illustrate the
difference and value of free and slave labor, as well as the
difference of moral and intellectual progress in a free and in a
slave State.
"In 1836 these young Stars were admitted into the constellation of
the Union. Michigan, with one-half the extent of territory of
Arkansas, challenged her sister State for a twenty years' race, and
named as her rider, 'Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude,
unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tolerated in this
State.' Arkansas accepted the challenge, and named as her rider, 'The
General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the
emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners.' Thus
mounted, these two States, the one free and the other slave, started
together twenty years ago, and now, having arrived at the end of the
proposed race, let us review and mark the progress of each. Michigan
comes out in 1856 with three times the population of slave Arkansas,
with five times the assessed value of farms, farming implements and
machinery and with eight times the number of public schools."
In the foregoing part of our work, we have drawn comparisons between the
old free States and the old slave States, and between the new free States
and the new slave States; had we sufficient time and space, we might with
the most significant results, change this method of comparison, by
contrasting the new free States with the old slave States. Can the
slavocrats compare Ohio with Virginia, Illinois with Georgia, or Indiana
with South Carolina, without experiencing the agony of inexpressible
shame? If they can, then indeed has slavery debased them to a lower deep
than we care to contemplate. Herewith we present a brief contrast, as
drawn by a Maryland abolitionist, between the most important old slave
State and the most important new free State:
"Virginia was a State, wealthy and prosperous, when Ohio was a
wilderness belonging to her. She gave that territory away, and what
is the result? Ohio supports a population of two million souls, and
the mother contains but one and a half millions; yet Virginia is
one-third larger than the Buckeye State. Virginia contains 61,000
square miles, Ohio but 40,000. The latter sustains 50 persons to the
square mile, while Virginia gives employment to but 25 to the square
mile. Notwithstanding Virginia's superiority in years and in
soil--for she grows tobacco, as well as corn and
wheat--notwithstanding her immense coal-fields, and her splendid
Atlantic ports, Ohio, the infant State, had 21 representatives in
Congress in 1850, while Virginia had but 13--the latter having
_commenced_ in the Union with 10 Congressmen. Compare the progress of
these States, and then say, what is it but Free Labor that has
advanced Ohio? and to what, except slavery, can we attribute the
non-progression of the Old Dominion?"
As a striking illustration of the selfish and debasing influences which
slavery exercises over the hearts and minds of slaveholders themselves, we
will here state the fact that, when we, the non-slaveholders, remonstrate
against the continuance of such a manifest wrong and inhumanity--a system
of usurpation and outrage so obviously detrimental to _our_
interests--they fly into a terrible passion, exclaiming, among all sorts
of horrible threats, which are not unfrequently executed, "It's none of
your business!"--meaning to say thereby that their slaves do not annoy us,
that slavery affects no one except the masters and their chattels
personal, and that _we_ should give ourselves no concern about it,
whatever! To every man of common sense and honesty of purpose the
preposterousness of this assumption is so evident, that any studied
attempt to refute it would be a positive insult. Would it be none of our
business, if they were to bring the small-pox into the neighborhood, and,
with premeditated design, let "foul contagion spread?" Or, if they were to
throw a pound of strychnine into a public spring, would that be none of
our business? Were they to turn a pack of mad dogs loose on the community,
would we be performing the part of good citizens by closing ourselves
within doors for the space of nine days, saying nothing to anybody?
Small-pox is a nuisance; strychnine is a nuisance; mad dogs are a
nuisance; slavery is a nuisance; slaveholders are a nuisance, and so are
slave-breeders; it is our business, nay, it is our imperative duty, to
abate nuisances; we propose, therefore, with the exception of strychnine,
which is the least of all these nuisances, to exterminate this catalogue
from beginning to end.
We mean precisely what our words express, when we say we believe thieves
are, as a general rule, less amenable to the moral law than slaveholders;
and here is the basis of our opinion: Ordinarily, thieves wait until we
acquire a considerable amount of property, and then they steal a
dispensable part of it; but they deprive no one of physical liberty, nor
do they fetter the mind; slaveholders, on the contrary, by clinging to the
most barbarous relic of the most barbarous age, bring disgrace on
themselves, their neighbors, and their country, depreciate the value of
their own and others' lands, degrade labor, discourage energy and
progress, prevent non-slaveholders from accumulating wealth, curtail their
natural rights and privileges, doom their children to ignorance, and all
its attendant evils, rob the negroes of their freedom, throw a damper on
every species of manual and intellectual enterprise, that is not projected
under their own roofs and for their own advantage, and, by other means
equally at variance with the principles of justice, though but an
insignificant fractional part of the population, they constitute
themselves the sole arbiters and legislators for the entire South. Not
merely so; the thief rarely steals from more than one man out of an
hundred; the slaveholder defrauds ninety and nine, and the hundredth does
not escape him. Again, thieves steal trifles from rich men; slaveholders
oppress poor men, and enact laws for the perpetuation of their poverty.
Thieves practice deceit on the wise; slaveholders take advantage of the
ignorant.
We contend, moreover, that slaveholders are more criminal than common
murderers. We know all slaveholders would not wilfully imbue their hands
in the blood of their fellow-men; but it is a fact, nevertheless, that all
slaveholders are under the shield of a perpetual license to murder. This
license they have issued to themselves. According to their own infamous
statutes, if the slave raises his hand to ward off an unmerited blow, they
are permitted to take his life with impunity. We are personally acquainted
with three ruffians who have become actual murderers under circumstances
of this nature. One of them killed two negroes on one occasion; the other
two have murdered but one each. Neither of them has ever been subjected to
even the preliminaries of a trial; not one of them has ever been arrested;
their own private explanations of the homicides exculpated them from all
manner of blame in the premises. They had done nothing wrong in the eyes
of the community. The negroes made an effort to shield themselves from the
tortures of a merciless flagellation, and were shot dead on the spot.
Their murderers still live, and are treated as honorable members of
society! No matter how many slaves or free negroes may witness the
perpetration of these atrocious homicides, not one of them is ever allowed
to lift up his voice in behalf of his murdered brother. In the South,
negroes, whether bond or free, are never, under any circumstances,
permitted to utter a syllable under oath, except for or against persons of
their own color; their testimony against white persons is of no more
consequence than the idle zephyr of the summer.
We shall now introduce four tables of valuable and interesting statistics,
to which philosophic and discriminating readers will doubtless have
frequent occasions to refer. Tables 22 and 23 will show the area of the
several States, in square miles and in acres, and the number of
inhabitants to the square mile in each State; also the grand total, or the
average, of every statistical column; tables 24 and 25 will exhibit the
total number of inhabitants residing in each State, according to the
census of 1850, the number of whites, the number of free colored, and the
number of slaves. The recapitulations of these tables will be followed by
a complete list of the number of slaveholders in the United States,
showing the exact number in each Southern State, and in the District of
Columbia. Most warmly do we commend all these statistics to the _studious_
attention of the reader. Their language is more eloquent than any possible
combination of Roman vowels and consonants. We have spared no pains in
arranging them so as to express at a single glance the great truths of
which they are composed; and we doubt not that the plan we have adopted
will meet with general approbation. Numerically considered, it will be
perceived that the slaveholders are, in reality, a very insignificant
class. Of them, however, we shall have more to say here after.
TABLE NO. XXII.
AREA OF THE FREE STATES.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Square Miles.| Acres. |Inhabit'nts to
| | | square mile.
----------------|--------------|-------------|--------------
California | 155,980 | 99,827,200 | .59
Connecticut | 4,674 | 2,991,360 | 79.33
Illinois | 55,405 | 35,359,200 | 15.37
Indiana | 33,809 | 21,637,760 | 29.24
Iowa | 50,914 | 32,584,960 | 3.78
Maine | 31,766 | 20,330,240 | 18.36
Massachusetts | 7,800 | 4,992,000 | 127.50
Michigan | 56,243 | 35,995,520 | 7.07
New Hampshire | 9,280 | 5,939,200 | 34.26
New Jersey | 8,320 | 5,324,800 | 58.84
New York | 47,000 | 30,080,000 | 65.90
Ohio | 39,964 | 26,576,960 | 49.55
Pennsylvania | 46,000 | 29,440,000 | 50.26
Rhode Island | 1,306 | 835,840 | 112.97
Vermont | 10,212 | 6,535,680 | 30.76
Wisconsin | 53,924 | 34,511,360 | 5.66
|--------------|-------------|--------------
| 612,597 | 392,062,082 | 21,91
============================================================
TABLE NO. XXIII.
AREA OF THE SLAVE STATES.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Square Miles.| Acres. |Inhabit'nts to
| | | square mile.
----------------|--------------|-------------|--------------
Alabama | 50,722 | 32,027,490 | 15.21
Arkansas | 52,198 | 33,406,720 | 4.02
Delaware | 2,120 | 1,356,800 | 43.18
Florida | 59,268 | 37,931,520 | 1.48
Georgia | 58,000 | 37,120,000 | 15.62
Kentucky | 37,680 | 24,115,200 | 26.07
Louisiana | 41,255 | 26,403,200 | 12.55
Maryland | 11,124 | 7,119,360 | 52.41
Mississippi | 47,156 | 30,179,840 | 12.86
Missouri | 67,380 | 43,123,200 | 10.12
North Carolina | 50,704 | 32,450,560 | 17.14
South Carolina | 29,385 | 18,805,400 | 22.75
Tennessee | 45,600 | 29,184,000 | 21.99
Texas | 237,504 | 152,002,560 | 89
Virginia | 61,352 | 39,165,280 | 23.17
|--------------|-------------|--------------
| 851,448 | 544,926,720 | 11.29
TABLE NO. XXIV.
POPULATION OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
---------------------------------------------------
States. | Whites. | Free | Total.
| | Colored.|
----------------|------------|---------|-----------
California | 91,635 | 962 | 92,597
Connecticut | 363,099 | 7,693 | 370,792
Illinois | 846,034 | 5,436 | 851,470
Indiana | 977,154 | 11,262 | 988,416
Iowa | 191,881 | 333 | 192,214
Maine | 581,813 | 1,356 | 583,169
Massachusetts | 985,450 | 9,064 | 994,514
Michigan | 395,071 | 2,583 | 397,654
New Hampshire | 317,456 | 520 | 317,976
New Jersey | 465,509 | 23,810 | 489,555
New York | 3,048,325 | 49,069 | 3,097,394
Ohio | 1,955,050 | 25,279 | 1,980,329
Pennsylvania | 2,258,160 | 53,626 | 2,311,786
Rhode Island | 143,875 | 3,670 | 147,545
Vermont | 313,402 | 718 | 314,120
Wisconsin | 304,756 | 635 | 305,391
|------------|---------|-----------
| 13,233,670 | 196,116 | 13,434,922
===================================================
TABLE NO. XXV.
POPULATION OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Whites. | Free | Slaves. | Total.
| | Colored.| |
---------------|-----------|---------|-----------|----------
Alabama | 426,514 | 2,265 | 342,844 | 771,623
Arkansas | 162,189 | 608 | 47,100 | 209,897
Delaware | 71,169 | 18,073 | 2,290 | 91,532
Florida | 47,203 | 932 | 39,310 | 87,445
Georgia | 521,572 | 2,931 | 381,622 | 906,185
Kentucky | 761,413 | 10,011 | 210,981 | 982,405
Louisiana | 255,491 | 17,462 | 244,809 | 517,762
Maryland | 417,943 | 74,723 | 90,368 | 583,034
Mississippi | 295,718 | 930 | 309,878 | 606,326
Missouri | 592,004 | 2,618 | 87,422 | 682,044
North Carolina | 553,028 | 27,463 | 288,548 | 869,039
South Carolina | 274,563 | 8,960 | 384,984 | 668,507
Tennessee | 756,836 | 6,422 | 239,459 | 1,002,717
Texas | 154,034 | 397 | 58,161 | 212,592
Virginia | 894,800 | 54,333 | 472,528 | 1,421,661
|-----------|---------|-----------|----------
| 6,184,477 | 228,138 | 3,200,364 | 9,612,979
RECAPITULATION--AREA.
Square Miles. Acres.
Area of the Slave States 851,448 544,926,720
Area of the Free States 612,597 392,062,082
------------ -----------
Balances in favor of Slave States 238,851 152,864,638
RECAPITULATION--POPULATION--1850.
Whites. Total.
Population of the Free States 13,233,670 13,434,922
Population of the Slave States 6,184,477 9,612,976
---------- ----------
Balances in favor of the Free States 7,049,193 3,821,946
FREE COLORED AND SLAVE--1850.
Free Negroes in the Slave States 228,138
Free Negroes in the Free States 196,116
--------
Excess of Free Negroes in the Slave States 32,022
Slaves in the Slave States 3,200,364
Free Negroes in the Slave States 228,138
---------
Aggregate Negro Population of the Slave States in 1850 3,428,502
THE TERRITORIES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Area in Square Miles. Population.
Indian Territory 71,127
Kansas " 114,798
Minnesota " 166,025 6,077
Nebraska " 335,882
N. Mexico " 207,007 61,547
Oregon " 185,030 13,294
Utah " 269,170 11,380
Washington " 123,022
Columbia, Dist. of 60 [2]51,687
--------- --------
Aggregate of Area and Population, 1,472,121 143,985
NUMBER OF SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE UNITED STATES--1850.
Alabama 29,295
Arkansas 5,999
Colombia, District of, 1,477
Delaware 809
Florida 3,520
Georgia 38,456
Kentucky 38,385
Louisiana 20,670
Maryland 16,040
Mississippi 23,116
Missouri 19,185
North Carolina 28,303
South Carolina 25,596
Tennessee 33,864
Texas 7,747
Virginia 55,063
--------
Total Number of Slaveholders in the United States 347,525
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS--1850.
Holders of 1 slave 68,820
Holders of 1 and under 5 105,683
Holders of 5 and under 10 80,765
Holders of 10 and under 20 54,595
Holders of 20 and under 50 29,733
Holders of 50 and under 100 6,196
Holders of 100 and under 200 1,479
Holders of 200 and under 300 187
Holders of 300 and under 500 56
Holders of 500 and under 1,000 9
Holders of 1,000 and over 2
-------
Aggregate Number of Slaveholders in the United States 347,525
It thus appears that there are in the United States, three hundred and
forty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five slaveholders. But this
appearance is deceptive. The actual number is certainly less than two
hundred thousand. Professor De Bow, the Superintendent of the Census,
informs us that "the number includes slave-hirers," and furthermore, that
"where the party owns slaves in different counties, or in different
States, he will be entered more than once." Now every Southerner, who has
any practical knowledge of affairs, must know, and does know, that every
New Year's day, like almost every other day, is desecrated in the South,
by publicly hiring out slaves to large numbers of non-slaveholders. The
slave-owners, who are the exclusive manufacturers of public sentiment,
have popularized the dictum that white servants, decency, virtue, and
justice, are unfashionable; and there are, we are sorry to say, nearly one
hundred and sixty thousand non-slaveholding sycophants, who have
subscribed to this false philosophy, and who are giving constant
encouragement to the infamous practices of slaveholding and
slave-breeding, by hiring at least one slave every year.
In the Southern States, as in all other slave countries, there are three
odious classes of mankind; the slaves themselves, who are cowards; the
slaveholders, who are tyrants; and the non-slaveholding slave-hirers, who
are lickspittles. Whether either class is really entitled to the regards
of a gentleman is a matter of grave doubt. The slaves are pitiable; the
slaveholders are detestable; the slave-hirers are contemptible.
With the statistics at our command, it is impossible for us to ascertain
the exact numbers of slaveholders and non-slaveholding slave-hirers in the
slave States; but we have data which will enable us to approach very near
to the facts. The town from which we hail, Salisbury, the capital of Rowan
county, North Carolina, contains about twenty-three hundred inhabitants,
including three hundred and seventy-two slaves, fifty-one slaveholders,
and forty-three non-slaveholding slave-hirers. Taking it for granted that
this town furnishes a fair relative proportion of all the slaveholders,
and non-slaveholding slave-hirers in the slave States, the whole number of
the former, including those who have been "entered more than once," is one
hundred and eighty-eight thousand five hundred and fifty-one; of the
latter, one hundred and fifty-eight thousand nine hundred and
seventy-four; and, now, estimating that there are in Maryland, Virginia,
and other grain-growing States, an aggregate of two thousand slave-owners,
who have cotton plantations _stocked_ with negroes in the far South, and
who have been "entered more than once," we find, as the result of our
calculations, that the total number of actual slaveholders in the Union,
is precisely one hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and
fifty-one--as follows:
Number of actual slaveholders in the United States 186,551
Number "entered more than once" 2,000
Number of non-slaveholding slave-hirers 158,974
--------
Aggregate number, according to De Bow 347,525
The greater number of non-slaveholding slave-hirers, are a kind of
third-rate aristocrats--persons who formerly owned slaves, but whom
slavery, as is its custom, has dragged down to poverty, leaving them, in
their false and shiftless pride, to eke out a miserable existence over the
hapless chattels personal of other men.
So it seems that the total number of actual slave-owners, including their
entire crew of cringing lickspittles, against whom we have to contend, is
but three hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five.
Against this army for the defense and propagation of slavery, we think it
will be an easy matter--independent of the negroes, who, in nine cases out
of ten, would be delighted with an opportunity to cut their masters'
throats, and without accepting of a single recruit from either of the free
States, England, France or Germany--to muster one at least three times as
large, and far more respectable for its utter extinction. We hope,
however, and believe, that the matter in dispute may be adjusted without
arraying these armies against each other in hostile attitude. We desire
peace, not war--justice, not blood. Give us fair-play, secure to us the
right of discussion, the freedom of speech, and we will settle the
difficulty at the ballot-box, not on the battle-ground--by force of
reason, not by force of arms. But we are wedded to one purpose from which
no earthly power can ever divorce us. We are determined to abolish slavery
at all hazards--in defiance of all the opposition, of whatever nature,
which it is possible for the slavocrats to bring against us. Of this they
may take due notice, and govern themselves accordingly.
Before we proceed further, it may be necessary to call attention to the
fact that, though the ostensible proprietorship of the slaves is vested in
fewer individuals than we have usually counted in our calculations
concerning them, the force and drift of our statistics remain unimpaired.
In the main, all our figures are correct. The tables which we have
prepared, especially, and the recapitulations of those tables, may be
relied on with all the confidence that is due to American official
integrity; for, as we have substantially remarked on a previous occasion,
the particulars of which they are composed have been obtained from the
returns of competent census agents, who, with Prof. De Bow as principal,
were expressly employed to collect them. As for our minor labors in the
science of numbers, we cheerfully submit them to the candid scrutiny of
the impartial critic.
A majority of the slaveholders with whom we are acquainted--and we happen
to know a few dozen more than we care to know--own, or pretend to own, at
least fifteen negroes each; some of them are the masters of more than
fifty each; and we have had the _honor (!)_ of an introduction to one man
who is represented as the owner of sixteen hundred! It is said that if all
the lands of this latter worthy were in one tract, they might be formed
into two counties of more than ordinary size; he owns plantations and
woodlands in three cotton-growing States.
The quantity of land owned by the slaveholder is generally in proportion
to the number of negroes at his "quarter;" the master of only one or two
slaves, if engaged in agriculture, seldom owns less than three hundred
acres; the holder of eight or ten slaves usually owns from a thousand to
fifteen hundred acres; five thousand acres are not unfrequently found in
the possession of the master of fifty slaves; while in Columbia, South
Carolina, about twelve months ago, a certain noted slaveholder was pointed
out to us, and reported as the owner of nearly two hundred thousand acres
in the State of Mississippi. How the great mass of illiterate poor whites,
a majority of whom are the indescribably wretched tenants of these
slavocratic landsharks, are specially imposed upon and socially outlawed,
we shall, if we have time and space, take occasion to explain in a
subsequent chapter.
Thus far, in giving expression to our sincere and settled opinions, we
have endeavored to show, in the first place, that slavery is a great
moral, social, civil, and political evil--a dire enemy to true wealth and
national greatness, and an atrocious crime against both God and man; and,
in the second place, that it is a paramount duty which we owe to heaven,
to the earth, to America, to humanity, to our posterity, to our
consciences, and to our pockets, to adopt effectual and judicious measures
for its immediate abolition. The questions now arise, How can the evil be
averted? What are the most prudent and practical means that can be devised
for the abolition of slavery? In the solution of these problems it becomes
necessary to deal with a multiplicity of stubborn realities. And yet, we
can see no reason why North Carolina, in her sovereign capacity, may not,
with equal ease and success, do what forty-five other States of the world
have done within the last forty-five years. Nor do we believe any good
reason exists why Virginia should not perform as great a deed in 1859 as
did New-York in 1799. Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1780; would it
not be a masterly stroke of policy in Tennessee, and every other slave
State, to abolish it in or before 1860?
Not long since, a slavocrat, writing on this subject, said,
apologetically, "we frankly admit that slavery is a monstrous evil; but
what are we to do with an institution which has baffled the wisdom of our
greatest statesmen?" Unfortunately for the South, since the days of
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and their illustrious compatriots, she has
never had more than half a dozen statesmen, all told; of mere politicians,
wire-pullers, and slave-driving demagogues, she has had enough, and to
spare; but of statesmen, in the true sense of the term, she has had, and
now has, but precious few--fewer just at this time, perhaps, than ever
before. It is far from a matter of surprise to us that slavery has, for
such a long period, baffled the "wisdom" of the oligarchy; but our
surprise is destined to culminate in amazement, if the wisdom of the
non-slaveholders does not soon baffle slavery.
From the eleventh year previous to the close of the eighteenth century
down to the present moment, slaveholders and slave-breeders, who, to speak
naked truth, are, as a general thing, unfit to occupy any honorable
station in life, have, by chicanery and usurpation, wielded all the
official power of the South; and, excepting the patriotic services of the
noble abolitionists above-mentioned, the sole aim and drift of their
legislation has been to aggrandize themselves, to strengthen slavery, and
to keep the poor whites, the constitutional majority, bowed down in the
deepest depths of degradation. We propose to subvert this entire system of
oligarchal despotism. We think there should be _some_ legislation for
decent white men, not alone for negroes and slaveholders. Slavery lies at
the root of all the shame, poverty, ignorance, tyranny and imbecility of
the South; slavery must be thoroughly eradicated; let this be done, and a
glorious future will await us.
The statesmen who are to abolish slavery in Kentucky, must be mainly and
independently constituted by the non-slaveholders of Kentucky; so in every
other slave State. Past experience has taught us the sheer folly of ever
expecting voluntary justice from the slaveholders. Their illicit
intercourse with "the mother of harlots" has been kept up so long, and
their whole natures have, in consequence, become so depraved, that there
is scarcely a spark of honor or magnanimity to be found amongst them. As
well might one expect to hear highwaymen clamoring for a universal
interdict against traveling, as to expect slaveholders to pass laws for
the abolition of slavery. Under all the circumstances, it is the duty of
the non-slaveholders to mark out an independent course for themselves, to
steer entirely clear of the oligarchy, and to utterly contemn and ignore
the many vile instruments of power, animate and inanimate, which have been
so freely and so effectually used for their enslavement. Now is the time
for them to assert their rights and liberties; never before was there such
an appropriate period to strike for Freedom in the South.
Had it not been for the better sense, the purer patriotism, and the more
practical justice of the non-slaveholders, the Middle States and New
England would still be groaning and groveling under the ponderous burden
of slavery; New-York would never have risen above the dishonorable level
of Virginia; Pennsylvania, trampled beneath the iron-heel of the black
code, would have remained the unprogressive parallel of Georgia;
Massachusetts would have continued till the present time, and Heaven only
knows how much longer, the contemptible coequal of South Carolina.
Succeeded by the happiest moral effects and the grandest physical results,
we have seen slavery crushed beneath the wisdom of the non-slaveholding
statesmen of the North; followed by corresponding influences and
achievements, many of us who have not yet passed the meridian of life, are
destined to see it equally crushed beneath the wisdom of the
non-slaveholding Statesmen of the South. With righteous indignation, we
enter our disclaimer against the base yet baseless admission that
Louisiana and Texas are incapable of producing as great statesmen as Rhode
Island and Connecticut. What has been done for New Jersey by the statesmen
of New Jersey, can be done for North Carolina by the statesmen of North
Carolina; the wisdom of the former State has abolished slavery; as sure as
the earth revolves on its axis, the wisdom of the latter will not do less.
That our plan for the abolition of slavery, is the best that can be
devised, we have not the vanity to contend; but that it is a good one, and
will do to act upon until a better shall have been suggested, we do firmly
and conscientiously believe. Though but little skilled in the delicate
art of surgery, we have pretty thoroughly probed slavery, the frightful
tumor on the body politic, and have, we think, ascertained the precise
remedies requisite for a speedy and perfect cure. Possibly the less ardent
friends of freedom may object to our prescription, on the ground that some
of its ingredients are too griping, and that it will cost the patient a
deal of most excruciating pain. But let them remember that the patient is
exceedingly refractory, that the case is a desperate one, and that drastic
remedies are indispensably necessary. When they shall have invented milder
yet equally efficacious ones, it will be time enough to discontinue the
use of ours--then no one will be readier than we to discard the infallible
strong recipe for the infallible mild. Not at the persecution of a few
thousand slaveholders, but at the restitution of natural rights and
prerogatives to several millions of non-slaveholders, do we aim.
Inscribed on the banner, which we herewith unfurl to the world, with the
full and fixed determination to stand by it or die by it, unless one of
more virtuous efficacy shall be presented, are the mottoes which, in
substance, embody the principles, as we conceive, that should govern us in
our patriotic warfare against the most subtle and insidious foe that ever
menaced the inalienable rights and liberties and dearest interests of
America:
1st. Thorough Organization and Independent Political Action on the
part of the Non-Slaveholding whites of the South.
2nd. Ineligibility of Slaveholders--Never another vote to the
Trafficker in Human Flesh.
3rd. No Co-operation with Slaveholders in Politics--No Fellowship
with them in Religion--No Affiliation with them in Society.
4th. No Patronage to Slaveholding Merchants--No Guestship in
Slave-waiting Hotels--No Fees to Slaveholding Lawyers--No Employment
of Slaveholding Physicians--No Audience to Slaveholding Parsons.
5th. No Recognition of Pro-slavery Men, except as Ruffians, Outlaws,
and Criminals.
6th. Abrupt Discontinuance of Subscription to Pro-slavery Newspapers.
7th. The Greatest Possible Encouragement to Free White Labor.
8. No more Hiring of Slaves by Non-slaveholders.
9th. Immediate Death to Slavery, or if not immediate, unqualified
Proscription of its Advocates during the Period of its Existence.
10th. A Tax of Sixty Dollars on every Slaveholder for each and every
Negro in his Possession at the present time, or at any intermediate
time between now and the 4th of July, 1863--said Money to be Applied
to the transportation of the Blacks to Liberia, to their Colonization
in Central or South America, or to their Comfortable Settlement
within the Boundaries of the United States.
11th. An additional Tax of Forty Dollars per annum to be levied
annually, on every Slaveholder for each and every Negro found in his
possession after the 4th of July, 1863--said Money to be paid into
the hands of the Negroes so held in Slavery, or, in cases of death,
to their next of kin, and to be used by them at their own option.
This, then, is the outline of our scheme for the abolition of slavery in
the Southern States. Let it be acted upon with due promptitude, and, as
certain as truth is mightier than error, fifteen years will not elapse
before every foot of territory, from the mouth of the Delaware to the
emboguing of the Rio Grande, will glitter with the jewels of freedom. Some
time during this year, next, or the year following, let there be a general
convention of non-slaveholders from every slave State in the Union, to
deliberate on the momentous issues now pending. First, let them adopt
measures for holding in restraint the diabolical excesses of the
oligarchy; secondly, in order to cast off the thraldom which the infamous
slave-power has fastened upon them, and, as the first step necessary to be
taken to regain the inalienable rights and liberties with which they were
invested by Nature, but of which they have been divested by the accursed
dealers in human flesh, let them devise ways and means for the complete
annihilation of slavery; thirdly, let them put forth an equitable and
comprehensive platform, fully defining their position, and inviting the
active sympathy and co-operation of the millions of down-trodden
non-slaveholders throughout the Southern and Southwestern States. Let all
these things be done, not too hastily, but with calmness, deliberation,
prudence, and circumspection; if need be, let the delegates to the
convention continue in session one or two weeks; only let their labors be
wisely and thoroughly performed; let them, on Wednesday morning, present
to the poor whites of the South, a well-digested scheme for the
reclamation of their ancient rights and prerogatives, and, on the
Thursday following, slavery in the United States will be worth absolutely
less than nothing; for then, besides being so vile and precarious that
nobody will want it, it will be a lasting reproach to those in whose hands
it is lodged.
Were it not that other phases of the subject admonish us to be economical
of space, we could suggest more than a dozen different plans, either of
which, if scrupulously carried out, would lead to a wholesome, speedy, and
perfect termination of slavery. Under all the circumstances, however, it
might be difficult for us--perhaps it would not be the easiest thing in
the world for any body else--to suggest a better plan than the one above.
Let it, or one embodying its principal features, be adopted forth with,
and the last wail of slavery will soon be heard, growing fainter and
fainter, till it dies utterly away, to be succeeded by the jubilant shouts
of emancipated millions.
Henceforth, let it be distinctly understood that ownership in slaves
constitutes ineligibility--that it is a crime, as we verily believe it is,
to vote for a slavocrat for any office whatever. Indeed, it is our honest
conviction that all the pro-slavery slaveholders, who are alone
responsible for the continuance of the baneful institution among us,
deserve to be at once reduced to a parallel with the basest criminals that
lie fettered within the cells of our public prisons. Beyond the power of
computation is the extent of the moral, social, civil, and political evils
which they have brought, and are still bringing, on the country. Were it
possible that the whole number could be gathered together and transformed
into four equal gangs of licensed robbers, ruffians, thieves, and
murderers, society, we feel assured, would suffer less from their
atrocities than it does now. Let the wholesome public sentiment of the
non-slaveholders be vigilant and persevering in bringing them down to
their proper level. Long since, and in the most unjust and cruel manner,
have they socially outlawed the non-slaveholders; now security against
further oppression, and indemnity for past grievances, make it incumbent
on the non-slaveholders to cast them into the identical pit that they dug
for their betters--thus teaching them how to catch a Tartar!
At the very moment we write, as has been the case ever since the United
States have had a distinct national existence, and as will always continue
to be the case, unless right triumphs over wrong, all the civil,
political, and other offices, within the gift of the South, are filled
with negro-nursed incumbents from the ranks of that execrable band of
misanthropes--three hundred and forty-seven thousand in number--who, for
the most part, obtain their living by breeding, buying and selling slaves.
The magistrates in the villages, the constables in the districts, the
commissioners of the towns, the mayors of the cities, the sheriffs of the
counties, the judges of the various courts, the members of the
legislatures, the governors of the States, the representatives and
senators in Congress--are all slaveholders. Nor does the catalogue of
their usurpations end here. Through the most heart-sickening arrogance and
bribery, they have obtained control of the General Government, and all the
consuls, ambassadors, envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary,
who are chosen from the South, and commissioned to foreign countries, are
selected with special reference to the purity of their pro-slavery
antecedents. If credentials have ever been issued to a single
non-slaveholder of the South, we are ignorant of both the fact and the
hearsay; indeed, it would be very strange if this much abused class of
persons were permitted to hold important offices abroad, when they are not
allowed to hold unimportant ones at home.
And, then, there is the Presidency of the United States, which office has
been held _forty-eight_ years by slaveholders from the South, and only
_twenty_ years by non-slaveholders from the North. Nor is this the full
record of oligarchal obtrusion. On an average, the offices of Secretary of
State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of
the Navy, Secretary of War, Postmaster-General and Attorney-General, have
been under the control of slave-drivers nearly two-thirds of the time. The
Chief Justices and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the
United States, the Presidents pro tem. of the Senate, and the Speakers of
the House of Representatives, have, in a large majority of instances, been
slave-breeders from the Southern side of the Potomac. Five slaveholding
Presidents have been reëlected to the chief magistracy of the Republic,
while no non-slaveholder has ever held the office more than a single term.
Thus we see plainly that even the non-slaveholders of the North, to whose
freedom, energy, enterprise, intelligence, wealth, population, power,
progress, and prosperity, our country is almost exclusively indebted for
its high position among the nations of the earth, have been arrogantly
denied a due participation in the honors of federal office. When "the sum
of all villainies" shall have ceased to exist, then the rights of the
non-slaveholders of the North, of the South, of the East, and of the West,
will be duly recognized and respected; not before.
With all our heart, we hope and believe it is the full and fixed
determination of a majority of the more intelligent and patriotic citizens
of this Republic, that the Presidential chair shall never again be filled
by a slavocrat. Safely may we conclude that the doom of the oligarchy is
already sealed with respect to that important and dignified station; it
now behooves us to resolve, with equal firmness and effect, that, after a
certain period during the next decade of years, no slaveholder shall
occupy any position in the Cabinet, that no slave-breeder shall be sent as
a diplomatist to any foreign country, that no slave-driver shall be
permitted to bring further disgrace on either the Senate or the House of
Representatives, that the chief justices, associate justices, and judges
of the several courts, the governors of the States, the members of the
legislatures, and all the minor functionaries of the land, shall be free
from the heinous crime of ownership in man.
For the last sixty-eight years, slaveholders have been the sole and
constant representatives of the South, and what have they accomplished? It
requires but little time and few words, to tell the story of their
indiscreet and unhallowed performances. In fact, with what we have already
said, gestures alone would suffice to answer the inquiry. We can make
neither a more truthful nor emphatic reply than to point to our thinly
inhabited States, to our fields despoiled of their virgin soil, to the
despicable price of lands, to our unvisited cities and towns, to our
vacant harbors and idle water-power, to the dreary absence of shipping and
manufactories, to our unpensioned soldiers of the revolution, to the
millions of living monuments of ignorance, to the poverty of the whites,
and to the wretchedness of the blacks.
Either directly or indirectly, are slave-driving demagogues, who have
ostentatiously set up pretensions to statesmanship, responsible for every
dishonorable weakness and inequality that exists between the North and the
South. Let them shirk the responsibility if they can; but it is morally
impossible for them to do so. We know how ready they have always been to
cite the numerical strength of the North, as a valid excuse for their
inability to procure appropriations from the General Government, for
purposes of internal improvement, for the establishment of lines of ocean
steamers to South American and European ports, and for the accomplishment
of other objects. Before that apology ever escapes from their lips again,
let them remember that the numerical weakness of the South is wholly
attributable to their own villainous statism. Had the Southern States, in
accordance with the principles enunciated in the Declaration of
Independence, abolished slavery at the same time the Northern States
abolished it, there would have been, long since, and most assuredly at
this moment, a larger, wealthier, wiser, and more powerful population,
south of Mason and Dixon's line, than there now is north of it. This fact
being so well established that no reasonable man denies it, it is evident
that the oligarchy will have to devise another subterfuge for even
temporary relief.
Until slavery and slaveholders cease to be the only favored objects of
legislation in the South, the North will continue to maintain the
ascendency in every important particular. With those loathsome objects out
of the way, it would not take the non-slaveholders of the South more than
a quarter of a century to bring her up, in all respects, to a glorious
equality with the North; nor would it take them much longer to surpass the
latter, which is the most vigorous and honorable rival that they have in
the world. Three quarters of a century hence, if slavery is abolished
within the next ten years, as it ought to be, the South will, we believe,
be as much greater than the North, as the North is now greater than the
South. Three quarters of a century hence, if the South retains slavery,
which God forbid! she will be to the North much the same that Poland is to
Russia, that Cuba is to Spain, or that Ireland is to England.
What we want and must have, as the only sure means of attaining to a
position worthy of Sovereign States in this eminently progressive and
utilitarian age, is an energetic, intelligent, enterprising, virtuous, and
unshackled population; an untrammeled press, and the Freedom of Speech.
For ourselves, as white people, and for the negroes and other persons of
whatever color or condition, we demand all the rights, interests and
prerogatives, that are guarantied to corresponding classes of mankind in
the North, in England, in France, in Germany, or in any other civilized
and enlightened country. Any proposition that may be offered conceding
less than this demand, will be promptly and disdainfully rejected.
Speaking of the non-slaveholders of the South, George M. Weston, a zealous
co-laborer in the cause of Freedom, says:--
"The non-slaveholding whites of the South, being not less than
seven-tenths of the whole number of whites, would seem to be entitled
to some enquiry into their actual condition; and especially, as they
have no real political weight or consideration in the country, and
little opportunity to speak for themselves. I have been for twenty
years a reader of Southern newspapers, and a reader and hearer of
Congressional debates; but, in all that time, I do not recollect ever
to have seen or heard these non-slaveholding whites referred to by
Southern 'gentlemen,' as constituting any part of what they call
'_the South_.' When the rights of the South, or its wrongs, or its
policy, or its interests, or its institutions, are spoken of,
reference is always intended to the rights, wrongs, policy,
interests, and institutions of the three hundred and forty-seven
thousand slaveholders. Nobody gets into Congress from the South but
by their direction; nobody speaks at Washington for any Southern
interest except theirs. Yet there is, at the South, quite another
interest than theirs; embracing from two to three times as many white
people; and, as we shall presently see, entitled to the deepest
sympathy and commiseration, in view of the material, intellectual,
and moral privations to which it has been subjected, the degradation
to which it has already been reduced, and the still more fearful
degradation with which it is threatened by the inevitable operation
of existing causes and influences."
The following extract, from a paper on "Domestic Manufactures in the South
and West," published by M. Tarver, of Missouri, may be appropriately
introduced in this connection:--
"The non-slaveholders possess, generally, but very small means, and
the land which they possess is almost universally poor, and so
sterile that a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived from
its cultivation; and the more fertile soil, being in the possession
of the slaveholders, must ever remain out of the power of those who
have none. This state of things is a great drawback, and bears
heavily upon and depresses the moral energies of the poorer classes.
The acquisition of a respectable position in the scale of wealth
appears so difficult, that they decline the hopeless pursuit, and
many of them settle down into habits of idleness, and become the
almost passive subjects of all its consequences. And I lament to say
that I have observed of late years, that an evident deterioration is
taking place in this part of the population, the younger portion of
it being less educated, less industrious, and in every point of view
less respectable than their ancestors."
Equally worthy of attention is the testimony of Gov. Hammond, of South
Carolina, who says:--
"According to the best calculation, which, in the absence of
statistic facts, can be made, it is believed, that of the three
hundred thousand white inhabitants of South Carolina, there are not
less than fifty thousand whose industry, such as it is, and
compensated as it is, is not, in the present condition of things, and
does not promise to be hereafter, adequate to procure them, honestly,
such a support as every white person is, and feels himself entitled
to. And this, next to emigration, is, perhaps, the heaviest of the
weights that press upon the springs of our prosperity. Most of these
now follow agricultural pursuits, in feeble, yet injurious
competition with slave labor. Some, perhaps, not more from
inclination, than from the want of due encouragement, can scarcely be
said to work at all. They obtain a precarious subsistence, by
occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, sometimes by plundering
fields or folds, and too often by what is, in its effects, far
worse--trading with slaves, and seducing them to plunder for their
benefit."
Conjoined with the sundry plain straightforward facts which have issued
from our own pen, these extracts show conclusively that immediate and
independent political action on the part of the non-slaveholding whites
of the South, is, with them, a matter, not only of positive duty, but also
of the utmost importance. As yet, it is in their power to rescue the South
from the gulf of shame and guilt, into which slavery has plunged her; but
if they do not soon arouse themselves from their apathy, this power will
be wrenched from them, and then, unable to resist the strong arm of the
oppressor, they will be completely degraded to a social and political
level with the negroes, whose condition of servitude will, in the
meantime, become far more abject and forlorn than it is now.
In addition to the reasons which we have already assigned why no slavocrat
should, in the future, be elected to any office whatever, there are others
that deserve to be carefully considered. Among these may be mentioned the
illbreeding and the ruffianism of slaveholding officials. Tedious indeed
would be the task to enumerate all the homicides, duels, assaults and
batteries, and other crimes, of which they are the authors in the course
of a single year. To the general reader their career at the seat of
government is well known; there, on frequent occasions, choking with rage
at seeing their wretched sophistries scattered to the winds by the sound,
logical reasoning of the champions of Freedom, they have overstepped the
bounds of common decency, vacated the chair of honorable controversy, and,
in the most brutal and cowardly manner, assailed their unarmed opponents
with bludgeons, bowie knives and pistols. Compared with some of their
barbarisms at home, however, their frenzied onslaughts at the national
Capital have been but the simplest breaches of civil deportment; and it
is only for the purpose of avoiding personalities that we now refrain from
divulging a few instances of the unparalleled atrocities which they have
perpetrated in legislative halls South of the Potomac. Nor is it alone in
the national and State legislatures that they substitute brute force for
genteel behavior and acuteness of intellect. Neither court-houses nor
public streets, hotels nor private dwellings, rum-holes nor law-offices,
are held sacred from their murderous conflicts. About certain silly
abstractions that no practical business man ever allows to occupy his time
or attention, they are eternally wrangling; and thus it is that
rencounters, duels, homicides, and other demonstrations of personal
violence, have become so popular in all slaveholding communities. A few
years of entire freedom from the cares and perplexities of public life,
would, we have no doubt, greatly improve both their manners and their
morals; and we suggest that it is a Christian duty, which devolves on the
non-slaveholders of the South, to disrobe them of the mantle of office,
which they have so long worn with disgrace to themselves, injustice to
their constituents, and ruin to their country.
But what shall we say of such men as Botts, Stuart, and Macfarland of
Virginia; of Raynor, Morehead, Miller, Stanly, Graves, and Graham of North
Carolina; of Davis and Hoffman of Maryland; of Blair and Benton of
Missouri; of the Marshalls of Kentucky; and of Etheridge of Tennessee? All
these gentlemen, and many others of the same school, entertain, we
believe, sentiments similar to those that were entertained by the immortal
Fathers of the Republic--that slavery is a great moral, social, civil,
and political evil, to be got rid of at the earliest practical period--and
if they do, in order to secure our votes, it is only necessary for them to
"have the courage of their opinions," to renounce slavery, and to come out
frankly, fairly and squarely, in favor of freedom. To neither of these
patriotic sons of the South, nor to any one of the class to which they
belong, would we give any offence whatever. In our strictures on the
criminality of pro-slavery demagogues we have had heretofore, and shall
have hereafter, no sort of reference to any respectable slaveholder--by
which we mean, any slaveholder who admits the injustice and inhumanity of
slavery, and who is not averse to the discussion of measures for its
speedy and total extinction. Such slaveholders are virtually on our side,
that is, on the side of the non-slaveholding whites, with whom they may
very properly be classified. On this point, once for all, we desire to be
distinctly understood; for it would be manifestly unjust not to
discriminate between the anti-slavery proprietor who owns slaves by the
law of entailment, and the pro-slavery proprietor who engages in the
traffic and becomes an aider and abettor of the institution from sheer
turpitude of heart; hence the propriety of this special disclaimer.
If we have a correct understanding of the positions which they assumed,
some of the gentlemen whose names are written above, gave, during the last
presidential campaign, ample evidence of their unswerving devotion to the
interests of the great majority of the people, the non-slaveholding
whites; and it is our unbiassed opinion that a more positive truth is no
where recorded in Holy Writ, than Kenneth Raynor uttered, when he said,
in substance, that the greatest good that could happen to this country
would be the complete overthrow of slave-driving democracy, _alias_ the
nigger party, which has for its head and front the Ritchies and Wises of
Virginia, and for its caudal termination the Butlers and Quatlebums of
South Carolina.
And this, by the way, is a fit occasion to call attention to the fact,
that slave-driving Democrats have been the perpetrators of almost every
brutal outrage that ever disgraced our halls of legislation. Of countless
instances of assault and battery, affrays, and fatal rencounters, that
have occurred in the court-houses, capitols, and other public buildings in
the Southern States, we feel safe in saying that the aggressor, in at
least nine cases out of ten, has been a negro-nursed adherent of modern,
miscalled democracy. So, too, the challenger to almost every duel has been
an abandoned wretch, who, on many occasions during infancy, sucked in the
corrupt milk of slavery from the breasts of his father's sable concubines,
and who has never been known to become weary of boasting of a fact that
invariably impressed itself on the minds of his auditors or observers, the
very first moment they laid their eyes upon him, namely, that _he_ was a
member of the Democratic party. Brute violence, however, can hardly be
said to be the worst characteristic of the slave-driving Democrat; his
ignorance and squalidity are proverbial; his senseless enthusiasm is
disgusting.
Peculiarly illustrative of the material of which sham democracy is
composed was the vote polled at the Five Points precinct, in the city of
New-York, on the 4th of November, 1856, when James Buchanan was chosen
President by a _minority_ of the people. We will produce the figures:
Five Points Precinct, New-York City, 1856.
Votes cast for James Buchanan 574
" " " John C. Fremont 16
" " " Millard Fillmore 9
It will be recollected that Col. Fremont's majority over Buchanan, in the
State of New-York, was between seventy-eight and seventy-nine thousand,
and that he ran ahead of the Fillmore ticket to the number of nearly one
hundred and fifty-one thousand. We have not the shadow of a doubt that he
is perfectly satisfied with Mr. Buchanan's triumph at the Five Points,
which, with the exception of the slave-pens in Southern cities, is,
perhaps, the most vile and heart-sickening locality in the United States.
One of the most noticeable and commendable features of the last general
election is this: almost every State, whose inhabitants have enjoyed the
advantages of free soil, free labor, free speech, free presses, and free
schools, and who have, in consequence, become great in numbers, in virtue,
in wealth, and in wisdom, voted for Fremont, the Republican candidate, who
was pledged to use his influence for the extension of like advantages to
other parts of the country. On the other hand, with a single honorable
exception, all the States which "have got to hating everything with the
prefix Free, from free negroes down and up through the whole
catalogue--free farms, free labor, free society, free will, free thinking,
free children, and free schools," and which have exposed their citizens to
all the perils of numerical weakness, absolute ignorance, and hopeless
poverty, voted for Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, who, in reply to
the overtures of his slave-driving partisans, had signified his
willingness to pursue a policy that would perpetuate and disseminate,
without limit, the multitudinous evils of human bondage.
Led on by a huckstering politician, whose chief vocation, at all times, is
the rallying of ragamuffins, shoulder strikers, and liquor-house
vagabonds, into the ranks of his party, and who, it is well known,
receives from the agents of the slave power, regular installments of money
for this infamous purpose, a Democratic procession, exceedingly motley and
unrefined, marched through the streets of one of the great cities of the
North, little less than a fortnight previous to the election of Mr.
Buchanan to the Presidency; and the occasion gave rise, on the following
day, to a communication in one of the morning papers, from which we make
the following pertinent extract:
"While the Democratic procession was passing through the streets of
this city, a few days since, I could not but think how significant
the exultation of that ignorant multitude was of the ferocious
triumphs which would be displayed if ever false Democracy should
succeed in throwing the whole power of the country into the hands of
the Slave Oligarchy. It is melancholy to think that every individual
in that multitude, ignorant and depraved though he may be, foreign
perhaps in his birth, and utterly unacquainted with the principles
upon which the welfare of the country depends, and hostile it may be
to those principles, if he does understand them, is equal in the
power which he may exercise by his vote to the most intelligent and
upright man in the community.
"Of this, indeed, it is useless to complain. We enjoy our freedom
with the contingency of its loss by the acts of a numerical majority.
It behooves all men, therefore, who have a regard to the common
good, to look carefully at the influences which may pervert the
popular mind; and this, I think, can only be done by guarding against
the corruption of individual character. A man who has nothing but
political business to attend to--I mean the management of
elections--ought to be shunned by all honest men. If it were
possible, he should have the mark of Cain put upon him, that he might
be known as a plotter against the welfare of his country."
That less than _three_ per cent. of those who voted for Col. Fremont, that
only about _five_ per cent. of those who gave their suffrages to Mr.
Fillmore, and that more than _eighteen_ per cent. of those who supported
Mr. Buchanan, were persons over one and twenty years of age who could not
read and write, are estimates which we have no doubt are not far from the
truth, and which, in the absence of reliable statistics, we venture to
give, hoping, by their publicity, to draw closer attention to the fact,
that the illiterate foreigners of the North, and the unlettered natives of
the South, were cordially united in their suicidal adherence to the Nigger
party. With few exceptions, all the intelligent non-slaveholders of the
South, in concert with the more respectable slaveholders, voted for Mr.
Fillmore; certain rigidly patriotic persons of the former class, whose
hearts were so entirely with the gallant Fremont that they refused to vote
at all--simply because they did not dare to express their preference for
him--form the exceptions to which we allude.
Though the Whig, Democratic, and Know-Nothing newspapers, in all the
States, free and slave, denounced Col. Fremont as an intolerant Catholic,
it is now generally conceded that he was nowhere supported by the
peculiar friends of Pope Pius IX. The votes polled at the Five Points
precinct, which is almost exclusively inhabited by low Irish Catholics,
show how powerfully the Jesuitical influence was brought to bear against
him. At that delectable locality, as we have already shown, the timid Sage
of Wheatland received five hundred and seventy-four votes; whereas the
dauntless Finder of Empire received only sixteen.
True to their instincts for Freedom, the Germans, generally, voted the
right ticket, and they will do it again, and continue to do it. With the
intelligent Protestant element of the Fatherland on our side, we can well
afford to dispense with the ignorant Catholic element of the Emerald Isle.
In the influences which they exert on society, there is so little
difference between Slavery, Popery, and Negro-driving Democracy, that we
are not at all surprised to see them going hand in hand in their
diabolical works of inhumanity and desolation.
There is, indeed, no lack of evidence to show that the Democratic party of
to-day is simply and unreservedly a sectional Nigger party. On the 15th of
December, 1856, but a few weeks subsequent to the appearance of a
scandalous message from an infamous governor of South Carolina,
recommending the reopening of the African slave trade, Emerson Etheridge
of Tennessee--honor to his name!--submitted, in the House of
Representatives, the following timely resolution:--
"Resolved, That this House regard all suggestions or propositions of
every kind, by whomsoever made, for a revival of the slave trade, as
shocking to the moral sentiments of the enlightened portion of
mankind, and that any act on the part of Congress, legislating for,
conniving at, or legalizing that horrid and inhuman traffic, would
justly subject the United States to the reproach and execration of
all civilized and Christian people throughout the world."
Who voted _for_ this resolution? and who voted _against_ it? Let the yeas
and nays answer; they are on record, and he who takes the trouble to
examine them will find that the resolution encountered no opposition worth
mentioning, except from members of the Democratic party. Scrutinize the
yeas and nays on any other motion or resolution affecting the question of
slavery, and the fact that a majority of the members of this party have
uniformly voted for the retention and extension of the "sum of all
villanies," will at once be apparent.
For many years the slave-driving Democrats of the South have labored most
strenuously, both by day and by night--we regret to say how
unsuccessfully--to point out abolition proclivities in the Whig and
Know-Nothing parties, the latter of which is now buried, and deservedly,
so deep in the depths of the dead, that it is quite preposterous to
suppose it will ever see the light of resurrection.
For its truckling concessions to the slave power, the Whig party merited
defeat, and defeated it was, and that, too, in the most decisive and
overwhelming manner. But there is yet in this party much vitality, and if
its friends will reorganize, detach themselves from the burden of slavery,
espouse the cause of the white man, and hoist the fair flag of freedom,
the time may come, at a day by no means remote, when their hearts will
exult in triumph over the ruins of miscalled Democracy.
It is not too late, however, for the Democratic party to secure to itself
a pure renown and an almost certain perpetuation of its power. Let it at
once discard the worship of slavery, and do earnest battle for the
principles of freedom, and it will live victoriously to a period far in
the future. On the other hand, if it does not soon repudiate the fatal
heresies which it has incorporated into its creed, its doom will be
inevitable. Until the black flag entirely disappears from its array, we
warn the non-slaveholders of the South to repulse and keep it at a
distance, as they would the emblazoned skull and cross-bones that flout
them from the flag of the pirate.
With regard to the sophistical reasoning which teaches that abolitionists,
before abolishing slavery, should compensate the slaveholders for all or
any number of the negroes in their possession, we have, perhaps, said
quite enough; but wishing to brace our arguments, in every important
particular, with unequivocal testimony from men whom we are accustomed to
regard as models of political sagacity and integrity--from Southern men as
far as possible--we herewith present an extract from a speech delivered in
the Virginia House of Delegates, January 20, 1832, by Charles James
Faulkner, whose sentiments, as then and there expressed, can hardly fail
to find a response in the heart of every intelligent, upright man:--
"But, Sir, it is said that society having conferred this property on
the slaveholder, it cannot _now_ take it from him without an adequate
compensation, by which is meant full value. I may be singular in the
opinion, but I defy the legal research of the House to point me to a
principle recognized by the law, even in the ordinary course of its
adjudications, where the community pays for property which is
removed or destroyed because it is a nuisance, and found injurious to
that society. There is, I humbly apprehend, no such principle. There
is no obligation upon society to continue your right one moment after
it becomes injurious to the best interests of society; nor to
compensate you for the loss of that, the deprivation of which is
demanded by the safety of the State, and in which general benefit you
participate as members of the community. Sir, there is to my mind a
manifest distinction between condemning private property to be
applied to some beneficial public purpose, and condemning or removing
private property which is ascertained to be a positive wrong to
society. It is a distinction which pervades the whole genius of the
law; and is founded upon the idea, that any man who holds property
injurious to the peace of that society of which he is a member,
thereby violates the condition upon the observance of which his right
to the property is alone guarantied. For property of the first class
condemned, there ought to be compensation; but for property of the
latter class, none can be demanded upon principle, none accorded as
matter of right.
"It is conceded that, at this precise moment of our legislation,
slaves are injurious to the interests and threaten the subversion and
ruin of this Commonwealth. Their present number, their increasing
number, all admonish us of this. In different terms, and in more
measured language, the same fact has been conceded by all who have
yet addressed this House. '_Something must be done_,' emphatically
exclaimed the gentleman from Dinwiddie; and I thought I could
perceive a response to that declaration, in the countenance of a
large majority of this body. And why must something be done? Because
if not, says the gentleman from Campbell, the throats of all the
_white_ people of Virginia will be cut. No, says the gentleman from
Dinwiddie--'The whites cannot be conquered--the throats of the
_blacks_ will be cut.' It is a trifling difference, to be sure, Sir,
and matters not to the argument. For the fact is conceded, that one
race or the other must be exterminated.
"Sir, such being the actual condition of this Commonwealth, I ask if
we would not be justified _now_, supposing all considerations of
policy and humanity concurred without even a moment's delay, in
staving off this appalling and overwhelming calamity? Sir, if this
immense negro population were now in arms, gathering into black and
formidable masses of attack, would that man be listened to, who spoke
about property, who prayed you not to direct your artillery to such
or such a point, for you would destroy some of _his_ property? Sir,
to the eye of the Statesman, as to the eye of Omniscience, dangers
pressing, and dangers that must _necessarily_ press, are alike
present. With a single glance he embraces Virginia now, with the
elements of destruction reposing quietly upon her bosom, and Virginia
is lighted from one extremity to the other with the torch of servile
insurrection and massacre. It is not sufficient for him that the
match is not yet applied. It is enough that the magazine is open, and
the match will shortly be applied.
"Sir, it is true in national as it is in private contracts, that loss
and injury to one party may constitute as fair a consideration as
gain to the other. Does the slaveholder, while he is enjoying his
slaves, reflect upon the deep injury and incalculable loss which the
possession of that property inflicts upon the true interests of the
country? Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil--it is an institution
which presses heavily against the best interests of the State. It
banishes free white labor, it exterminates the mechanic, the artisan,
the manufacturer. It deprives them of occupation. It deprives them of
bread. It converts the energy of a community into indolence, its
power into imbecility, its efficiency into weakness. Sir, being thus
injurious, have we not a right to demand its extermination? shall
society suffer, that the slaveholder may continue to gather his
_crop_ of human flesh? What is his mere pecuniary claim, compared
with the great interests of the common weal? Must the country
languish, droop, die, that the slaveholder may flourish? Shall all
interests be subservient to one--all rights subordinate to those of
the slaveholder? Has not the mechanic, have not the middle classes
their rights--rights incompatible with the existence of slavery?
"Sir, so great and overshadowing are the evils of slavery--so
sensibly are they felt by those who have traced the causes of our
national decline--so perceptible is the poisonous operation of its
principles in the varied and diversified interests of this
Commonwealth, that all, whose minds are not warped by prejudice or
interest, must admit that the disease has now assumed that mortal
tendency, as to justify the application of any remedy which, under
the great law of State necessity, we might consider advisable."
From the abstract of our plan for the abolition of slavery, it will be
perceived that, so far from allowing slaveholders any compensation for
their slaves, we are, and we think justly, in favor of imposing on them a
tax of sixty dollars for each and every negro now in their possession, as
also for each and every one that shall be born to them between now and the
4th of July, 1863; after which time, we propose that they shall be taxed
forty dollars per annum, annually, for every person by them held in
slavery, without regard to age, sex, color, or condition--the money, in
both instances, to be used for the sole advantage of the slaves. As an
addendum to this proposition, we would say that, in our opinion, if
slavery is not totally abolished by the year 1869, the annual tax ought to
be increased from forty to one hundred dollars; and furthermore, that if
the institution does not then almost immediately disappear under the onus
of this increased taxation, the tax ought in the course of one or two
years thereafter, to be augmented to such a degree as will, in harmony
with other measures, prove an infallible death-blow to slavery on or
before the 4th of July, 1876.
At once let the good and true men of this country, the patriot sons of the
patriot fathers, determine that the sun which rises to celebrate the
centennial anniversary of our national independence, shall not set on the
head of any slave within the limits of our Republic. Will not the
non-slaveholders of the North, of the South, of the East, and of the West,
heartily, unanimously sanction this proposition? Will it not be cheerfully
indorsed by many of the slaveholders themselves? Will any _respectable_
man enter a protest against it? On the 4th of July, 1876--sooner, if we
can--let us make good, at least so far as we are concerned, the
Declaration of Independence, which was proclaimed in Philadelphia on the
4th of July, 1776--that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a
new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness." In purging our land of the iniquity of negro
slavery, we will only be carrying on the great work that was so
successfully commenced by our noble sires of the Revolution; some future
generation may possibly complete the work by annulling the last and least
form of oppression.
To turn the slaves away from their present homes--away from all the
property and means of support which their labor has mainly produced, would
be unpardonably cruel--exceedingly unjust. Still more cruel and unjust
would it be, however, to the non-slaveholding whites no less than to the
negroes, to grant further toleration to the existence of slavery. In any
event, come what will, transpire what may, the institution must be
abolished. The evils, if any, which are to result from its abolition,
cannot, by any manner of means, be half as great as the evils which are
certain to overtake us in case of its continuance. The perpetuation of
slavery is the climax of iniquity.
Two hundred and thirty-seven years have the negroes in America been held
in inhuman bondage. During the whole of this long period they have toiled
unceasingly from the gray of dawn till the dusk of eve, for their cruel
task-masters, who have rewarded them with scanty allowances of the most
inferior qualities of victuals and clothes, with heartless separations of
the tenderest ties of kindred, with epithets, with scoldings, with
execrations, and with the lash--and, not unfrequently, with the fatal
bludgeon or the more deadly weapon. From the labor of their hands, and
from the fruit of their loins, the humanmongers of the South have become
wealthy, insolent, corrupt, and tyrannical. In reason and in conscience
the slaves might claim from their masters a much larger sum than we have
proposed to allow them. If they were to demand an equal share of all the
property, real and personal, which has been accumulated or produced
through their efforts, Heaven, we believe, would recognize them as honest
claimants.
Elsewhere we have shown, by just and liberal estimates, that, on the
single score of damages to lands, the slaveholders are, at this moment,
indebted to the non-slaveholding whites in the extraordinary sum of
$7,544,148,825. Considered in connection with the righteous claim of
wages for services which the negroes might bring against their masters,
these figures are the heralds of the significant fact that, if strict
justice could be meted out to all parties in the South, the slaveholders
would not only be stripped of every dollar, but they would become in law
as they are in reality, the hopeless debtors of the myriads of unfortunate
slaves, white and black, who are now cringing, and fawning, and festering
around them. In this matter, however, so far has wrong triumphed over
right, that the slaveholders--a mere handful of tyrants, whose manual
exercises are wholly comprised in the use they make of instruments of
torture, such as whips, clubs, bowie-knives and pistols--have, as the
result of a series of acts of their own villainous legislation, become the
sole and niggardly proprietors of almost every important item of Southern
wealth; not only do they own all the slaves--none of whom any really
respectable person cares to own--but they are also in possession of the
more valuable tracts of land and the appurtenances thereto belonging;
while the non-slaveholding whites and the negroes, who compose at least
nine-tenths of the entire population, and who are the actual producers of
every article of merchandize, animal, vegetable, and mineral, that is sold
from the South, are most wickedly despoiled of the fruits of their labors,
and cast into the dismal abodes of extreme ignorance, destitution and
misery.
For the services of the blacks from the 20th of August, 1620, up to the
4th of July, 1863--an interval of precisely two hundred and forty-two
years ten months and fourteen days--their masters, if unwilling, ought,
in our judgment, to be compelled to grant them their freedom, and to pay
each and every one of them at least sixty dollars cash in hand. The
aggregate sum thus raised would amount to about two hundred and forty-five
millions of dollars, which is less than the total market value of two
entire crops of cotton--one-half of which sum would be amply sufficient to
land every negro in this country on the coast of Liberia, whither, if we
had the power, we would ship them all within the next six months. As a
means of protection against the exigencies which might arise from a sudden
transition from their present homes in America to their future homes in
Africa, and for the purpose of enabling them there to take the initiatory
step in the walks of civilized life, the remainder of the sum--say about
one hundred and twenty-two millions of dollars--might, very properly, be
equally distributed amongst them after their arrival in the land of their
fathers.
Dr. James Hall, the Secretary of the Maryland Colonization Society,
informs us that the average cost of sending negroes to Liberia does not
exceed thirty dollars each; and it is his opinion that arrangements might
be made on an extensive plan for conveying them thither at an average
expense of not more than twenty-five dollars each.
The American colonization movement, as now systematized and conducted, is
simply an American humane farce. At present the slaves are increasing in
this country at the rate of nearly one hundred thousand per annum; within
the last ten years, as will appear below, the American Colonization
Society has sent to Liberia less than five thousand negroes.
Emigrants sent to Liberia by the American Colonization Society, during the
ten years ending January 1st, 1857.
In 1847 39 }
In 1848 213 }
In 1849 474 }
In 1850 590 }
In 1851 279 }
In 1852 568 } Emigrants.
In 1853 583 }
In 1854 783 }
In 1855 207 }
In 1856 544 }
---- }
Total 4280 }
The average of this total is precisely four hundred and twenty-eight,
which may be said to be the number of negroes annually colonized by the
society; while the yearly increase of slaves, as previously stated, is
little less than one hundred thousand! Fiddlesticks for such colonization!
Once for all, within a reasonably short period, let us make the
slaveholders do something like justice to their negroes by giving each and
every one of them his freedom, and sixty dollars in current money; then
let us charter all the ocean steamers, packets and clipper ships that can
be had on liberal terms, and keep them constantly plying between the ports
of America and Africa, until all slaves shall enjoy freedom in the land of
their fathers. Under a well-devised and properly conducted system of
operations, but a few years would be required to redeem the United States
from the monstrous curse of negro slavery.
Some few years ago, when certain ethnographical oligarchs proved to their
own satisfaction that the negro was an inferior "type of mankind," they
chuckled wonderfully, and avowed, in substance, that it was right for the
stronger race to kidnap and enslave the weaker--that because Nature had
been pleased to do a trifle more for the Caucasian race than for the
African, the former, by virtue of its superiority, was perfectly
justifiable in holding the latter in absolute and perpetual bondage! No
system of logic could be more antagonistic to the spirit of true
democracy. It is probable that the world does not contain two persons who
are exactly alike in all respects; yet "_all_ men are endowed by their
Creator with certain _inalienable_ rights, among which are life,
_liberty_, and the pursuit of happiness." All mankind may or may not be
the descendants of Adam and Eve. In our own humble way of thinking, we are
frank to confess, we do not believe in the unity of the races. This is a
matter, however, which has little or nothing to do with the great question
at issue. Aside from any theory concerning the original parentage of the
different races of men, facts, material and immaterial, palpable and
impalpable--facts of the eyes and facts of the conscience--crowd around us
on every hand, heaping proof upon proof, that slavery is a shame, a crime,
and a curse--a great moral, social, civil, and political evil--an
oppressive burden to the blacks, and an incalculable injury to the
whites--a stumbling-block to the nation, an impediment to progress, a
damper on all the nobler instincts, principles, aspirations and
enterprises of man, and a dire enemy to every true interest.
Waiving all other counts, we have, we think, shown to the satisfaction of
every impartial reader, that, as elsewhere stated, on the single score of
damages to lands, the slaveholders are, at this moment, indebted to us,
the non-slaveholding whites, in the enormous sum of nearly seventy-six
hundred millions of dollars. What shall be done with this amount? It is
just; shall payment be demanded? No; all the slaveholders in the country
could not pay it; nor shall we ever ask them for even a moiety of the
amount--no, not even for a dime, nor yet for a cent; we are willing to
forfeit every farthing for the sake of freedom; for ourselves we ask no
indemnification for the past: we only demand justice for the future.
But, Sirs, knights of bludgeons, chevaliers of bowie-knives and pistols,
and lords of the lash, we are unwilling to allow you to swindle the slaves
out of all the rights and claims to which, as human beings, they are most
sacredly entitled. Not alone for ourself as an individual, but for others
also--particularly for five or six millions of Southern non-slaveholding
whites, whom your iniquitous statism has debarred from almost all the
mental and material comforts of life--do we speak, when we say, you _must_
emancipate your slaves, and pay each and every one of them at least sixty
dollars cash in hand. By doing this, you will be restoring to them their
natural rights, and remunerating them at the rate of less than twenty-six
cents per annum for the long and cheerless period of their servitude, from
the 20th of August, 1620, when, on James River, in Virginia, they became
the unhappy slaves of heartless masters. Moreover, by doing this you will
be performing but a simple act of justice to the non-slaveholding whites,
upon whom the institution of slavery has weighed scarcely less heavily
than upon the negroes themselves. You will also be applying a saving balm
to your own outraged hearts and consciences, and your children--yourselves
in fact--freed from the accursed stain of slavery, will become
respectable, useful, and honorable members of society.
And now, Sirs, we have thus laid down our ultimatum. What are you going to
do about it? Something dreadful, as a matter of course! Perhaps you will
dissolve the Union _again_. Do it, if you dare! Our motto, and we would
have you to understand it, is _the abolition of slavery, and the
perpetuation of the American Union_. If, by any means, you do succeed in
your treasonable attempts to take the South out of the Union to-day, we
will bring her back to-morrow--if she goes away with you, she will return
without you.
Do not mistake the meaning of the last clause of the last sentence; we
could elucidate it so thoroughly that no intelligent person could fail to
comprehend it; but, for reasons which may hereafter appear, we forego the
task.
Henceforth there are other interests to be consulted in the South, aside
from the interests of negroes and slaveholders. A profound sense of duty
incites us to make the greatest possible efforts for the abolition of
slavery; an equally profound sense of duty calls for a continuation of
those efforts until the very last foe to freedom shall have been utterly
vanquished. To the summons of the righteous monitor within, we shall
endeavor to prove faithful; no opportunity for inflicting a mortal wound
in the side of slavery shall be permitted to pass us unimproved. Thus,
terror-engenderers of the South, have we fully and frankly defined our
position; we have no modifications to propose, no compromises to offer,
nothing to retract. Frown, Sirs, fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threat,
strike, shoot, stab, bring on civil war, dissolve the Union, nay
annihilate the solar system if you will--do all this, more, less, better,
worse, anything--do what you will, Sirs, you can neither foil nor
intimidate us; our purpose is as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of
Heaven; we have determined to abolish slavery, and, so help us God,
abolish it we will! Take this to bed with you to-night, Sirs, and think
about it, dream over it, and let us know how you feel to-morrow morning.
CHAPTER III.
SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY.
If it please the reader, let him forget all that we have written on the
subject of slavery; if it accord with his inclination, let him ignore all
that we may write hereafter. We seek not to give currency to our peculiar
opinions; our greatest ambition, in these pages, is to popularize the
sayings and admonitions of wiser and better men. Miracles, we believe, are
no longer wrought in this bedeviled world; but if, by any conceivable or
possible supernatural event, the great Founders of the Republic,
Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, could be reinvested with
corporeal life, and returned to the South, there is scarcely a slaveholder
between the Potomac and the mouth of the Mississippi, that would not burn
to pounce upon them with bludgeons, bowie-knives and pistols! Yes, without
adding another word, Washington would be _mobbed_ for what he has already
said. Were Jefferson now employed as a professor in a Southern college, he
would be dismissed and driven from the State, perhaps murdered before he
reached the border. If Patrick Henry were a bookseller in Alabama, though
it might be demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had never
bought, sold, received, or presented, any kind of literature except
Bibles and Testaments, he would first be subjected to the ignominy of a
coat of tar and feathers, and then limited to the option of unceremonious
expatriation or death. How seemingly impossible are these statements, and
yet how true! Where do we stand? What is our faith? Are we a flock without
a shepherd? a people without a prophet? a nation without a government?
Has the past, with all its glittering monuments of genius and patriotism,
furnished no beacon by which we may direct our footsteps in the future? If
we but prove true to ourselves, and worthy of our ancestry, we have
nothing to fear; our Revolutionary sires have devised and bequeathed to us
an almost perfect national policy. Let us cherish, and defend, and build
upon, the fundamental principles of that polity, and we shall most
assuredly reap the golden fruits of unparalleled power, virtue and
prosperity. Heaven forbid that a desperate faction of slaveholding
criminals should succeed in their infamous endeavors to quench the spirit
of liberty, which our forefathers infused into those two sacred charts of
our political faith, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution
of the United States. Oligarchal politicians are alone responsible for the
continuance of African slavery in the South. For purposes of
self-aggrandizement, they have kept learning and civilization from the
people; they have wilfully misinterpreted the national compacts, and have
outraged their own consciences by declaring to their illiterate
constituents, that the Founders of the Republic were not abolitionists.
When the dark clouds of slavery, error and ignorance shall have passed
away,--and we believe the time is near at hand when they are to be
dissipated,--the freemen of the South, like those of other sections, will
learn the glorious truth, that inflexible opposition to Human Bondage has
formed one of the distinguishing characteristics of every really good or
great man that our country has produced.
The principles, aims and objects that actuated the framers of the
Constitution, are most graphically and eloquently set forth, in the
following extract from a speech recently delivered by the Hon. A. H.
Cragin, of New Hampshire, in the House of Representatives:
"When our forefathers reared the magnificent structure of a free
Republic in this Western land, they laid its foundations broad and
deep in the eternal principles of right. Its materials were all
quarried from the mountain of truth; and, as it rose majestically
before an astonished world, it rejoiced the hearts and hopes of
mankind. Tyrants only cursed the workmen and their workmanship. Its
architecture was new. It had no model in Grecian or Roman history. It
seemed a paragon, let down from Heaven to inspire the hopes of men,
and to demonstrate the favor of God to the people of a new world. The
builders recognized the rights of human nature as universal. Liberty,
the great first right of man, they claimed for 'all men,' and claimed
it from 'God himself.' Upon this foundation they erected the temple,
and dedicated it to Liberty, Humanity, Justice, and Equality.
Washington was crowned its patron saint."
"The work completed was the noblest effort of human wisdom. But it
was not perfect. It had one blemish--a little spot--the black stain
of slavery. The workmen--the friends of freedom everywhere--deplored
this. They labored long and prayerfully to remove this deformity.
They applied all the skill of their art; but they labored in vain.
Self-interest was too strong for patriotism and love of liberty. The
work stood still, and for a time it was doubtful whether the
experiment would succeed. The blot must remain, or the whole must
fail. The workmen revarnished their work, to conceal and cover up the
stain. Slavery was recognized, but not sanctioned. The word slave or
slavery must not mar the Constitution. So great an inconsistency must
not be proclaimed to the world."
"All agreed, at that time, that the anomaly should not increase, and
all concurred in the hope and belief that the blemish would gradually
disappear. Those noble men looked forward to the time when slavery
would be abolished in this land of ours. They believed that the
principles of liberty were so dear to the people, that they would not
long deny to others what they claimed for themselves. They never
dreamed that slavery would be extended, but firmly believed it would
be wholly blotted out. _I challenge any man to show me a single
patriot of the Revolution who was in favor of slavery, or who
advocated its extension._ So universal was the sentiment of liberty
then, that no man, North or South, could be found to justify it. Some
palliated the evil, and desired that it might be gradually
extinguished; but none contemplated it as a permanent institution."
"Liberty was then the national goddess, worshiped by all the people.
They sang of liberty, they harangued for liberty, they prayed for
liberty, and they sacrificed for liberty. Slavery was then hateful.
It was denounced by all. The British king was condemned for foisting
it upon the Colonies. Southern men were foremost in entering their
protest against it. It was then everywhere regarded as an evil, and a
crime against humanity."
The fact is too palpable to be disguised, that slavery and slaveholders
have always been a clog and a dead-weight upon the government--a disgrace
and a curse to humanity. The slaveholding Tories of the South,
particularly of South Carolina, in their atrocious hostility to freedom,
prolonged the arduous war of the Revolution from two to three years; and
since the termination of that momentous struggle, in which, thank Heaven,
they were most signally defeated, it has been their constant aim and
effort to subvert the dear-bought liberties which were achieved by the
non-slaveholding patriots.
Non-slaveholders of the South! up to the present period, neither as a
body, nor as individuals, have you ever had an independent existence; but,
if true to yourselves and to the memory of your fathers, you, in equal
copartnership with the non-slaveholders of the North, will soon become the
honored rulers and proprietors of the most powerful, prosperous, virtuous,
free, and peaceful nation, on which the sun has ever shone. Already has
the time arrived for you to decide upon what basis you will erect your
political superstructure. Upon whom will you depend for an equitable and
judicious form of constitutional government? Whom will you designate as
models for your future statesmen? Your choice lies between the dead and
the living--between the Washingtons, the Jeffersons and the Madisons of
the past, and the Quattlebums, the Quitmans and the Butlers of the
present. We have chosen; choose ye, remembering that freedom or slavery is
to be the issue of your option.
As the result of much reading and research, and at the expenditure of no
inconsiderable amount of time, labor and money, we now proceed to make
known the anti-slavery sentiments of those noble abolitionists, the
Fathers of the Republic, whose liberal measures of public policy have been
so criminally perverted by the treacherous advocates of slavery.
Let us listen, in the first place, to the voice of him who was "first in
war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," to
THE VOICE OF WASHINGTON.
In a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 9th, 1786, General
Washington says:--
"I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me
to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my _first
wishes_ to see some plan adopted by which slavery, in this country,
may be abolished by law."
In a letter to Robert Morris, dated Mount Vernon, April 12, 1786, he
says:--
"I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more
sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it.
But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be
accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and this, as far
as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting."
He says, in a letter:--
"To the MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE--April 5th, 1783:--
The scheme, my dear Marquis, which you propose as a precedent, to
encourage the emancipation of the black people in this country from
the state of bondage in which they are held, is a striking evidence
of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so
laudable a work; but will defer going into a detail of the business
till I have the pleasure of seeing you."
In another letter to Lafayette, he says:--
"The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so conspicuous on
all occasions, that I never wonder at any fresh proofs of it; but
your late purchase of an estate in the Colony of Cayenne, with the
view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof
of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself
generally into the minds of the people of this country."
In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he further said:--
"There are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual abolition of slavery,
which neither Virginia nor Maryland have at present, but which
nothing is more certain than they must have, and at a period _not
remote_."
From his last will and testament we make the following extract:
"Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the
slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To
emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me,
be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their
intermixture by marriage with the dower negroes, as to excite the
most painful sensation, if not disagreeable consequences, from the
latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same
proprietor, it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the
dower negroes are held, to manumit them."
It is said that, "when Mrs. Washington learned, from the will of her
deceased husband, that the only obstacle to the immediate perfection of
this provision was her right of dower, she at once gave it up, and the
slaves were made free." A man might possibly concentrate within himself
more real virtue and influence than ever Washington possessed, and yet he
would not be too good for such a wife.
From the Father of his Country, we now turn to the author of the
Declaration of Independence. We will listen to
THE VOICE OF JEFFERSON.
On the 39th and 40th pages of his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson says:--
"There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our
people, produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole
commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most
boisterous passions--the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and
learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is
the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is
learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no
motive, either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining
the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a
sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not
sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller
slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions; and, thus
nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be
stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy
who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such
circumstances. And with what execration should the Statesman be
loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the
rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into
enemies, destroys the morals of the one part and the _amor patriae_
of the other; for if a slave can have a country in this world, it
must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live
and labor for another; in which he must look up the faculties of his
nature, contribute, as far as depends on his individual endeavors, to
the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable
condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the
morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed; for, in a
warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another
labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a
very small proportion, indeed, are ever seen to labor. And can the
liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their
only firm basis--a conviction in the minds of the people that these
liberties are of the gift of God? that they are not to be violated
but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that
considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of
the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible
events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The
Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a
contest."
While Virginia was yet a Colony, in 1774, she held a Convention to appoint
delegates to attend the first general Congress, which was to assemble, and
did assemble, in Philadelphia, in September of the same year. Before that
Convention, Mr. Jefferson made an exposition of the rights of British
America, in which he said:--
"The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire
in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant
State. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves, it is
necessary to exclude further importations from Africa. Yet our
repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing
duties which might amount to prohibition, have been hitherto defeated
by his Majesty's negative; thus preferring the immediate advantage of
a few African corsairs to the lasting interests of the American
States, and the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this
infamous practice."
In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, of which it is
well known he was the author, we find this charge against the King of
Great Britain:--
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its
most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant
people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into
slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of
infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great
Britain. Determined to keep a market where men should be bought and
sold, he has at length prostituted his negative for suppressing any
legislative attempt to prohibit and restrain this execrable
commerce."
Hear him further; he says:--
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed."
Under date of August 7th, 1785, in a letter to Dr. Price of London, he
says:--
"Northward of the Chesapeake you may find, here and there an opponent
of your doctrine, as you may find, here and there, a robber and
murderer; but in no great number. Emancipation is put into such a
train, that in a few years there will be no slaves northward of
Maryland. In Maryland I do not find such a disposition to begin the
redress of this enormity, as in Virginia. This is the next State to
which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice
in conflict with avarice and oppression; a conflict wherein the
sacred side is gaining daily recruits from the influx into office of
young men grown up, and growing up. These have sucked in the
principles of liberty, as it were, with their mother's milk; and it
is to them I look with anxiety to turn the fate of the question."
In another letter, written to a friend in 1814, he made use of the
following emphatic language:--
"Your favor of July 31st was duly received, and read with peculiar
pleasure. The sentiments do honor to the head and heart of the
writer. Mine on the subject of the slavery of negroes have long since
been in the possession of the public, and time has only served to
give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country
plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a reproach to us
that they should have pleaded it so long in vain."
Again, he says:--
"What an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil,
famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of
his own liberty; and the next moment be deaf to all those motives
whose power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his
fellow man a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery
than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose."
Throughout the South, at the present day, especially among slaveholders,
negroes are almost invariably spoken of as "goods and chattels,"
"property," "human cattle." In our first quotation from Jefferson's works,
we have seen that he spoke of the blacks as _citizens_. We shall now hear
him speak of them as _brethren_. He says:--
"We must wait with patience the workings of an overruling Providence,
and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of these our
brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full, when their
groans shall have involved Heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God
of justice will awaken to their distress. Nothing is more certainly
written in the Book of Fate, than that this people shall be free."
In a letter to James Heaton, on this same subject, dated May 20, 1826,
only six weeks before his death, he says:--
"My sentiments have been forty years before the public. Had I
repeated them forty times, they would have only become the more stale
and threadbare. Although I shall not live to see them consummated,
they will not die with me."
From the Father of the Declaration of Independence, we now turn to the
Father of the Constitution. We will listen to
THE VOICE OF MADISON.
Advocating the abolition of the slave-trade, Mr. Madison said:--
"The dictates of humanity, the principles of the people, the national
safety and happiness, and prudent policy, require it of us. It is to
be hoped, that by expressing a national disapprobation of the trade,
we may _destroy_ it, and save our country from reproaches, and our
posterity from the imbecility ever attendant on a country filled with
slaves."
Again, he says:--
"It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there can
be property in man."
In the 39th No. of "The Federalist," he says:--
"The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form
and aspect of the government be strictly Republican. It is evident
that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the
people of America, and with the fundamental principles of the
Revolution, or with that honorable determination which animates every
votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the
capacity of mankind for self-government."
In the Federal Convention, he said:--
"And in the third place, where slavery exists, the Republican theory
becomes still more fallacious."
On another occasion, he says:--
"We have seen the mere distinction of color made, in the most
enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion
ever exercised by man over man."
THE VOICE OF MONROE.
In a speech in the Virginia Convention, Mr. Monroe said:--
"We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of the
Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States, in which it has
existed."
THE VOICE OF HENRY.
The eloquent Patrick Henry says, in a letter dated January 18, 1773:--
"Is it not a little surprising that the professors of Christianity,
whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in
cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a
practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and
wrong? What adds to the wonder is, that this abominable practice has
been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times that seem to have
pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences,
and refined morality, have brought into general use, and guarded by
many laws, a species of violence and tyranny which our more rude and
barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested. Is it not amazing that
at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with
precision, in a country above all others fond of liberty--that in
such an age and in such a country, we find men professing a religion
the most mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopting such a
principle, as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the
Bible, and destructive to liberty? Every thinking, honest man rejects
it in speculation. How free in practice from conscientious motives!
Would any one believe that I am master of slaves of my own purchase?
I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without
them. I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my conduct, I
will so far pay my devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and
rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them.
I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to
abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we can do is to improve it,
if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants,
together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an
abhorrence for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished-for
reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with
lenity. It is the furthest advance we can make towards justice. It is
a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at
variance with that law which warrants slavery."
Again, this great orator says:--
"It would rejoice my very soul, that every one of my fellow-beings
was emancipated. We ought to lament and deplore the necessity of
holding our fellow-men in bondage. Believe me; I shall honor the
Quakers for their noble efforts to abolish slavery."
THE VOICE OF RANDOLPH.
That excentric genius, John Randolph, of Roanoke, in a letter to William
Gibbons, in 1820, says:--
"With unfeigned respect and regard, and as sincere a deprecation on
the extension of slavery and its horrors, as any other man, be him
whom he may, I am your friend, in the literal sense of that much
abused word. I say much abused, because it is applied to the leagues
of vice and avarice and ambition, instead of good will toward man
from love of him who is the Prince of Peace."
While in Congress, he said:--
"Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from the
North who rises here to defend slavery on principle."
It is well known that he emancipated all his negroes. The following lines
from his will are well worth perusing and preserving:--
"I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me
they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the
deepest regret to me that the circumstances under which I inherited
them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land,
have prevented my emancipating them in my life-time, which it is my
full intention to do in case I can accomplish it."
THOMAS M. RANDOLPH.
In an address to the Virginia Legislature, in 1820, Gov. Randolph said:--
"We have been far outstripped by States to whom nature has been far
less bountiful. It is painful to consider what might have been, under
other circumstances, the amount of general wealth in Virginia."
THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH.
In 1832, Mr. Randolph, of Albemarle, in the Legislature of Virginia, used
the following most graphic and emphatic language:--
"I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of arming the State for
internal defence. I will unite with them in any effort to restore
confidence to the public mind, and to conduce to the sense of the
safety of our wives and our children. Yet, Sir, I must ask upon whom
is to fall the burden of this defence? Not upon the lordly masters of
their hundred slaves, who will never turn out except to retire with
their families when danger threatens. No, Sir; it is to fall upon the
less wealthy class of our citizens, chiefly upon the
non-slaveholder. I have known patrols turned out when there was not a
slaveholder among them; and this is the practice of the country. I
have slept in times of alarm quiet in bed, without having a thought
of care, while these individuals, owning none of this property
themselves, were patrolling under a compulsory process, for a
pittance of seventy-five cents per twelve hours, the very curtilage
of my house, and guarding that property which was alike dangerous to
them and myself. After all, this is but an expedient. As this
population becomes more numerous, it becomes less productive. Your
guard must be increased, until finally its profits will not pay for
the expense of its subjection. Slavery has the effect of lessening
the free population of a country.
"The gentleman has spoken of the increase of the female slaves being
a part of the profit. It is admitted; but no great evil can be
averted, no good attained, without some inconvenience. It may be
questioned how far it is desirable to foster and encourage this
branch of profit. It is a practice, and an increasing practice, in
parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable
mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this Ancient
Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism
of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand
menagerie, where men are to be reared for the market, like oxen for
the shambles? Is it better, is it not worse, than the slave
trade--that trade which enlisted the labor of the good and wise of
every creed, and every clime, to abolish it? The trader receives the
slave, a stranger in language, aspect, and manners, from the merchant
who has brought him from the interior. The ties of father, mother,
husband, and child, have all been rent in twain; before he receives
him, his soul has become callous. But here, Sir, individuals whom the
master has known from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the
innocent gambols of childhood, who have been accustomed to look to
him for protection, he tears from the mother's arms and sells into a
strange country among strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters.
"He has attempted to justify slavery here, because it exists in
Africa, and has stated that it exists all over the world. Upon the
same principle, he could justify Mahometanism, with its plurality of
wives, petty wars for plunder, robbery, and murder, or any other of
the abominations and enormities of savage tribes. Does slavery exist
in any part of civilized Europe? No, Sir, in no part of it."
PEYTON RANDOLPH.
On the 20th of October, 1774, while Congress was in session in
Philadelphia, Peyton Randolph, President, the following resolution, among
others, was unanimously adopted:--
"That we will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after
the first day of December next; after which time we will wholly
discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be concerned in it
ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or
manufactures, to those who are concerned in it."
EDMUND RANDOLPH.
The Constitution of the United States contains the following provision:--
"No person held to service or labor in another State, under the laws
thereof, escaping to another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
labor may be due."
To the studious attention of those vandals who contend that the above
provision requires the rendition of fugitive _slaves_, we respectfully
commend the following resolution, which, it will be observed, was
_unanimously_ adopted:--
"On motion of Mr. Randolph, the word '_servitude_' was struck out,
and '_service_' unanimously inserted--the former being thought to
express the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligation of
_free_ persons."--_Madison Papers, vol. III., p. 1569._
Well done for the Randolphs!
THE VOICE OF CLAY.
Henry Clay, whom everybody loved, and at the mention of whose name the
American heart always throbs with emotions of grateful remembrance, said,
in an address before the Kentucky Colonization Society, in 1829:--
"It is believed that nowhere in the _farming_ portion of the United
States would slave-labor be generally employed, if the proprietor
were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern
market, which keeps it up in his own."
In the United States Senate, in 1850, he used the following memorable
words:--
"I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Mississippi say that
he requires, first the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to
the Pacific, and also that he is not satisfied with that, but
requires, if I understand him correctly, a positive provision for the
admission of slavery South of that line. And now, Sir, coming from a
slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it
to the subject to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote
for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had
not before existed, either South or North of that line. Coming as I
do from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate and well-matured
determination that no power, no earthly power, shall compel me to
vote for the positive introduction of slavery either South or North
of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British
ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent
of America I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present
inhabitants of California and of New Mexico, shall reproach us for
doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If the
citizens of those territories choose to establish slavery, and if
they come here with Constitutions establishing slavery, I am for
admitting them with such provisions in their Constitutions; but then
it will be their own work, and not ours, and their posterity will
have to reproach them, and not us, for forming Constitutions allowing
the institution of slavery to exist among them. These are my views,
Sir, and I choose to express them; and I care not how extensively or
universally they are known."
Hear him further; he says:--
"So long as God allows the vital current to flow through my veins, I
will never, never, never, by word, or thought, by mind or will, aid
in admitting one rood of free territory to the everlasting curse of
human bondage."
A bumper to the memory of noble Harry of the West!
CASSIUS M. CLAY.
Of the great number of good speeches made by members of the Republican
party during the late Presidential campaign, it is, we believe, pretty
generally admitted that the best one was made by Cassius M. Clay, of
Kentucky, at the Tabernacle, in New-York City, on the 24th of October,
1856. From the speech of that noble champion of freedom, then and there
delivered, we make the following graphic extract:--
"If there are no manufactures, there is no commerce. In vain do the
slaveholders go to Knoxville, to Nashville, to Memphis and to
Charleston, and resolve that they will have nothing to do with these
abolition eighteen millions of Northern people; that they will build
their own vessels, manufacture their own goods, ship their own
products to foreign countries, and break down New-York, Philadelphia
and Boston! Again they resolve and reresolve, and yet there is not a
single ton more shipped and not a single article added to the wealth
of the South. But, gentlemen, they never invite such men as I am to
attend their Conventions. They know that I would tell them that
slavery is the cause of their poverty, and that I will tell them that
what they are aiming at is the dissolution of the Union--that they
may be prepared to strike for that whenever the nation rises. They
well know that by slave labor the very propositions which they make
can never be realized; yet when we show these things, they cry out,
'Oh, Cotton is King!' But when we look at the statistics, we find
that so far from Cotton being King, Grass is King. There are nine
articles of staple productions which are larger than that of cotton
in this country."
"I suppose it does not follow because slavery is endeavoring to
modify the great dicta of our fathers, that cotton and free labor are
incompatible. In the extreme South, at New Orleans, the laboring
men--the stevedores and hackmen on the levee, where the heat is
intensified by the proximity of the red brick buildings, are all
white men, and they are in the full enjoyment of health. But how
about cotton? I am informed by a friend of mine--himself a
slaveholder, and therefore good authority--that in Northwestern
Texas, among the German settlements, who, true to their national
instincts, will not employ the labor of a slave--they produce more
cotton to the acre, and of a better quality, and selling at prices
from a cent to a cent and a half a pound higher than that produced by
slave labor. This is an experiment that illustrates what I have
always held, that whatever is right is expedient."
THE VOICE OF BENTON.
In his "Thirty Years' View," Thomas H. Benton says:--
"My opposition to the extension of slavery dates further back than
1844--forty years further back; and as this is a suitable time for a
general declaration, and a sort of general conscience delivery, I
will say that my opposition to it dates from 1804, when I was a
student at law in the State of Tennessee, and studied the subject of
African slavery in an American book--a Virginia book--Tucker's
edition of Blackstone's Commentaries."
Again, in a speech delivered in St. Louis, on the 3rd of November, 1856,
he says:--
"I look at white people, and not at black ones; I look to the peace
and reputation of the race to which I belong. I look to the peace of
this land--the world's last hope for a free government on the earth.
One of the occasions on which I saw Henry Clay rise higher than I
thought I ever saw him before, was when in the debate on the
admission of California, a dissolution was apprehended if slavery was
not carried into this Territory, where it never was. Then Mr. Clay,
rising, loomed colossally in the Senate of the United States, as he
rose declaring that for no earthly purpose, no earthly object, could
he carry slavery into places where it did not exist before. It was a
great and proud day for Mr. Clay, towards the latter days of his
life, and if an artist could have been there to catch his expression
as he uttered that sentiment, with its reflex on his face, and his
countenance beaming with firmness of purpose, it would have been a
glorious moment in which to transmit him to posterity--his
countenance all alive and luminous with the ideas that beat in his
bosom. That was a proud day. I could have wished that I had spoken
the same words. I speak them now, telling you they were his, and
adopting them as my own."
THE VOICE OF MASON.
Colonel Mason, a leading and distinguished member of the Convention that
formed the Constitution, from Virginia, when the provision for prohibiting
the importation of slaves was under consideration, said:--
"The present question concerns not the importing States alone, but
the whole Union. Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor
despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration
of whites who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce
the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born
a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As
nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must
be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence
punishes national sins by national calamities. He lamented that some
of our Eastern brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this
nefarious traffic. As to the States being in possession of the right
to import, this was the case with many other rights, now to be
properly given up. He held it essential, in every point of view, that
the General Government should have power to prevent the increase of
slavery."
THE VOICE OF MCDOWELL.
In 1832, Gov. McDowell used this language in the Virginia Legislature:--
"Who that looks to this unhappy bondage of an unhappy people, in the
midst of our society, and thinks of its incidents or issues, but
weeps over it as a curse as great upon him who inflicts as upon him
who suffers it? Sir, you may place the slave where you please--you
may dry up, to your uttermost, the fountains of his feelings, the
springs of his thought--you may close upon his mind every avenue of
knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial night--you may yoke him
to your labors, as the ox, which liveth only to work and worketh only
to live--you may put him under any process which, without destroying
his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational
being--you may do this, and the idea that he was born to be free will
survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality--it is the
etherial part of his nature which oppression cannot rend. It is a
torch lit up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be
extinguished by the hand of man."
THE VOICE OF IREDELL.
In the debates of the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, afterwards a
Judge of the United States Supreme Court, said:--
"When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an
event which must be pleasing to every generous mind, and every friend
of human nature."
THE VOICE OF PINKNEY.
William Pinkney, of Maryland, in the House of Delegates in that State, in
1789, made several powerful arguments in favor of the abolition of
slavery. Here follows a brief extract from one of his speeches:--
"Iniquitous and most dishonorable to Maryland, is that dreary system
of partial bondage which her laws have hitherto supported with a
solicitude worthy of a better object, and her citizens by their
practice, countenanced. Founded in a disgraceful traffic, to which
the parent country lent its fostering aid, from motives of interest,
but which even she would have disdained to encourage, had England
been the destined mart of such inhuman merchandize, its continuance
is as shameful as its origin.
I have no hope that the stream of general liberty will forever flow
unpolluted through the mire of partial bondage, or that they who have
been habituated to lord it over others, will not, in time, become
base enough to let others lord it over them. If they resist, it will
be the struggle of pride and selfishness, not of principle."
THE VOICE OF LEIGH.
In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Leigh said:--
"I thought, till very lately that it was known to every body that,
during the Revolution, and for many years after, the abolition of
slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest Statesmen, who
entertained with respect all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity
could suggest for its accomplishment."
THE VOICE OF MARSHALL.
Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier, said, in the Virginia Legislature, in
1832:--
"Wherefore, then, object to slavery? Because it is ruinous to the
whites--retards improvements, roots out an industrious population,
banishes the yeomanry of the country--deprives the spinner, the
weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and
support."
THE VOICE OF BOLLING.
Philip A. Bolling, of Buckingham, a member of the Legislature of Virginia
in 1832, said:--
"The time will come--and it may be sooner than many are willing to
believe--when this oppressed and degraded race cannot be held as they
now are--when a change will be effected, abhorrent, Mr. Speaker, to
you, and to the feelings of every good man.
The wounded adder will recoil, and sting the foot that tramples upon
it. The day is fast approaching, when those who oppose all action
upon this subject, and, instead of aiding in devising some feasible
plan for freeing their country from an acknowledged curse, cry
'_impossible_,' to every plan suggested, will curse their
perverseness, and lament their folly."
THE VOICE OF CHANDLER.
Mr. Chandler, of Norfolk, member of the Virginia Legislature, in 1832,
took occasion to say:--
"It is admitted, by all who have addressed this House, that slavery
is a curse, and an increasing one. That it has been destructive to
the lives of our citizens, history, with unerring truth, will record.
That its future increase will create commotion, cannot be doubted."
THE VOICE OF SUMMERS.
Mr. Summers, of Kanawha, member of the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832,
said:--
"The evils of this system cannot be enumerated. It were unnecessary
to attempt it. They glare upon us at every step. When the owner looks
to his wasted estate, he knows and feels them."
THE VOICE OF PRESTON.
In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Preston said:--
"Sir, Mr. Jefferson, whose hand drew the preamble to the Bill of
Rights, has eloquently remarked that we had invoked for ourselves the
benefit of a principle which we had denied to others. He saw and felt
that slaves, as men, were embraced within this principle."
THE VOICE OF FREMONT.
John Charles Fremont, one of the noblest sons of the South, says:--
"I heartily concur in all movements which have for their object to
repair the mischiefs arising from the violation of good faith in the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. I am opposed to slavery in the
abstract, and upon principles sustained and made habitual by long
settled convictions. I am inflexibly opposed to its extension on this
continent beyond its present limits."
"The great body of non-slaveholding Freemen, including those of the
South, upon whose welfare slavery is an oppression, will discover
that the power of the General Government over the Public Lands may be
beneficially exerted to advance their interests, and secure their
independence, knowing this, their suffrages will not be wanting to
maintain that authority in the Union, which is absolutely essential
to the maintenance of their own liberties, and which has more than
once indicated the purpose of disposing of the Public Lands in such a
way as would make every settler upon them a freeholder."
THE VOICE OF BLAIR.
In an Address to the Republicans of Maryland, in 1856, Francis P. Blair
says:--
"In every aspect in which slavery among us can be considered, it is
pregnant with difficulty. Its continuance in the States in which it
has taken root has resulted in the monopoly of the soil, to a great
extent, in the hands of the slaveholders, and the entire control of
all departments of the State Government; and yet a majority of people
in the slave States are not slave-owners. This produces an anomaly in
the principle of our free institutions, which threatens in time to
bring into subjugation to slave-owners the great body of the free
white population."
THE VOICE OF MAURY.
Lieut. Maury, to whom has been awarded so much well-merited praise in the
world of science, says:--
"The fact must be obvious to the far-reaching minds of our Statesmen,
that unless some means of relief be devised, some channel afforded,
by which the South can, when the time comes, get rid of the excess of
her slave population, she will be ultimately found with regard to
this institution, in the predicament of the man with the wolf by the
ears; too dangerous to hold on any longer, and equally dangerous to
let go. To our mind, the event is as certain to happen as any event
which depends on the contingencies of the future, viz.: that unless
means be devised for gradually relieving the slave States from the
undue pressure of this class upon them--unless some way be opened by
which they may be rid of their surplus black population--the time
will come--it may not be in the next nor in the succeeding
generation--but, sooner or later, come it will, and come it
must--when the two races will join in the death struggle for the
mastery."
THE VOICE OF BIRNEY.
James G. Birney, of Kentucky, under whom the Abolitionists first became a
National Party, and for whom they voted for President in 1844, giving him
66,304 votes, says:
"We have so long practiced injustice, adding to it hypocrisy, in the
treatment of the colored race, both negroes and Indians, that we
begin to regard injustice as an element--a chief element--the chief
element of our government. But no government which admits injustice
as an element can be a harmonious one or a permanent one. Harmony is
the antagonist of injustice, ever has been, and ever will be; that
is, so long as injustice lasts, which cannot always be, for it is a
lie, a semblance, therefore, perishable. True, from the imperfection
of man, his ambition and selfishness, injustice often finds its way
incidentally into the administration of public affairs, and maintains
its footing a long time before it is cast out by the legitimate
elements of government."
"Our slave States, especially the more southern of them, in which the
number of slaves is greater, and in which, of course the sentiment of
injustice is stronger than in the more northern ones, are to be
placed on the list of decaying communities. To a philosophic
observer, they seem to be falling back on the scale of civilization.
Even at the present point of retrogression, the cause of civilization
and human improvement would lose nothing by their annihilation."
THE VOICE OF DELAWARE.
Strong anti-slavery sentiment had become popular in Delaware as early as
1785. With Maryland and Missouri, it may now be ranked as a semi-slave
State. Mr. McLane, a member of Congress from this State in 1825, said:--
"I shall not imitate the example of other gentlemen by making
professions of my love of liberty and abhorrence of slavery, not,
however, because I do not entertain them. I am an enemy to slavery."
THE VOICE OF MARYLAND.
Slavery has little vitality in Maryland. Baltimore, the greatest city of
the South--greatest because freest--has a population of more than two
hundred thousand souls, and yet less than three thousand of these are
slaves. In spite of all the unjust and oppressive statutes enacted by the
oligarchy, the non-slaveholders, who with the exception of a small number
of slaveholding emancipationists, may in truth be said to be the only
class of respectable and patriotic citizens in the South, have wisely
determined that their noble State shall be freed from the sin and the
shame, the crime and the curse of slavery; and in accordance with this
determination, long since formed, they are giving every possible
encouragement to free white labor, thereby, very properly, rendering the
labor of slaves both unprofitable and disgraceful. The formation of an
Abolition Society in this State, in 1789, was the result of the influence
of the masterly speeches delivered in the House of Delegates, by the Hon.
William Pinkney whose undying testimony we have already placed on record.
Nearly seventy years ago, this eminent lawyer and Statesman declared to
the people of America, that if they did not mark out the bounds of
slavery, and adopt measures for its total extinction, it would finally
"work a decay of the spirit of liberty in the free States." Further, he
said that, "by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the
State has a right to hold his slave in bondage a single hour." In 1787,
Luther Martin, of this State, said:--
"Slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and has a
tendency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it
lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates us
to tyranny and oppression."
THE VOICE OF VIRGINIA.
After introducing the unreserved and immortal testimony of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and the other great men of the Old Dominion,
against the institution of slavery, it may to some, seem quite superfluous
to back the cause of Freedom by arguments from other Virginia
abolitionists; but this State, notwithstanding all her more modern manners
and inhumanity, has been so prolific of just views and noble sentiments,
that we deem it eminently fit and proper to blazon many of them to the
world as the redeeming features of her history. An Abolition Society was
formed in this State in 1791. In a memorial which the members of this
Society presented to Congress, they pronounced slavery "not only an odious
degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential
rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the
Gospel." A Bill of Rights, unanimously agreed upon by the Virginia
Convention of June 12, 1776, holds--
"That all men are, by nature, equally free and independent;
That Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common
benefit, protection, and security, of the People, Nation, or
Community;
That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people
in assembly ought to be free;
That all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest
with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage,
and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property, for public uses,
without their own consent or that of their representatives so
elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not in like manner
assented, for the public good;
That the freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of
Liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments;
That no free Government or the blessing of Liberty can be preserved
to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation,
temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to
fundamental principles."
The "Virginia Society for the Abolition of Slavery," organized in 1791,
addressed Congress in these words:--
"Your memorialists, fully aware that righteousness exalteth a nation,
and that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous
violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and
utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel, which breathes
'peace on earth and good will to men,' lament that a practice so
inconsistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men,
should subsist in so enlightened an age, and among a people
professing that all mankind are, by nature, equally entitled to
freedom."
THE VOICE OF NORTH CAROLINA.
If the question, _slavery_ or _no slavery_, could be fairly presented for
the decision of the legal voters of North Carolina at the next popular
election, we believe at least two-thirds of them would deposite the _no
slavery_ ticket. Perhaps one-fourth of the slaveholders themselves would
vote it, for the slaveholders in this State are more moderate, decent,
sensible, and honorable, than the slaveholders in either of the adjoining
States, or the States further South; and we know that many of them are
heartily ashamed of the vile occupations of slaveholding and
slave-breeding in which they are engaged, for we have the assurance from
their own lips. As a matter of course, all the non-slaveholders, who are
so greatly in the majority, would vote to suppress the degrading
institution which has kept them so long in poverty and ignorance, with the
exception of those who are complete automatons to the beck and call of
their imperious lords and masters, the major-generals of the oligarchy.
How long shall it be before the citizens of North Carolina shall have the
privilege of expressing, at the ballot-box, their true sentiments with
regard to this vexed question? Why not decide it at the next general
election? Sooner or later, it must and will be decided--decided correctly,
too--and the sooner the better. The first Southern State that abolishes
slavery will do herself an immortal honor. God grant that North Carolina
may be that State, and soon! There is at least one plausible reason why
this good old State should be the first to move in this important matter,
and we will state it. On the 20th of May, 1775, just one year one month
and fourteen days prior to the adoption of the Jeffersonian Declaration of
Independence, by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, July 4, 1776,
the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the authorship of which is
generally attributed to Ephraim Brevard, was proclaimed in Charlotte,
Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, and fully ratified in a second
Convention of the people of said county, held on the 31st of the same
month. And here, by the way, we may remark, that it is supposed Mr.
Jefferson made use of this last-mentioned document as the basis of his
draft of the indestructible title-deed of our liberties. There is
certainly an identicalness of language between the two papers that is well
calculated to strengthen this hypothesis. This, however, is a controversy
about which we are but little concerned. For present purposes, it is,
perhaps, enough for us to know, that on the 20th of May, 1775, when
transatlantic tyranny and oppression could no longer be endured, North
Carolina set her sister colonies a most valorous and praiseworthy example,
and that they followed it. To her infamous slaveholding sisters of the
South, it is now meet that she should set another noble example of
decency, virtue, and independence. Let her at once inaugurate a policy of
common justice and humanity--enact a system of equitable laws, having due
regard to the rights and interests of all classes of persons, poor whites,
negroes, and nabobs, and the surrounding States will ere long applaud her
measures, and adopt similar ones for the governance of themselves.
Another reason, and a cogent one, why North Carolina should aspire to
become the first free State of the South is this: The first slave State
that makes herself respectable by casting out "the mother of harlots," and
by rendering enterprise and industry honorable, will immediately receive
a large accession of most worthy citizens from other States in the Union,
and thus lay a broad foundation of permanent political power and
prosperity. Intelligent white farmers from the Middle and New England
States will flock to our more congenial clime, eager to give thirty
dollars per acre for the same lands that are now a drug in the market
because nobody wants them at the rate of five dollars per acre; an
immediate and powerful impetus will be given to commerce, manufactures,
and all the industrial arts; science and literature will be revived, and
every part of the State will reverberate with the triumphs of manual and
intellectual labor.
At this present time, we of North Carolina are worth less than either of
the four adjoining States; let us abolish slavery at the beginning of the
next regular decade of years, and if our example is not speedily followed,
we shall, on or before the first day of January, 1870, be enabled to
purchase the whole of Virginia and South Carolina, including, perhaps, the
greater part of Georgia. An exclusive lease of liberty for ten years would
unquestionably make us the Empire State of the South. But we have no
disposition to debar others from the enjoyment of liberty or any other
inalienable right; we ask no special favors; what we demand for ourselves
we are willing to concede to our neighbors. Hereby we make application for
a lease of freedom for ten years; shall we have it? May God enable us to
secure it, as we believe He will. We give fair notice, however, that if we
get it for ten years, we shall, with the approbation of Heaven, keep it
twenty--forty--a thousand--forever!
We transcribe the Mecklenburg Resolutions, which, it will be observed,
acknowledge the "inherent and inalienable rights of man," and "declare
ourselves a free and independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a
sovereign and self-governing association, under the control of no power
other than that of our God, and the general government of the Congress."
MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,
As proclaimed in the town of Charlotte, North Carolina, May 20th, 1775,
and ratified by the County of Mecklenburg, in Convention, May 31st, 1775.
"I. _Resolved_--That whosoever, directly or indirectly, abetted, or
in any way, form or manner, countenanced the unchartered and
dangerous invasion of our rights as claimed by Great Britain, is an
enemy to this country, to America, and to the inherent and
inalienable rights of man.
"II. _Resolved_--That we the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do
hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the
mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to
the British Crown, and abjure all political connection, contract or
association with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on our
rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the blood of American
patriots at Lexington.
"III. _Resolved_--That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and
independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and
self-governing association, under the control of no power other than
that of our God, and the general government of the Congress; to the
maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other
our mutual co-operation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred
honor.
"IV. _Resolved_--That as we now acknowledge the existence and control
of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this county, we
do hereby ordain and adopt, as a rule of life, all, each, and every
of our former laws--wherein, nevertheless, the crown of Great Britain
never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities or
authority therein."
Had it not been for slavery, which, with all its other blighting and
degrading influences, stifles and subdues every noble impulse of the
heart, this consecrated spot would long since have been marked by an
enduring monument, whose grand proportions should bear witness that the
virtues of a noble ancestry are gratefully remembered by an emulous and
appreciative posterity. Yet, even as things are, we are not without
genuine consolation. The star of hope and promise is beginning to beam
brightly over the long-obscured horizon of the South; and we are firm in
the belief, that freedom, wealth, and magnanimity, will soon do justice to
the memory of those fearless patriots, whose fair fame has been suffered
to moulder amidst the multifarious abominations of slavery, poverty,
ignorance and grovelling selfishness.
Judge Iredell's testimony, which will be found on a preceding page, and to
which we request the reader to recur, might have been appropriately
introduced under our present heading.
In the Provincial Convention held in North Carolina, in August, 1774, in
which there were sixty-nine delegates, representing nearly every county in
the province, it was--
"_Resolved_--That we will not import any slave or slaves, or purchase
any slave or slaves imported or brought into the Province by others,
from any part of the world, after the first day of November next."
In Iredell's Statutes, revised by Martin, it is stated that,
"In North Carolina, no general law at all was passed, prior to the
revolution, declaring who might be slaves."
That there is no _legal_ slavery in the Southern States, and that slavery
no where can be legalized, any more than theft, arson or murder can be
legalized, has been virtually admitted by some of the most profound
Southern jurists themselves; and we will here digress so far as to furnish
the testimony of one or two eminent lawyers, not of North Carolina, upon
this point.
In the debate in the United States Senate, in 1850, on the Fugitive Slave
Bill, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, objected to Mr. Dayton's amendment,
providing for a trial by jury, because, said he:--
"A trial by jury necessarily carries with it a trial of the whole
right, and a trial of the right to service will be gone into,
according to all the forms of the Court, in determining upon any
other fact. Then, again, it is proposed, as a part of the proof to be
adduced at the hearing, after the fugitive has been re-captured, that
evidence shall be brought by the claimant to show that slavery is
established in the State from which the fugitive has absconded. Now
this very thing, in a recent case in the city of New-York, was
required by one of the judges of that State, which case attracted the
attention of the authorities of Maryland, and against which they
protested. In that case the State judge went so far as to say that
the only mode of proving it was by reference to the Statute book.
Such proof is required in the Senator's amendment; and if he means by
this that proof shall be brought that slavery is established by
existing laws, it is impossible to comply with the requisition, for
no such law can be produced, I apprehend, in any of the slave States.
I am not aware that there is a single State in which the institution
is established by positive law."
Judge Clarke, of Mississippi, says:--
"In this State the legislature have considered slaves as reasonable
and accountable beings; and it would be a stigma upon the character
of the State, and a reproach to the administration of justice, if the
life of a slave could be taken with impunity, or if he could be
murdered in cold blood, without subjecting the offender to the
highest penalty known to the criminal jurisprudence of the country.
Has the slave no rights, because he is deprived of his freedom? He is
still a human being, and possesses all those rights of which he is
not deprived by the positive provisions of the law. The right of the
master exists not by force of the law of nature or nations, but by
virtue only of the positive law of the State."
The Hon. Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, says:--
"Arguments drawn from the well-established principles, which confer
and restrain the authority of the parent over the child, the tutor
over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have been pressed on
us. The Court does not recognize their application; there is no
likeness between the cases; they are in opposition to each other, and
there is an impassable gulf between them. The difference is that
which exists between freedom and slavery, and a greater cannot be
imagined. In the one, the end in view is the happiness of the youth,
born to equal rights with that governor on whom the duty devolves of
training the young to usefulness, in a station which he is afterwards
to assume among freemen. To such an end, and with such a subject,
moral and intellectual instruction seem the natural means, and, for
the most part, they are found to suffice. Moderate force is
superadded only to make the others effectual. If that fail, it is
better to leave the party to his own headstrong passions, and the
ultimate correction of the law, than to allow it to be immoderately
inflicted by a private person. With slavery it is far otherwise. The
end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety;
the subject, one doomed, in his own person and his posterity, to live
without knowledge, and without the capacity to make anything his own,
and to toil that another may reap the fruits. What moral
considerations shall be addressed to such a being to convince him,
what it is impossible but that the most stupid must feel and know can
never be true, that he is thus to labor upon a principle of natural
duty, or for the sake of his own personal happiness? Such services
can only be expected from one who has no will of his own; who
surrenders his will in implicit obedience to that of another. Such
obedience is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the
body. There is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect.
The power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of
the slave perfect. I most freely confess my sense of the harshness of
this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man can; and as a
principle of moral right, every person in his retirement must
repudiate it."
An esteemed friend, a physician, who was born and bred in Rowan county,
North Carolina, and who now resides there, informs us that Judge Gaston,
who was one of the half dozen Statesmen whom the South has produced since
the days of the venerable fathers of the Republic, was an avowed
abolitionist, and that he published an address to the people of North
Carolina, delineating, in a masterly manner, the material, moral, and
social disadvantages of slavery. Where is that address? Has it been
suppressed by the oligarchy? The fact that slaveholders have, from time to
time, made strenuous efforts to expunge the sentiments of freedom which
now adorn the works of nobler men than the noble Gaston, may, perhaps,
fully account for the oblivious state into which his patriotic address
seems to have fallen.
THE VOICE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
Poor South Carolina! Folly is her nightcap; fanaticism is her day-dream;
fire-eating is her pastime. She has lost her better judgment; the
dictates of reason and philosophy have no influence upon her actions. Like
the wife who is pitiably infatuated with a drunken, worthless husband, she
still clings, with unabated love, to the cause of her shame, her misery,
and her degradation.
A Kentuckian has recently expressed his opinion of this State in the
following language:--
"South Carolina is bringing herself irrecoverably in the public
contempt. It is impossible for any impartial lover of his country,
for any just thinking man, to witness her senseless and quenchless
malignancy against the Union without the most immeasurable disgust
and scorn. She is one vast hot-bed of disunion. Her people think and
talk of nothing else. She is a festering mass of treason."
In 1854, there were assessed for taxation in
SOUTH CAROLINA,
Acres of Land 17,289,359
Valued at $22,836,374
Average value per acre $1,32
At the same time there were in
NEW JERSEY,
Acres of Land, 324,800
Valued at $153,161,619
Average value per acre $28,76
We hope the Slavocrats will look, first on that picture, and then on this;
from one or the other, or both, they may glean a ray or two of wisdom,
which, if duly applied, will be of incalculable advantage to them and
their posterity. We trust, also, that the non-slaveholding whites will
view, with discriminating minds, the different lights and shades of these
two pictures; they are the parties most deeply interested; and it is to
them we look for the glorious revolution that is to substitute Freedom for
Slavery. They have the power to retrieve the fallen fortunes of South
Carolina, to raise her up from the loathsome sink of iniquity into which
slavery has plunged her, and to make her one of the most brilliant stars
in the great constellation of States. While their minds are occupied with
other considerations, let them not forget the difference between
_twenty-eight dollars and seventy-six cents_, the value of land per acre
in New Jersey, which is a second-rate free State, and _one dollar and
thirty-two cents_, the value of land per acre in South Carolina, which is,
_par excellence_, the model slave State. The difference between the two
sums is twenty-seven dollars and forty-four cents, which would amount to
precisely two thousand seven hundred and forty-four dollars on every
hundred acres. To present the subject in another form, the South Carolina
tract of land, containing two hundred acres, is worth now only two hundred
and sixty-four dollars, and is depreciating every day. Let slavery be
abolished, and in the course of a few years, the same tract will be worth
five thousand seven hundred and fifty-two dollars, with an upward
tendency. At this rate, the increment of value on the total area of the
State will amount to more than three times as much as the present
estimated value of the slaves!
South Carolina has not always been, nor will she always continue to be, on
the wrong side. From Ramsay's History of the State, we learn that, in
1774, she--
"_Resolved_--That His Majesty's subjects in North America (without
respect to color or other accidents) are entitled to all the inherent
rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the Kingdom
of Great Britain; that it is their fundamental right, that no man
should suffer in his person or property without a fair trial, and
judgment given by his peers, or by the law of the land."
One of her early writers, under the _non de plume_ of Philodemus, in a
political pamphlet published in Charleston in 1784, declares that--
"Such is the fatal influence of slavery on the human mind, that it
almost wholly effaces from it even the boasted characteristic of
rationality."
This same writer, speaking of the particular interests of South Carolina,
says:--
"It has been too common with us to search the records of other
nations, to find precedents that may give sanction to our own errors,
and lead us unwarily into confusion and ruin. It is our business to
consult their histories, not with a view to tread right or wrong in
their steps, but in order to investigate the real sources of the
mischiefs that have befallen them, and to endeavor to escape the
rocks which they have all unfortunately split upon. It is paying
ourselves but a poor compliment, to say that we are incapable of
profiting by others, and that, with all the information which is to
be derived from their fatal experience, it is in vain for us to
attempt to excel them. If, with all the peculiar advantages of our
present situation, we are incapable of surpassing our predecessors,
we must be a degenerate race indeed, and quite unworthy of those
singular bounties of Heaven, which we are so unskilled or undesirous
to turn to our benefit."
A recent number of Frazer's Magazine contains a well-timed and
well-written article from the pen of Wm. Henry Hurlbut, of this State;
and from it we make the following extract:--
"As all sagacious observers of the operation of the system of slavery
have demonstrated, the profitable employment of slave-labor is
inconsistent with the development of agricultural science, and
demands a continual supply of new and unexhausted soil. The
slaveholder, investing his capital in the purchase of the laborers
themselves, and not merely in soil and machines, paying his free
laborers out of the profit, must depend for his continued and
progressive prosperity upon the cheapness and facility with which he
can transfer his slaves to fresh and fertile lands. An enormous
additional item, namely, the price of slaves, being added to the cost
of production, all other elements of that cost require to be
proportionably smaller, or profits fail."
In an address delivered before the South Carolina Institute, in
Charleston, Nov. 20th, 1856, Mr. B. F. Perry, of Greenville, truthfully
says:--
"It has been South Carolina's misfortune, in this utilitarian age, to
have her greatest talents and most powerful energies directed to
pursuits, which avail her nothing, in the way of wealth and
prosperity. In the first settlement of a new country, agricultural
industry necessarily absorbs all the time and occupation of its
inhabitants. They must clear the forests and cultivate the earth, in
order to make their bread. This is their first consideration. Then
the mechanical arts, and manufactures, and commerce, must follow in
the footsteps of agriculture, to insure either individual or national
prosperity. No people can be highly prosperous without them. No
people ever have been. Agriculture, alone, will not make or sustain a
great people. The true policy of every people is to cultivate the
earth, manufacture its products, and send them abroad, in exchange
for those comforts and luxuries, and necessaries, which their own
country and their own industry cannot give or make. The dependence of
South Carolina on Europe and the Northern States for all the
necessaries, comforts and luxuries, which the mechanic arts afford,
has, in fact, drained her of her wealth, and made her positively
poor, when compared with her sister States of the Confederacy. It is
at once mortifying and alarming, to see and reflect on our own
dependence in the mechanic arts and manufactures, on strangers and
foreigners. In the Northern States their highest talents and energy
have been diversified, and more profitably employed in developing the
resources of the country, in making new inventions in the mechanic
arts, and enriching the community with science and literature,
commerce and manufactures."
THE VOICE OF GEORGIA.
Of the States strictly Southern, Georgia is, perhaps, the most thrifty.
This prosperous condition of the State is mainly ascribable to her hundred
thousand free white laborers--more than eighty-three thousand of whom are
engaged in agricultural pursuits. In few other slave States are the
non-slaveholders so little under the domination of the oligarchy. At best,
however, even in the most liberal slave States, the social position of the
non-slaveholding whites is but one short step in advance of that of the
negroes; and as there is, on the part of the oligarchy, a constantly
increasing desire and effort to usurp greater power, the more we
investigate the subject the more fully are we convinced that nothing but
the speedy and utter annihilation of slavery from the entire nation, can
save the masses of white people in the Southern States from ultimately
falling to a political level with the blacks--both occupying the most
abject and galling condition of servitude of which it is possible for the
human mind to conceive.
Gen. Oglethorpe, under whose management the Colony of Georgia was
settled, in 1733, was bitterly opposed to the institution of slavery. In a
letter to Granville Sharp, dated Oct. 13th, 1776, he says:--
"My friends and I settled the Colony of Georgia, and by charter were
established trustees, to make laws, &c. We determined not to suffer
slavery there. But the slave merchants and their adherents occasioned
us not only much trouble, but at last got the then government to
favor them. We would not suffer slavery, (which is against the
Gospel, as well as the fundamental law of England,) to be authorized
under our authority; we refused, as trustees, to make a law
permitting such a horrid crime. The government, finding the trustees
resolved firmly not to concur with what they believed unjust, took
away the charter by which no law could be passed without our
consent."
On the 12th of January, 1775, in indorsing the proceedings of the first
American Congress, among other resolutions, "the Representatives of the
extensive District of Darien, in the Colony of Georgia" adopted the
following:--
"5. To show the world that we are not influenced by any contracted or
interested motives, but a general philanthropy for all mankind, of
whatever climate, language, or complexion, we hereby declare our
disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of slavery in
America, (however the uncultivated state of our country or other
specious arguments may plead for it,) a practice founded in injustice
and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our liberties, (as well as
lives,) debasing part of our fellow creatures below men, and
corrupting the virtue and morals of the rest; and is laying the basis
of that liberty we contend for, (and which we pray the Almighty to
continue to the latest posterity,) upon a very wrong foundation. We
therefore resolve, at all times, to use our utmost endeavors for the
manumission of our slaves in this Colony, upon the most safe and
equitable footing for the masters and themselves."
The Hon. Mr. Reid, of this State, in a speech delivered in Congress, Feb.
1, 1820, says:--
"I am not the panegyrist of slavery. It is an unnatural state, a dark
cloud, which obscures half the lustre of our free institutions. For
my own part, though surrounded by slavery from my cradle to the
present moment, yet--
'I hate the touch of servile hands,
I loathe the slaves who cringe around.'"
As an accompaniment to those lines, he might have uttered these:--
"I would not have a slave to till my ground;
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned."
Thus have we presented a comprehensive summary of the most unequivocal and
irrefragable testimony of the South against the iniquitous institution of
human slavery. What more can we say? What more can we do? We might fill a
folio volume with similar extracts; but we must forego the task; the
remainder of our space must be occupied with other arguments. In the
foregoing excerpts is revealed to us, in language too plain to be
misunderstood, the important fact that every truly great and good man the
South has ever produced, has, with hopeful confidence, looked forward to
the time when this entire continent shall be redeemed from the crime and
the curse of slavery. Our noble self-sacrificing forefathers have
performed their part, and performed it well. They have laid us a
foundation as enduring as the earth itself; in their dying moments they
admonished us to carry out their designs in the upbuilding and completion
of the superstructure. Let us obey their patriotic injunctions.
From each of the six original Southern States we have introduced the most
ardent aspirations for liberty--the most positive condemnations of
slavery. From each of the nine slave States which have been admitted into
the Union since the organization of the General Government, we could
introduce, from several of their wisest and best citizens, anti-slavery
sentiments equally as strong and convincing as those that emanated from
the great founders of our movement--Washington, Jefferson, Madison,
Patrick Henry and the Randolphs. As we have already remarked, however, the
limits of this chapter will not admit of the introduction of additional
testimony from either of the old or of the new slave States.
The reader will not fail to observe that, in presenting these solid
abolition doctrines of the South, we have been careful to make such
quotations as triumphantly refute, in every particular, the more specious
sophistries of the oligarchy.
The mention of the illustrious names above, reminds us of the fact, that
the party newspapers, whose venal columns are eternally teeming with
vituperation and slander, have long assured us that the Whig ship was to
be steered by the Washington rudder, that the Democratic barque was to
sail with the Jefferson compass, and that the Know-Nothing brig was to
carry the Madison chart. Imposed upon by these monstrous falsehoods, we
have, from time to time, been induced to engage passage on each of these
corrupt and rickety old hulks; but, in every instance, we have been basely
swamped in the sea of slavery, and are alone indebted for our lives to the
kindness of Heaven and the art of swimming. Washington the founder of the
Whig party! Jefferson the founder of the Democratic party! Voltaire the
founder of Christianity! God forbid that man's heart should always
continue to be the citadel of deception--that he should ever be to others
the antipode of what he is to himself.
There is now in this country but one party that promises, in good faith,
to put in practice the principles of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and
the other venerable Fathers of the Republic--the Republican party. To this
party we pledge unswerving allegiance, so long as it shall continue to
pursue the statism advocated by the great political prototypes
above-mentioned, but no longer. We believe it is, as it ought to be, the
desire, the determination, and the destiny of this party, to give the
death-blow to slavery; should future developments prove the party at
variance with this belief--a belief, by the bye, which it has recently
inspired in the breasts of little less than one and a half millions of the
most intelligent and patriotic voters in America--we shall shake off the
dust of our feet against it, and join one that will, in a summary manner,
extirpate the intolerable grievance.
CHAPTER IV.
NORTHERN TESTIMONY.
The best evidence that can be given of the enlightened patriotism and love
of liberty in the Free States, is the fact that, at the Presidential
election in 1856, they polled thirteen hundred thousand votes for the
Republican candidate, JOHN C. FREMONT. This fact of itself seems to
preclude the necessity of strengthening our cause with the individual
testimony of even their greatest men. Having, however, adduced the most
cogent and conclusive anti-slavery arguments from the Washingtons, the
Jeffersons, the Madisons, the Randolphs, and the Clays of the South, we
shall now proceed to enrich our pages with gems of Liberty from the
Franklins, the Hamiltons, the Jays, the Adamses, and the Websters of the
North. Too close attention cannot be paid to the words of wisdom which we
have extracted from the works of these truly eminent and philosophic
Statesmen. We will first listen to
THE VOICE OF FRANKLIN.
Dr. Franklin was the first president of "The Pennsylvania Society for
promoting the Abolition of Slavery;" and it is now generally conceded
that this was the first regularly organized American abolition Society--it
having been formed as early as 1774, while we were yet subjects of the
British government. In 1790, in the name and on behalf of this Society,
Dr. Franklin, who was then within a few months of the close of his life,
drafted a memorial "to the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States," in which he said:--
"Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the
distresses arising from slavery, believe it to be their indispensable
duty to present this subject to your notice. They have observed, with
real satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are vested
in you, for 'promoting the welfare and securing the blessings of
liberty to the people of the United States;' and as they conceive
that these blessings ought rightfully to be administered, without
distinction of color, to all descriptions of people, so they indulge
themselves in the pleasing expectation that nothing which can be done
for the relief of the unhappy objects of their care, will be either
omitted or delayed.
"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and
is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties
of humanity and the principles of their institution, your
memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable
endeavors to loosen the bonds of slavery, and promote a general
enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they
earnestly entreat your attention to the subject of slavery; that you
will be pleased to countenance the restoration to liberty of those
unhappy men, who, alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into
perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding
freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise
means for removing this inconsistency of character from the American
people; that you will promote mercy and justice towards this
distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the
power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the
persons of our fellow-men."
On another occasion, he says:--"Slavery is an atrocious debasement of
human nature."
THE VOICE OF HAMILTON.
Alexander Hamilton, the brilliant Statesman and financier, tells us
that:--
"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old
parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam, in
the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself,
and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
Again, in 1774, addressing himself to an American Tory, he says:--
"The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false
reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind.
Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never
entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to
equal privileges. You would be convinced that natural liberty is the
gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race; and that
civil liberty is founded on that."
THE VOICE OF JAY.
John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States under the Constitution
of 1789, in a letter to the Hon. Elias Boudinot, dated Nov. 17, 1819,
says:--
"Little can be added to what has been said and written on the subject
of slavery. I concur in the opinion that it ought not to be
introduced nor permitted in any of the new States, and that it ought
to be gradually diminished and finally abolished in all of them.
"To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohibit the
migration and importation of slaves into any of the States does not
appear questionable.
"The first article of the Constitution specifies the legislative
powers committed to the Congress. The 9th section of that article has
these words: 'The _migration_ or _importation_ of such persons as any
of the _now-existing_ States shall think proper to admit, shall not
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or
duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars
for each person.'
"I understand the sense and meaning of this clause to be, that the
power of the congress, although competent to prohibit such migration
and importation, was to be exercised with respect to the _then_
existing States, and them only, until the year 1808, but the Congress
were at liberty to make such prohibitions as to any _new_ State,
which might in the _mean_ time be established. And further, that from
and after _that_ period, they were authorized to make such
prohibitions as to _all_ the States, whether _new_ or _old_.
"It will, I presume, be admitted, that slaves were the persons
intended. The word slaves was avoided, probably on account of the
existing toleration of slavery, and its discordancy with the
principles of the Revolution, and from a consciousness of its being
repugnant to the following positions in the Declaration of
Independence: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.'"
In a previous letter, written from Spain, whither he had been appointed as
minister plenipotentiary, he says, speaking of the abolition of slavery:--
"Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to Heaven will be
impious. This is a strong expression, but it is just. I believe that
God governs the world, and I believe it to be a maxim in His, as in
our Courts, that those who ask for equity ought to do it."
WILLIAM JAY.
The Hon. Wm. Jay, a noble son of Chief Justice John Jay, says:--
"A crisis has arrived in which we must maintain our rights, or
surrender them for ever. I speak not to abolitionists alone, but to
all who value the liberty our fathers achieved. Do you ask what we
have to do with slavery? Let our muzzled presses answer--let the mobs
excited against us by the merchants and politicians answer--let the
gag laws threatened by our governors and legislatures answer, let the
conduct of the National Government answer."
THE VOICE OF ADAMS.
From the Diary of John Quincy Adams, "the old man eloquent," we make the
following extract:--
"It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very sources of
moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice;
for what can be more false and more heartless than this doctrine,
which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon
the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and induces men
endowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by
the Christian religion; that slaves are happy and contented in their
condition; that between master and slave there are ties of mutual
attachment and affection; that the virtues of the master are refined
and exalted by the degradation of the slave, while at the same time
they vent execrations upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having
given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes, for
the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the very
mention of human rights as applicable to men of color."
THE VOICE OF WEBSTER.
In a speech which he delivered at Niblo's Garden, in the city of
New-York, on the 15th of March, 1847, Daniel Webster, the great Expounder
of the Constitution, said:--
"On the general question of slavery, a great part of the community is
already strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted
attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a far deeper
one ahead. It has arrested the religious feeling of the country, it
has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man,
indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and especially has
he an erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this
country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled
with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be respected. But
to endeavor to coin it into silver, or retain its free expression, to
seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as
such endeavors would inevitably render it--should this be attempted,
I know nothing, even in the Constitution or Union itself, which might
not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."
When discussing the Oregon Bill in 1848, he said:--
"I have made up my mind, for one, that under no circumstances will I
consent to the further extension of the area of slavery in the United
States, or to the further increase of slave representation in the
House of Representatives."
Under date of February 15th, 1850, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Furness, he
says:--
"From my earliest youth I have regarded slavery as a great moral and
political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural equality
of mankind, founded only in superior power; a standing and permanent
conquest by the stronger over the weaker. All pretense of defending
it on the ground of different races, I have ever condemned. I have
even said that if the black race is weaker, that is a reason against,
not for, its subjection and oppression. In a religious point of view
I have ever regarded it, and even spoken of it, not as subject to any
express denunciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as
opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospel and to the teachings of
Jesus Christ. The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness,
justice, and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly affectionate;
it does not seek anothers, and not its own; it does not let the
oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a continual act of
oppression. But then, such is the influence of a habit of thinking
among men, and such is the influence of what has been long
established, that even minds, religious and tenderly conscientious,
such as would be shocked by any single act of oppression, in any
single exercise of violence and unjust power, are not always moved by
the reflection that slavery is a continual and permanent violation of
human rights."
While delivering a speech at Buffalo, in the State of New York, in the
summer of 1851, only about twelve months prior to his decease, he made use
of the following emphatic words:--
"I never would consent, and never have consented, that there should
be one foot of slave territory beyond what the old thirteen States
had at the formation of the Union. Never, never."
NOAH WEBSTER.
Noah Webster, the great American vocabulist, says:--
"That freedom is the sacred right of every man, whatever be his
color, who has not forfeited it by some violation of municipal law,
is a truth established by God himself, in the very creation of human
beings. No time, no circumstance, no human power or policy can change
the nature of this truth, nor repeal the fundamental laws of society,
by which every man's right to liberty is guarantied. The act of
enslaving men is always a violation of those great primary laws of
society, by which alone, the master himself holds every particle of
his own freedom."
THE VOICE OF CLINTON.
DeWitt Clinton, the father of the great system of internal improvements in
the State of New York, speaking of despotism in Europe, and of slavery in
America, asks:--
"Have not prescription and precedent--patriarchal dominion--divine
right of kings and masters, been alternately called in to sanction
the slavery of nations? And would not all the despotisms of the
ancient and modern world have vanished into air, if the natural
equality of mankind had been properly understood and practiced? * * *
This declares that the same measure of justice ought to be measured
out to all men, without regard to adventitious inequalities, and the
intellectual and physical disparities which proceed from inexplicable
causes."
THE VOICE OF WARREN.
Major General Joseph Warren, one of the truest patriots of the Revolution,
and the first American officer of rank that fell in our contest with Great
Britain, says:--
"That personal freedom is the natural right of every man, and that
property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly
acquired by his own labor, necessarily arises therefrom, are truths
that common sense has placed beyond the reach of contradiction. And
no man, or body of men, can, without being guilty of flagrant
injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons or acquisitions of
any other man or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a
right has arisen from some compact between the parties, in which it
has been explicitly and freely granted."
Otis, Hancock, Ames, and others, should be heard, but for the want of
space. Volumes upon volumes might be filled with extracts similar to the
above, from the works of the deceased Statesmen and sages of the North,
who, while living, proved themselves equal to the task of exterminating
from their own States the matchless curse of human slavery. Such are the
men who, though no longer with us in the flesh, "still live." A living
principle--an immortal interest--have they, invested in every great and
good work that distinguishes the free States. The railroads, the canals,
the telegraphs, the factories, the fleets of merchant vessels, the
magnificent cities, the scientific modes of agriculture, the unrivaled
institutions of learning, and other striking evidences of progress and
improvement at the North, are, either directly or indirectly, the
offspring of their gigantic intellects. When, if ever, commerce, and
manufactures, and agriculture, and great enterprises, and truth, and
liberty, and justice, and magnanimity, shall have become obsolete terms,
then their names may possibly be forgotten, but not tell then.
An army of brave and worthy successors--champions of Freedom now living,
have the illustrious forefathers of the North, in the persons of Garrison,
Greeley, Giddings, Goodell, Grow, and Gerrit Smith; in Seward, Sumner,
Stowe, Raymond, Parker, and Phillips; in Beecher, Banks, Burlingame,
Bryant, Hale, and Hildreth; in Emerson, Dayton, Thompson, Tappan, King and
Cheever; in Whittier, Wilson, Wade, Wayland, Weed, and Burleigh. These are
the men whom, in connection with their learned and eloquent compatriots,
the Everetts, the Bancrofts, the Prescotts, the Chapins, the Longfellows,
and the Danas, future historians, if faithful to their calling, will place
on record as America's true statesmen, literati, preachers, philosophers,
and philanthropists, of the present age.
In this connection, however, it may not be amiss to remark that the
Homers, the Platos, the Bacons, the Newtons, the Shakspeares, the Miltons,
the Blackstones, the Cuviers, the Humboldts, and the Macaulays of America,
have not yet been produced; nor, in our humble judgment, will they be,
until slavery shall have been overthrown and freedom established in the
States of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Upon the soil of those
States, when free, or on other free soil crossed by about the same degrees
of latitude, and not distant from the Appalachian chain of mountains,
will, we believe, be nurtured into manhood, in the course of one or two
centuries, perhaps, as great men as those mentioned above--greater,
possibly, than any that have ever yet lived. Whence their ancestors may
come, whether from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, from Oceanica, from
North or South America, or from the islands of the sea, or whatever
honorable vocation they may now be engaged in, matters nothing at all. For
ought we know, their great-grandfathers are now humble artisans in Maine,
or moneyed merchants in Massachusetts; illiterate poor whites in
Mississippi, or slave-driving lordlings in South Carolina; frugal farmers
in Michigan, or millionaires in Illinois; daring hunters in the Rocky
Mountains, or metal-diggers in California; peasants in France, or princes
in Germany--no matter where, or what, the scope of country above-mentioned
is, in our opinion, destined to be the birth-place of their illustrious
offspring--the great savans of the New World, concerning whom we should
console ourselves with the hope that they are not buried deeply in the
matrix of the future.
CHAPTER V.
TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS.
To the true friends of freedom throughout the world, it is a pleasing
thought, and one which, by being communicated to others, is well
calculated to universalize the principles of liberty, that the great
heroes, statesmen, and sages, of all ages and nations, ancient and modern,
who have ever had occasion to speak of the institution of human slavery,
have entered their most unequivocal and positive protests against it. To
say that they disapproved of the system would not be sufficiently
expressive of the utter detestation with which they uniformly regarded it.
That they abhorred it as the vilest invention that the Evil-One has ever
assisted bad men to concoct, is quite evident from the very tone and
construction of their language.
Having, with much pleasure and profit, heard the testimony of America,
through her representative men, we will now hear that of other nations,
through their representative men--doubting not that we shall be more than
remunerated for our time and trouble. We will first listen to
THE VOICE OF ENGLAND.
In the case of James Somerset, a negro who had been kidnapped in Africa,
transported to Virginia, there sold into slavery, thence carried to
England, as a waiting-boy, and there induced to institute proceedings
against his master for the recovery of his freedom,
MANSFIELD says:--
"The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of
being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by
positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons,
occasion, and time itself whence it was created, is erased from the
memory. It is so odious that nothing can be sufficient to support it
but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from
the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the
law of England, and therefore the black must be discharged."
LOCKE says:--
"Slavery is so vile, so miserable a state of man, and so directly
opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that it is
hard to be convinced that an Englishman, much less a gentleman,
should plead for it."
Again, he says:--
"Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be common to all men,
yet every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any
right to but himself."
PITT says:--
"It is injustice to permit slavery to remain for a single hour."
FOX says:--
"With regard to a regulation of slavery, my detestation of its
existence induces me to know no such thing as a regulation of
robbery, and a restriction of murder. Personal freedom is a right of
which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal in so depriving
him, and he who withholds is no less criminal in withholding."
SHAKSPEARE says:--
"A man is master of his liberty."
Again, he says:--
"It is the curse of Kings, to be attended
By slaves, that take their humors for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life,
And, on the winking of authority,
To understand a law; to know the meaning
Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns
More upon humor than advised respect."
Again:--
"Heaven will one day free us from this slavery."
Again:--
"Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!--
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets;
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out,
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement"
COWPER says:--
"Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free.
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your Empire, that where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too!"
MILTON asks:--
"Where is the beauty to see,
Like the sun-brilliant brow of a nation when free?"
Again, he says:--
"If our fathers promised for themselves, to make themselves slaves,
they could make no such promise for us."
Again:--
"Since, therefore, the law is chiefly right reason, if we are bound
to obey a magistrate as a minister of God, by the very same reason
and the very same law, we ought to resist a tyrant, and minister of
the devil."
DR. JOHNSON says:--
"No man is by nature the property of another. The rights of nature
must be some way forfeited before they can justly be taken away."
DR. PRICE says:--
"If you have a right to make another man a slave, he has a right to
make you a slave."
BLACKSTONE says:--
"If neither captivity nor contract can, by the plain law of nature
and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much less can
they reduce the offspring."
Again, he says:--
"The primary aim of society is to protect individuals in the
enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in them by the
immutable laws of nature. Hence it follows that the first and primary
end of human laws is to maintain those absolute rights of
individuals."
Again:--
"If any human law shall allow or require us to commit crime, we are
bound to transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the
natural and divine."
COKE says:--
"What the Parliament doth, shall be holden for naught, whenever it
shall enact that which is contrary to the rights of nature."
HAMPDEN says:--
"The essence of all law is justice. What is not justice is not law;
and what is not law, ought not to be obeyed."
HARRINGTON says:--
"All men naturally, are equal; for though nature with a noble variety
has made different features and lineaments of men, yet as to freedom,
she has made every one alike, and given them the same desires."
FORTESCUE says:--
"Those rights which God and nature have established, and which are
therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not
the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man
than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when
declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no
human power has any authority to abridge or destroy them, unless the
owner himself shall commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."
Again, he says:--
"The law, therefore, which supports slavery and opposes liberty, must
necessarily be condemned as cruel, for every feeling of human nature
advocates liberty. Slavery is introduced by human wickedness, but God
advocates liberty, by the nature which he has given to man."
BROUGHAM says:--
"Tell me not of rights--talk not of the property of the planter in
his slaves. I deny the right; I acknowledge not the property. In vain
you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim. There is a law above
all the enactments of human codes, the same throughout the world, the
same in all times; it is the law written by the finger of God on the
hearts of men; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men
despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject
with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy that man can hold
property in man."
THE VOICE OF IRELAND.
BURKE says:--
"Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the
feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be
suffered to exist."
CURRAN says:--
"I speak in the spirit of British law, which makes liberty
commensurate with and inseparable from British soil; which proclaims
even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot
upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy and
consecrated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No matter in
what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what
complexion, incompatible with freedom, an Indian or African sun may
have burnt upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty
may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may
have been devoted upon the altar of slavery, the moment he touches
the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in
the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; and he stands
redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of
Universal Emancipation."
The Dublin University Magazine for December, 1856, says:--
"The United States must learn, from the example of Rome, that
Christianity and the pagan institution of slavery cannot co-exist
together. The Republic must take her side and choose her favorite
child; for if she love the one, she must hate the other."
THE VOICE OF SCOTLAND.
BEATTIE says:--
"Slavery is inconsistent with the dearest and most essential rights
of man's nature; it is detrimental to virtue and industry; it hardens
the heart to those tender sympathies which form the most lovely part
of human character; it involves the innocent in hopeless misery, in
order to procure wealth and pleasure for the authors of that misery;
it seeks to degrade into brutes beings whom the Lord of Heaven and
Earth endowed with rational souls, and created for immortality; in
short, it is utterly repugnant to every principle of reason,
religion, humanity, and conscience. It is impossible for a
considerate and unprejudiced mind, to think of slavery without
horror."
MILLER says:--
"The human mind revolts at a serious discussion of the subject of
slavery. Every individual, whatever be his country or complexion, is
entitled to freedom."
MACKNIGHT says:--
"Men-stealers are inserted among the daring criminals against whom
the law of God directed its awful curses. These were persons who
kidnapped men to sell them for slaves; and this practice seems
inseparable from the other iniquities and oppressions of slavery; nor
can a slave dealer easily keep free from this criminality, if indeed
the receiver is as bad as the thief."
THE VOICE OF FRANCE.
LAFAYETTE says:--
"I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I
could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery."
Again, while in the prison of Magdeburg, he says:--
"I know not what disposition has been made of my plantation at
Cayenne; but I hope Madame de Lafayette will take care that the
negroes who cultivate it shall preserve their liberty."
O. LAFAYETTE, grandson of General Lafayette, in a letter under date of
April 26th, 1851, says:--
"This great question of the Abolition of Negro Slavery, which has my
entire sympathy, appears to me to have established its importance
throughout the world. At the present time, the States of the
Peninsula, if I do not deceive myself, are the only European powers
who still continue to possess slaves; and America, while continuing
to uphold slavery, feels daily, more and more how heavily it weighs
upon her destinies."
MONTESQUIEU asks:--
"What civil law can restrain a slave from running away, since he is
not a member of society?"
Again, he says:--
"Slavery is contrary to the fundamental principles of all societies."
Again:--
"In democracies, where they are all upon an equality, slavery is
contrary to the principles of the Constitution."
Again:--
"Nothing puts one nearer the condition of a brute than always to see
freemen and not be free."
Again:--
"Even the earth itself, which teems with profusion under the
cultivating hand of the free born laborer, shrinks into barrenness
from the contaminating sweat of a slave."
LOUIS X. issued the following edict:--
"As all men are by nature free born, and as this Kingdom is called
the Kingdom of Franks, (freemen) it shall be so in reality. It is
therefore decreed that enfranchisement shall be granted throughout
the whole Kingdom upon just and reasonable terms."
BUFFON says:--
"It is apparent that the unfortunate negroes are endowed with
excellent hearts, and possess the seeds of every human virtue. I
cannot write their history without lamenting their miserable
condition." "Humanity revolts at those odious oppressions that result
from avarice."
ROUSSEAU says:--
"The terms _slavery_ and _right_, contradict and exclude each other."
BRISSOT says:--
"Slavery, in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a violation of
divine law, and a degradation of human nature."
THE VOICE OF GERMANY.
GROTIUS says:--
"Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell or buy slaves or free
men. To steal a man is the highest kind of theft."
GOETHE SAYS:--
Such busy multitudes I fain would see
Stand upon free soil with a people free."
LUTHER SAYS:--
"Unjust violence is, by no means, the ordinance of God, and therefore
can bind no one in conscience and right, to obey, whether the command
comes from pope, emperor, king or master."
An able German writer of the present day, says, in a recent letter to his
friends in this country:--
"Consider that the cause of American liberty is the cause of
universal liberty; its failure, a triumph of despotism everywhere.
Remember that while American liberty is the great argument of
European Democracy, American slavery is the greater argument of its
despotism. Remember that all our actions should be governed by the
golden rule, whether individual, social, or political; and no
government, and, above all, no republican government, is safe in the
hands of men that practically deny that rule. Will you support by
your vote a system that recognizes property of man in man? A system
which sanctions the sale of the child by its own father, regardless
of the purpose of the buyer? What need is there to present to you the
unmitigated wrong of slavery? It is the shame of our age that
argument is needed against slavery.
"Liberty is no exclusive property; it is the property of mankind of
all ages. She is immortal, though crushed, can never die; though
banished, she will return; though fettered, she will yet be free."
THE VOICE OF ITALY.
CICERO SAYS:--
"By the grand laws of nature, all men are born free, and this law is
universally binding upon all men."
Again, he says:--
"Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws."
Again:--
"Law is not something wrought out by man's ingenuity, nor is it a
decree of the people, but it is something eternal, governing the
world by the wisdom of its commands and prohibitions."
Again:--
"Whatever is just is also the true law, nor can this true law be
abrogated by any written enactments."
Again:--
"If there be such a power in the decrees and commands of fools, that
the nature of things is changed by their votes, why do they not
decree that what is bad and pernicious shall be regarded as good and
wholesome, or why, if the law can make wrong right, can it not make
bad good?"
Again:--
"Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, have made
anything rather than laws."
Again:--
"The law of all nations forbids one man to pursue his advantage at
the expense of another."
LACTANTIUS says:--
"Justice teaches men to know God and to love men, to love and assist
one another, being all equally the children of God."
LEO X. says:--
"Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry out
against the state of slavery."
THE VOICE OF GREECE.
SOCRATES says:--
"Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery."
ARISTOTLE says:--
"It is neither for the good, nor is it just, seeing all men are by
nature alike, and equal, that one should be lord and master over
others."
POLYBIUS says:--
"None but unprincipled and beastly men in society assume the mastery
over their fellows, as it is among bulls, bears, and cocks."
PLATO says:--
"Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice."
From each of the above, and from other nations, additional testimony is at
hand; but, for reasons already assigned, we forbear to introduce it.
Corroborative of the correctness of the position which we have assumed,
even Persia has a voice, which may be easily recognized in the tones of
her immortal Cyrus, who says:
"To fight, in order not to be made a slave, is noble."
Than Great Britain no nation has more heartily or honorably repented of
the crime of slavery--no nation, on the perception of its error, has ever
acted with more prompt magnanimity to its outraged and unhappy bondsmen.
Entered to her credit, many precious jewels of liberty remain in our
possession, ready to be delivered when called for; of their value some
idea may be formed, when we state that they are filigreed with such names
as Wilberforce, Buxton, Granville, Grattan, Camden, Clarkson, Sharp,
Sheridan, Sidney, Martin, and Macaulay.
Virginia, the Carolinas, and other Southern States, which are provided
with _republican (!)_ forms of government, and which have abolished
freedom, should learn, from the history of the monarchal governments of
the Old World, if not from the example of the more liberal and enlightened
portions of the New, how to abolish slavery. The lesson is before them in
a variety of exceedingly interesting forms, and, sooner or later, they
must learn it, either voluntarily or by compulsion. Virginia, in
particular, is a spoilt child, having been the pet of the General
Government for the last sixty-eight years; and like most other spoilt
children, she has become froward, peevish, perverse, sulky and
irreverent--not caring to know her duties, and failing to perform even
those which she does know. Her superiors perceive that the abolition of
slavery would be a blessing to her; she is, however, either too ignorant
to understand the truth, or else, as is the more probable, her false pride
and obstinacy restrain her from acknowledging it. What is to be done?
Shall ignorance, or prejudice, or obduracy, or willful meanness, triumph
over knowledge, and liberality, and guilelessness, and laudable
enterprise? No, never! Assured that Virginia and all the other
slaveholding States are doing wrong every day, it is our duty to make them
do right, if we have the power; and we believe we have the power now
resident within their own borders. What are the opinions, generally, of
the non-slaveholding whites? Let them speak.
CHAPTER VI.
TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES.
"Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets,
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out,
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!"
In quest of arguments against slavery, we have perused the works of
several eminent Christian writers of different denominations, and we now
proceed to lay before the reader the result of a portion of our labor. As
it is the special object of this chapter to operate on, to correct and
cleanse the consciences of slaveholding professors of religion, we shall
adduce testimony only from the five churches to which they, in their
satanic piety, mostly belong--the Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the
Baptist, the Methodist, and the Roman Catholic--all of which, thank
Heaven, are destined, at no distant day, to become thoroughly
abolitionized. With few exceptions, all the other Christian sects are, as
they should be, avowedly and inflexibly opposed to the inhuman institution
of slavery. The Congregational, the Quaker, the Lutheran, the Dutch and
German Reformed, the Unitarian, and the Universalist, especially, are all
honorable, able, and eloquent defenders of the natural rights of man. We
will begin by introducing a mass of
PRESBYTERIAN TESTIMONY.
The Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, one of the most learned
Presbyterian preachers and commentators of the day, says:--
"There is a deep and growing conviction in the minds of the mass of
mankind, that slavery violates the great laws of our nature; that it
is contrary to the dictates of humanity; that it is essentially
unjust, oppressive, and cruel; that it invades the rights of liberty
with which the Author of our being has endowed all human beings; and
that, in all the forms in which it has ever existed, it has been
impossible to guard it from what its friends and advocates would call
'_abuses_ of the system.' It is a violation of the first sentiments
expressed in our Declaration of Independence, and on which our
fathers founded the vindication of their own conduct in an appeal to
arms. It is at war with all that a man claims for himself and for his
own children; and it is opposed to all the struggles of mankind, in
all ages, for freedom. The claims of humanity plead against it. The
struggles for freedom everywhere in our world condemn it. The
instinctive feeling in every man's own bosom in regard to himself is
a condemnation of it. The noblest deeds of valor, and of patriotism
in our own land, and in all lands where men have struggled for
freedom, are a condemnation of the system. All that is noble in man
is opposed to it; all that is base, oppressive, and cruel, pleads for
it.
"The spirit of the New Testament is against slavery, and the
principles of the New Testament, if fairly applied, would abolish it.
In the New Testament no man is commanded to purchase and own a slave;
no man is commended as adding anything to the evidences of his
Christian character, or as performing the appropriate duty of a
Christian, for owning one. No where in the New Testament is the
institution referred to as a good one, or as a desirable one. It is
commonly--indeed, it is almost universally--conceded that the proper
application of the principles of the New Testament would abolish
slavery everywhere, or that, the state of things which will exist
when the Gospel shall be fairly applied to all the relations of life,
slavery will not be found among those relations.
"Let slavery be removed from the church, and let the voice of the
church, with one accord, be lifted up in favor of freedom; let the
church be wholly detached from the institution, and let there be
adopted by all its ministers and members an interpretation of the
Bible--as I believe there may be and ought to be--that shall be in
accordance with the deep-seated principles of our nature in favor of
freedom, and with our own aspirations for liberty, and with the
sentiments of the world in its onward progress in regard to human
rights, and not only would a very material objection against the
Bible be taken away--and one which would be fatal if it were well
founded--but the establishment of a very strong argument _in favor_
of the Bible, as a revelation from God, would be the direct result of
such a position."
Thomas Scott, the celebrated English Presbyterian Commentator, says:--
"To number the persons of men with beasts, sheep, and horses, as the
stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a ship, is,
no doubt, a most detestable and anti-Christian practice."
From a resolution denunciatory of slavery, unanimously adopted by the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1818, we make the
following extract:--
"We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by
another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights
of human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which
requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and as totally
irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the Gospel of
Christ, which enjoins that 'all things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them.' * * * We rejoice that the
church to which we belong commenced, as early as any other in this
country, the good work of endeavoring to put an end to slavery, and
that in the same work many of its members have ever since been, and
now are, among the most active, vigorous, and efficient laborers. * *
* We earnestly exhort them to continue, and, if possible, to
increase, their exertions to effect a total abolition of slavery."
A Committee of the Synod of Kentucky, in an address to the Presbyterians
of that State, says:--
"That our negroes will be worse off, if emancipated, is, we feel, but
a specious pretext for lulling our own pangs of conscience, and
answering the argument of the philanthropist. None of us believe that
God has so created a whole race that it is better for them to remain
in perpetual bondage."
EPISCOPAL TESTIMONY.
BISHOP HORSLEY says:--
"Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can
extenuate."
BISHOP BUTLER says:--
"Despicable as the negroes may appear in our eyes, they are the
creatures of God, and of the race of mankind, for whom Christ died,
and it is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end for which
they were made, and of the means whereby they may become partakers of
the general redemption."
BISHOP PORTEUS says:--
"The Bible classes men-stealers or slave-traders among the murderers
of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals on earth."
John Jay, Esq., of the City of New-York--a most exemplary Episcopalian--in
a pamphlet entitled, "Thoughts on the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in
Relation to Slavery," says:--
"Alas! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit of
her ancient mother! She has not merely remained a mute and careless
spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with hypocrisy
and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be seen ministering
at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and influence at its
unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the
precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of American slavery. Her
Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may feel on the
subject, rebuke it neither in public nor in private, and her
periodicals, far from advancing the progress of abolition, at times
oppose our societies, impliedly defending slavery, as not
incompatible with Christianity, and occasionally withholding
information useful to the cause of freedom."
A writer in a late number of "The Anti-Slavery Church man," published in
Geneva, Wisconsin, speaking of a certain portion of the New Testament,
says:--
"This passage of Paul places necessary work in the hands of Gospel
ministers. If they preach the whole Gospel, they must preach what
this passage enjoins--and if they do this, they must preach against
American slavery. Its being connected with politics does not shield
them. Political connections cannot place sin under protection. They
cannot throw around it guards that the public teachers of morals may
not pass. Sin is a violation of God's law--and God's law must be
proclaimed and enforced at all hazards. This is the business of the
messenger of God, and if anything stands in its way, it is his right,
rather it is his solemn commission, to go forward--straightway to
overpass the lines that would shut him out, and utter his warnings.
Many sins there are, that, in like manner, might be shielded.
Fashion, and rank, and business, are doing their part to keep much
sin in respectability, and excuse it from the attacks of God's
ministers. But what are these, that they should seal a minister's
lips--what more are the wishes of politicians?"
For further testimony from this branch of the Christian system, if
desired, we refer the reader to the Rev. Dudley A. Tyng, the Rev. Evan M.
Johnson, and the Rev. J. McNamara,--all Broad Church Episcopalians, whose
magic eloquence and irresistible arguments bid fair, at an early day, to
win over to the paths of progressive freedom, truth, justice and humanity,
the greater number of their High and Low Church brethren.
BAPTIST TESTIMONY.
Concerning a certain text, the Rev. Mr. Brisbane, once a slaveholding
Baptist in South Carolina, says:--
"Paul was speaking of the law as having been made for men-stealers.
Where is the record of that law? It is in Exodus xxi. 16, and in
these words: 'He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be
found in his possession, he shall surely be put to death.' Here it
will be perceived that it was a crime to sell the man, for which the
seller must suffer death. But it was no less a crime to hold him as a
slave, for this also was punishable with death. A man may be
kidnapped out of slavery into freedom. There was no law against that.
And why? Because kidnapping a slave and placing him in a condition of
freedom, was only to restore him to his lost rights. But if the man
who takes him becomes a slaveholder, or a slave seller, then he is a
criminal, liable to the penalty of death, because he robs the man of
liberty. Perhaps some will say this law was only applicable to the
first holder of the slave, that is, the original kidnapper, but not
to his successors who might have purchased or inherited him. But what
is kidnapping? Suppose I propose to a neighbor to give him a certain
sum of money if he will steal a white child in Carolina and deliver
him to me. He steals him; I pay him the money upon his delivering the
child to me. Is it not my act as fully as his? Am I not also the
thief? But does it alter the case whether I agree before hand or not,
to pay him for the child? He steals him, and then sells him to me.
He is found by his parents in my hands. Will it avail me to say I
purchased him and paid my money for him? Will it not be asked, Do you
not know that a white person is not merchantable? And shall I not
have to pay the damage for detaining that child in my service as a
slave? Assuredly, not only in the eyes of the law, but in the
judgment of the whole community, I would be regarded a criminal. So
when one man steals another and offers him for sale, no one, in view
of the Divine law, can buy him, for the reason that the Divine law
forbids that man shall in the first place be made a merchantable
article. The inquiry must be, if I buy, I buy in violation of the
Divine law, and it will not do for me to plead that I bought him. I
have him in possession, and that is enough, God condemns me for it as
a man-stealer. My having him in possession is evidence against me,
and the Mosaic law says, if he be found in my hands, I must die. Now,
when Paul said the law was made for men-stealers, was it not also
saying the law was made for slaveholders? I am not intending to apply
this term in harsh spirit. But I am bound, as I fear God to speak
what I am satisfied is the true meaning of the apostle."
In his "Elements of Moral Science," the Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., one of
the most erudite and distinguished Baptists now living, says:--
"Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle that the master has a
right to control the actions, physical and intellectual, of the
slave, for his own, that is, the master's individual benefit; and, of
course, that the happiness of the master, when it comes in
competition with the happiness of the slave, extinguishes in the
latter the right to pursue it. It supposes, at best, that the
relation between master and slave, is not that which exists between
man and man, but is a modification, at least, of that which exists
between man and the brutes.
"Now, this manifestly supposes that the two classes of beings are
created with dissimilar rights: that the master posseses rights which
have never been conceded by the slave; and that the slave has no
rights at all over the means of happiness which God has given him,
whenever these means of happiness can be rendered available to the
service of his master. It supposes that the Creator intended one
human being to govern the physical, intellectual and moral actions of
as many other human beings as by purchase he can bring within his
physical power; and that one human being may thus acquire a right to
sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings, for the
purpose of promoting his own. Slavery thus violates the personal
liberty of man as a physical, intellectual, and moral being.
"It purports to give to the master a right to control the physical
labor of the slave, not for the sake of the happiness of the slave,
but for the sake of the happiness of the master. It subjects the
amount of labor, and the kind of labor, and the remuneration for
labor, entirely to the will of the one party, to the entire exclusion
of the will of the other party.
"But if this right in the master over the slave be conceded there are
of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure its
possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this
condition only while he remains in the lowest state of mental
imbecility, it supposes the master to have the right to control his
intellectual development, just as far as may be necessary to secure
entire subjection. Thus, it supposes the slave to have no right to
use his intellect for the production of his own happiness; but, only
to use it in such manner as may conduce to his master's profit.
And, moreover, inasmuch as the acquisition of the knowledge of his
duty to God could not be freely made without the acquisition of other
knowledge, which might, if universally diffused, endanger the control
of the master, slavery supposes the master to have the right to
determine how much knowledge of his duty a slave shall obtain, the
manner in which he shall obtain it, and the manner in which he shall
discharge that duty after he shall have obtained a knowledge of it.
It thus subjects the duty of man to God entirely to the will of man;
and this for the sake of pecuniary profit. It renders the eternal
happiness of the one party subservient to the temporal happiness of
the other. And this principle is commonly carried into effect in
slaveholding countries.
If argument were necessary to show that such a system as this must be
at variance with the ordinance of God, it might be easily drawn from
the effects which it produces both upon _morals_ and _national
wealth_.
Its effects must be disastrous upon the _morals_ of both parties. By
presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without resistance
and without redress, it cultivates in the master, pride, anger,
cruelty, selfishness and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to
subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to
abolish in him all moral distinction; and thus fosters in him lying,
deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up
to minister to the appetites of his master.
The effects of slavery on _national wealth_, may be easily seen from
the following considerations:--
Instead of imposing upon all the necessity of labor, it restricts the
number of laborers, that is of producers, within the smallest
possible limit, by rendering labor disgraceful.
It takes from the laborers the natural stimulus to labor, namely, the
desire in the individual of improving his condition; and substitutes,
in the place of it, that motive which is the least operative and the
least constant, namely, the fear of punishment without the
consciousness of moral delinquency.
It removes, as far as possible, from both parties, the disposition
and the motives to frugality. Neither the master learns frugality
from the necessity of labor, nor the slave from the benefits which it
confers. And here, while the one party wastes from ignorance of the
laws of acquisition, and the other because he can have no motive to
economy, capital must accumulate but slowly, if indeed it accumulate
at all.
No country, not of great fertility, can long sustain a large slave
population. Soils of more than ordinary fertility can not sustain it
long, after the richness of the soil has been exhausted. Hence,
slavery in this country is acknowledged to have impoverished many of
our most valuable districts; and, hence, it is continually migrating
from the older settlements, to those new and untilled regions, where
the accumulated manure of centuries of vegetation has formed a soil,
whose productiveness may, for a while, sustain a system at variance
with the laws of nature. Many of our free and of our slaveholding
States were peopled at about the same time. The slaveholding States
had every advantage, both in soil and climate, over their neighbors.
And yet the accumulation of capital has been greatly in favor of the
latter. If any one doubts whether this difference be owing to the use
of slave labor, let him ask himself what would have been the
condition of the slaveholding States, at this moment, if they had
been inhabited, from the beginning, by an industrious yeomanry; each
one holding his own land, and each one tilling it with the labor of
his own hands.
The moral precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to slavery.
They are, Thou shalt love thy _neighbor_ as _thyself_, and _all
things whatsoever_ ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even
so unto them.
The application of these precepts is universal. Our neighbor is
_every one whom we may benefit_. The obligation respects _all things
whatsoever_. The precept, then, manifestly, extends to _men, as men,
or men in every condition_; and if to all things whatsoever,
certainly to a thing so important as the right to personal liberty.
Again. By this precept, it is made our duty to cherish as tender and
delicate a respect for the right which the meanest individual
posseses over the means of happiness bestowed upon him by God, as we
cherish for our own right over our own means of happiness, or as we
desire any other individual to cherish for it. Now, were this precept
obeyed, it is manifest that slavery could not in fact exist for a
single instant. The principle of the precept is absolutely subversive
of the principle of slavery. That of the one is the entire equality
of right; that of the other, the entire absorption of the rights of
one in the rights of the other.
If any one doubts respecting the bearing of the Scripture precept
upon this case, a few plain questions may throw additional light upon
the subject. For instance,--
"Do the precepts and the spirit of the Gospel allow me to derive my
support from a system which extorts labor from my fellow-men, without
allowing them any voice in the equivalent which they shall receive;
and which can only be sustained by keeping them in a state of mental
degradation, and by shutting them out, in a great degree, from the
means of salvation?
"Would the master be willing that another person should subject him
to slavery, for the same reasons, and on the same grounds, that he
holds his slave in bondage?
"Would the Gospel allow us, if it were in our power, to reduce our
fellow-citizens of our own color to slavery? If the gospel be
diametrically opposed to the _principle_ of slavery, it must be
opposed to the _practice_ of slavery; and therefore, were the
principles of the gospel fully adopted, slavery could not exist.
"The very course which the gospel takes on this subject, seems to
have been the only one that could have been taken, in order to effect
the universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was designed, not for
one race, or for one time, but for all races, and for all times. It
looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone,
but for its universal abolition. Hence, the important object of its
Author was, to gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world;
so that, by its universal diffusion among all classes of society, it
might quietly and peacefully modify and subdue the evil passions of
men; and thus, without violence, work a revolution in the whole mass
of mankind.
"If the system be wrong, as we have endeavored to show, if it be at
variance with our duty both to God and to man, it must be abandoned.
If it be asked when, I ask again, when shall a man begin to cease
doing wrong? Is not the answer, _immediately_? If a man is injuring
_us_, do we ever doubt as to the time when _he_ ought to cease? There
is then no doubt in respect to the time when we ought to cease
inflicting injury upon others."
Abraham Booth, an eminent theological writer of the Baptist persuasion,
says:--
"I have not a stronger conviction of scarcely anything, than that
slaveholding (except when the slave has forfeited his liberty by
crimes against society) is wicked and inconsistent with Christian
character. To me it is evident, that whoever would purchase an
innocent black man to make him a slave, would with equal readiness
purchase a white one for the same purpose could he do it with equal
impunity, and no more disgrace."
At a meeting of the General Committee of the Baptists of Virginia, in
1789, the following resolution was offered by Eld. John Leland, and
adopted:--
"_Resolved_, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of
nature, and inconsistent with republican government, and therefore we
recommend it to our brethren to make use of every measure to
extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that
our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the
great jubilee, consistent with the principles of good policy."
METHODIST TESTIMONY.
John Wesley, the celebrated founder of Methodism, says:--
"Men buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers."
Again, he says:--
"American Slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun; it constitutes
the sum of all villanies."
The learned Dr. Adam Clarke, author of a voluminous commentary on the
Scriptures, says:--
"Slave-dealers, whether those who carry on the traffic in human flesh
and blood; or those who steal a person in order to sell him into
bondage; or those who buy such stolen men or women, no matter of what
color, or what country; or the nations who legalize or connive at
such traffic; all these are men-stealers, and God classes them with
the most flagitious of mortals."
One of the rules laid down in the Methodist Discipline as amended in 1784,
was as follows:--
"Every member of our Society who has slaves in his possession, shall,
within twelve months after notice given to him by the assistant,
legally execute and record an instrument, whereby he emancipates and
sets free every slave in his possession."
Another rule was in these words:--
"No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into Society,
or to the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these rules
concerning slavery."
The answer to the question--"What shall be done with those who buy or sell
slaves, or give them away"--is couched in the following language:--
"They are immediately to be expelled, unless they buy them on purpose
to free them."
In 1785, the voice of this church was heard as follows:--
"We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of slavery, and
shall not cease to seek its destruction, by all wise and prudent
means."
In 1797, the Discipline contained the following wholesome paragraph:--
"The preachers and other members of our Society are requested to
consider the subject of negro slavery, with deep attention, and that
they impart to the General Conference, through the medium of the
Yearly Conferences, or otherwise, any important thoughts on the
subject, that the Conference may have full light, in order to take
further steps towards eradicating this enormous evil from that part
of the Church of God with which they are connected. The Annual
Conferences are directed to draw up addresses for the gradual
emancipation of the slaves, to the legislatures of those States in
which no general laws have been passed for that purpose. These
addresses shall urge, in the most respectful but pointed manner, the
necessity of a law for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Proper
committees shall be appointed by the Annual Conferences, out of the
most respectable of our friends, for conducting the business; and
presiding elders, elders, deacons, and traveling preachers, shall
procure as many proper signatures as possible to the addresses, and
give all the assistance in their power, in every respect, to aid the
committees, and to forward the blessed undertaking. Let this be
continued from year to year, till the desired end be accomplished."
CATHOLIC TESTIMONY.
It has been only about twenty years since Pope Gregory XVI. immortalized
himself by issuing the famous Bull against slavery, from which the
following is an extract:--
"Placed as we are on the Supreme seat of the apostles, and acting,
though by no merits of our own, as the vicegerent of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, who, through his great mercy, condescended to make
himself man, and to die for the redemption of the world, we regard as
a duty devolving on our pastoral functions, that we endeavor to turn
aside our faithful flocks entirely from the inhuman traffic in
negroes, or any other human beings whatever. * * * In progress of
time, as the clouds of heathen superstition became gradually
dispersed, circumstances reached that point, that during several
centuries there were no slaves allowed amongst the great majority of
the Christian nations; but with grief we are compelled to add, that
there afterwards arose, even among the faithful, a race of men, who,
basely blinded by the appetite and desire of sordid lucre, did not
hesitate to reduce, in remote regions of the earth, Indians, negroes,
and other wretched beings, to the misery of slavery; or, finding the
trade established and augmented, to assist the shameful crime of
others. Nor did many of the most glorious of the Roman Pontiffs omit
severely to reprove their conduct, as injurious to their souls'
health, and disgraceful to the Christian name. Among these may be
especially quoted the bull of Paul III., which bears the date of the
29th of May, 1537 addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
and another still more comprehensive, by Urban VIII., dated the 22d
of April, 1636, to the collector Jurius of the Apostolic chamber in
Portugal, most severely castigating by name those who presumed to
subject either East or West Indians to slavery, to sell, buy,
exchange, or give them away, to separate them from their wives and
children, despoil them of their goods and property, to bring or
transmit them to other places, or by any means to deprive them of
liberty, or retain them in slavery; also most severely castigating
those who should presume or dare to afford council, aid, favor or
assistance, under any pretext, or borrowed color, to those doing the
aforesaid; or should preach or teach that it is lawful, or should
otherwise presume or dare to co-operate, by any possible means, with
the aforesaid. * * * Wherefore, we, desiring to divert this disgrace
from the whole confines of Christianity, having summoned several of
our venerable brothers, their Eminences the Cardinals, of the H. R.
Church, to our council, and, having maturely deliberated on the whole
matter, pursuing the footsteps of our predecessors, admonished by our
apostolical authority, and urgently invoke in the Lord, all
Christians, of whatever condition, that none henceforth dare to
subject to slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods,
Indians, negroes, or other classes of men, or be accessories to
others, or furnish them aid or assistance in so doing; and on no
account henceforth to exercise that inhuman traffic by which negroes
are reduced to slavery, as if they were not men, but automata or
chattels, and are sold in defiance of all the laws of justice and
humanity, and devoted to severe and intolerable labors. We further
reprobate, by our apostolical authority, all the above-described
offences as utterly unworthy of the Christian name; and by the same
authority we rigidly prohibit and interdict all and every individual,
whether ecclesiastical or laical, from presuming to defend that
commerce in negro slaves under pretence or borrowed color, or to
teach or publish in any manner, publicly or privately, things
contrary to the admonitions which we have given in these letters.
"And, finally, that these, our letters, may be rendered more apparent
to all, and that no person may allege any ignorance thereof, we
decree and order that it shall be published according to custom, and
copies thereof be properly affixed to the gates of St. Peter and of
the Apostolic Chancel, every and in like manner to the General Court
of Mount Citatorio, and in the field of the Campus Florae and also
through the city, by one of our heralds, according to aforesaid
custom.
"Given at Rome, at the Palace of Santa Maria Major, under the seal of
the fisherman, on the 3d day of December, 1837, and in the ninth year
of our pontificate.
"Countersigned by Cardinal A. Lambruschini."
We have already quoted the language of Pope Leo X., who says:--
"Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry out
against the State of slavery."
The Abbe Raynal says:--
"He who supports slavery is the enemy of the human race. He divides
it into two societies of legal assassins, the oppressors and the
oppressed. I shall not be afraid to cite to the tribunal of reason
and justice those governments which tolerate this cruelty, or which
even are not ashamed to make it the basis of their power."
From the proceedings of a Massachusetts Anti-slavery Convention in 1855,
we make the following extract:--
"Henry Kemp, a Roman Catholic, came forward to defend the Romish
Church in reply to Mr. Foster. He claimed that the Catholic Church is
thoroughly anti-slavery--as thoroughly as even his friend Foster."
Thus manfully do men of pure hearts and noble minds, whether in Church or
State, and without regard to sect or party, lift up their voices against
the wicked and pernicious institution of human slavery. Thus they speak,
and thus they are obliged to speak, if they speak at all; it is only the
voice of Nature, Justice, Truth, and Love, that issues from them. The
divine principle in man prompts him to speak and strike for Freedom; the
diabolical principle within him prompts him to speak and strike for
slavery.
From those churches which are now--as all churches ought to be, and will
be, ere the world becomes Christianized--thoroughly imbued with the
principles of freedom, we do not, as already intimated, deem it
particularly necessary to bring forward new arguments in opposition to
slavery. If, however, the reader would be pleased to hear from the
churches to which we chiefly allude--and, by the bye, he might hear from
them with much profit to himself--we respectfully refer him to Henry Ward
Beecher, George B. Cheever, Joseph P. Thompson, Theodore Parker, E. H.
Chapin, and H. W. Bellows, of the North, and to M. D. Conway, John G. Fee,
James S. Davis, Daniel Wilson, and W. E. Lincoln, of the South. All these
reverend gentlemen, ministers of different denominations, feel it their
duty to preach against slavery, and, to their honor be it said, they do
preach against it with unabated zeal and success. Our earnest prayer is,
that Heaven may enable them, their cotemporaries and successors, to preach
against it with such energy and effect, as will cause it to disappear
forever from the soil of our Republic.
CHAPTER VII.
BIBLE TESTIMONY.
Every person who has read the Bible, and who has a proper understanding of
its leading moral precepts, feels, in his own conscience, that it is the
only original and complete anti-slavery text-book. In a crude state of
society--in a barbarous age--when men were in a manner destitute of
wholesome laws, either human or divine, it is possible that a mild form of
slavery may have been tolerated, and even regulated, as an institution
clothed with the importance of temporary recognition; but the Deity never
approved it, and, for the very reason that it is impossible for him to do
wrong, he never will, never can approve it. The worst system of servitude
of which we have any account in the Bible--and, by the way, it furnishes
no account of anything so bad as slavery (the evil-one and his hot home
alone excepted)--was far less rigorous and atrocious than that now
established in the Southern States of this Confederacy. Even that system,
however, the worst, which seems to have been practiced to a considerable
extent by those venerable old fogies, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was one
of the monstrous inventions of Satan that God "winked" at; and, to the
mind of the biblical scholar, nothing can be more evident than that He
determined of old, that it should, in due time, be abolished. To say that
the Bible sanctions slavery is to say that the sun loves darkness; to say
that one man was created to domineer over another is to call in question
the justice, mercy, and goodness of God.
We will now listen to a limited number of the
PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants
thereof."
"Let the oppressed go free."
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
"Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person
of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor."
"The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night
until the morning."
"Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways."
"Do justice to the afflicted and needy; rid them out of the hand of
the wicked."
"Execute judgment and justice; take away your exactions from my
people, saith the Lord God."
"Therefore thus saith the Lord; ye have not hearkened unto me, in
proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his
neighbor: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to
the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you
to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth."
"He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his
hand, he shall surely be put to death."
"Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry,
but shall not be heard."
"He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker."
"I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the
adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that
oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and
that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith
the Lord of Hosts."
"As the partridge setteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that
getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of
his days, and at his end shall be a fool."
And now we will listen to a few selected
PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
"Call no man master, neither be ye called masters."
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even
so to them."
"Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love; in honor
preferring one another."
"Do good to all men, as ye have opportunity."
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you
free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
"If thou mayest be made free, use it rather."
"The laborer is worthy of his hire."
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
Some years ago a clerical lickspittle of the slave power had the temerity
to publish a book or pamphlet entitled "Bible Defence of Slavery," which
the Baltimore _Sun_, in the course of a caustic criticism, handled in the
following manner:--
"Bible defence of slavery! There is no such thing as a Bible defence
of slavery at the present day. Slavery in the United States is a
social institution, originating in the convenience and cupidity of
our ancestors, existing by State laws, and recognized to a certain
extent--for the recovery of slave property--by the Constitution. And
nobody would pretend that, if it were inexpedient and unprofitable
for any man or any State to continue to hold slaves, they would be
bound to do so on the ground of a "Bible defence" of it. Slavery is
recorded in the Bible, and approved, with many degrading
characteristics. War is recorded in the Bible, and approved, under
what seems to us the extreme of cruelty. But are slavery and war to
_endure_ for ever because we find them in the Bible? or are they to
_cease_ at once and for ever because the Bible inculcates peace and
brotherhood?"
Thus, in the last five chapters inclusive, have we introduced a mass of
anti-slavery arguments, human and divine, that will stand, irrefutable and
convincing, as long as the earth itself shall continue to revolve in its
orbit. Aside from unaffected truthfulness and candor, no merit is claimed
for anything we have said on our own account. With the best of motives,
and in the language of nature more than that of art, we have simply given
utterance to the honest convictions of our heart--being impelled to it by
a long-harbored and unmistakable sense of duty which grew stronger and
deeper as the days passed away.
If half the time which has been spent in collecting and arranging these
testimonies had been occupied in the composition of original matter, the
weight of paper and binding and the number of pages would have been much
greater, but the value and the effect of the contents would have been far
less. From the first, our leading motive has been to convince our
fellow-citizens of the South, non-slaveholders and slaveholders, that
slavery, whether considered in all its bearings, or, setting aside the
moral aspect of the question, and looking at it in only a pecuniary point
of view, is impolitic, unprofitable, and degrading; how well, thus far, we
have succeeded in our undertaking, time will, perhaps, fully disclose.
In the words of a contemporaneous German writer, whose language we readily
and heartily endorse, "It is the shame of our age that argument is needed
against slavery." Taking things as they are, however, argument being
needed, we have offered it; and we have offered it from such sources as
will, in our honest opinion, confound the devil and his incarnate
confederates.
These testimonies, culled from the accumulated wisdom of nearly six
thousand centuries, beginning with the great and good men of our own time,
and running back through distant ages to Saint Paul, Saint John, and Saint
Luke, to Cicero, Plato, and Socrates, to Solomon, David, and Moses, and
even to the Deity himself, are the pillars of strength and beauty upon
which the popularity of our work will, in all probability, be principally
based. If the ablest writers of the Old Testament; if the eloquent
prophets of old; if the renowned philosophers of Greece and Rome; if the
heavenly-minded authors and compilers of the New Testament; if the
illustrious poets and prose-writers, heroes, statesmen, sages of all
nations, ancient and modern; if God himself and the hosts of learned
ministers whom he has commissioned to proclaim his word--if all these are
wrong, then we are wrong; on the other hand, however, if they are right,
we are right; for, in effect, we only repeat and endeavor to enforce their
precepts.
If we are in error, we desire to be corrected; and, if it is not asking
too much, we respectfully request the advocates of slavery to favor us
with an _exposé_ of what they, in their one-sided view of things, conceive
to be the advantages of their favorite and peculiar institution. Such an
_exposé_, if skillfully executed, would doubtless be regarded as the
funniest novel of the times--a fit production, if not too immoral in its
tendencies, to be incorporated into the next edition of D'Israeli's
curiosities of literature.
CHAPTER VIII.
FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE.
Under this heading we propose to introduce the remainder of the more
important statistics of the Free and of the Slave States;--especially
those that relate to Commerce, Manufactures, Internal Improvements,
Education and Religion. Originally it was our intention to devote a
separate chapter to each of the industrial and moral interests
above-named: but other considerations have so greatly encroached on our
space, that we are compelled to modify our design. To the thoughtful and
discriminating reader, however, the chief statistics which follow will be
none the less interesting for not being the subjects of annotations.
At present, all we ask of pro-slavery men, no matter in what part of the
world they may reside, is to look these figures fairly in the face. We
wish them to do it, in the first instance, not on the platforms of public
debate, where the exercise of eloquence is too often characterized by
violent passion and subterfuge, but in their own private apartments, where
no eye save that of the All-seeing One will rest upon them, and where, in
considering the relations which they sustain to the past, the present, and
the future, an opportunity will be afforded them of securing that most
valuable of all possessions attainable on earth, a conscience void of
offence toward God and man.
Each separate table or particular compilation of statistics will afford
food for at least an hour's profitable reflection; indeed, the more these
figures are studied, and the better they are understood, the sooner will
the author's object be accomplished,--the sooner will the genius of
Universal Liberty dispel the dark clouds of slavery.
TABLE NO. XXVI.
TONNAGE, EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF THE FREE STATES--1855.
----------------------------------------------------------
States. | Tonnage. | Exports. | Imports.
-----------------|-----------|--------------|-------------
California | 92,623 | $8,224,066 | $5,951,379
Connecticut | 137,170 | 878,874 | 636,826
Illinois | 53,797 | 547,053 | 54,509
Indiana | 3,698 | |
Iowa | | |
Maine | 806,587 | 4,851,207 | 2,927,443
Massachusetts | 970,727 | 28,190,925 | 45,113,774
Michigan | 69,490 | 568,091 | 281,379
New Hampshire | 30,330 | 1,523 | 17,786
New Jersey | 121,020 | 687 | 1,473
New York | 1,404,221 | 113,731,238 | 164,776,511
Ohio | 91,607 | 847,143 | 600,656
Pennsylvania | 397,768 | 6,274,338 | 15,300,935
Rhode Island | 51,038 | 336,023 | 536,387
Vermont | 6,915 | 2,895,468 | 591,593
Wisconsin | 15,624 | 174,057 | 48,159
|-----------|--------------|-------------
| 4,252,615 | $167,520,693 | $236,847,810
==========================================================
TABLE NO. XXVII.
TONNAGE, EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1855.
---------------------------------------------------------
States. | Tonnage. | Exports. | Imports.
-----------------|----------|---------------|------------
Alabama | 36,274 | $14,270,585 | $619,964
Arkansas | | |
Delaware | 19,186 | 68,087 | 5,821
Florida | 14,835 | 1,403,594 | 45,998
Georgia | 29,505 | 7,543,519 | 273,716
Kentucky | 22,680 | |
Louisiana | 204,149 | 55,367,962 | 12,900,821
Maryland | 234,805 | 10,395,984 | 7,788,949
Mississippi | 2,475 | | 1,661
Missouri | 60,592 | |
North Carolina | 60,077 | 433,818 | 243,083
South Carolina | 60,935 | 12,700,250 | 1,588,542
Tennessee | 8,404 | |
Texas | 8,812 | 916,961 | 262,568
Virginia | 92,788 | 4,379,928 | 855,405
|----------|---------------|------------
| 855,517 | $107,480,688 | $24,586,528
TABLE NO. XXVIII.
PRODUCT OF MANUFACTURES IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. |Val. of Annual| Capital | Hands
| products. | invested. |employed.
------------------|--------------|----------------|---------
California | $12,862,522 | $1,006,197 | 3,964
Connecticut | 45,110,102 | 23,890,348 | 47,770
Illinois | 17,236,073 | 6,385,387 | 12,065
Indiana | 18,922,651 | 7,941,602 | 14,342
Iowa | 3,551,783 | 1,292,875 | 1,707
Maine | 24,664,135 | 14,700,452 | 28,078
Massachusetts | 151,137,145 | 83,357,642 | 165,938
Michigan | 10,976,894 | 6,534,250 | 9,290
New Hampshire | 23,164,503 | 18,242,114 | 27,092
New Jersey | 39,713,586 | 22,184,730 | 37,311
New York | 237,597,249 | 99,904,405 | 199,349
Ohio | 62,647,259 | 29,019,538 | 51,489
Pennsylvania | 155,044,910 | 94,473,810 | 146,766
Rhode Island | 22,093,258 | 12,923,176 | 20,881
Vermont | 8,570,920 | 5,001,377 | 8,445
Wisconsin | 9,293,068 | 3,382,148 | 6,089
|--------------|----------------|---------
| $842,586,058 | $430,240,051 | 780,576
============================================================
TABLE NO. XXIX.
PRODUCT OF MANUFACTURES IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. |Val. of Annual| Capital | Hands
| products. | invested. |employed.
---------------|--------------|----------------|---------
Alabama | $4,538,878 | $3,450,606 | 4,936
Arkansas | 607,436 | 324,065 | 903
Delaware | 4,649,296 | 2,978,945 | 3,888
Florida | 668,338 | 547,060 | 991
Georgia | 7,086,525 | 5,460,483 | 8,378
Kentucky | 24,588,483 | 12,350,734 | 24,385
Louisiana | 7,320,948 | 5,318,074 | 6,437
Maryland | 32,477,702 | 14,753,143 | 30,124
Mississippi | 2,972,038 | 1,833,420 | 3,173
Missouri | 23,749,265 | 9,079,695 | 16,850
North Carolina | 9,111,245 | 7,252,225 | 12,444
South Carolina | 7,063,513 | 6,056,865 | 7,009
Tennessee | 9,728,438 | 6,975,279 | 12,032
Texas | 1,165,538 | 539,290 | 1,066
Virginia | 29,705,387 | 18,109,993 | 29,108
|--------------|----------------|---------
| $165,413,027 | $95,029,879 | 161,733
TABLE NO. XXX.
MILES OF CANALS AND RAILROADS IN THE FREE STATES--1854-1857.
---------------------------------------------------
States. | Canals,| Railroads,| Cost of
| miles, | miles, | Railroads,
| 1854. | 1857. | 1855.
----------------|--------|-----------|-------------
California | | 22 |
Connecticut | 61 | 600 | $25,224,191
Illinois | 100 | 2,524 | 55,663,656
Indiana | 367 | 1,806 | 29,585,923
Iowa | | 253 | 2,300,000
Maine | 50 | 442 | 13,749,021
Massachusetts | 100 | 1,285 | 59,167,781
Michigan | | 600 | 22,370,397
New Hampshire | 11 | 645 | 15,860,949
New Jersey | 147 | 472 | 13,840,030
New York | 989 | 2,700 | 111,882,503
Ohio | 921 | 2,869 | 67,798,202
Pennsylvania | 936 | 2,407 | 94,657,675
Rhode Island | | 85 | 2,614,484
Vermont | | 515 | 17,998,835
Wisconsin | | 629 | 5,600,000
|--------|-----------|-------------
| 3,682 | 17,855 | $538,313,647
===================================================
TABLE NO. XXXI.
MILES OF CANALS AND RAILROADS IN THE SLAVE STATES--1854-1857.
---------------------------------------------------
States. | Canals,| Railroads,| Cost of
| miles, | miles, | Railroads,
| 1854. | 1857. | 1855.
----------------|--------|-----------|-------------
Alabama | 51 | 484 | $3,986,208
Arkansas | | |
Delaware | 14 | 120 | 600,000
Florida | | 86 | 250,000
Georgia | 28 | 1,062 | 17,034,802
Kentucky | 486 | 306 | 6,179,072
Louisiana | 101 | 263 | 1,731,000
Maryland | 184 | 597 | 12,654,333
Mississippi | | 410 | 4,520,000
Missouri | | 189 | 1,000,000
North Carolina | 13 | 612 | 6,847,213
South Carolina | 50 | 706 | 13,547,093
Tennessee | | 508 | 10,436,610
Texas | | 57 | 16,466,250
Virginia | 184 | 1,479 |
|--------|-----------|-------------
| 1,110 | 6,859 | $95,252,581
TABLE NO. XXXII.
BANK CAPITAL IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES--1855.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Free States. || Slave States.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
California | || Alabama | $2,296,400
Connecticut | $15,597,891 || Arkansas |
Illinois | 2,513,790 || Delaware | 1,393,175
Indiana | 7,281,934 || Florida |
Iowa | || Georgia | 13,413,100
Maine | 7,301,252 || Kentucky | 10,369,717
Massachusetts | 54,492,660 || Louisiana | 20,179,107
Michigan | 980,416 || Maryland | 10,411,874
New Hampshire | 3,626,000 || Mississippi | 240,165
New Jersey | 5,314,885 || Missouri | 1,215,398
New York | 83,773,288 || North Carolina | 5,205,073
Ohio | 7,166,581 || South Carolina | 16,603,253
Pennsylvania | 19,864,825 || Tennessee | 6,717,848
Rhode Island | 17,511,162 || Texas |
Vermont | 3,275,656 || Virginia | 14,033,838
Wisconsin | 1,400,000 || |
|--------------|| |-------------
Total | $230,100,340 || Total | $102,078,948
=================================================================
TABLE NO. XXXIII.
MILITIA FORCE OF THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES--1852.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Free States. || Slave States.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
California | || Alabama | 76,662
Connecticut | 51,649 || Arkansas | 17,137
Illinois | 170,359 || Delaware | 9,229
Indiana | 53,918 || Florida | 12,122
Iowa | || Georgia | 57,312
Maine | 62,588 || Kentucky | 81,840
Massachusetts | 119,690 || Louisiana | 43,823
Michigan | 63,938 || Maryland | 46,864
New Hampshire | 32,151 || Mississippi | 36,084
New Jersey | 39,171 || Missouri | 61,000
New York | 265,293 || North Carolina | 79,448
Ohio | 176,455 || South Carolina | 55,209
Pennsylvania | 276,070 || Tennessee | 71,252
Rhode Island | 14,443 || Texas | 19,766
Vermont | 23,915 || Virginia | 125,128
Wisconsin | 32,203 || |
|--------------|| |-------------
Total | 1,381,843 || Total | 792,876
TABLE NO. XXXIV.
POST OFFICE OPERATIONS IN THE FREE STATES--1855.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Stamps | Total Postage | Cost of Trans.
| sold. | collected. | the mails.
----------------|-----------|---------------|---------------
California | $81,437 | $234,591 | $135,386
Connecticut | 79,284 | 179,230 | 81,462
Illinois | 105,252 | 279,887 | 280,038
Indiana | 60,578 | 180,405 | 190,480
Iowa | 28,198 | 82,420 | 84,428
Maine | 60,165 | 151,358 | 82,218
Massachusetts | 259,062 | 532,184 | 153,091
Michigan | 49,763 | 142,188 | 148,204
New-Hampshire | 38,387 | 95,609 | 46,631
New-Jersey | 31,495 | 109,697 | 80,084
New-York | 542,498 | 1,383,157 | 481,410
Ohio | 167,958 | 452,643 | 421,870
Pennsylvania | 217,293 | 583,013 | 251,833
Rhode Island | 30,291 | 58,624 | 13,891
Vermont | 36,314 | 92,816 | 64,437
Wisconsin | 33,538 | 112,903 | 92,842
|-----------|---------------|---------------
|$1,719,513 | $4,670,725 | $2,608,295
============================================================
TABLE NO. XXXV.
POST OFFICE OPERATIONS IN THE SLAVE STATES--1855.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Stamps | Total Postage | Cost of Trans.
| sold. | collected. | the mails.
----------------|-----------|---------------|---------------
Alabama | $44,514 | $104,514 | 226,816
Arkansas | 8,941 | 30,664 | 117,659
Delaware | 7,298 | 19,644 | 9,243
Florida | 8,764 | 19,275 | 77,553
Georgia | 73,880 | 149,063 | 216,003
Kentucky | 55,694 | 130,067 | 144,161
Louisiana | 50,778 | 133,753 | 133,810
Maryland | 77,743 | 191,485 | 192,743
Mississippi | 31,182 | 78,739 | 170,785
Missouri | 53,742 | 139,652 | 185,096
North Carolina | 34,235 | 72,759 | 148,249
South Carolina | 47,368 | 91,600 | 192,216
Tennessee | 48,377 | 103,686 | 116,091
Texas | 24,530 | 70,436 | 209,936
Virginia | 96,799 | 217,861 | 245,592
|-----------|---------------|---------------
| $666,845 | $1,553,198 | $2,385,953
TABLE NO. XXXVI.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------------------
States. | Number. | Teachers. | Pupils.
----------------|---------|-----------|----------
California | 2 | 2 | 49
Connecticut | 1,656 | 1,787 | 71,269
Illinois | 4,052 | 4,248 | 125,725
Indiana | 4,822 | 4,860 | 161,500
Iowa | 740 | 828 | 29,556
Maine | 4,042 | 5,540 | 192,815
Massachusetts | 3,679 | 4,443 | 176,475
Michigan | 2,714 | 3,231 | 110,455
New Hampshire | 2,381 | 3,013 | 75,643
New Jersey | 1,473 | 1,574 | 77,930
New York | 11,580 | 13,965 | 675,221
Ohio | 11,661 | 12,886 | 484,153
Pennsylvania | 9,061 | 10,024 | 413,706
Rhode Island | 416 | 518 | 23,130
Vermont | 2,731 | 4,173 | 93,457
Wisconsin | 1,423 | 1,529 | 58,817
|---------|-----------|----------
| 62,433 | 72,621 | 2,769,901
=================================================
TABLE NO. XXXVII.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------------------
States. | Number. | Teachers. | Pupils.
----------------|---------|-----------|----------
Alabama | 1,152 | 1,195 | 28,380
Arkansas | 353 | 355 | 8,493
Delaware | 194 | 214 | 8,970
Florida | 69 | 73 | 1,878
Georgia | 1,251 | 1,265 | 32,705
Kentucky | 2,234 | 2,306 | 71,429
Louisiana | 664 | 822 | 25,046
Maryland | 898 | 986 | 33,111
Mississippi | 782 | 826 | 18,746
Missouri | 1,570 | 1,620 | 51,754
North Carolina | 2,657 | 2,730 | 104,095
South Carolina | 724 | 739 | 17,838
Tennessee | 2,680 | 2,819 | 104,117
Texas | 349 | 360 | 7,946
Virginia | 2,930 | 2,997 | 67,353
|---------|-----------|----------
| 13,507 | 19,307 | 581,801
TABLE NO. XXXVIII.
LIBRARIES OTHER THAN PRIVATE IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------
States. | Number. | Volumes.
----------------|---------|----------
California | |
Connecticut | 164 | 165,318
Illinois | 152 | 62,486
Indiana | 151 | 68,403
Iowa | 32 | 5,790
Maine | 236 | 121,969
Massachusetts | 1,462 | 684,015
Michigan | 417 | 107,943
New Hampshire | 129 | 85,759
New Jersey | 128 | 80,885
New York | 11,013 | 1,760,820
Ohio | 352 | 186,826
Pennsylvania | 393 | 363,400
Rhode Island | 96 | 104,342
Vermont | 96 | 64,641
Wisconsin | 72 | 21,020
|---------|----------
| 14,911 | 3,888,234
=====================================
TABLE NO. XXXIX.
LIBRARIES OTHER THAN PRIVATE IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------
States. | Number. | Volumes.
----------------|---------|----------
Alabama | 56 | 20,623
Arkansas | 3 | 420
Delaware | 17 | 17,950
Florida | 7 | 2,660
Georgia | 38 | 31,788
Kentucky | 80 | 79,466
Louisiana | 10 | 26,800
Maryland | 124 | 125,042
Mississippi | 117 | 21,737
Missouri | 97 | 75,056
North Carolina | 38 | 29,592
South Carolina | 26 | 107,472
Tennessee | 34 | 22,896
Texas | 12 | 4,230
Virginia | 54 | 88,462
|---------|----------
| 695 | 649,577
TABLE NO. XL.
NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS PUBLISHED IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
-----------------------------------------
States. | Number. |Copies Printed
| | annually.
----------------|---------|--------------
California | 7 | 761,200
Connecticut | 46 | 4,267,932
Illinois | 107 | 5,102,276
Indiana | 107 | 4,316,828
Iowa | 29 | 1,512,800
Maine | 49 | 4,203,064
Massachusetts | 202 | 64,820,564
Michigan | 58 | 3,247,736
New Hampshire | 38 | 3,067,552
New Jersey | 51 | 4,098,678
New York | 428 | 115,385,473
Ohio | 261 | 30,473,407
Pennsylvania | 309 | 84,898,672
Rhode Island | 19 | 2,756,950
Vermont | 35 | 2,567,662
Wisconsin | 46 | 2,665,487
|---------|--------------
| 1,790 | 334,146,281
=========================================
TABLE NO. XLI.
NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS PUBLISHED IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
-----------------------------------------
States. | Number. |Copies Printed
| | annually.
----------------|---------|--------------
Alabama | 60 | 2,662,741
Arkansas | 9 | 377,000
Delaware | 10 | 421,200
Florida | 10 | 319,800
Georgia | 51 | 4,070,868
Kentucky | 62 | 6,582,838
Louisiana | 55 | 12,416,224
Maryland | 68 | 19,612,724
Mississippi | 50 | 1,752,504
Missouri | 61 | 6,195,560
North Carolina | 51 | 2,020,564
South Carolina | 46 | 7,145,930
Tennessee | 50 | 6,940,750
Texas | 34 | 1,296,924
Virginia | 87 | 9,223,068
|---------|--------------
| 704 | 81,038,693
TABLE NO. XLII.
ILLITERATE WHITE ADULTS IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
----------------------------------------------
States. | Native. | Foreign. | Total.
----------------|---------|----------|--------
California | 2,201 | 2,917 | 5,118
Connecticut | 826 | 4,013 | 4,739
Illinois | 34,107 | 5,947 | 40,054
Indiana | 67,275 | 3,265 | 70,540
Iowa | 7,043 | 1,077 | 8,120
Maine | 1,999 | 4,148 | 6,147
Massachusetts | 1,055 | 26,484 | 27,539
Michigan | 4,903 | 3,009 | 7,912
New Hampshire | 893 | 2,064 | 2,957
New Jersey | 8,370 | 5,878 | 14,248
New York | 23,241 | 68,052 | 91,293
Ohio | 51,968 | 9,062 | 61,030
Pennsylvania | 41,944 | 24,989 | 66,928
Rhode Island | 981 | 2,359 | 3,340
Vermont | 565 | 5,624 | 6,189
Wisconsin | 1,459 | 4,902 | 6,361
|---------|----------|--------
| 248,725 | 173,790 | 422,515
==============================================
TABLE NO. XLIII.
ILLITERATE WHITE ADULTS IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
----------------------------------------------
States. | Native. | Foreign. | Total.
----------------|---------|----------|--------
Alabama | 33,618 | 139 | 33,757
Arkansas | 16,792 | 27 | 16,819
Delaware | 4,132 | 404 | 4,536
Florida | 3,564 | 295 | 3,859
Georgia | 40,794 | 406 | 41,200
Kentucky | 64,340 | 2,347 | 66,687
Louisiana | 14,950 | 6,271 | 21,221
Maryland | 17,364 | 3,451 | 20,815
Mississippi | 13,324 | 81 | 13,405
Missouri | 34,420 | 1,861 | 36,281
North Carolina | 73,226 | 340 | 73,566
South Carolina | 15,580 | 104 | 15,684
Tennessee | 77,017 | 505 | 77,522
Texas | 8,037 | 2,488 | 10,525
Virginia | 75,868 | 1,137 | 77,005
|---------|----------|--------
| 493,026 | 19,856 | 512,882
TABLE NO. XLIV.
NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER OF THE FREE STATES--1857.
-------------------------------------------------------
States. | Senators. | Rep. in lower | Electoral
| | House Cong. | votes.
----------------|-----------|---------------|----------
California | 2 | 2 | 4
Connecticut | 2 | 4 | 6
Illinois | 2 | 9 | 11
Indiana | 2 | 11 | 13
Iowa | 2 | 2 | 4
Maine | 2 | 6 | 8
Massachusetts | 2 | 11 | 13
Michigan | 2 | 4 | 6
New Hampshire | 2 | 3 | 5
New Jersey | 2 | 5 | 7
New York | 2 | 33 | 35
Ohio | 2 | 21 | 23
Pennsylvania | 2 | 25 | 27
Rhode Island | 2 | 2 | 4
Vermont | 2 | 3 | 5
Wisconsin | 2 | 3 | 5
|-----------|---------------|----------
| 32 | 141 | 176
=======================================================
TABLE NO. XLV.
NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER OF THE SLAVE STATES--1857.
-------------------------------------------------------
States. | Senators. | Rep. in lower | Electoral
| | House Cong. | votes.
----------------|-----------|---------------|----------
Alabama | 2 | 7 | 9
Arkansas | 2 | 2 | 4
Delaware | 2 | 1 | 3
Florida | 2 | 1 | 3
Georgia | 2 | 8 | 10
Kentucky | 2 | 10 | 12
Louisiana | 2 | 4 | 6
Maryland | 2 | 6 | 8
Mississippi | 2 | 5 | 7
Missouri | 2 | 7 | 9
North Carolina | 2 | 8 | 10
South Carolina | 2 | 6 | 8
Tennessee | 2 | 10 | 12
Texas | 2 | 2 | 4
Virginia | 2 | 13 | 15
|-----------|---------------|----------
| 30 | 90 | 120
TABLE NO. XLVI.
POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY THE FREE STATES--1856.
------------------------------------------------------------------
States. |_Republican._|_American._|_Democratic._| Total.
| Fremont. | Fillmore. | Buchanan. |
---------------|-------------|-----------|-------------|----------
California | 20,339 | 35,113 | 51,925 | 107,377
Connecticut | 42,715 | 2,615 | 34,995 | 80,325
Illinois | 96,189 | 37,444 | 105,348 | 238,981
Indiana | 94,375 | 22,386 | 118,670 | 235,431
Iowa | 43,954 | 9,180 | 36,170 | 89,304
Maine | 67,379 | 3,325 | 39,080 | 109,784
Massachusetts | 108,190 | 19,626 | 39,240 | 167,056
Michigan | 71,762 | 1,660 | 52,136 | 125,558
New Hampshire | 38,345 | 422 | 32,789 | 71,556
New Jersey | 28,338 | 24,115 | 46,943 | 99,396
New York | 276,907 | 124,604 | 195,878 | 597,389
Ohio | 187,497 | 28,126 | 170,874 | 386,497
Pennsylvania | 147,510 | 82,175 | 230,710 | 460,395
Rhode Island | 11,467 | 1,675 | 6,580 | 19,722
Vermont | 39,561 | 545 | 10,569 | 50,675
Wisconsin | 66,090 | 579 | 52,843 | 119,512
|-------------|-----------|-------------|----------
| 1,340,618 | 393,590 | 1,224,750 | 2,958,958
==================================================================
TABLE NO. XLVII.
POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY THE SLAVE STATES--1856.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
States. |_Republican._|_American._|_Democratic._| Total.
| Fremont. | Fillmore. | Buchanan. |
-----------------|-------------|-----------|-------------|----------
Alabama | | 28,552 | 46,739 | 75,291
Arkansas | | 10,787 | 21,910 | 32,697
Delaware | 308 | 6,175 | 8,004 | 14,487
Florida | | 4,833 | 6,358 | 11,191
Georgia | | 42,228 | 56,578 | 98,806
Kentucky | 314 | 67,416 | 74,642 | 142,372
Louisiana | | 20,709 | 22,164 | 42,873
Maryland | 281 | 47,460 | 39,115 | 86,856
Mississippi | | 24,195 | 35,446 | 59,641
Missouri | | 48,524 | 58,164 | 106,688
North Carolina | | 36,886 | 48,246 | 85,132
South Carolina[3]| | | |
Tennessee | | 66,178 | 73,638 | 139,816
Texas | | 15,244 | 28,757 | 44,001
Virginia | 291 | 60,278 | 89,826 | 150,395
|-------------|-----------|-------------|----------
| 1,194 | 479,465 | 609,587 | 1,090,246
TABLE NO. XLVIII.
VALUE OF CHURCHES IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Free States. || Slave States.
--------------------------------------------------------------
California | $288,400 || Alabama | $1,244,741
Connecticut | 3,599,330 || Arkansas | 149,686
Illinois | 1,532,305 || Delaware | 340,345
Indiana | 1,568,906 || Florida | 192,600
Iowa | 235,412 || Georgia | 1,327,112
Maine | 1,794,209 || Kentucky | 2,295,353
Massachusetts | 10,504,888 || Louisiana | 1,940,495
Michigan | 793,180 || Maryland | 3,974,116
New Hampshire | 1,433,266 || Mississippi | 832,622
New Jersey | 3,712,863 || Missouri | 1,730,135
New York | 21,539,561 || North Carolina | 907,785
Ohio | 5,860,059 || South Carolina | 2,181,476
Pennsylvania | 11,853,291 || Tennessee | 1,246,951
Rhode Island | 1,293,600 || Texas | 408,944
Vermont | 1,251,655 || Virginia | 2,902,220
Wisconsin | 512,552 || |
|--------------|| |------------
Total | $67,773,477 || Total | $21,674,581
==============================================================
TABLE NO. XLIX.
PATENTS ISSUED ON NEW INVENTIONS IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE
STATES--1856.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Free States. || Slave States.
--------------------------------------------------------------
California | 13 || Alabama | 11
Connecticut | 142 || Arkansas |
Illinois | 93 || Delaware | 8
Indiana | 67 || Florida | 3
Iowa | 14 || Georgia | 13
Maine | 42 || Kentucky | 26
Massachusetts | 331 || Louisiana | 30
Michigan | 22 || Maryland | 49
New Hampshire | 43 || Mississippi | 8
New Jersey | 78 || Missouri | 32
New York | 592 || North Carolina | 9
Ohio | 139 || South Carolina | 10
Pennsylvania | 267 || Tennessee | 23
Rhode Island | 18 || Texas | 4
Vermont | 35 || Virginia | 42
Wisconsin | 33 || |
|--------------|| |------------
Total | 1,929 || Total | 268
TABLE NO. L.
BIBLE CAUSE AND TRACT CAUSE IN THE FREE STATES--1855.
------------------------------------------------------
States. | Contribu. for | Contribu. for
| the Bible Cause. | the Tract Cause.
-----------------|------------------|-----------------
California | $1,900 | $ 5
Connecticut | 24,528 | 15,872
Illinois | 28,403 | 3,786
Indiana | 6,755 | 1,491
Iowa | 4,216 | 2,005
Maine | 5,449 | 2,981
Massachusetts | 43,444 | 11,492
Michigan | 5,554 | 1,114
New-Hampshire | 6,271 | 1,288
New-Jersey | 15,475 | 3,546
New-York | 123,386 | 61,233
Ohio | 25,758 | 9,576
Pennsylvania | 25,360 | 12,121
Rhode Island | 2,669 | 2,121
Vermont | 5,709 | 2,867
Wisconsin | 4,790 | 474
|------------------|-----------------
| $319,667 | $131,972
======================================================
TABLE NO. LI.
BIBLE CAUSE AND TRACT CAUSE IN THE SLAVE STATES--1855.
------------------------------------------------------
States. | Contribu. for | Contribu. for
| the Bible Cause. | the Tract Cause.
-----------------|------------------|-----------------
Alabama | $3,351 | 477
Arkansas | 2,950 | 110
Delaware | 1,037 | 163
Florida | 1,957 | 5
Georgia | 4,532 | 1,468
Kentucky | 5,956 | 1,366
Louisiana | 1,810 | 1,099
Maryland | 8,909 | 5,365
Mississippi | 1,067 | 267
Missouri | 4,711 | 936
North Carolina | 6,197 | 1,419
South Carolina | 3,984 | 3,222
Tennessee | 8,383 | 1,807
Texas | 3,985 | 127
Virginia | 9,296 | 6,894
|------------------|-----------------
| $68,125 | $24,725
TABLE NO. LII.
MISSIONARY CAUSE AND COLONIZATION[4] CAUSE IN THE FREE STATES--1855-1856.
-----------------------------------------------------------
States. | Contributions for | Contributions for
|Miss'y purposes, 1855.|Coloniza. pur., 1856.
--------------|----------------------|---------------------
California | $ 192 | $ 1
Connecticut | 48,044 | 9,233
Illinois | 10,040 | 543
Indiana | 4,705 | 34
Iowa | 1,750 | 3
Maine | 13,929 | 1,719
Massachusetts | 128,505 | 1,422
Michigan | 4,935 | 4
New Hampshire | 11,963 | 1,130
New Jersey | 19,946 | 3,261
New York | 172,115 | 24,371
Ohio | 19,890 | 2,687
Pennsylvania | 43,412 | 4,287
Rhode Island | 9,440 | 2,125
Vermont | 11,094 | 304
Wisconsin | 2,216 | 806
|----------------------|---------------------
| $502,174 | $51,930
===========================================================
TABLE NO. LIII.
MISSIONARY CAUSE AND COLONIZATION[4] CAUSE IN THE SLAVE STATES--1855-1856.
-----------------------------------------------------------
States. | Contributions for | Contributions for
|Miss'y purposes, 1855.|Coloniza. pur., 1856.
--------------|----------------------|---------------------
Alabama | $5,963 | $1,113
Arkansas | 455 | 1
Delaware | 1,003 | 250
Florida | 340 | 13
Georgia | 9,846 | 5,323
Kentucky | 6,953 | 4,436
Louisiana | 334 | 871
Maryland | 20,677 | 406
Mississippi | 4,957 | 2,177
Missouri | 2,712 | 313
North Carolina| 6,010 | 969
South Carolina| 15,248 | 129
Tennessee | 4,971 | 1,611
Texas | 349 | 6
Virginia | 22,106 | 10,000
|----------------------|---------------------
| $101,934 | $27,618
TABLE NO. LIV.
DEATHS IN THE FREE STATES--1850.[5]
-------------------------------------------------
States. | Number of | Ratio to the Number
| deaths. | living.
--------------|-------------|--------------------
California | |
Connecticut | 5,781 | 64.13
Illinois | 11,619 | 73.28
Indiana | 12,728 | 77.65
Iowa | 2,044 | 94.03
Maine | 7,545 | 77.29
Massachusetts | 19,414 | 51.23
Michigan | 4,520 | 88.19
New Hampshire | 4,268 | 74.49
New Jersey | 6,467 | 75.70
New York | 44,339 | 69.85
Ohio | 28,949 | 68.41
Pennsylvania | 28,318 | 81.63
Rhode Island | 2,241 | 65.83
Vermont | 3,132 | 100.13
Wisconsin | 2,884 | 105.82
| ----------- | -------------------
| 184,249 | 72.91
=================================================
TABLE NO. LV.
DEATHS IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.[5]
--------------------------------------------------
States. | Number of | Ratio to the Number
| deaths. | living.
---------------|-------------|--------------------
Alabama | 9,084 | 84.94
Arkansas | 2,987 | 70.18
Delaware | 1,209 | 75.71
Florida | 933 | 93.67
Georgia | 9,920 | 91.93
Kentucky | 15,206 | 64.60
Louisiana | 11,948 | 42.85
Maryland | 9,594 | 60.77
Mississippi | 8,711 | 69.93
Missouri | 12,211 | 55.81
North Carolina | 10,207 | 85.12
South Carolina | 7,997 | 83.59
Tennessee | 11,759 | 85.34
Texas | 3,046 | 69.79
Virgina | 19,053 | 74.61
| ----------- | -------------------
| 133,865 | 71.82
TABLE NO. LVI.
FREE WHITE MALE PERSONS OVER FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE
ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER OUT-DOOR LABOR IN THE
SLAVE-STATES--1850.
-----------------------------------------------------------
States. | No. engaged | No. engaged |
| in | in other | Total.
| Agriculture. | out-door labor. |
---------------|--------------|-----------------|----------
Alabama | 67,742 | 7,229 | 74,971
Arkansas | 28,436 | 5,596 | 34,032
Delaware | 6,225 | 4,184 | 10,409
Florida | 5,472 | 2,598 | 8,070
Georgia | 82,107 | 11,054 | 93,161
Kentucky | 110,119 | 26,308 | 136,427
Louisiana | 11,524 | 13,827 | 25,351
Maryland | 24,672 | 17,146 | 41,818
Mississippi | 50,028 | 5,823 | 55,851
Missouri | 64,292 | 19,900 | 84,192
North Carolina | 76,338 | 21,876 | 98,214
South Carolina | 37,612 | 6,991 | 44,603
Tennessee | 115,844 | 16,795 | 132,639
Texas | 24,987 | 22,713 | 47,700
Virginia | 97,654 | 33,928 | 131,582
---------------|--------------|-----------------|----------
| 803,052 | 215,968 | 1,019,020
===========================================================
Too hot in the South, and too unhealthy there--white men "can't stand
it"--negroes only can endure the heat of Southern climes! How often are
our ears insulted with such wickedly false assertions as these! In what
degree of latitude--pray tell us--in what degree of latitude do the rays
of the sun become too calorific for white men? Certainly in no part of the
United States, for in the extreme South we find a very large number of
non-slaveholding whites over the age of fifteen, who derive their entire
support from manual labor in the open fields. The sun, that bugbear of
slaveholding demagogues, shone on more than one million of free white
laborers--mostly agriculturists--in the slave States in 1850, exclusive
of those engaged in commerce, trade, manufactures, the mechanic arts, and
mining. Yet, notwithstanding all these instances of exposure to his wrath,
we have had no intelligence whatever of a single case of _coup de
so-leil_. Alabama is not too hot; sixty-seven thousand white sons of toil
till her soil. Mississippi is not too hot; fifty-five thousand free white
laborers are hopeful devotees of her out-door pursuits. Texas is not too
hot; forty-seven thousand free white persons, males, over the age of
fifteen, daily perform their rural vocations amidst her unsheltered air.
It is stated on good authority that, in January, 1856, native ice, three
inches thick, was found in Galveston Bay; we have seen it ten inches thick
in North Carolina, with the mercury in the thermometer at two degrees
below zero. In January, 1857, while the snow was from three to five feet
deep in many parts of North Carolina, the thermometer indicated a degree
of coldness seldom exceeded in any State in the Union--thirteen degrees
below zero. The truth is, instead of its being too hot in the South for
white men, it is too cold for negroes; and we long to see the day arrive
when the latter shall have entirely receded from their uncongenial homes
in America, and given full and undivided place to the former.
Too hot in the South for white men! It is not too hot for white women.
Time and again, in different counties in North Carolina, have we seen the
poor white wife of the poor white husband, following him in the
harvest-field from morning till night, binding up the grain as it fell
from his cradle. In the immediate neighborhood from which we hail, there
are not less than thirty young women, non-slaveholding whites, between
the ages of fifteen and twenty-five--some of whom are so well known to us
that we could call them by name--who labor in the fields every summer; two
of them in particular, near neighbors to our mother, are in the habit of
hiring themselves out during harvest-time, the very hottest season of the
year, to bind wheat and oats--each of them keeping up with the reaper; and
this for the paltry consideration of twenty-five cents per day.
That any respectable man--any man with a heart or a soul in his
composition--can look upon these poor toiling white women without feeling
indignant at that accursed system of slavery which has entailed on them
the miseries of poverty, ignorance, and degradation, we shall not do
ourself the violence to believe. If they and their husbands, and their
sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters, are not righted in some of
the more important particulars in which they have been wronged, the fault
shall lie at other doors than our own. In their behalf, chiefly, have we
written and compiled this work; and until our object shall have been
accomplished, or until life shall have been extinguished, there shall be
no abatement in our efforts to aid them in regaining the natural and
inalienable prerogatives out of which they have been so infamously
swindled. We want to see no more plowing, or hoeing, or raking, or
grain-binding, by white women in the Southern States; employment in
cotton-mills and other factories would be far more profitable and
congenial to them, and this they shall have within a short period after
slavery shall have been abolished.
Too hot in the South for white men! What is the testimony of reliable
Southrons themselves? Says Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky:--
"In the extreme South, at New Orleans, the laboring men--the
stevedores and hackmen on the levee, where the heat is intensified by
the proximity of the red brick buildings, are all white men, and they
are in the full enjoyment of health. But how about Cotton? I am
informed by a friend of mine--himself a slaveholder and therefore
good authority--that in Northwestern Texas, among the German
settlements, who true to their national instincts, will not employ
the labor of a slave--they produce more cotton to the acre, and of a
better quality, and selling at prices from a cent to a cent and a
half a pound higher than that produced by slave labor."
Says Gov. Hammond, of South Carolina:--
"The steady heat of our summers is not so prostrating as the short,
but frequent and sudden, bursts of Northern summers."
In an extract which may be found in our second chapter, and to which we
respectfully refer the reader, it will be seen that this same South
Carolinian, speaking of "not less than fifty thousand" non-slaveholding
whites, says--"most of these now follow agricultural pursuits."
Says Dr. Cartwright of New Orleans:--
"Here in New Orleans, the larger part of the drudgery--work requiring
exposure to the sun, as railroad-making, street-paving, dray-driving,
ditching and building, is performed by white people."
To the statistical tables which show the number of deaths in the free and
in the slave States in 1850, we would direct special attention. Those
persons, particularly the propogandists of negro slavery, who,
heretofore, have been so dreadfully exercised on account of what they have
been pleased to term "the insalubrity of Southern climes," will there find
something to allay their fearful apprehensions. A critical examination of
said tables will disclose the fact that, in proportion to population,
deaths occur more frequently in Massachusetts than in any Southern State
except Louisiana; more frequently in New York than in any of the Southern
States, except Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas; more
frequently in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and in Ohio, than in either
Georgia, Florida, or Alabama. Leaving Wisconsin and Louisiana out of the
account, and then comparing the bills of mortality in the remaining
Northern States, with those in the remaining Southern States, we find the
difference decidedly in favor of the latter; for, according to this
calculation, while the ratio of deaths is as only one to 74.60 of the
living population in the Southern States, it is as one to 72.39 in the
Northern.
Says Dr. J. C. Nott, of Mobile:--
"Heat, moisture, animal and vegetable matter are said to be the
elements which produce the diseases of the South, and yet the
testimony in proof of the health of the banks of the lower portion of
the Mississippi River, is too strong to be doubted,--not only the
river itself but also the numerous bayous which meander through
Louisiana. Here is a perfectly flat alluvial country, covering
several hundred miles, interspersed with interminable lakes, lagunes
and jungles, and still we are informed by Dr. Cartwright, one of the
most acute observers of the day, that this country is exempt from
miasmatic disorders, and is extremely healthy. His assertion has been
confirmed to me by hundreds of witnesses, and we know from our own
observation, that the population present a robust and healthy
appearance."
But the best part is yet to come. In spite of all the blatant assertions
of the oligarchy, that the climate of the South was arranged expressly for
the negroes, and that the negroes were created expressly to inhabit it as
the healthful servitors of other men, a carefully kept register of all the
deaths that occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, for the space of six
years, shows that, even in that locality which is generally regarded as so
unhealthy, the annual mortality was much greater among the blacks, in
proportion to population, than among the whites. Dr. Nott himself shall
state the facts. He says:--
"The average mortality for the last six years in Charleston for all
ages is 1 in 51, including all classes. Blacks alone 1 in 44; whites
alone, 1 in 58--a very remarkable result, certainly. This mortality
is perhaps not an unfair test, as the population during the last six
years has been undisturbed by emigration and acclimated in a greater
proportion than at any former period."
Numerous other authorities might be cited in proof of the general
healthiness of the climate south of Mason and Dixon's line. Of 127
remarkable cases of American longevity, published in a recent edition of
Blake's Biographical Dictionary, 68 deceased centenarians are credited to
the Southern States, and 59 to the Northern--the list being headed with
Betsey Trantham, of Tennessee--a white woman, who died in 1834, at the
extraordinarily advanced age of 154 years.
TABLE NO. LVII.
NATIVES OF THE SLAVE STATES IN THE FREE STATES, AND NATIVES OF THE FREE
STATES IN THE SLAVE STATES.--1850.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Natives of the | States. | Natives of the
| Slave States. | | Free States.
---------------|----------------|--------------------|---------------
California | 24,055 | Alabama | 4,947
Connecticut | 1,390 | Arkansas | 7,965
Illinois | 144,809 | Delaware | 6,996
Indiana | 176,581 | Florida | 1,718
Iowa | 31,392 | Georgia | 4,219
Maine | 458 | Kentucky | 31,340
Massachusetts | 2,980 | Louisiana | 14,567
Michigan | 3,634 | Maryland | 23,815
New-Hampshire | 215 | Mississippi | 4,517
New-Jersey | 4,110 | Missouri | 55,664
New-York | 12,625 | North Carolina | 2,167
Ohio | 152,319 | South Carolina | 2,427
Pennsylvania | 47,180 | Tennessee | 6,571
Rhode Island | 982 | Texas | 9,982
Vermont | 140 | Virginia | 28,999
Wisconsin | 6,353 | |
|----------------| |---------------
| 609,223 | | 205,924
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This last table, compiled from the 116th page of the Compendium of the
Seventh Census, shows, in a most lucid and startling manner, how negroes,
slavery and slaveholders are driving the native non-slaveholding whites
away from their homes, and keeping at a distance other decent people. From
the South the tide of emigration still flows in a westerly and
north-westerly direction, and it will continue to do so until slavery is
abolished. The following remarks, which we extract from an editorial
article that appeared in the Memphis (Tenn.) _Bulletin_ near the close of
the year 1856, are worth considering in this connection:--
"We have never before observed so large a number of immigrants going
westward as are crossing the river at this point daily, the two ferry
boats--sometimes three--going crowded from early morn until the boats
cease making their trips at night. It is no uncommon sight to see
from twenty to forty wagons encamped on the bluff for the night,
notwithstanding there has been a steady stream going across the river
all day, and yet the cry is, still they come."
About the same time the Cassville (Geo.) _Standard_ spoke with surprise of
the multitude of emigrants crowding the streets of that town bound for the
far West.
Prof. B. S. Hedrick, late of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, says:--
"Of my neighbors, friends and kindred, nearly one-half have left the
State since I was old enough to remember. Many is the time I have
stood by the loaded emigrant wagon, and given the parting hand to
those whose faces I was never to look upon again. They were going to
seek homes in the free West, knowing, as they did, that free and
slave labor could not both exist and prosper in the same community.
If any one thinks that I speak without knowledge, let him refer to
the last census. He will there find that in 1850 there were
fifty-eight thousand native North Carolinians living in the free
States of the West--thirty-three-thousand in Indiana alone. There
were, at the same time, one hundred and eighty thousand Virginians
living in the free States. Now, if these people were so much in love
with the 'institution,' why did they not remain where they could
enjoy its blessings?
"From my knowledge of the people of North Carolina, I believe that
the majority of them who will go to Kansas during the next five
years, would prefer that it should be a free State. I am sure that if
I were to go there I should vote to exclude slavery."
For daring to have political opinions of his own, and because he did not
deem it his duty to conceal the fact that he loved liberty better than
slavery, the gallant author of the extract above quoted was peremptorily
dismissed from his post of analytical and agricultural chemist in the
University of North Carolina, ignominiously subjected to the indignities
of a mob, and then savagely driven beyond the borders of his native State.
His villainous persecutors, if not called to settle their accounts in
another world within the next ten years, will probably survive to repent
of the enormity of their pro-slavery folly.
TABLE NO. LVIII.
VALUE OF THE SLAVES AT $400 PER HEAD.--1850.[6]
-------------------------------------------------------------
|Value of the Slaves| Val. of Real and Per.
States. | at $400 per head. | Estate, less the val. of
| | slaves at $400 p. head.
---------------|-------------------|-------------------------
Alabama | $137,137,600 | $81,066,732
Arkansas | 18,840,000 | 21,001,025
Delaware | 916,000 | 17,939,863
Florida | 15,724,000 | 7,474,734
Georgia | 152,672,800 | 182,752,914
Kentucky | 84,392,400 | 217,236,056
Louisiana | 97,923,600 | 136,075,164
Maryland | 36,147,200 | 183,070,164
Mississippi | 123,951,200 | 105,000,000
Missouri | 34,968,800 | 102,278,907
North Carolina | 115,419,200 | 111,381,272
South Carolina | 153,993,600 | 134,264,094
Tennessee | 95,783,600 | 111,671,104
Texas | 23,264,400 | 32,097,940
Virginia | 189,011,200 | 202,634,638
|-------------------|-------------------------
| $1,280,145,600 | $1,655,945,137
=============================================================
TABLES 34 and 35 show that, on account of the pitiable poverty and
ignorance of slavery, the mails were transported throughout the Southern
States, during the year 1855, at an extra cost to the General Government
of more than six hundred thousand dollars! In the free States, postages
were received to the amount of more than two millions of dollars over and
above the cost of transportation.
To Dr. G. Bailey, editor of the _National Era_, Washington city, D. C., we
are indebted for the following useful and interesting statistics, to which
some of our readers will doubtless have frequent occasion to refer:--
PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
Appointed.
March 4, 1789 } George Washington, _Virginia_.
" 3, 1797 }
March 4, 1797 } John Adams, _Massachusetts_.
" 3, 1801 }
March 4, 1801 } Thomas Jefferson, _Virginia_.
" 3, 1809 }
March 4, 1809 } James Madison, _Virginia_.
" 3, 1817 }
March 4, 1817 } James Monroe, _Virginia_.
" 3, 1825 }
March 4, 1825 } John Q. Adams, _Massachusetts_.
" 3, 1829 }
March 4, 1829 } Andrew Jackson, _Tennessee_.
" 3, 1837 }
March 4, 1837 } Martin Van Buren, _New York_.
" 3, 1841 }
March 4, 1841 } William H. Harrison, _Ohio_.
" 3, 1845 }
March 4, 1845 } James K. Polk, _Tennessee_.
" 3, 1849 }
March 4, 1849 } Zachary Taylor, _Louisiana_.
" 3, 1853 }
March 4, 1853 } Franklin Pierce, _New Hampshire_.
" 3, 1857 }
March 4, 1857 } James Buchanan, _Pennsylvania_.
" 3, 1861 }
At the close of the term for which Mr. Buchanan is elected, it will have
been seventy-two years since the organization of the present Government.
In that period, there have been eighteen elections for President, the
candidates chosen in twelve of them being Southern men and slaveholders,
in six of them Northern men and non-slaveholders.
No Northern man has ever been re-elected, but five Southern men have been
thus honored.
Gen. Harrison, of Ohio, died one month after his inauguration. Gen.
Taylor, of Louisiana, about four months after his inauguration. In the
former case, John Tyler, of Virginia, became acting President, in the
latter, Millard Fillmore, of New York.
Of the seventy-two years, closing with Mr. Buchanan's term, should he live
it out, Southern men and slaveholders have occupied the Presidential chair
forty-eight years and three months, or a little more than two-thirds of
the time.
THE SUPREME COURT.
The judicial districts are organized so as to give five judges to the
slave States, and four to the free, although the population, wealth, and
business of the latter are far in advance of those of the former. The
arrangement affords, however, an excuse for constituting the Supreme
Court, with a majority of judges from the slaveholding States.
MEMBERS.
Chief Justice--R. B. Taney, _Maryland_.
Associate Justice--J. M. Wayne, _Georgia_.
" " John Catron, _Tennessee_.
" " P. V. Daniel, _Virginia_.
" " John A. Campbell, _Alabama_.
" " John McLean, _Ohio_.
" " S. Nelson, _New York_.
" " R. C. Grier, _Pennsylvania_.
" " B. R. Curtis, _Massachusetts_.
Reporter--B. C. Howard, _Maryland_.
Clerk--W. T. Carroll, _D. C._
SECRETARIES OF STATE.
The highest office in the Cabinet is that of Secretary of State, who has
under his charge the foreign relations of the country. Since the year
1789, there have been twenty-two appointments to the office--fourteen from
slave States, eight from free. Or, counting by years, the post has been
filled by Southern men and slaveholders very nearly forty years out of
sixty-seven, as follows:
Appointed.
Sept. 26, 1789, Thomas Jefferson, _Virginia_.
Jan. 2, 1794, E. Randolph, _Virginia_.
Dec. 10, 1795, T. Pickering, _Massachusetts_.
May 13, 1800, J. Marshall, _Virginia_.
March 5, 1801, James Madison, _Virginia_.
March 6, 1809, R. Smith, _Maryland_.
April 2, 1811, James Monroe, _Virginia_.
Feb. 28, 1815, " " "
March 5, 1815, J. Q. Adams, _Massachusetts_.
March 7, 1825, Henry Clay, _Kentucky_.
March 6, 1829, Martin Van Buren, _New York_.
May 24, 1831, E. Livingston, _Louisiana_.
May 29, 1833, Louis McLane, _Delaware_.
June 27, 1834, J. Forsyth, _Georgia_.
March 5, 1841, Daniel Webster, _Massachusetts_.
July 24, 1843, A. P. Upshur, _Virginia_.
March 6, 1844, J. C. Calhoun, _South Carolina_.
March 5, 1845, James Buchanan, _Pennsylvania_.
March 7, 1849, J. M. Clayton, _Delaware_.
July 20, 1850, Daniel Webster, _Massachusetts_.
Dec. 9, 1851, E. Everett, _Massachusetts_.
March 5, 1853, W. L. Marcy, _New York_.
PRESIDENTS PRO TEM. OF THE SENATE.
Since the year 1809, every President _pro tem._ of the Senate of the
United States has been a Southern man and slaveholder, with the exception
of Samuel L. Southard, of New Jersey, who held the office for a very short
time, and Mr. Bright, of Indiana, who has held it for one or two sessions,
we believe, having been elected, however, as a known adherent of the
slave interest, believed to be interested in slave "property."
SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
April, 1789 }
March 3, 1791 } F. A. Muhlenberg, _Penn._
Oct. 24, 1791 }
March 2, 1793 } J. Trumbull, _Connecticut_.
Dec. 2, 1793 }
March 3, 1795 } F. A. Muhlenberg, _Penn._
Dec. 7, 1795 }
March 3, 1797 } Jonathan Dayton, _New Jersey_.
May 15, 1797 }
March 3, 1799 } " " "
Dec. 2, 1799 }
March 3, 1801 } Theodore Sedgwick, _Mass._
Dec. 7, 1801 }
March 3, 1807 } Nathaniel Macon, _N. Car._
Oct. 26, 1807 }
March 3, 1811 } J. B. Varnum, _Massachusetts_.
March 4, 1811 }
Jan. 19, 1814 } Henry Clay, _Kentucky_.
Jan. 19, 1814 }
March 2, 1815 } Laugdon Cheves, _S. Car._
Dec. 4, 1815 }
Nov. 13, 1820 } Henry Clay, _Kentucky_.
Nov. 15, 1820 }
March 3, 1821 } J. W. Taylor, _New-York_.
Dec. 3, 1821 }
March 3, 1823 } P. B. Barbour, _Virginia_.
Dec. 1, 1823 }
March 3, 1825 } Henry Clay, _Kentucky_.
Dec. 5, 1825 }
March 3, 1827 } J. W. Taylor, _New-York_.
Dec. 3, 1827 }
June 2, 1834 } A. Stevenson, _Virginia_.
June 2, 1834 }
March 3, 1835 } John Bell, _Tennessee_.
Dec. 7, 1835 }
March 3, 1839 } James K. Polk, _Tennessee_.
Dec. 16, 1839 }
March 3, 1841 } R. M. T. Hunter, _Virginia_.
May 31, 1841 }
March 3, 1843 } John White, _Tennessee_.
Dec. 4, 1843 }
March 3, 1845 } J. W. Jones, _Virginia_.
Dec. 1, 1845 }
March 3, 1847 } J. W. Davis, _Indiana_.
Dec. 6, 1847 }
March 3, 1849 } R. C. Winthrop, _Mass._
Dec. 22, 1849 }
March 3, 1851 } Howell Cobb, _Georgia_.
Dec. 1, 1851 }
March 3, 1853 } Linn Boyd, _Kentucky_.
Dec. 1 1853 }
March 3, 1855 } " " "
Feb. 28, 1856 }
March 3, 1857 } Nathaniel P. Banks, _Mass._
POSTMASTERS-GENERAL.
Appointed--
Sept. 26, 1789, S. Osgood, _Massachusetts_.
Aug. 12, 1791, T. Pickering, _Massachusetts_.
Feb. 25, 1795, J. Habersham, _Georgia_.
Nov. 28, 1801, G. Granger, _Connecticut_.
March 17, 1814, R. J. Meigs, _Ohio_.
June 25, 1823, John McLean, _Ohio_.
March 9, 1829, W. T. Barry, _Kentucky_.
May 1, 1835, A. Kendall, _Kentucky_.
May 18, 1840, J. M. Niles, _Connecticut_.
March 6, 1841, F. Granger, _New York_.
Sept. 13, 1841, C. A. Wickliffe, _Kentucky_.
March 5, 1845, C. Johnson, _Tennessee_.
March 7, 1849, J. Collamer, _Vermont_.
July 20, 1850, N. K. Hall, _New York_.
Aug. 31, 1852, S. D. Hubbard, _Connecticut_.
March 5, 1853, J. Campbell, _Pennsylvania_.
Sectionalism does not seem to have had much to do with this Department or
with that of the Interior, created in 1848-'49.
SECRETARIES OF THE INTERIOR.
Appointed--
March 7, 1849, T. Ewing, _Ohio_.
July 20, 1850, J. A. Pearce, _Maryland_.
Aug. 15, 1850, T. M. T. McKennon, _Pennsylvania_.
Sept. 12, 1850, A. H. H. Stuart, _Virginia_.
March 5, 1853, R. McClelland, _Michigan_.
ATTORNEYS-GENERAL.
Appointed--
Sept. 26, 1789, E. Randolph, _Virginia_.
June 27, 1794, W. Bradford, _Pennsylvania_.
Dec. 10, 1795, C. Lee, _Virginia_.
Feb. 20, 1801, T. Parsons, _Massachusetts_.
March 5, 1800, L. Lincoln, _Massachusetts_.
March 2, 1805, R. Smith, _Maryland_.
Dec. 23, 1805, J. Breckinridge, _Kentucky_.
Jan. 20, 1807, C. A. Rodney, _Pennsylvania_.
Dec. 11, 1811, W. Pinkney, _Maryland_.
Feb. 10, 1814, R. Rush, _Pennsylvania_.
Nov. 13, 1817, W. Wirt, _Virginia_.
March 9, 1829, J. McPherson Berrien, _Georgia_.
July 20, 1831, Roger B. Taney, _Maryland_.
Nov. 15, 1833, B. F. Butler, _New York_.
July 7, 1838, F. Grundy, _Tennessee_.
Jan. 10, 1840, H. D. Gilpin, _Pennsylvania_.
March 5, 1841, J. J. Crittenden, _Kentucky_.
Sept. 13, 1841, H. S. Legare, _South Carolina_.
July 1, 1843, John Nelson, _Maryland_.
March 5, 1845, J. Y. Mason, _Virginia_.
Oct. 17, 1846, N. Clifford, _Maine_.
June 21, 1848, Isaac Toucey, _Connecticut_.
March 7, 1849, R. Johnson, _Maryland_.
July 20, 1850, J. J. Crittenden, _Kentucky_.
March 5, 1853, C. Cushing, _Massachusetts_.
SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY.
The post of Secretary of the Treasury, although one of great importance,
requires financial abilities of a high order, which are more frequently
found in the North than in the South, and affords little opportunity for
influencing general politics, or the questions springing out of Slavery.
We need not therefore be surprised to learn that Northern men have been
allowed to discharge its duties some forty-eight years out of sixty-seven,
as follows:
Appointed--
Sept. 11, 1789, A. Hamilton, _New York_.
Feb. 3, 1795, O. Wolcott, _Connecticut_.
Dec. 31, 1800, S. Dexter, _Massachusetts_.
May 14, 1801, A. Gallatin, _Pennsylvania_.
Feb. 9, 1814, G. W. Campbell, _Tennessee_.
Oct. 6, 1814, A. J. Dallas, _Pennsylvania_.
Oct. 22, 1816, W. H. Crawford, _Georgia_.
March 7, 1825, R. Rush, _Pennsylvania_.
March 6, 1829, S. D. Ingham, _Pennsylvania_.
Aug. 8, 1831, L. McLane, _Delaware_.
May 29, 1833, W. J. Duane, _Pennsylvania_.
Sept. 23, 1833, Roger B. Taney, _Maryland_.
June 27, 1834, L. Woodbury, _New Hampshire_.
March 5, 1841, Thomas Ewing, _Ohio_.
Sept. 13, 1841, W. Forward, _Pennsylvania_.
March 3, 1843, J. C. Spencer, _New York_.
June 15, 1844, G. M. Bibb, _Kentucky_.
March 5, 1845, R. J. Walker, _Mississippi_.
March 7, 1849, W. M. Meredith, _Pennsylvania_.
June 20, 1850, Thomas Corwin, _Ohio_.
March 5, 1843, James Guthrie, _Kentucky_.
SECRETARIES OF WAR AND THE NAVY.
The Slaveholders since March 8th, 1841, a period of nearly sixteen years,
have taken almost exclusive supervision of the Navy. Northern men having
occupied the Secretaryship only two years. Nor has any Northern man been
Secretary of War since 1849. Considering that nearly all the shipping
belongs to the free States, which also supply the seamen, it does seem
remarkable that Slaveholders should have monopolized for the last sixteen
years the control of the Navy.
SECRETARIES OF WAR.
Appointed--
Sept. 12, 1789, Henry Knox, _Massachusetts_.
Jan. 2, 1795, T. Pickering, _Massachusetts_.
Jan. 27, 1796, J. McHenry, _Maryland_.
May 7, 1800, J. Marshall, _Virginia_.
May 13, 1800, S. Dexter, _Massachusetts_.
Feb. 3, 1801, R. Griswold, _Connecticut_.
March 5, 1801, H. Dearborn, _Massachusetts_.
March 7, 1802, W. Eustis, _Massachusetts_.
Jan. 13, 1813, J. Armstrong, _New York_.
Sept. 27, 1814, James Monroe, _Virginia_.
March 3, 1815, W. H. Crawford, _Georgia_.
April 7, 1817, G. Graham, _Virginia_.
March 5, 1817, J. Shelby, _Kentucky_.
Oct. 8, 1817, J. C. Calhoun, _South Carolina_.
March 7, 1825, J. Barbour, _Virginia_.
May 26, 1828, P. B. Porter, _Pennsylvania_.
March 9, 1829, J. H. Eaton, _Tennessee_.
Aug. 1, 1831, Lewis Cass, _Ohio_.
March 3, 1837, B. F. Butler, _New York_.
March 7, 1837, J. R. Poinsett, _South Carolina_.
March 5, 1841, James Bell, _Tennessee_.
Sept. 13, 1841, John McLean, _Ohio_.
Oct. 12, 1841, J. C. Spencer, _New York_.
March 8, 1843, J. W. Porter, _Pennsylvania_.
Feb. 15, 1844, W. Wilkins, _Pennsylvania_.
March 5, 1845, William L. Marcy, _New York_.
March 7, 1849, G. W. Crawford, _Georgia_.
July 20, 1850, E. Bates, _Missouri_.
Aug. 15, 1850, C. M. Conrad, _Louisiana_.
March 5, 1853, Jefferson Davis, _Mississippi_.
SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY.
Appointed--
May 3, 1798, G. Cabot, _Massachusetts_.
May 21, 1798, B. Stoddart, _Massachusetts_.
July 15, 1801, R. Smith, _Maryland_.
May 3, 1805, J. Crowninshield, _Massachusetts_.
March 7, 1809, P. Hamilton, _South Carolina_.
Jan. 12, 1813, W. Jones, _Pennsylvania_.
Dec. 17, 1814, B. W. Crowninshield, _Massachusetts_.
Nov. 9, 1818, Smith Thompson, _New York_.
Sept. 1, 1823, John Rogers, _Massachusetts_.
Sept. 16, 1823, S. L. Southard, _New Jersey_.
March 9, 1829, John Branch, _North Carolina_.
May 23, 1831, L. Woodbury, _New Hampshire_.
June 30, 1834, M. Dickerson, _New Jersey_.
June 20, 1838, J. K. Paulding, _New York_.
March 5, 1841, G. F. Badger, _North Carolina_.
Sept. 13, 1841, A. P. Upshur, _Virginia_.
July 24, 1843, D. Henshaw, _Massachusetts_.
Feb. 12, 1844, T. W. Gilmer, _Virginia_.
March 14, 1844, James Y. Mason, _Virginia_.
March 10, 1845, G. Bancroft, _Massachusetts_.
Sept. 9, 1846, James Y. Mason, _Virginia_.
March 7, 1849, W. B. Preston, _Virginia_.
July 20, 1850, W. A. Graham, _N. Carolina_.
July 22, 1852, J. P. Kennedy, _Maryland_.
March 3, 1853, J. C. Dobbin, _N. Carolina_.
RECAPITULATION.
_Presidency._--Southern men and Slaveholders, 48 years 3 months; Northern
men, 23 years 9 months.
_Pro. Tem. Presidency of the Senate._--Since 1809, held by Southern men
and Slaveholders, except for three or four sessions by Northern men.
_Speakership of the House._--Filled by Southern men and Slaveholders
forty-three years, Northern men, twenty-five.
_Supreme Court._--A majority of the Judges, including Chief Justice,
Southern men and Slaveholders.
_Secretaryship of State._--Filled by Southern men and Slaveholders forty
years, Northern, twenty-seven.
_Attorney Generalship._--Filled by Southern men and Slaveholders forty-two
years, Northern men, twenty-five.
_War and Navy._--Secretaryship of the Navy, Southern men and Slaveholders,
the last sixteen years, with an interval of two years.
WILLIAM HENRY HURLBUT, of South Carolina, a gentleman of enviable literary
attainments, and one from whom we may expect a continuation of good
service in the eminently holy crusade now going on against slavery and the
devil, furnished not long since, to the _Edinburgh Review_, in the course
of a long and highly interesting article, the following summary of
oligarchal usurpations--showing that slaveholders have occupied the
principal posts of the Government nearly two-thirds of the time:--
Presidents 11 out of 16
Judges of the Supreme Court 17 out of 28
Attorneys General 14 out of 19
Presidents of the Senate 61 out of 77
Speakers of the House 21 out of 33
Foreign Ministers 80 out of 134
As a matter of general interest, and as showing that, while there have
been but 11 non-slaveholders directly before the people as candidates for
the Presidency, there have been _at least_ 16 slaveholders who were
willing to serve their country in the capacity of chief magistrate, the
following table may be here introduced:--
RESULT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES FROM 1796 TO
1856.
Year. Name of Candidate. Elect'l vote.
1796 { John Adams 71
{ Thomas Jefferson 68
1800 { Thomas Jefferson 73
{ John Adams 64
1804 { Thomas Jefferson 162
{ Charles C. Pinckney 14
1808 { James Madison 128
{ Charles C. Pinckney 45
1812 { James Madison 122
{ De Witt Clinton 89
1816 { James Monroe 183
{ Rufus King 34
1820 { James Monroe 218
{ No opposition but one vote
1824 { Andrew Jackson[7] 99
{ John Q. Adams 84
{ W. H. Crawford 41
{ Henry Clay 37
1828 { Andrew Jackson 178
{ John Q. Adams 83
1832 { Andrew Jackson 219
{ Henry Clay 49
{ John Floyd 11
{ William Wirt 7
1836 { Martin Van Buren 170
{ William H. Harrison 73
{ Hugh L. White 26
{ Willie P. Mangum 11
{ Daniel Webster 14
1840 { William H. Harrison 234
{ Martin Van Buren 60
1844 { James K. Polk 170
{ Henry Clay 105
1848 { Zachary Taylor 163
{ Lewis Cass 127
1852 { Franklin Pierce 254
{ General Winfield Scott 42
1856 { James Buchanan 174
{ John C. Fremont 114
{ Millard Fillmore 8
AID FOR KANSAS.
As a sort of accompaniment to tables, 50, 51, 52 and 53, we will here
introduce a few items which will more fully illustrate the liberality of
Freedom and the niggardliness of Slavery.
From an editorial article that appeared in the Richmond (Va.,) _Dispatch_,
in July, 1856, bewailing the close-fistedness of slavery, we make the
following extract:--
"Gerrit Smith, the Abolitionist, has just pledged himself to give
$1,500 a month for the next twelve months to aid in establishing
Freedom in Kansas. He gave, but a short time since, at the Kansas
relief meeting in Albany, $3,000. Prior to that, he had sent about
$1,000 to the Boston Emigrant Committee. Out of his own funds, he
subsequently equipped a Madison county company, of one hundred picked
men, and paid their expenses to Kansas. At Syracuse he subscribed
$10,000 for Abolition purposes, so that his entire contributions
amount to at least $40,000."
An Eastern paper says:--
"The sum of $500 was contributed at a meeting at New Bedford on
Monday evening, to make Kansas free. The following sums have been
contributed for the same purpose: $2,000 in Taunton: $600 in Raynham:
$800 in Clinton: $300 in Danbury, Ct. In Wisconsin, $2,500 at
Janesville: $500 at Dalton: $500 at the Women's Aid Meeting in
Chicago: $2,000 in Rockford, Ill."
A telegraphic dispatch, dated Boston, January 2, 1857, informs us that--
"The Secretary of the Kansas Aid Committee acknowledges the receipt
of $42,678."
Exclusive of the amounts above, the readers of the New-York _Tribune_
have contributed about $30,000 for the purpose of securing Kansas to
Freedom; and, with the same object in view, other individuals and
societies have, from time to time, made large contributions, of which we
have failed to keep a memorandum. The legislature of Vermont has
appropriated $20,000; and other free State legislatures are prepared to
appropriate millions, if necessary. Free men have determined that Kansas
shall be free, and free it soon shall be, and ever so remain. Harmoniously
the work proceeds.
Now let us see how slavery has rewarded the poor, ignorant, deluded, and
degraded mortals--swaggering lickspittles--who have labored so hard to
gain for it "a local habitation and a name" in the disputed territory. One
D. B. Atchison, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Border Ruffians,
shall tell us all about it. Over date of October 13th, 1856, he says:
"Up to this moment, from all the States except Missouri, we have only
received the following sums, and through the following persons:--
A. W. Jones, Houston, Miss., $152
H. D. Clayton, Eufala, Ala., 500
Capt. Deedrick, South Carolina, 500
------
$1,152."
On this subject, further comment is unnecessary.
Numerous other contrasts, equally disproportionate, might be drawn between
the vigor and munificence of freedom and the impotence and stinginess of
slavery. We will, however, in addition to the above, advert to only a
single instance. During the latter part of the summer of 1855, the
citizens of the niggervilles of Norfolk and Portsmouth, in Virginia, were
sorely plagued with yellow fever. Many of them fell victims to the
disease, and most of those who survived, and who were not too unwell to
travel, left their homes, horror-stricken and dejected. To the horror of
mankind in general, and to the glory of freemen in particular,
contributions in money, provisions, clothing, and other valuable supplies,
poured in from all parts of the country, for the relief of the sufferers.
Portsmouth alone, according to the report of her relief association,
received $42,547 in cash from the free States, and only $12,182 in cash
from all the slave States, exclusive of Virginia, within whose borders the
malady prevailed. Including Virginia, the sum total of all the slave State
contributions amounted to only $33,398. Well did the Richmond _Examiner_
remark at the time--"we fear that generosity of Virginians is but a figure
of speech." Slavery! thy name is shame!
In connection with tables 44 and 45 on page 292, it will be well to
examine the following statistics of Congressional representation, which we
transcribe from Reynold's Political Map of the United States;--
UNITED STATES SENATE.
16 free States, with a white population of 13,238,670, have 32
Senators.
15 slave States, with a white population of 6,186,477, have 30
Senators.
So that 413,708 free men of the North enjoy but the same political
privileges in the U. S. Senate as is given to 206,215 slave
propagandists.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
The free States have a total of 144 members.
The slave States have a total of 90 members.
One free State Representative represents 91,935 white men and women.
One slave State Representative represents 68,725 white men and women.
Slave Representation gives to slavery an advantage over freedom of 30
votes in the House of Representatives.
CUSTOM-HOUSE RECEIPTS.--1854.
Free States, $60,010,489
Slave States, 5,136,969
-----------
Balance in favor of the Free States, $54,873,520
A contrast quite distinguishable!
That the apologists of slavery cannot excuse the shame and the shabbiness
of themselves and their country, as we have frequently heard them attempt
to do, by falsely asserting that the North has enjoyed over the South the
advantages of priority of settlement, will fully appear from the following
table:--
FREE STATES.
1614. New-York first settled by the Dutch.
1620. Massachusetts settled by the Puritans.
1623. New-Hampshire settled by the Puritans.
1624. New-Jersey settled by the Dutch.
1635. Connecticut settled by the Puritans.
1636. Rhode Island settled by Roger Williams.
1682. Pennsylvania settled by William Penn.
1791. Vermont admitted into the Union.
1802. Ohio admitted into the Union.
1816. Indiana admitted into the Union.
1818. Illinois admitted into the Union.
1820. Maine admitted into the Union.
1836. Michigan admitted into the Union.
1846. Iowa admitted into the Union.
1848. Wisconsin admitted into the Union.
1850. California admitted into the Union.
SLAVE STATES.
1607. Virginia first settled by the English.
1627. Delaware settled by the Swedes and Fins.
1635. Maryland settled by Irish Catholics.
1650. North Carolina settled by the English.
1670. South Carolina settled by the Huguenots.
1733. Georgia settled by Gen. Oglethorpe.
1782. Kentucky admitted into the Union.
1796. Tennessee admitted into the Union.
1811. Louisiana admitted into the Union.
1817. Mississippi admitted into the Union.
1819. Alabama admitted into the Union.
1821. Missouri admitted into the Union.
1836. Arkansas admitted into the Union.
1845. Florida admitted into the Union.
1846. Texas admitted into the Union.
In the course of an exceedingly interesting article on the early
settlements in America, R. K. Browne, formerly editor and proprietor of
the San Francisco _Evening Journal_, says:--
"Many people seem to think that the Pilgrim Fathers were the first
who settled upon our shores, and therefore that they ought to be
entitled, in a particular manner, to our remembrance and esteem.
"This is not the case, and we herewith present to our readers a list
of settlements made in the present United States, prior to that of
Plymouth:
1564. A Colony of French Protestants under Ribault settled in
Florida.
1565. St. Augustine[8] founded by Pedro Melendez.
1584. Sir Walter Raleigh obtains a patent and sends two vessels to
the American coast, which receives the name of Virginia.
1607. The first effectual settlement made at Jamestown, Va., by the
London Company.
1614. A fort erected by the Dutch upon the site of New-York.
1615. Fort Orange built near the site of Albany, N. Y.
1619. The first General Assembly called in Virginia.
1620. The Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock."
FREEDOM AND SLAVERY AT THE FAIR.
WHAT FREEDOM DID.
At an Agricultural Fair held at Watertown, in the State of New-York, on
the 2d day of October, 1856, two hundred and twenty premiums, ranging from
three to fifty dollars each, were awarded to successful competitors--the
aggregate amount of said premiums being $2,396, or an average of $10.89
each. From the proceedings of the Awarding Committee we make the following
extracts:--
Best Horse Colt, George Parish, $25.00
Best Filly, J. Staplin, 20.00
Best Brood Mare, A. Blunt, 25.00
Best Bull, Wm. Johnson, 25.00
Best Heifer, A. M. Rogers, 20.00
Best Cow, C. Baker, 25.00
Best Stall-fed Beef, J. W. Taylor, 10.00
Best sample Wheat, Wm. Ottley, 5.00
Best sample Flaxseed, H. Weir, 3.00
Best sample Timothy Seed, E. S. Hayward 3.00
(Highest) Best Team of Oxen, Hiram Converse, 50.00
(Lowest) Best sample Sweet Corn, L. Marshall, 3.00
------
Aggregate amount of twelve premiums, $214.00
An average of $17.83 each.
WHAT SLAVERY DID.
At the Rowan County Agricultural Fair, held at Mineral Springs, in North
Carolina, on the 13th day of November, 1856, thirty premiums, ranging from
twenty-five cents to two dollars each, were awarded to successful
competitors--the aggregate amount of said premiums being $42, or an
average of $1.40 each. From the proceedings of the Awarding Committee we
make the following extracts:--
Best Horse Colt, T. A. Burke, $2.00
Best Filly, James Cowan, 2.00
Best Brood Mare, M. W. Goodman, 2.00
Best Bull, J. F. McCorkle, 2.00
Best Heifer, J. F. McCorkle, 2.00
Best Cow, T. A. Burke, 2.00
Best Stall-fed Beef, S. D. Rankin, 1.00
Best Sample Wheat, M. W. Goodman, 50
Best lot Beefs, J. J. Summerell, 25
Best lot Turnips, Thomas Barber, 25
(Highest) Best pair Match Horses, R. W. Griffith, 2.00
(Lowest) Best lot Cabbage, Thomas Hyde, 25
-----
Aggregate amount of twelve premiums, $16.25
An average of $1.36 each.
Besides the two hundred and twenty premiums, amounting in the aggregate to
$2,396, freedom granted several diplomas and silver medals; besides the
thirty premiums amounting in the aggregate to $42, slavery granted
none--nothing. While examining these figures, it should be recollected
that agriculture is the peculiar province of the slave States. If commerce
or manufactures had been the subject of the fair, the result might have
shown even a greater disproportion in favor of freedom, and yet there
would have been some excuse for slavery, for it makes no pretensions to
either the one or the other; but as agriculture was the subject, slavery
can have no excuse whatever, but must bear all the shame of its niggardly
and revolting impotence; this it must do for the reason that agriculture
is its special and almost only pursuit.
The reports of the Comptrollers of the States of New York and North
Carolina, for the year 1856, are now before us. From each report we have
gleaned a single item, which, when compared, the one with the other,
speaks volumes in favor of freedom and against slavery. We refer to the
average value per acre of lands in the two States; let slavocrats read,
reflect, and repent.
In 1856, there were assessed for taxation in the State of
NEW YORK,
Acres of land 30,080,000
Valued at $1,112,133,136
Average value per acre $36.97
In 1856, there were assessed for taxation in the State of
NORTH CAROLINA,
Acres of land 32,450,560
Valued at $98,800,636
Average value per acre $3.06
It is difficult for us to make any remarks on the official facts above.
Our indignation is struck almost dumb at this astounding and revolting
display of the awful wreck that slavery is leaving behind it in the South.
We will however, go into a calculation for the purpose of ascertaining as
nearly as possible, in this one particular, how much North Carolina has
lost by the retention of slavery. As we have already seen, the average
value per acre of land in the State of New York is $36.97; in North
Carolina it is only $3.06; why is it so much less, or even any less, in
the latter than in the former? The answer is, _slavery_. In soil, in
climate, in minerals, in water-power for manufactural purposes, and in
area of territory, North Carolina has the advantage of New York, and, with
the exception of slavery, no plausible reason can possibly be assigned why
land should not be _at least_ as valuable in the valley of the Yadkin as
it is along the banks of the Genesee.
The difference between $36.97 and $3.06 is $33.91, which, multiplied by
the whole number of acres of land in North Carolina, will show, in this
one particular, the enormous loss that Freedom has sustained on account of
Slavery in the Old North State. Thus:--
32,450,560 acres _a_ $33,91 $1,100,398,489.
Let it be indelibly impressed on the mind, however, that this amount,
large as it is, is only a moity of the sum that it has cost to maintain
slavery in North Carolina. From time to time, hundreds upon hundreds of
millions of dollars have left the State, either in search of profitable,
permanent investment abroad, or in the shape of profits to Northern
merchants and manufactures, who have become the moneyed aristocracy of the
country by supplying to the South such articles of necessity, utility, and
adornment, as would have been produced at home but for the pernicious
presence of the peculiar institution.
A reward of Eleven Hundred Millions of Dollars is offered for the
conversion of the lands of North Carolina into free soil. The lands
themselves, desolate and impoverished under the fatal foot of slavery,
offer the reward. How, then, can it be made to appear that the abolition
of slavery in North Carolina, and, indeed, throughout all the Southern
States--for slavery is exceedingly inimical to them all--is not demanded
by every consideration of justice, prudence, and good sense? In 1850, the
total value of all the slaves of the State, at the rate of four hundred
dollars per head, amounted to less than one hundred and sixteen millions
of dollars. Is the sum of one hundred and sixteen millions of dollars more
desirable than the sum of eleven hundred millions of dollars? When a man
has land for sale, does he reject thirty-six dollars per acre and take
three? Non-slaveholding whites! look well to your interests! Many of you
have lands; comparatively speaking, you have nothing else. Abolish
slavery, and you will enhance the value of every league, your own and your
neighbors', from three to thirty-six dollars per acre. Your little tract
containing two hundred acres, now valued at the pitiful sum of only six
hundred dollars, will then be worth seven thousand. Your children, now
deprived of even the meagre advantages of common schools, will then reap
the benefits of a collegiate education. Your rivers and smaller streams,
now wasting their waters in idleness, will then turn the wheels of
multitudinous mills. Your bays and harbors, now unknown to commerce, will
then swarm with ships from every enlightened quarter of the globe.
Non-slaveholding whites! look well to your interests!
Would the slaveholders of North Carolina lose anything by the abolition of
slavery? Let us see. According to their own estimate, their slaves are
worth, in round numbers, say, one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.
There are in the State twenty-eight thousand slaveholders, owning, it may
be safely assumed, an average of at least five hundred acres of land
each--fourteen millions of acres in all. This number of acres, multiplied
by thirty-three dollars and ninety-one cents, the difference in value
between free soil and slave soil, makes the enormous sum of four hundred
and seventy-four millions of dollars--showing that, by the abolition of
slavery, the slaveholders themselves would realize a net profit of not
less than three hundred and fifty-four millions of dollars!
Compensation to slaveholders for the negroes now in their possession! The
idea is preposterous. The suggestion is criminal. The demand is unjust,
wicked, monstrous, damnable. Shall we pat the bloodhounds of slavery for
the sake of doing them a favor? Shall we fee the curs of slavery in order
to make them rich at our expense? Shall we pay the whelps of slavery for
the privilege of converting them into decent, honest, upright men? No,
never! The non-slaveholders expect to gain, and will gain, something by
the abolition of slavery; but slaveholders themselves will, by far, be the
greater gainers; for, in proportion to population, they own much larger
and more fertile tracts of land, and will, as a matter of course, receive
the lion's share of the increase in the value of not only real estate, but
also of other genuine property, of which they are likewise the principal
owners. How ridiculously absurd, therefore, is the objection, that, if we
liberate the slaves, we ruin the masters! Not long since, a gentleman in
Baltimore, a native of Maryland, remarked in our presence that he was an
abolitionist because he felt that it was right and proper to be one;
"but," inquired he, "are there not, in some of the States, many widows and
orphans who would be left in destitute circumstances, if their negroes
were taken from them?" In answer to the question, we replied that slavery
had already reduced thousands and tens of thousands of non-slaveholding
widows and orphans to the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance, and that
we did not believe one slaveholding widow and three orphans were of more,
or even of as much consequence as five non-slaveholding widows and fifteen
orphans. "You are right," exclaimed the gentleman, "I had not viewed the
subject in that light before; I perceive you go in for the greatest good
to the greatest number." Emancipate the negroes, and the ex-slaveholding
widow would still retain her lands and tenements, which, in consequence of
being surrounded by the magic influences of liberty, would soon render her
far more wealthy and infinitely more respectable, than she could possibly
ever become while trafficking in human flesh.
The fact is, every slave in the South costs the State in which he resides
at least three times as much as he, in the whole course of his life, is
worth to his master. Slavery benefits no one but its immediate, individual
owners, and them only in a pecuniary point of view, and at the sacrifice
of the dearest rights and interests of the whole mass of non-slaveholders,
white and black. Even the masters themselves, as we have already shown,
would be far better off without it than with it. To all classes of society
the institution is a curse; an especial curse is it to those who own it
not. Non-slaveholding whites! look well to your interests!
CHAPTER IX.
COMMERCIAL CITIES--SOUTHERN COMMERCE.
Our theme is a city--a great Southern importing, exporting, and
manufacturing city, to be located at some point or port on the coast of
the Carolinas, Georgia or Virginia, where we can carry on active commerce,
buy, sell, fabricate, receive the profits which accrue from the exchange
of our own commodities, open facilities for direct communication with
foreign countries, and establish all those collateral sources of wealth,
utility, and adornment, which are the usual concomitants of a metropolis,
and which add so very materially to the interest and importance of a
nation. Without a city of this kind, the South can never develop her
commercial resources nor attain to that eminent position to which those
vast resources would otherwise exalt her. According to calculations based
upon reasonable estimates, it is owing to the lack of a great commercial
city in the South, that we are now _annually_ drained of more than One
Hundred and Twenty Millions of Dollars! We should, however, take into
consideration the negative loss as well as the positive. Especially should
we think of the influx of emigrants, of the visits of strangers and
cosmopolites, of the patronage to hotels and public halls, of the profits
of travel and transportation, of the emoluments of foreign and domestic
trade, and of numerous other advantages which have their origin
exclusively in wealthy, enterprising, and densely populated cities.
Nothing is more evident than the fact, that our people have never
entertained a proper opinion of the importance of home cities. Blindly,
and greatly to our own injury, we have contributed hundreds of millions of
dollars towards the erection of mammoth cities at the North, while our own
magnificent bays and harbors have been most shamefully disregarded and
neglected. Now, instead of carrying all our money to New-York,
Philadelphia, Boston, and Cincinnati, suppose we had kept it on the south
side of Mason and Dixon's line--as we would have done, had it not been for
slavery--and had disbursed it in the upbuilding of Norfolk, Beaufort,
Charleston, or Savannah, how much richer, better, greater, would the South
have been to-day! How much larger and more intelligent would have been our
population. How many hundred thousand natives of the South would now be
thriving at home, instead of adding to the wealth and political power of
other parts of the Union. How much greater would be the number and length
of our railroads, canals, turnpikes, and telegraphs. How much greater
would be the extent and diversity of our manufactures. How much greater
would be the grandeur, and how much larger would be the number of our
churches, theatres, schools, colleges, lyceums, banks, hotels, stores, and
private dwellings. How many more clippers and steamships would we have
sailing on the ocean, how vastly more reputable would we be abroad, how
infinitely more respectable, progressive, and happy, would we be at home.
That we may learn something of the importance of cities in general, let us
look for a moment at the great capitals of the world. What would England
be without London? What would France be without Paris? What would Turkey
be without Constantinople? Or, to come nearer home, what would Maryland be
without Baltimore? What would Louisiana be without New Orleans? What would
South Carolina be without Charleston? Do we ever think of these countries
or States without thinking of their cities also? If we want to learn the
news of the country, do we not go to the city, or to the city papers?
Every metropolis may be regarded as the nucleus or epitome of the country
in which it is situated; and the more prominent features and
characteristics of a country, particularly of the people of a country, are
almost always to be seen within the limits of its capital city. Almost
invariably do we find the bulk of the floating funds, the best talent, and
the most vigorous energies of a nation concentrated in its chief cities;
and does not this concentration of wealth, energy, and talent, conduce, in
an extraordinary degree, to the growth and prosperity of the nation?
Unquestionably. Wealth develops wealth, energy develops energy, talent
develops talent. What, then, must be the condition of those countries
which do not possess the means or facilities of centralizing their
material forces, their energies, and their talents? Are they not destined
to occupy an inferior rank among the nations of the earth? Let the South
answer.
And now let us ask, and we would put the question particularly to Southern
merchants, what do we so much need as a great Southern metropolis?
Merchants of the South, slaveholders! you are the avaricious assassinators
of your country! You are the channels through which more than one hundred
and twenty millions of dollars--$120,000,000--are annually drained from
the South and conveyed to the North. You are daily engaged in the unmanly
and unpatriotic work of impoverishing the land of your birth. You are
constantly enfeebling our resources and rendering us more and more
tributary to distant parts of the nation. Your conduct is reprehensible,
base, criminal.
Whether Southern merchants ever think of the numerous ways in which they
contribute to the aggrandizement of the North, while, at the same time,
they enervate and dishonor the South, has, for many years, with us, been a
matter of more than ordinary conjecture. If, as it would seem, they have
never yet thought of the subject, it is certainly desirable that they
should exercise their minds upon it at once. Let them scrutinize the
workings of Southern money after it passes north of Mason and Dixon's
line. Let them consider how much they pay to Northern railroads and
hotels, how much to Northern merchants and shop-keepers, how much to
Northern shippers and insurers, how much to Northern theatres, newspapers,
and periodicals. Let them also consider what disposition is made of it
after it is lodged in the hands of the North. Is not the greater part of
it paid out to Northern manufacturers, mechanics, and laborers, for the
very articles which are purchased at the North--and to the extent that
this is done, are not Northern manufacturers, mechanics, and laborers
directly countenanced and encouraged, while at the same time, Southern
manufacturers, mechanics, and laborers, are indirectly abased, depressed,
and disabled? It is, however, a matter of impossibility, on these small
pages, to notice or enumerate all the methods in which the money we
deposit in the North is made to operate against us; suffice it to say that
it is circulated and expended there, among all classes of the people, to
the injury and impoverishment of almost every individual in the South. And
yet, our cousins of the North are not, by any means, blameworthy for
availing themselves of the advantages which we have voluntarily yielded to
them. They have shown their wisdom in growing great at our expense, and we
have shown our folly in allowing them to do so. Southern merchants,
slaveholders, and slave-breeders, should be the objects of our censure;
they have desolated and impoverished the South; they are now making
merchandize of the vitals of their country; patriotism is a word nowhere
recorded in their vocabulary; town, city, country--they care for neither;
with them, self is always paramount to every other consideration.
Having already compared slavery with freedom in the States, we will now
compare it with freedom in the cities. From every person as yet
unconvinced of the despicableness of slavery, we respectfully ask
attention to the following letters, which fully explain themselves:--
FINANCE DEPARTMENT COMPTROLLER'S OFFICE,}
New-York, February 17th, 1857. }
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
_Dear Sir_:--
Your letter to Mayor Wood has been handed to me for an answer, which
I take pleasure in giving as follows:
The last assessment of property in this city was made in August,
1856.
The value of all the real and personal property in the city,
according to that assessment, is $511,740,492.
A census of the city was taken in 1855, and the number of inhabitants
at that time can be obtained only from the Secretary of State.
Very truly yours,
A. S. CADY.
STATE OF NEW-YORK, SECRETARY'S OFFICE,}
Albany, February 24, 1857. }
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
_Dear Sir_:--
Yours of the 17th February, in regard to the population of the city
of New York, is before me. According to the census of
1855 the population was 629,810
1850 " " " 515,547
1845 " " " 371,223
1840 " " " 312,710
1835 " " " 268,089
1830 " " " 197,112
As to the population now, you have the same facilities of judging
that we have from the above table.
Very truly yours,
A. N. WAKEFIELD, _Chief Clerk_.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, CITY HALL, }
Baltimore, December 26, 1856.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
_Dear Sir_--
His Honor the Mayor of this City has requested me to reply to your
communication of the 24th inst., addressed to him, requesting answers
to certain questions.
In answer to your first interrogatory, I would state that the amount
of direct taxation assessed January 1st, 1856, was $102,053,839; the
amount of exempt taxation (i. e. property out of the limits of direct
tax) assessed at that date was $6,054,733.
In reply to your second inquiry, I would state that no census of the
city has been taken since 1850. The estimated population at this time
is about 250,000. Respectfully Yours. &c., &c.,
D. H. BLANCHARD, _Secretary_.
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA,}
December 30, 1856. }
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
_Dear Sir_:
In reply to your note of the 25th inst., received to-day, I hasten to
give you the estimates you ask.
Real Estate, 150 millions; it is about one-half the real value. Its
market price is at least 300 million dollars.
The Personal Estate is returned at 20 millions; it is over 110
millions. There has been no census since 1850. The population now is
500,000.
Yours truly,
G. VAUX.
STATE OF LOUISIANA. MAYORALTY OF NEW ORLEANS,}
City Hall, 3d day of Jan'y, 1857. }
MR. H. R. HELPER,
New-York:
_Dear Sir_:--
In answer to your note of the 24th December, I beg to refer you to
the enclosed abstract for the value of real estate and slaves
according to the last assessment.
There has heretofore been no assessment of personal property--there
having been no tax authorized until this year. The assessment is now
being made and will probably add about $5,000,000 to the assessment
as stated in the abstract.
There has been no census since the U. S. census of 1850, except an
informal census, made in 1852, for the purpose of dividing the city
into wards anew.
The estimated population now is about 150 to 175,000
inhabitants--permanent population--including the floating population
at this season, it would probably reach not less than 210,000
inhabitants. The U. S. census was taken in the summer months, and is
very incorrect as to the absolute population of New Orleans.
Very respectfully,
Your obed't serv't,
J. B. WALTON,
_Secretary_.
By reference to the abstract of which Mr. Walton speaks, we find that the
value of real and personal property is summed up as follows:--
Real Estate, $67,460,115
Slaves, 5,183,580
Capital, 18,544,300
-----------
Total, $91,188,195
CITY HALL, BOSTON,}
Dec. 31, 1856. }
_Dear Sir_:--Yours of the 25th inst., addressed to the Mayor, has
been handed to me for a reply--and I would accordingly state that the
value of real and personal estate in this city, on the first day of
May, A.D. 1856, was $249,162,500.
The census of the city of Boston, on the first day of May, A.D. 1855,
was 162,748 persons.
The estimated population of the city of Boston at this date--say
January 1st, 1857--is 165,000.
Yours, very respectfully,
SAML. T. MCCLEARY,
_City Clerk_.
ST. LOUIS, }
Feb. 27, 1857.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
New-York:
_Dear Sir_:--
In reply to yours of the 9th inst., I beg leave to state, that a
census of our population was taken in the spring of 1856 by the
Sheriff, and although it was inaccurate, yet the population as
returned by him was then 125,500. That his census is too low there is
no doubt. Our population at this time is at least 140,000.
Our last assessment was made in February, 1856. Value of real and
personal estate, is, in round numbers, $63,000,000.
Trusting this information will be sufficient for your purpose, I
remain,
Yours, &c.,
JOHN HOW,
_Mayor_.
MAYOR'S OFFICE. CITY HALL, BROOKLYN,}
January 24th, 1857. }
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
_Sir_:--
The answers to your inquiries are as follows:
The last assessment of property in this city was made in August,
1856.
The value of all the real and personal property in the city,
according to that assessment, is $95,800,440.
A census of the city was taken in 1855, and the number of
inhabitants, according to it, was 205,250.
The estimated population now is 225,000.
The last annual report of the Comptroller, together with a
communication of the Mayor to the Common Council, made on the 5th of
Jan., 1857, have been transmitted by mail to your address, and from
them you may be able to obtain any further information you may
desire. Yours, respectfully.
S. S. POWELL,
_Mayor_.
By C. S. BRAINERD.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, }
Charleston, Feb. 16, 1857.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
(New York,)
_Dear Sir_:--
Yours of the 9th has just been received, I sent you, through the
Clerk of Council, some time ago, the Annual Fiscal Statement of the
Committee on Accounts made to the City Council, which would give some
of the information which you desire. I will have another copy sent
you.
No census has been taken since 1848. The population at present must
be between fifty and sixty thousand.
Any information which it may be in my power to furnish you with, will
always give me pleasure to supply.
Very respectfully,
WM. PORCHER MILES,
_Mayor_.
From a report of the "Annual accounts of the city of Charleston, for the
fiscal year ending the 31st of August, 1856," it appears that the total
value of real and personal property, including slaves--nearly half the
population--was $36,127,751.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, }
Cincinnati, Jan'y 2, 1857.}
_Dear Sir_:--In reply to your note of the 25th ult., I beg leave to
say that the value of all the real and personal property in this
city, as assessed for taxation, amounts to $88,810,734. The realty
being $60,701,267; the personalty $20,795,203, and the bank and
brokers' capital $7,314,264. The assessment of the realty was made in
1853; that of the personalty is made in March of each year.
Our present population is estimated at 210,000. No complete census
has been taken since 1850.
The total of taxes levied on the above assessment of $88,810,734, for
city purposes, was $529,727,05.
Very respectfully,
Your ob'dt. serv't,
JAS. J. FARAN,
_Mayor_.
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
New-York.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, }
Louisville, Ky., January 1st, 1857.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
New-York City,
_Dear Sir_:--
Your favor 24th ult. is received--contents noted. I will remark in
reply, that the taxes of this city are levied only on real estate,
slaves, and merchandise, (exclusive of home manufactures,) which are
taken at what is supposed to be their cash value, but is much less
than the real value. Our last assessment was made the 10th January,
1856, and amounted to $31,500,000.
There has been no census of this city taken since 1850, our charter
requiring that it shall be taken this year. I am now preparing to
have it done. It is supposed Louisville at this time has a population
of 65 or 70 thousand.
I send with this my last annual message to the Gen. Council and
accompanying documents.
Respectfully yours,
JOHN BARBEE _Mayor_.
DAILY TRIBUNE OFFICE, }
Chicago, May 21, 1857.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.
_Sir_:--
In the May No. of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine you will find some of
your questions answered. The actual cash value of property is not
taken by the assessors. Citizens are not sworn as to the value of
their personal effects, nor is real estate given in at twenty per
cent. of its selling cash price. An elaborate estimate of the real
value, in cash, of Chicago, which we have seen,
puts the real estate at $125,000,000
Improvements on the same, $24,000,000
Personal property, $22,000,000
------------
In 1857 total value, $171,000,000
On half a dozen streets in this city lots sell readily at $1,000 to
$1,200 per foot front, exclusive of improvements.
A census of the population of Chicago was taken in October, 1853, and
in June, 1855, the latter by State authority. That of October '53
found 60,652; that of June '55 found 80,509. The best estimate at
present makes the number, on May 1st, 1857, to be 112,000, which is
rather under than over the truth. The amount of building, in the
city, is immense, but as quickly as a tenement can be spiked
together, it is taken at a high rent; and at no former period has
there seemed so rapid an augmentation of population.
Very truly yours,
RAY & MEDILL,
_Eds. Ch. Trib._
RICHMOND, VA. }
April 25th, '57.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
_Dear Sir_:--
Yours of the 14th inst. has been received, and should have been
answered sooner, but it was impossible to get the information you
desired earlier. The value of the real estate in the city of Richmond
is $18,000,000. The value of the personal is $191,920. Total value
$18,201,920. This does not include slaves, of whom there are 6,472 in
the city. The State values each slave at $300 each--making
$1,941,600, which, added to the total above, makes $20,143,520. The
number of inhabitants--white and black, is 34,612 within the
corporation limits. The assessment was made in 1855 throughout the
whole State.
Yours, very respectfully,
B. W. STARKE.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, }
Providence, Dec. 31st, 1856.}
H. R. HELPER. ESQ.,
New York,
_Dear Sir_:--
Yours of 25th is this moment received. You will receive with this a
communication from the Chairman of the Board of Assessors, giving the
requisite information from that department. I send you this day a
census report, taken 1855, which will give you the information asked.
Our population at this time is between 50 and 60,000.
Respectfully,
JAMES Y. SMITH,
_Mayor_.
ASSESSOR'S OFFICE, }
Providence, Dec. 31st, 1856.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
_Dear Sir_:--
His Honor, the Mayor of this City, has requested me to answer your
communication of the 25th inst., addressed to him, so far as relates
to the valuation of this city, &c., which is herewith presented.
The valuation of this City in 1856 is as follows:
Real Estate, $36,487,116
Personal Estate, 21,577,400
-----------
Total, $58,064,516
Our last assessment was ordered in June last, and completed on the
1st day of September last.
Rates of taxation $7 75 per $1000.
Amount of tax raised $450,000.
Respectfully yours,
JOSEPH MARTIN,
_Chairman of the Board of Assessors_.
HERALD OFFICE, }
Norfolk. Va., 28th April, 1857.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
New-York,
_Dear Sir_:--
The value of all the real estate, as re-assessed about two months
ago, is set down, say, in round numbers, at five and a half millions.
The actual value would bring it somewhat above that mark. The
assessment of the personal property will be completed in three or
four weeks hence; but its _exact_ value cannot be arrived at from the
fact that a large portion of this description of property--including
slaves--is taxed specifically without regard to its value. It is
estimated by the assessors, however, that the _personal_ exceeds the
_real estate_, and may be safely set down at six and a half millions.
There has been no census taken since 1850. The State authorities
assume the population to be 16,000, but I am informed by the
assessors that 17,000 is a fairer estimate.
Hoping that the information given may answer the purpose for which
you require it, I am,
Respectfully yours,
R. G. BROUGHTON.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, }
Buffalo, March 10, 1857.}
_Dear Sir_:--Yours, of the 9th inst., was received this morning. The
answers to your questions are as follows:
The last valuation of the property of our city was made in April,
1856.
Valuation of real estate, $38,114,040
" personal estate, 7,360,436
-----------
Total real and personal, $45,474,476
The last census was the State census, taken in the summer of 1855.
That showed a population of 74,214; a fair estimate now is 90,000.
Respectfully,
Your ob't serv't,
F. P. STEVENS.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, }
Savannah, 9th January, 1856.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
New-York,
_Dear Sir_:--
In reply to your first interrogatory, I send you the last Mayor's
report, in which you will find the information you seek.
No census has been taken of the city since 1850.
The estimated population is 25,000.
Very respectfully yours,
J. P. SCREVEN,
_Mayor_.
From the Mayor's annual report, we learn that the "assessments or value of
lands and improvements," for the year ending October 31st, 1856, amounted
to $8,999,015. The value of the personal property is, perhaps, about
$3,000,000--total value of real and personal estate $11,999,015.
CITY OF NEW-BEDFORD, }
Mayor's Room, 1 mo., 6th, 1857.}
H. R. HELPER:--
Yours of the 4th inst. came to hand this morning.
In reply to your inquiries, I will say that the amount assessed on
the 1st day of May, 1856, was as follows:--
Real Estate, $9,311,500
Personal, 17,735,500
-----------
Total, $27,047,000
The returns of a census taken the previous autumn gave 20,391
persons, from which there is not probably much change.
Respectfully,
GEO. ROWLAND, JR.
_Mayor_.
MAYOR'S OFFICE, }
Wilmington, N. C., May 23d, 1857.}
H. R. HELPER, ESQ.,
New-York,
_Dear Sir_:--
I am in receipt of yours of 19th inst. The value of real estate as
per last assessment, 1st April, 1856, was $3,350,000
We have no system by which to arrive at the value of personal
property: I estimate the amount, however, exclusive of merchandize,
at $4,509,000
There has been no census taken since 1850--the present number of
inhabitants is estimated at 10,000.
I regret my inability to afford you more definite information.
Very respectfully, &c.,
O. G. PARSLEY,
_Mayor_.
From the foregoing communications, we make up the following summary of the
more important particulars:--
NINE FREE CITIES.
--------------------------------------------------------
Name. |Population.| Wealth. | Wealth
| | |_per capita_.
-------------|-----------|----------------|-------------
New York | 700,000 | $511,740,492 | $731
Philadelphia | 500,000 | 325,000,000 | 650
Boston | 165,000 | 249,162,500 | 1,510
Brooklyn | 225,000 | 95,800,440 | 425
Cincinnati | 210,000 | 88,810,734 | 422
Chicago | 112,000 | 171,000,000 | 1,527
Providence | 60,000 | 58,064,516 | 967
Buffalo | 90,000 | 45,474,476 | 505
New Bedford | 21,000 | 27,047,000 | 1,288
|-----------|----------------|-------------
| 2,083,000 | $1,572,100,158 | $754
--------------------------------------------------------
NINE SLAVE CITIES.
-----------------------------------------------------
Name. |Population.| Wealth. | Wealth
| | |_per capita_.
------------|-----------|--------------|-------------
Baltimore | 250,000 | $102,053,839 | $408
New Orleans | 175,000 | 91,188,195 | 521
St. Louis | 140,000 | 63,000,000 | 450
Charleston | 60,000 | 36,127,751 | 602
Louisville | 70,000 | 31,500,000 | 450
Richmond | 40,000 | 20,143,520 | 503
Norfolk | 17,000 | 12,000,000 | 705
Savannah | 25,000 | 11,999,015 | 480
Wilmington | 10,000 | 7,850,000 | 785
|---------- |--------------|-------------
| 787,000 | $375,862,320 | $477
-----------------------------------------------------
Let it not be forgotten that the slaves themselves are valued at so much
per head, and counted as part of the wealth of slave cities; and yet,
though we assent, as we have done, to the inclusion of all this fictitious
wealth, it will be observed that the residents of free cities are far
wealthier, _per capita_, than the residents of slave cities. We trust the
reader will not fail to examine the figures with great care.
In this age of the world, commerce is an indispensable element of national
greatness. Without commerce we can have no great cities, and without great
cities we can have no reliable tenure of distinct nationality. Commerce is
the forerunner of wealth and population; and it is mainly these that make
invincible the power of undying States.
Speaking in general terms of the commerce of this country, and of the
great cities through which that commerce is chiefly carried on, the Boston
_Traveler_ says:--
"The wealth concentrated at the great commercial points of the United
States is truly astonishing. For instance, one-eighth part of the
entire property of this country is owned by the cities of New-York
and Boston. Boston alone, in its corporate limits, owns one-twentieth
of the property of this entire Union, being an amount equal to the
wealth of any three of the New-England States, except Massachusetts.
In this city is found the richest community, _per capita_, of any in
the United States. The next city in point of wealth, according to its
population, is Providence, (R. I.,) which city is one of the richest
in the Union, having a valuation of fifty-six millions, with a
population of fifty thousand."
The same paper, in the course of an editorial article on the "Wealth of
Boston and its Business," says:--
"The assessors' return of the wealth of Boston will probably show
this year an aggregate property of nearly three hundred millions.
This sum, divided among 160,000 people, would give nearly $2,000 to
each inhabitant, and will show Boston to be much the wealthiest
community in the United States, save New York alone, with four times
its population. The value of the real estate in this city is
increasing now with great rapidity, as at least four millions of
dollars' worth of new houses and stores will be built this year. The
personal estate in ships, cargoes, stocks, &c., is greatly
increasing with each succeeding year, not withstanding the many
disasters and losses constantly occurring in such kinds of property.
"It is impossible to get the exact earnings of the nearly six hundred
thousand tons of shipping owned in this city. But perhaps it would
not be much out of the way to set the total amount for 1855 at from
fifteen to twenty millions of dollars. This sum has probably been
earned by our fleet engaged in the domestic trade, and in commercial
transactions with the East and West Indies, South America, the
Pacific, Europe and Africa. The three sources from which the
population of Boston is maintained, and its prosperity continued, are
these: Commerce, trade, and manufactures. Its annual trade and sales
of merchandise are said now, by competent judges, to amount to three
hundred millions of goods per annum, and will soon greatly exceed
that vast sum. The annual manufactures of this city are much more in
amount than in many entire States in this Union. They amount,
according to recent statistics, to nearly seventy-five millions of
dollars."
Freeman Hunt, the accomplished editor of _Hunt's Merchants' Magazine_,
writing on the "Progressive Growth of Cities," says:--
"London is now the greatest concentration of human power the world
has ever known. Will its supremacy be permanent? or will it, like its
predecessors, be eclipsed by western rivals? New-Yorkers do not
doubt, and indeed have no reason to doubt, that their city, now
numbering little more than one-third of the population of London,
will, within the next fifty years, be greater than the metropolis of
the British empire.
"New York, with her immediate dependencies, numbers about 900,000.
Since 1790 she has established a law of growth which doubles her
population once in fifteen years. If this law continues to operate,
she may be expected to possess 1,800,000 in 1871, 3,600,000 in 1880,
and 7,200,000 in 1901. If twenty years be allowed New York as her
future period of duplication, she would overtake London by the end of
fifty years; London _may_ then have five millions; New-York will
almost certainly have more than that number.
"Will the star of empire become stationary at New-York? The interior
plain of North America has within itself more means to sustain a
dense population in civilized comfort than any other region of the
world. The star of empire cannot be arrested in its western course
before it reaches this plain. Its most promising city at present is
Chicago. The law of its growth since 1840 seems to be a duplication
within four years. In 1840 it numbered 4,379. In June of this year it
will contain 88,000. At the same rate of increase carried forward, it
would overtake New-York within twenty years. If six years be allowed
for each future duplication, Chicago would overtake New-York in
thirty-three years. If the growth of Chicago should in future be
measured by a duplication of every seven years, it would contain
5,622,000 in forty-two years.
"In 1901, forty-five years from this time, the central plain,
including the Canadas, will contain about eighty millions of people.
Its chief city may be reasonably expected to contain about one-tenth
of this population. Before the end of this century the towns and
cities of the central plain will contain, with their suburbs, not
less than half the entire population; that is to say, forty millions.
How these millions shall be apportioned among the cities of that day,
is a subject for curious speculation."
A FLEET OF MERCHANTMEN.
The Boston _Journal_, of a late date, says:--
"About one hundred sail of vessels, of various descriptions, entered
this port yesterday, consisting of traders from Europe, South
America, the West Indies, and from coastwise ports. The waters of the
bay and harbor presented a beautiful appearance from the surrounding
shores, as this fleet of white-winged messengers made their way
towards the city, and crowds of people must have witnessed their
advent with great delight. A more magnificent sight is seldom seen in
our harbor."
Would to God that such sights could sometimes be seen in Southern
harbors! When slavery shall cease to paralyse the energies of our people,
then ships, coming to us from the four quarters of the globe, will, with
majestic grandeur, begin to loom in the distance; our bays will rejoice in
the presence of "the white-winged messengers," and our levees resound as
never before with the varied din of commerce.
COMMERCE OF NORFOLK.
The _Southern Argus_ thus speaks of the ruined commerce of a most
despicable niggerville:--
"We question if any other community, certainly no other in the United
States of America, have made greater exertions to resuscitate the
trade of Norfolk than the mercantile portion of the inhabitants; in
proof of which nineteen-twentieths of those engaged in foreign
commerce have terminated in their insolvency, the principal cause of
which has been in the unrelenting hostility, to this day, from the
commencement of the present century, of the Virginia Legislature,
with the co-operation of at least the commercial portions of the
citizens of Richmond, Petersburg and Portsmouth."
How it is, in this enlightened age, that men of ordinary intelligence can
be so far led into error as to suppose that commerce, or any other noble
enterprise, can be established and successfully prosecuted under the
dominion of slavery, is, to us, one of the most inexplicable of mysteries.
"Commercial" Conventions, composed of the self-titled lordlings of
slavery--Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains, etcætera--may act out their
annual programmes of farcical nonsense from now until doomsday; but they
will never add one iota to the material, moral, or mental interests of
the South,--never can, until their ebony idol shall have been utterly
demolished.
BALTIMORE--PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
We are indebted to the Baltimore _Patriot_ for the following interesting
sketch of the Monumental City as it was, and as it is, and as it may be:--
"The population of Baltimore in 1790 was 13,503; in 1800, 15,514; in
1810, 35,583; in 1820, 62,738; in 1830, 80,625; in 1840, 110,313; in
1850, 169,054. The increase of inhabitants within two particular
decades, will be found, by reference to the above table, to be
remarkable. Between 1800 and 1810, the population nearly doubled
itself; between 1840 and 1850, the increase was two-thirds; and for
the past five years, the numerical extension of our population has
been even more rapid than during the previous decade. We may safely
assume that Baltimore contains at the present time not less than
250,000 inhabitants. But the increase in the manufactured products of
the State, as shown by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury,
is a matter of even greater astonishment. The statistical tables of
1840 estimate the aggregate value of the manufactures of Maryland at
$13,509,636--_thirteen million five hundred and nine thousand six
hundred and thirty-six dollars_. In 1850, the value of the articles
manufactured within the limits of the State amounted to
$32,593,635--_thirty-two million five hundred and ninety-three
thousand six hundred and thirty-five dollars_! A signal proof that
the wealth of the State has increased with even far greater rapidity
than its population. A quarter of a century ago, the sum of our
manufactures did not much exceed five millions of dollars per annum.
At this day it may be set down as falling but little short of fifty
millions. These are facts taken from official sources, and therefore
understated rather than exceeded. They are easily verified by any one
who will take the necessary trouble to examine the reports for
himself; and they justify us in the assertion that we are but fifteen
years behind Philadelphia in population, and are only at the same
relative distance from her in point of wealth.
A change has been going on for some time past in our commercial and
industrial affairs which all may have noticed, but the extent of
which is known to but few, and we hazard nothing in saying that this
enormous progression must continue, because it is based upon a solid
foundation, and therefore subject to no ordinary contingencies.
Occupying geographically the most central position on this Continent,
with vast mines of coal lying within easy distance to the North and
West of us, with a harbor easy of access, and with railroads
penetrating by the shortest routes the most fertile sections of the
Union, we need nothing but the judicious fostering of a proper spirit
among our citizens to make Baltimore not only the commercial emporium
of the South and West, but also the great coal mart of the Union. Our
flour market is already the most extensive in the known world--we
speak without exaggeration, for this also is proven by unquestionable
facts. There is more guano annually brought into our port than into
all the other ports of the United States put together, and the demand
for this important article of commerce is steadily increasing. Our
shipments of tobacco are immense, and as the improvement in the depth
of the channel of the Patapsco increases, must inevitably become much
greater.
Such, then, is our present condition as a commercial community, and
when we add that our prosperity is as much owing to our admirable
geographical position as to the energy of our merchants and
manufacturers, we design to cast no imputation on these excellent
citizens, but rather to stimulate them to renewed efforts in a field
where enterprise cannot fail of reaping its due reward.
Take any common map of the United States and rule an air line across
it from Baltimore to St. Louis, and midway between the two it will
strike Cincinnati--the great inland centre of trade--traversing at
the same time those wonderfully fertile valleys which lie between the
latter point and the Mississippi river. Now let it be remembered that
since the introduction of railways fluvial navigation has been, to a
considerable extent, superseded by inland transport, because of the
greater speed and certainty of the latter. Let it be remembered also
that the migration westward is incessantly going on, and that with
every farm opened within striking distance of a great arterial
railway, or its anastomosing branches, a certain amount of freight
must find its way to the seaboard markets, while the demand for
manufactured products, and for domestic or foreign commodities, in
exchange for breadstuffs or raw material, must necessarily increase;
thereby adding greatly to the prosperity of the commercial centre
towards which articles of export tend, and from which imports in
return are drawn. It would be difficult to estimate the value of what
this trade will be fifty years hence, or what the population of
Baltimore, situated as she is, will by that time have become.
Reasoning from causes to effects, and presuming that ordinary
perseverance will be used in promoting the interests of our city,
industrially and commercially, we are justified in believing that its
progress must be in an accelerated ratio, and that there are those
now living who will look back with surprise and wonder at its growth
and magnitude, as we have done while comparing its present aspect
with that which it exhibited within our own memory."
It is a remarkable fact, but one not at all surprising to those whose
philosophy leads them to think aright, that Baltimore and St. Louis, the
two most prosperous cities in the slave States, have fewer slaves in
proportion to the aggregate population than any other city or cities in
the South. While the entire population of the former is now estimated at
250,000, and that of the latter at 140,000--making a grand total of
390,000 in the two cities, less than 6,000 of this latter number are
slaves; indeed, neither city is cursed with half the number of 6,000.
In 1850, there were only 2,946 slaves in Baltimore, and 2,656 in St.
Louis--total in the two cities 5,602; and in both places, thank Heaven,
this heathenish class of the population was rapidly decreasing. The census
of 1860 will, in all probability, show that the two cities are entirely
exempt from slaves and slavery; and that of 1870 will, we prayerfully
hope, show that the United States at large, at that time, will have been
wholly redeemed from the unspeakable curse of human bondage.
What about Southern Commerce? Is it not almost entirely tributary to the
commerce of the North? Are we not dependent on New-York, Philadelphia,
Boston, and Cincinnati, for nearly every article of merchandise, whether
foreign or domestic? Where are our ships, our mariners, our naval
architects? Alas! echo answers, where?
Reader! would you understand how abjectly slaveholders themselves are
enslaved to the products of Northern industry? If you would, fix your mind
on a Southern "gentleman"--a slave-breeder and human-flesh monger, who
professes to be a Christian! Observe the routine of his daily life. See
him rise in the morning from a Northern bed, and clothe himself in
Northern apparel; see him walk across the floor on a Northern carpet, and
perform his ablutions out of a Northern ewer and basin. See him uncover a
box of Northern powders, and cleanse his teeth with a Northern brush; see
him reflecting his physiognomy in a Northern mirror, and arranging his
hair with a Northern comb. See him dosing himself with the mendicaments of
Northern quacks, and perfuming his handkerchief with Northern cologne. See
him referring to the time in a Northern watch, and glancing at the news in
a Northern gazette. See him and his family sitting in Northern chairs,
and singing and praying out of Northern books. See him at the breakfast
table, saying grace over a Northern plate, eating with Northern cutlery,
and drinking from Northern utensils. See him charmed with the melody of a
Northern piano, or musing over the pages of a Northern novel. See him
riding to his neighbor's in a Northern carriage, or furrowing his lands
with a Northern plow. See him lighting his segar with a Northern match,
and flogging his negroes with a Northern lash. See him with Northern pen
and ink, writing letters on Northern paper, and sending them away in
Northern envelopes, sealed with Northern wax, and impressed with a
Northern stamp. Perhaps our Southern "gentleman" is a merchant; if so, see
him at his store, making an unpatriotic use of his time in the miserable
traffic of Northern gimcracks and haberdashery; see him when you will,
where you will, he is ever surrounded with the industrial products of
those whom, in the criminal inconsistency of his heart, he execrates as
enemies, yet treats as friends. His labors, his talents, his influence,
are all for the North, and not for the South; for the stability of
slavery, and for the sake of his own personal aggrandizement, he is
willing to sacrifice the dearest interests of his country.
As we see our ruinous system of commerce exemplified in the family of our
Southern "gentleman," so we may see it exemplified, to a greater or less
degree, in almost every other family throughout the length and breadth of
the slaveholding States. We are all constantly buying, and selling, and
wearing, and using Northern merchandise, at a double expense to both
ourselves and our neighbors. If we but look at ourselves attentively, we
shall find that we are all clothed _cap a pie_ in Northern habilaments.
Our hats, our caps, our cravats, our coats, our vests, our pants, our
gloves, our boots, our shoes, our under-garments--all come from the North;
whence, too, Southern ladies procure all their bonnets, plumes, and
flowers; dresses, shawls, and scarfs; frills, ribbons, and ruffles; cuffs,
capes, and collars.
True it is that the South has wonderful powers of endurance and
recuperation; but she cannot forever support the reckless prodigality of
her sons. We are all spendthrifts; some of us should become financiers. We
must learn to take care of our money; we should withhold it from the
North, and open avenues for its circulation at home. We should not run to
New-York, to Philadelphia, to Boston, to Cincinnati, or to any other
Northern city, every time we want a shoe-string or a bedstead, a fish-hook
or a hand-saw, a tooth-pick or a cotton-gin. In ease and luxury we have
been lolling long enough; we should now bestir ourselves, and keep pace
with the progress of the age. We must expand our energies, and acquire
habits of enterprise and industry; we should arouse ourselves from the
couch of lassitude, and inure our minds to thought and our bodies to
action. We must begin to feed on a more substantial diet than that of
pro-slavery politics; we should leave off our siestas and post-meridian
naps, and employ our time in profitable vocations. Before us there is a
vast work to be accomplished--a work which has been accumulating on our
hands for many years. It is no less a work than that of infusing the
spirit of liberty into all our systems of commerce, agriculture,
manufactures, government, literature, and religion. Oligarchal despotism
must be overthrown; slavery must be abolished.
For the purpose of showing how absolutely Southern "gentlemen,"
particularly slaveholding merchants, are lost to all sense of true honor
and patriotism, we will here introduce an extract from an article which
appeared more than three years ago in one of the editorial columns of the
leading daily newspaper of the city of New-York. It is in these words:--
"Southern merchants do indeed keep away from New-York for the reason
that they can't pay their debts; there is no doubt that if the
jobbers of this city had not trusted Southern traders for the past
three years, they would be a great deal better off than they are. * *
* Already our trade with Canada is becoming as promising, sure, and
profitable, as our trade with the South is uncertain, riskful, and
annoying."
Now, by any body of men not utterly debased by the influences of slavery,
this language would have been construed into an invitation to stay at
home. But do Southern merchants stay at home? Do they build up Southern
commerce? No! off they post to the North as regularly as the seasons,
spring and fall, come round, and there, like cringing sycophants, flatter,
beg, and scheme, for favors which they have no money to command.
The better classes of merchants, and indeed of all other people, at the
North, as elsewhere, have too much genuine respect for themselves to wish
to have any dealings whatever with those who make merchandise of human
beings. Limited as is our acquaintance in the city of New-York, we know
one firm there, a large wholesale house, that makes it an invariable rule
never to sell goods to a merchant from the slave States except for cash.
Being well acquainted with the partners, we asked one of them, on one
occasion, why he refused to trust slave-driving merchants. "Because," said
he, "they are too long-winded and uncertain; when we credit them, they
occasion us more loss and bother than their trade is worth."
Non-slaveholders of the South! recollect that slavery is the only
impediment to your progress and prosperity, that it stands diametrically
opposed to all needful reforms, that it seeks to sacrifice you entirely
for the benefit of others, and that it is the one great and only cause of
dishonor to your country. Will you not abolish it? May Heaven help you to
do your duty!
CHAPTER X.
FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE.
Finding that we shall have to leave unsaid a great many things which we
intended to say, and that we shall have to omit much valuable matter, the
product of other pens than our own, but which, having collected at
considerable expense, we had hoped to be able to introduce, we have
concluded to present, under the above heading, only a few of the more
important particulars.
In the first place, we will give an explanation of the reason
WHY THIS WORK WAS NOT PUBLISHED IN BALTIMORE.
A considerable portion of this work was written in Baltimore; and the
whole of it would have been written and published there, but for the
following odious clause, which we extract from the Statutes of Maryland:--
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That after the
passage of this act, it shall not be lawful for any citizen of this
State, knowingly to make, print or engrave, or aid in the making,
printing or engraving, within this State, any pictorial
representation, or to write or print, or to aid in the writing or
printing any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill or other paper of an
inflammatory character, and having a tendency to excite discontent
or stir up insurrection amongst the people of color of this State, or
of either of the other States or Territories of the United States, or
knowingly to carry or send, or to aid in the carrying or sending the
same for circulation amongst the inhabitants of either of the other
States or Territories of the United States, and any person so
offending shall be guilty of a felony, and shall on conviction be
sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary of this State, for a
period not less than ten nor more than twenty years, from the time of
sentence pronounced on such person."--_Act passed Dec. 1831. See 2nd
Dorsey, page 1218._
Now so long as slaveholders are clothed with the mantle of office, so long
will they continue to make laws, like the above, expressly calculated to
bring the non-slaveholding whites under a system of vassalage little less
onerous and debasing than that to which the negroes themselves are
accustomed. What wonder is it that there is no native literature in the
South? The South can never have a literature of her own until after
slavery shall have been abolished. Slaveholders are too lazy and ignorant
to write it, and the non-slaveholders--even the few whose minds are
cultivated at all--are not permitted even to make the attempt. Down with
the oligarchy! Ineligibility of slaveholders--never another vote to the
trafficker in human flesh!
LEGISLATIVE ACTS AGAINST SLAVERY.
In his Compendium of the Seventh Census, Mr. DeBow has compiled the
following useful and highly interesting facts:--
"The Continental Congress of 1774 resolved to discontinue the slave
trade, in which resolution they were anticipated by the Conventions
of Delegates of Virginia and North Carolina. In 1789 the Convention
to frame the federal Constitution, looked to the abolition of the
traffic in 1808. On the 2nd of March, 1807, Congress passed an act
against importations of Africans into the United States after January
1st, 1808. An act in Great Britain in 1807 also made the slave trade
unlawful. Denmark forbid the introduction of African slaves into her
colonies after 1804. The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, pronounced for
the abolition of the trade. France abolished it in 1817, and also
Spain, but the acts were to take effect after 1820. Portugal
abolished it in 1818.
"In Pennsylvania slavery was abolished in 1780. In New Jersey it was
provisionally abolished in 1784; all children born of a slave after
1804 are made free in 1820. In Massachusetts, it was declared after
the revolution, that slavery was virtually abolished by their
Constitution, (1780). In 1784 and 1797, Connecticut provided for a
gradual extinction of slavery. In Rhode Island, after 1784, no person
could be _born_ a slave. The Constitutions of Vermont and New
Hampshire, respectively, abolished slavery. In New York it was
provisionally abolished in 1799, twenty-eight years' ownership being
allowed in slaves born after that date, and in 1817 it was enacted
that slavery was not to exist after ten years, or 1827. The ordinance
of 1787 forbid slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio."
Besides the instances enumerated above, slavery has been abolished in more
than forty different parts of the world within the last half century, and
with good results everywhere, except two or three West India islands,
where the negro population was greatly in excess of the whites; and even
in these, the evils, if any, that have followed, are not justly
attributable to abolition, but to the previous demoralization produced by
slavery.
In this connection we may very properly introduce the testimony of a West
India planter to the relative advantages of Free over Slave Labor. Listen
to Charles Pettyjohn, of Barbadoes, who, addressing himself to a citizen
of our own country, says:--
"In 1834, I came in possession of 257 slaves, under the laws of
England, which required the owner to feed, clothe, and furnish them
with medical attendance. With this number I cultivated my sugar
plantation until the Emancipation Act of August 1st, 1838, when they
all became free. I now hire a portion of those slaves, the best and
cheapest of course, as you hire men in the United States. The average
number which I employ is 100, with which I cultivate more land at a
cheaper rate, and make more produce than I did with 257 slaves. With
my slaves I made from 100 to 180 tons of sugar yearly. With 100 free
negroes I think I do badly if I do not annually produce 250 tons."
If, in the forty and more instances to which we have alluded, the
abolition of slavery had proved injurious in a majority of cases, the
attempt to abolish it elsewhere might, perhaps, be regarded as an
ill-advised effort; but, seeing that its abolition has worked well in at
least fourteen-fifteenths of all the cases on record, the fact becomes
obvious that it is our duty and our interest to continue to abolish it
until the whole world shall be freed, or until we shall begin to see more
evil than good result from our acts of emancipation.
THE TRUE FRIENDS OF THE SOUTH.
Freesoilers and abolitionists are the only true friends of the South;
slaveholders and slave-breeders are downright enemies of their own
section. Anti-slavery men are working for the Union and for the good of
the whole world; proslavery men are working for the disunion of the
States, and for the good of nothing except themselves. Than such men as
Greeley, Seward, Sumner, Clay, and Birney, the South can have no truer
friends--nor can slavery have more implacable foes.
For the purpose of showing that Horace Greeley is not, as he is generally
represented by the oligarchy, an inveterate hater of the South, we will
here introduce an extract from one of his editorial articles in a late
number of the New York _Tribune_--a faithful advocate of freedom, whose
circulation, we are happy to say, is greater than the aggregate
circulation of more than twenty of the principal proslavery sheets
published at the South:--
"Is it in vain that we pile fact upon fact, proof on proof, showing
that slavery is a blight and a curse to the States which cherish it?
These facts are multitudinous as the leaves of the forest; conclusive
as the demonstrations of geometry. Nobody attempts to refute them,
but the champions of slavery extension seem determined to persist in
ignoring them. Let it be understood, then, once for all, that we do
not hate the South, war on the South, nor seek to ruin the South, in
resisting the extension of slavery. We most earnestly believe human
bondage a curse to the South, and to all whom it affects; but we do
not labor for its overthrow otherwise than through the conviction of
the South of its injustice and mischief. Its extension into new
Territories we determinedly resist, not by any means from ill will to
the South, but under the impulse of good will to all mankind. We
believe the establishment of slavery in Kansas or any other Western
Territory would prolong its existence in Virginia and Maryland, by
widening the market and increasing the price of slaves, and thereby
increasing the profits of slave-breeding, and the consequent
incitement thereto. Those who urge that slavery would not go into
Kansas if permitted, wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that it
_has gone_ into Missouri, lying in exactly the same latitude, and is
now strongest in that north-western angle of said State, which was
covertly filched from what is now Kansas, within the last twenty
years. Even if the growth of hemp, corn and tobacco were not so
profitable in Eastern Kansas, as it evidently must be, the growth of
slaves for more Southern consumption would inevitably prove as
lucrative there as in Virginia and Maryland, which lie in
corresponding latitudes, and whose chief staple export to-day
consists of negro bondmen destined for the plantations of Louisiana
and Mississippi, which could be supplied more conveniently and
cheaply from Kansas than from their present breeding-places this side
of the Alleghanies.
Whenever we draw a parallel between Northern and Southern production,
industry, thrift, wealth, the few who seek to parry the facts at all
complain that the instances are unfairly selected--that the
commercial ascendancy of the North, with the profits and facilities
thence accruing, accounts for the striking preponderance of the
North. In vain we insist that slavery is the cause of this very
commercial ascendancy--that Norfolk and Richmond and Charleston might
have been to this country what Boston, New-York and Philadelphia now
are, had not slavery spread its pall over and paralyzed the energies
of the South."
This may be regarded as a fair expression of the sentiments of a great
majority of the people north of Mason and Dixon's line. Our Northern
cousins "do not hate the South, war on the South, nor seek to ruin the
South;" on the contrary, they love our particular part of the nation, and,
like dutiful, sensible, upright men, they would promote its interests by
facilitating the abolition of slavery. Success to their efforts!
SLAVERY THOUGHTFUL--SIGNS OF CONTRITION.
The real condition of the South is most graphically described in the
following doleful admissions from the Charleston _Standard_:--
"In its every aspect our present condition is provincial. We have
within our limits no solitary metropolis of interest or ideas--no
marts of exchange--no radiating centres of opinion. Whatever we have
of genius and productive energy, goes freely in to swell the
importance of the North. Possessing the material which constitutes
two-thirds of the commerce of the whole country, it might have been
supposed that we could have influence upon the councils of foreign
States; but we are never taken into contemplation. It might have been
supposed that England, bound to us by the cords upon which depend the
existence of four millions of her subjects, would be considerate of
our feelings; but receiving her cotton from the North, it is for them
she has concern, and it is her interest and her pleasure to reproach
us. It might have been supposed, that, producing the material which
is sent abroad, to us would come the articles that are taken in
exchange for it; but to the North they go for distribution, and to us
are parcelled out the fabrics that are suited to so remote a section.
Instead, therefore, of New-York being tributary to Norfolk,
Charleston, Savannah or New Orleans, these cities are tributary to
New-York. Instead of the merchants of New-York standing cap in hand
to the merchants of Charleston, the merchants of Charleston stand cap
in hand to the merchants of New-York.--Instead of receiving foreign
ships in Southern waters, and calling up the merchants of the country
to a distribution of the cargo, the merchants of the South are
hurried off to make a distribution elsewhere. In virtue of our
relations to a greater system, we have little development of internal
interests; receiving supplies from the great centre, we have made
little effort to supply ourselves. We support the makers of boots,
shoes, hats, coats, shirts, flannels, blankets, carpets, chairs,
tables, mantels, mats, carriages, jewelry, cradles, couches, coffins,
by the thousand and hundreds of thousands; but they scorn to live
amongst us. They must have the gaieties and splendors of a great
metropolis, and are not content to vegetate upon the dim verge of
this remote frontier.
As it is in material interests, so it is in arts and letters--our
pictures are painted at the North, our books are published at the
North, our periodicals and papers are printed at the North. We are
even fed on police reports and villany from the North. The papers
published at the South which ignore the questions at issue between
the sections are generally well sustained; the books which expose the
evils of our institution are even read with avidity beyond our
limits, but the ideas that are turned to the condition of the South
are intensely provincial. If, as things now are, a man should rise
with all the genius of Shakspeare, or Dickens, or Fielding, or of all
the three combined, and speak from the South, he would not receive
enough to pay the costs of publication. If published at the South,
his book would never be seen or heard of, and published at the North
it would not be read.--So perfect is our provincialism, therefore,
that enterprise is forced to the North for a sphere--talent for a
market--genius for the ideas upon which to work--indolence for ease,
and the tourist for attractions."
This extract exhibits in bold relief, and in small space, a large number
of the present evils of past errors. It is charmingly frank and truthful.
DeQuincey's Confessions of an opium eater are nothing to it. A
distinguished writer on medical jurisprudence informs us that "the
knowledge of the disease is half the cure;" and if it be true, as perhaps
it is, we think the _Standard_ is in a fair way to be reclaimed from the
enormous vices of proslavery statism.
PROGRESS OF FREEDOM IN THE SOUTH.
"Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on."
As well might the oligarchy attempt to stay the flux and reflux of the
tides, as to attempt to stay the progress of Freedom in the South.
Approved of God, the edict of the genius of Universal Emancipation has
been proclaimed to the world, and nothing, save Deity himself, can
possibly reverse it. To connive at the perpetuation of slavery is to
disobey the commands of Heaven. Not to be an abolitionist is to be a
wilful and diabolical instrument of the devil. The South needs to be free,
the South wants to be free, the South _shall_ be free!
The following extracts from Southern journals will show that the glorious
light of a better era has already begun to penetrate and dispel the
portentous clouds of slavery. The Wellsburg (Va.) _Herald_, an independent
paper, referring to the vote of thirteen Democrats from that section,
refusing, in the Virginia Legislature, in 1856, "to appropriate money from
the general treasury for the recapture of runaway slaves," says:--
"We presume these delegates in some degree represent their
constituents, and we are thereby encouraged and built up in the
confidence that there are other interests in Virginia to be seen to
besides those pertaining to slavery."
A non-slaveholding Southron, in the course of a communication in a more
recent number of the same journal, says:--
"We are taxed to support slavery. The clean cash goes out of our own
pockets into the pockets of the slaveholder, and this in many ways. I
will now allude to but two. If a slave, for crime, is put to death or
transported, the owner is paid for him out of the public treasury,
and under this law thousands are paid out every year. Again, a
standing army is kept up in the city of Richmond for no other purpose
than to be ready to quell insurrection among the slaves; this is paid
for out of the public treasury annually. This standing army is called
the public guard, but it is no less a standing army always kept up.
We will quote from the acts of 1856 the expense of these two items to
the State, on the 23d and 24th pages of the acts:--'To pay for slaves
executed and transported, $22,000;' 'to the public guard at Richmond,
$24,000.' This, be it noticed, is only for one year, making near
$50,000 for those two objects in one year; but it can be shown by the
present unequal plan of taxation between slave property and other
property, that this is but a small item of our cash pocketed by the
slaveholders; and yet some will say we have no reason to complain."
The editor of the Wheeling _Gazette_ publishes the following as his
platform on the slavery question:--
"Allying ourself to neither North nor South, on our own hook we adopt
the following platform as our platform on this question, from which
we never have and never will recede. _We may_ FALL _on it, but_ WILL
NEVER LEAVE IT.
The severance of the General Government from slavery.
_The_ REPEAL _of the fugitive slave law._
_The_ REPEAL _of the Nebraska Kansas Bill._
_No more slave territories._
THE PURCHASE AND MANUMISSION OF SLAVES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
OR THE REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT TO FREE TERRITORY."
Says the Baltimore _Clipper_:--
"The South is contending for, and the North against, the extension of
slavery into the territories; but we do not think that either side
would consent to dissolve the Union about the negro population--a
population which we look upon as a curse to the nation, and should
rejoice to see removed to their native clime of Africa."
The _National Era_, _one_ of the best papers in the country, published in
Washington City, D. C., says:--
"The tendency of slavery to diffuse itself, and to crowd out free
labor, was early observed by American patriots, North and South; and
Mr. Jefferson, the great apostle of Republicanism, made an effort, in
1784, to cut short the encroaching tide of barbaric despotism, by
prohibiting slavery in all the territories of the Union, down to
thirty-one degrees of latitude, which was then our Southern boundary.
His beneficent purpose failed, not for want of a decisive majority of
votes present in the Congress of the Confederation, but in
consequence of the absence of the delegates from one or two States,
which were necessary to the constitutional majority. When the subject
again came up, in 1787, Mr. Jefferson was Minister to France, and the
famous ordinance of that year was adopted, prohibiting slavery North
and West of the Ohio river. Between 1784 and 1787, the strides of
slavery westward, into Tennessee and Kentucky, had become too
considerable to admit of the policy of exclusion; and besides those
regions were then integral parts of Virginia and North Carolina, and
of course they could not be touched without the consent of those
States. In 1820, another effort was made to arrest the progress of
slavery, which threatened to monopolize the whole territory west of
the Mississippi. In the meantime the South had apostatized from the
faith of Jefferson. It had ceased to love universal liberty, and the
growing importance of the cotton culture had caused the people to
look with indifference upon the moral deformity of slavery; and, as a
matter of course, the politicians became its apologists and
defenders. After a severe struggle a compromise was agreed upon, by
which Missouri was to be admitted with slavery, which was the
immediate point in controversy; and slavery was to be excluded from
all the territory North and West of that State.
"We have shown, from the most incontestable evidence, that there is
in slave society a much greater tendency to diffuse itself into new
regions, than belongs to freedom, for the reason that it has no
internal vitality. It cannot live if circumscribed, and must, like a
consumptive, be continually roving for a change of air to recuperate
its wasting energies."
In the Missouri Legislature, in January, 1857, Mr. Brown, of St. Louis,
proved himself a hero, a patriot, and a statesman, in the following
words:--
"I am a Free-Soiler and I don't deny it. No word or vote of mine
shall ever inure to the benefit of such a monstrous doctrine as the
extension of Slavery over the patrimony of the free white laborers of
the country. I am for the greatest good of the greatest number, and
against the system which monopolizes the free and fertile territory
of our country for a few slaveholders, to the exclusion of thousands
upon thousands of the sinewy sons of toil. The time will come, and
perhaps very soon, when the people will rule for their own benefit
_and not for that of a class which, numerically speaking, is
insignificant_. I stand here in the midst of the assembled
Legislature of Missouri to avow myself a Free-Soiler. Let those who
are scared at names shrink from the position if they will. I shall
take my stand in favor of the white man. Here in Missouri I shall
support the rights, the dignity and the welfare of the 800,000
non-slaveholders in preference to upholding and perpetuating the
dominancy of the 30,000 slaveholders who inhabit our State."
The St. Louis _Democrat_, in an editorial article, under date of January
28, 1857, entitled itself to the favorable regard of every true lover of
liberty, by talking thus boldly on the subject of the "Emancipation of
Slavery in Missouri":--
"Viewing the question as a subject of State policy, we will venture
to say that it is the grandest ever propounded to the people. If it
were affirmed in a constitutional convention, and thoroughly carried
out without any violation of vested rights, Missouri, in a few years
subsequent to its consummation, would be the foremost State on the
American continent. Population would flow in from all sides were the
barrier of negro slavery once removed, and in place of 80,000 slaves,
we should have 800,000 white men, which, in addition to the
population we would have at that time, would give us at once an
aggregate of two millions.
Is Missouri ambitious of political power?--a power which is slipping
away from the South. The mode of acquiring it is found. We are not
rash enough to attempt a description of our condition if the element
of free labor were introduced. The earth would give up its hidden
treasures at its bidding as the sea will give up its dead; and the
soil would bloom more luxuriantly than if it drank the dews of Hermon
nightly; ten thousand keels would vex our rivers, towns along their
banks would grow into cities, and St. Louis would soon unite in
itself the attributes of the greatest commercial manufacturing and
literary metropolis in the world. Let it be remembered that we have
every inanimate element of wealth and power within our limits, and
that we require only labor--free labor--for we need not say that
servile labor is inadequate. * * *
There need be no pernicious agitation, and even if there should, it
is the penalty which we cannot avoid paying at some time; and it is
easier to pay it now, than in the future. Who that watches passing
events and indications, is not sensible of the fact that great
internal convulsions await the slave States? Better to grapple with
the danger in time, if danger there be, and avert it, than wait until
it becomes formidable. One thing is certain, or history is no guide:
that is, that slavery cannot be perpetuated anywhere. An agitation
now would be the effort of the social system to throw off a disease
which had not touched its vitals; hereafter it would be the struggle
for life with a mortal sickness. But we do not apprehend any
agitation more violent than has been forced upon us for years by the
pro-slavery politicians. Agitating the slavery question, has been
their constant business, and nothing worse has resulted from it than
their elevation to office--no very trifling evil, by the way--and the
temporary subjugation of Kansas.
Besides, we know that all the free States emancipated their slaves,
and England and France theirs suddenly; and we have yet to learn that
a dangerous agitation arose in any instance."
In addition to all this, it is well known, and we thank Heaven for the
fact and for the indication, that, at the election held for Mayor of St.
Louis, in April, 1857, the Abolition candidate, himself a native of
Virginia, was triumphantly elevated to the chief magistracy of the city.
Three cheers for St. Louis! nine for Missouri! thirteen for the South.
In reference to the late election in St. Louis, in which the Emancipation
party triumphed, the Wheeling (Va.) _Intelligencer_ says:--
"These elections do demonstrate this fact, beyond a cavil, that the
sentiment of the great majority of the people of this Union is
irrevocably opposed to the extension of slavery; that they are
determined, if overwhelming public sentiment can avail anything,
another slave State shall not be admitted into the confederacy. And
why are they so determined? Because they believe, and not only
believe, but see and know, that slavery is an unmitigated curse to
the soil that sustains it. They know this, because they see every
free State outstripping every slave State in all the elements that
make a people powerful and prosperous; because they see the people in
the one educated and thrifty, and in the other ignorant and
thriftless; because they have before their eyes a State like our own,
once the very Union itself almost in importance, to-day taking her
rank as a fifth rate power."
Non-slaveholders of the South! fail not to support the papers--the
Southern papers--that support your interests. Chief amongst those papers
are the St. Louis (Mo.) _Democrat_, the _National Era_, published in
Washington City, D. C., the Baltimore _Clipper_, the Wheeling (Va.)
_Intelligencer_, and the Wellsburg (Va.) _Herald_.
A RIGHT FEELING IN THE RIGHT QUARTER.
There is but one way for the oligarchy to perpetuate slavery in the
Southern States, and that is by perpetuating absolute ignorance among the
non-slaveholding whites. This it is quite impossible for them to do. God
has scattered the seeds of knowledge throughout every portion of the
South, and they are, as might have been expected, beginning to take root
in her fertile soil. The following extracts from letters which have been
received since we commenced writing this work, will show how powerfully
the spirit of freedom is operating upon the minds of intelligent, thinking
men in the slave States.
A Baltimorean, writing to us awhile previous to the last Presidential
election, says:--
"I see that the Trustees of the University of North Carolina have
dismissed Prof. Hedrick for writing a letter in favor of Republican
principles. Oh, what an inglorious source of reflection for an
American citizen! To think, to know that our boasted liberty of
speech is a myth, an abstraction. To see a poor professor crushed
under the feet of the tyrannical magnates of slavery, for daring to
speak the honest sentiments of his heart. Where is fanaticism now,
North or South? Oh, my country, my country, whither art thou tending?
Truly we have fallen upon degenerate days. God grant that they may
not be like those of ancient Greece and Rome, the forerunners of our
country's ruin."
In a letter under date of November 1, 1856, a friend who resides in the
eastern part of North Carolina, says:--
"In the papers which reached me last week I notice that our own State
has been disgraced by a junto of pro-slavery hot-spurs, who had the
audacity to meet in Raleigh for the express purpose of concocting
measures for a dissolution of the Union. It appears that the three
leading spirits of this cabal were the present governors of three
neighboring States--three treasonable disturbers of the public peace,
who, under the circumstances, should, in my opinion, have been shot
dead upon the spot! I have each of their names noted down in my
memorandum, and I shall certainly die unsatisfied, if I do not live
to hear of their being thoroughly tarred and feathered, and ridden on
a rail, by the non-slaveholding whites, against whose welfare their
machinations have been chiefly leveled. Rely upon it, that, if they
do not soon sneak away into their graves, a day of retributive
justice will most assuredly overtake them."
A native and resident of one of the towns in western North Carolina, under
date of March 19, 1857, writes to us as follows:--
"While patrolling a few nights ago I was forcibly struck with the
truthfulness of the remarks contained in your last letter.--Here I
am, a poor but sober and industrious man, with a family dependent on
me for support, and after I have finished my day's labor, I am
compelled to walk the streets from nine in the evening till three in
the morning, to restrain the roving propensities of other people's
'property'--niggers. Why should I thus be deprived of sleep that the
slaveholder may slumber? I frankly acknowledge my indebtedness to you
for opening my eyes upon this subject. The more I think and see of
slavery the more I detest it. * * * I am becoming restless, and have
been debating within my own mind whether I had not better emigrate to
a free State. * * * If I live, I am determined to oppose slavery
somewhere--here or elsewhere. It will be impossible for me to keep my
lips sealed much longer. Indeed, I sometimes feel that I have been
remiss in my duty in not having opened them ere now. But for the
unfathomable ignorance that pervades the mass of the poor, deluded,
slavery-saddled whites around me, I would not suppress my sentiments
another hour."
Again, under date of April 7, 1857, he says:--
"I thank God that slavery will, in my opinion, soon be abolished. I
wish to Heaven I had the ability to raise my voice successfully in
favor of a just system to abolish it. I would indeed be rejoiced to
have an opportunity to do something to relieve the South of the awful
curse. Fear not that you will meet with no sympathizers in the South.
You will have hosts of friends on every side--even in this town, if I
am not greatly mistaken, a large majority of the citizens will add
an enthusiastic _Amen!_ to your work."
We might furnish similar extracts from other letters, but these, we think,
are quite sufficient to show that the millennium of freedom is rapidly
dawning throughout the benighted regions of slavery. Coveted events are
happening in charming succession. All we have to do is to wait and work a
little longer.
THE ILLITERATE POOR WHITES OF THE SOUTH.
Had we the power to sketch a true picture of life among the
non-slaveholding whites of the South, every intelligent man who has a
spark of philanthropy in his breast, and who should happen to gaze upon
the picture, would burn with unquenchable indignation at that system of
African slavery which entails unutterable miseries on the superior race.
It is quite impossible, however, to describe accurately the deplorable
ignorance and squalid poverty of the class to which we refer. The serfs of
Russia have reason to congratulate themselves that they are neither the
negroes nor the non-slaveholding whites of the South. Than the latter
there can be no people in Christendom more unhappily situated. Below will
be found a few extracts which will throw some light on the subject now
under consideration.
Says William Gregg, in an address delivered before the South Carolina
Institute, in 1851:--
"From the best estimates that I have been able to make, I put down
the white people who ought to work, and who do not, or who are so
employed as to be wholly unproductive to the State, at one hundred
and twenty-five thousand. Any man who is an observer of things could
hardly pass through our country, without being struck with the fact
that all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence, is employed in
directing slave labor; and the consequence is, that a large portion
of our poor white people are wholly neglected, and are suffered to
while away an existence in a state but one step in advance of the
Indian of the forest. It is an evil of vast magnitude, and nothing
but a change in public sentiment will effect its cure. These people
must be brought into daily contact with the rich and
intelligent--they must be stimulated to mental action, and taught to
appreciate education and the comforts of civilized life; and this, we
believe, may be effected only by the introduction of manufactures. My
experience at Graniteville has satisfied me that unless our poor
people can be brought together in villages, and some means of
employment afforded them, it will be an utterly hopeless effort to
undertake to educate them. We have collected at that place about
eight hundred people, and as likely looking a set of country girls as
may be found--industrious and orderly people, but deplorably
ignorant, three-fourths of the adults not being able to read or to
write their own names.
"It is only necessary to build a manufacturing village of shanties,
in a healthy location, in any part of the State, to have crowds of
these people around you, seeking employment at half the compensation
given to operatives at the North. It is indeed painful to be brought
in contact with such ignorance and degradation."
Again he asks:--
"Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ignorant, degraded
white people among us, who, in this land of plenty, live in
comparative nakedness and starvation? Many a one is reared in _proud_
South Carolina, from birth to manhood, who has never passed a month
in which he has not, some part of the time, been stinted for meat.
Many a mother is there who will tell you that her children are but
scantily provided with bread, and much more scantily with meat; and,
if they be clad with comfortable raiment, it is at the expense of
these scanty allowances of food. These may be startling statements,
but they are nevertheless true; and if not believed in Charleston,
the members of our legislature who have traversed the State in
electioneering campaigns can attest the truth."
In an article on "_Manufactures in South Carolina_," published some time
ago in _DeBow's Review_, J. H. Taylor, of Charleston (S. C.) says:--
"There is in some quarters, a natural jealousy of the slightest
innovation upon established habits, and because an effort has been
made to collect the poor and unemployed white population into our new
factories, fears have arisen that some evil would grow out of the
introduction of such establishments among us. * * * The poor man has
a vote as well as the rich man, and in our State the number of the
former will largely overbalance the latter. So long as these poor but
industrious people can see no mode of living except by a degrading
operation of work with the negro upon the plantation, they will be
content to endure life in its most discouraging forms, satisfied that
they are _above_ the slave, though faring often worse than he."
Speaking in favor of manufactures, the Hon. J. H. Lumpkin, of Georgia,
said in 1852:--
"It is objected that these manufacturing establishments will become
the hotbeds of crime. But I am by no means ready to concede that our
poor, degraded, half-fed, half-clothed, and ignorant
population--without Sabbath Schools, or any other kind of
instruction, mental or moral, or without any just appreciation of
character--will be injured by giving them employment, which will
bring them under the oversight of employers, who will inspire them
with self-respect by taking an interest in their welfare."
In a paper on the "_Extension of Cotton and Wool Factories at the South_,"
Mr. Steadman, of Tennessee, says:--
"In Lowell, labor is paid the fair compensation of 80 cents a day for
men, and $2 a week for women, beside board, while in Tennessee the
average compensation for labor does not exceed 50 cents per day for
men, and $1,25 per week for women."
In the course of a speech which he delivered in Congress several years
ago, Mr. T. L. Clingman, of North Carolina, said:--
"Our manufacturing establishments can obtain the raw material
(cotton) at nearly two cents on the pound cheaper than the
New-England establishments. Labor is likewise one hundred per cent.
cheaper. In the upper parts of the State, the labor of either a free
man or a slave, including board, clothing, &c., can be obtained for
from $110 to $120 per annum. It will cost at least twice that sum in
New-England. The difference in the cost of female labor, whether free
or slave, is even greater."
The Richmond (Va.) _Dispatch_ says:--
"We will only suppose that the ready-made shoes imported into this
city from the North, and sold here, were manufactured in Richmond.
What a great addition it would be to the means of employment! How
many boys and females would find the means of earning their bread,
who are now suffering for a regular supply of the necessaries of
life."
A citizen of New-Orleans, writing in _DeBow's Review_, says:--
"At present the sources of employment open to females (save in menial
offices) are very limited; and an inability to procure suitable
occupation is an evil much to be deplored, as tending in its
consequences to produce demoralization. The superior grades of female
labor may be considered such as imply a necessity for education on
the part of the employee, while the menial class is generally
regarded as of the lowest; and in a slave State, this standard is 'in
the lowest depths, a lower deep,' from the fact that, by association,
it is a reduction of the white servant to the level of their colored
fellow-menials."
Black slave labor, though far less valuable, is almost invariably better
paid than free white labor. The reason is this: The fiat of the oligarchy
has made it _fashionable_ to "have negroes around," and there are, we are
grieved to say, many non-slaveholding-whites, (lickspittles,) who, in
order to retain on their premises a hired slave whom they falsely imagine
secures to them not only the appearance of wealth, but also a position of
high social standing in the community, keep themselves in a perpetual
strait.
Last Spring we made it our special business to ascertain the ruling rates
of wages paid for labor, free and slave, in North Carolina. We found
sober, energetic white men, between twenty and forty years of age, engaged
in agricultural pursuits at a salary of $84 per annum--including board
only; negro men, slaves, who performed little more than half the amount of
labor, and who were exceedingly sluggish, awkward, and careless in all
their movements, were hired out on adjoining farms at an average of about
$115 per annum, including board, clothing, and medical attendance. Free
white men and slaves were in the employ of the North Carolina Railroad
Company; the former, whose services, in our opinion, were at least twice
as valuable as the services of the latter, received only $12 per month
each; the masters of the latter received $16 per month for every slave so
employed. Industrious, tidy white girls, from sixteen to twenty years of
age, had much difficulty in hiring themselves out as domestics in private
families for $40 per annum--board only included; negro wenches, slaves, of
corresponding ages, so ungraceful, stupid and filthy that no decent man
would ever permit one of them to cross the threshold of his dwelling, were
in brisk demand at from $65 to $70 per annum, including victuals, clothes,
and medical attendance. These are facts, and in considering them, the
students of political and social economy will not fail to arrive at
conclusions of their own.
Notwithstanding the greater density of population in the free States,
labor of every kind is, on an average, about one hundred per cent. higher
there than it is in the slave States. This is another important fact, and
one that every non-slaveholding white should keep registered in his mind.
Poverty, ignorance, and superstition, are the three leading
characteristics of the non-slaveholding whites of the South. Many of them
grow up to the age of maturity, and pass through life without ever owning
as much as five dollars at any one time. Thousands of them die at an
advanced age, as ignorant of the common alphabet as if it had never been
invented. All are more or less impressed with a belief in witches, ghosts,
and supernatural signs. Few are exempt from habits of sensuality and
intemperance. None have anything like adequate ideas of the duties which
they owe either to their God, to themselves, or to their fellow-men.
Pitiable, indeed, in the fullest sense of the term, is their condition.
It is the almost utter lack of an education that has reduced them to
their present unenviable situation. In the whole South there is scarcely a
publication of any kind devoted to their interests. They are now
completely under the domination of the oligarchy, and it is madness to
suppose that they will ever be able to rise to a position of true manhood,
until after the slave power shall have been utterly overthrown.
CHAPTER XI.
SOUTHERN LITERATURE.
It is with some degree of hesitation that we add a chapter on Southern
Literature--not that the theme is inappropriate to this work; still less,
that it is an unfruitful one; but our hesitation results from our
conscious inability, in the limited time and space at our command, to do
the subject justice. Few, except those whose experience has taught them,
have any adequate idea of the amount of preparatory labor requisite to the
production of a work into which the statistical element largely enters;
especially is this so, when the statistics desired are not readily
accessible through public and official documents. The author who honestly
aims at entire accuracy in his statements, may find himself baffled for
weeks in his pursuit of a single item of information, not of much
importance in itself perhaps, when separately considered, but necessary in
its connection with others, to the completion of a harmonious whole. Not
unfrequently, during the preparation of the preceding pages, have we been
subjected to this delay and annoyance.
The following brief references to the protracted preparatory labors and
inevitable delays to which authors are subjected, may interest our
readers, and induce them to regard with charity any deficiencies, either
in detail or in general arrangement, which, owing to the necessary haste
of preparation, these concluding pages of our work may exhibit:
Goldsmith was engaged nine years in the preparation of "_The Traveller_,"
and five years in gathering and arranging the incidents of his "_Deserted
Village_," and two years in their versification.
Bancroft, the American Historian, has been more than thirty years engaged
upon his History of the United States, from his projection of the work to
the present date; and that History is not yet completed.
Hildreth, a no less eminent historian, from the time he began to collect
materials for his History of the United States to the date of its
completion, devoted no less than twenty-five years to the work.
Webster, our great lexicographer, gave thirty-five years of his life in
bringing his Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language to the degree
of accuracy and completeness in which we now find it.
Dr. John W. Mason, after ten years' labor in the accumulation of materials
for a Life of Alexander Hamilton, was compelled to relinquish the work on
account of impaired health.
Mr. James Banks, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who recently delivered a
lecture upon the Life and Character of Flora McDonald, was eighteen years
in the collection of his materials.
Oulibicheff, a distinguished Russian author, spent twenty-five years in
writing the Life of Mozart.
Examples of this kind might be multiplied to an almost indefinite extent.
Indeed, almost all the poets, prose-writers, painters, sculptors,
composers, and other devotees of Art, who have won undying fame for
themselves, have done so through long years of earnest and almost
unremitted toil.
We are quite conscious that the fullness and accuracy of statement which
are desirable in this chapter cannot be attained in the brief time allowed
us for its completion; but, though much will necessarily be omitted that
ought to be said, we shall endeavor to make no statement of facts which
are not well authenticated, and no inferences from the same which are not
logically true. We can only promise to do the best in our power, with the
materials at our command, to exhibit the inevitable influence of slavery
upon Southern Literature, and to demonstrate that the accursed institution
so cherished by the oligarchy, is no less prejudicial to our advancement
in letters, than it is destructive of our material prosperity.
What is the actual condition of Literature at the South? Our question
includes more than simple authorship in the various departments of
letters, from the compilation of a primary reader to the production of a
Scientific or Theological Treatise. We comprehend in it all the activities
engaged in the creation, publication, and sale of books and periodicals,
from the penny primer to the heavy folio, and from the dingy, coarse-typed
weekly paper, to the large, well-filled daily.
It were unjust to deny a degree of intellectual activity to the South. It
has produced a few good authors--a few competent editors, and a moderately
large number of clever magazinists, paragraphists, essayists and critics.
Absolutely, then, it must be conceded that the South has something that
may be called a literature; it is only when we speak of her in comparison
with the North, that we say, with a pardonably strong expression, "The
South has no literature." This was virtually admitted by more than one
speaker at the late "Southern Convention" at Savannah. Said a South
Carolina orator on that occasion: "It is important that the South _should
have_ a literature of her own, to defend her principles and her rights;" a
sufficiently plain concession that she has not, now, such a literature.
But _facts_ speak more significantly than the rounded periods of
Convention orators. Let us look at facts, then.
First, turning our attention to the periodical literature of the South, we
obtain these results: By the census of 1850, we ascertain that the entire
number of periodicals, daily, semi-weekly, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly
and quarterly, published in the slave States, including the District of
Columbia, were seven hundred and twenty-two. These had an aggregate
_yearly_ circulation of ninety-two million one hundred and sixty-seven
thousand one hundred and twenty-nine. (92,167,129). The number of
periodicals, of every class, published in the non-slaveholding States
(exclusive of California) was one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three,
with an aggregate yearly circulation of three hundred and thirty-three
million three hundred and eighty-six thousand and eighty-one.
(333,386,081).
We are aware that there may be inaccuracies in the foregoing estimates;
but the compilers of the census, not we, are responsible for them.
Besides, the figures are unquestionably as fair for the South as for the
North; we accept them, therefore, as a just basis of our comparisons.
Nearly seven years have elapsed since these statistics were taken, and
these seven years have wrought an immense change in the journalism of the
North, without any corresponding change in that of the South. It is
noteworthy that, as a general thing, the principal journals of the free
States are more comprehensive in their scope, more complete in every
department, and enlist, if not a higher order of talent, at least _more_
talent, than they did seven years ago. This improvement extends not only
to the metropolitan, but to the country papers also. In fact, the very
highest literary ability, in finance, in political economy, in science, in
statism, in law, in theology, in medicine, in the belles-lettres, is laid
under contribution by the journals of the non-slaveholding States. This is
true only to a very limited degree of Southern journals. Their position,
with but few exceptions, is substantially the same that it was ten years
ago. They are neither worse nor better--the imbecility and inertia which
attaches to everything which slavery touches, clings to them now as
tenaciously as it did when Henry A. Wise thanked God for the paucity of
newspapers in the Old Dominion, and the platitudes of "Father" Ritchie
were recognized as the political gospel of the South. They have not, so
far as we can learn, increased materially in number, nor in the aggregate
of their yearly circulation. In the free States no week passes that does
not add to the number of their journals, and extend the circle of their
readers and their influence. Since the census tables to which we have
referred were prepared, two of the many excellent weekly journals of which
the city of New-York can boast, have sprung into being, and attained an
aggregate circulation more than twice as large as that of the entire
newspaper press of Virginia in 1850--and exceeding, by some thousands, the
aggregate circulation of the two hundred and fifty journals of which
Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, could
boast at the time above-mentioned.
In this connection, we beg leave to introduce the following letter, kindly
furnished us by the proprietors of the N. Y. Tribune, in answer to
enquiries which we addressed to them:--
TRIBUNE OFFICE, New York,}
30th May, 1857. }
MR. H. R. HELPER,
_Sir_:--
In answer to your inquiry we inform you that we employ in our
building one hundred and seventy-six persons regularly: this does not
include our carriers and cartmen, nor does it include the men
employed in the Job Office in our building. During the past year we
have used in printing _The Tribune_, Forty-four thousand nine hundred
and seventy nine (44,979) reams of paper, weighing two million three
hundred and ten thousand one hundred and thirty (2,310,130) pounds.
We publish one hundred and seventy-six thousand copies of our weekly
edition, which goes to press, the second form, at 7-1/2 o'clock, A.
M. and is finished at 2 A. M. the next morning. Our mailers require
eighteen to nineteen hours to mail our Weekly, which makes from
thirty to thirty-two cart loads.
Very respectfully,
GREELEY & MCELRATH.
Throughout the non-slaveholding States, the newspaper or magazine that has
_not_ improved during the last decade of years, is an exception to the
general rule. Throughout the entire slaveholding States, the newspaper or
magazine that _has_ improved during that time, is no less an exception to
the general rule that there obtains. Outside of the larger cities of the
South, there are not, probably, half a dozen newspapers in the whole
slaveholding region that can safely challenge a comparison with the
country-press of the North. What that country-press was twenty years ago,
the country-press of the South is now.
We do not deny that the South has produced able journalists; and that some
of the newspapers of her principal cities exhibit a degree of enterprise
and talent that cannot fail to command for them the respect of all
intelligent men. But these journals, we regret to say, are marked
exceptions to the general condition of the Southern press; and even the
best of these fall far below the standard of excellence attained by the
leading journals of the North. In fact, whether our comparison embraces
quantity only, or extends to both quantity and quality, it is found to be
immeasurably in favor of the non-slaveholding States, which in journalism,
as in all other industrial pursuits, leave their slavery-cursed
competitors at an infinite distance behind them, and thus vindicate the
superiority of free institutions, which, recognizing labor as honorable,
secure its rewards for all.
The literary vassalage of the South to the North constitutes in itself a
most significant commentary upon the diatribes of the former concerning "a
purely Southern literature." To begin at the beginning--the Alphabetical
Blocks and Educational tables from which our Southern abecedarian takes
his initial lesson, were projected and manufactured in the North. Going
forward a step, we find the youngling intent in spelling short sentences,
or gratifying his juvenile fondness for the fine arts by copying the
wood-cuts from his Northern primer. Yet another step, and we discover him
with his Sanders' Reader, his Mitchell's Geography, his Emerson's
Arithmetic, all produced by Northern mind and Northern enterprise. There
is nothing _wrong_ in this; it is only a little ridiculous in view of the
fulminations of the Southern proslavery press against the North.
Occasionally however we are amused by the efforts of the oligarchs to make
their own school-books, or to root out of all educational text-books every
reference to the pestilential heresy of freedom. A "gentleman" in
Charleston, S. C. is devoting his energies to the preparation of a series
of pro-slavery elementary works, consisting of primers, readers, &c.--and
lo! they are all printed, stitched and bound north of Mason and Dixon's
line! A single _fact_ like this is sufficient to overturn whole folios of
_theory_ concerning the divinity of slavery. The truth is, that, not
school-books alone, but works of almost every class produced by the South,
depend upon Northern enterprise and skill for their introduction to the
public. Mr. DeBow, the eminent Statistician, publishes a Southern Review,
purporting to be issued from New Orleans. It is printed and bound in the
city of New York. We clip the following paragraph from a recent number of
the Vicksburgh (Miss.) _Whig_:--
"SOUTHERN ENTERPRIZE.--Even the Mississippi Legislature, at its late
session allowed its laws to go to Boston to be printed, and made an
appropriation of $3,000 to pay one of its members to go there and
read the proof sheets instead of having it done in the State, and
thereby assisting in building up a Southern publishing house. What a
commentary on the Yankee-haters!"
The Greensboro (N. C.) _Patriot_ thus records a similar contribution, on
the part of that State, to "the creation of a purely Southern Literature:"
"We have heard it said, that those who had the control of the
printing of the revised Statutes of North Carolina, in order to save
a few dimes, had the work executed in Boston, in preference to giving
the job to a citizen of this State. We impugn not the motives of the
agents in this matter; but it is a little humiliating that no work
except the commonest labor, can be done in North Carolina; that
everything which requires a little skill, capital, or ingenuity, must
be sent North. In the case under consideration, we have heard it
remarked, that when the whole bill of expenses connected with the
printing of the Revised Statutes in Boston was footed up, it only
amounted to a few thousand dollars more than the job would have cost
in this State. But then we have the consolation of knowing that the
book _came from the North_, and that it was printed among the
_abolitionists_ of Boston; the _peculiar friends_ of North Carolina
and the South generally.--Of course we ought to be willing to pay a
few extra thousands in consideration of these important facts!"
Southern divines give us elaborate "Bible Arguments;" Southern statists
heap treatise upon treatise through which the Federal Constitution is
tortured into all monstrous shapes; Southern novelists bore us _ad
infinitum_ with pictures of the beatitudes of plantation life and the
negro-quarters; Southern verse-wrights drone out their drowsy dactyls or
grow ventricous with their turgid heroics all in defence of
slavery,--priest, politician, novelist, bardling, severally ringing the
changes upon "the Biblical institution," "the conservative institution,"
"the humanizing institution," "the patriarchal institution"--and
then--have their books printed on Northern paper, with Northern types, by
Northern artizans, stitched, bound and made ready for the market by
Northern industry; and yet fail to see in all this, as a true
philosophical mind _must_ see, an overwhelming refutation of their
miserable sophisms in behalf of a system against which humanity in all its
impulses and aspirations, and civilization in all its activities and
triumphs, utter their perpetual protest.
From a curious article in the "American Publishers Circular" on "Book
Making in America," we give the following extracts:
"It is somewhat alarming to know that the number of houses now
actually engaged in the publishing of books, not including
periodicals, amounts to more than three hundred. About three-fourths
of these are engaged in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore--the balance being divided between Cincinnati, Buffalo,
Auburn, Albany, Louisville, Chicago, St. Louis, and a few other
places. There are more than three thousand booksellers who dispense
the publications of these three hundred, besides six or seven
thousand apothecaries, grocers, and hardware dealers, who connect
literature with drugs, molasses, and nails.
"The best printing in America is probably now done in Cambridge; the
best cloth binding in Boston, and the best calf and morocco in
New-York and Philadelphia. In these two latter styles we are, as yet,
a long distance from Heyday, the pride of London. His finish is
supreme. There is nothing between it and perfection.
"Books have multiplied to such an extent in our country, that it now
takes 750 paper mills, with 2,000 engines in constant operation, to
supply the printers, who work day and night, endeavoring to keep
their engagements with publishers. These tireless mills produced
270,000,000 pounds of paper the past year, which immense supply has
sold for about $27,000,000. A pound and a quarter of rags were
required for a pound of paper, and 400,000,000 pounds were therefore
consumed in this way last year. The cost of manufacturing a twelve
months' supply of paper for the United States, aside from labor and
rags, is computed at $4,000,000. * * *
"The Harper establishment, the largest of our publishing houses,
covers half an acre of ground. If old Mr. Caxton, who printed those
stories of the Trojan war so long ago, could follow the Ex-Mayor of
New-York in one of his morning rounds in Franklin Square, he would
be, to say the least, a little surprised. He would see in one room
the floor loaded with the weight of 150 tons of presses. The
electrotyping process would puzzle him somewhat; the drying and
pressing process would startle him; the bustle would make his head
ache; and the stock-room would quite finish him. An edition of
Harpers' Monthly Magazine alone consists of 175,000. Few persons have
any idea how large a number this is as applied to the edition of a
book. It is computed that if these magazines were to rain down, and
one man should attempt to pick them up like chips, it would take him
a fortnight to pick up the copies of one single number, supposing him
to pick up one every second, and to work ten hours a day."
"The rapidity with which books are now manufactured is almost
incredible. A complete copy of one of Bulwer's novels, published
across the water in three volumes, and reproduced here in one, was
swept through the press in New-York in fifty hours, and offered for
sale smoking hot in the streets. The fabulous edifice proposed by a
Yankee from Vermont, no longer seems an impossibility. 'Build the
establishment according to my plan,' said he; 'drive a sheep in at
one end, and he shall immediately come out at the other, four
quarters of lamb, a felt hat, a leather apron, and a quarto Bible.'"
The business of the Messrs. Harper, whose establishment is referred to in
the foregoing extract, is probably more generally diffused over every
section of this country than that of any other publishing house. From
enquiries recently made of them we learn that they issue, on an average,
3,000 bound volumes per day, throughout the year, and that each volume
will average 500 pages--making a total of about one million of volumes,
and not less than five hundred millions of pages per annum. This does not
include the Magazine and books in pamphlet form, each of which contains as
much matter as a bound volume.--Their bills for paper exceed $300,000
annually, and as the average cost is fifteen cents per pound, they consume
more than two millions of pounds--say one thousand tons of white paper.
There are regularly employed in their own premises about 550 persons,
including printers, binders, engravers, and clerks. These are all paid in
full once a fortnight in bankable money. Besides these, there are numerous
authors and artists in every section of the country, who furnish
manuscripts and illustrations, on terms generally satisfactory to all the
parties interested.
The Magazine has a monthly circulation of between 115,000 and 200,000, or
about two millions of copies annually. Each number of the Magazine is
closed up about the fifth of the month previous to its date. Three or four
days thereafter the mailing begins, commencing with more distant
subscribers, all of whom are supplied before any copies are sold for
delivery in New-York. The intention of the publishers is, that it shall be
delivered as nearly as possible on the same day in St. Louis,
New-Orleans, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, and New-York. It takes from
ten to twelve days to dispatch the whole edition, (which weighs between
four and five tons,) by mail and express.
Their new periodical, "Harpers' Weekly," has, in a little more than four
months, reached a sale of nearly 70,000 copies. The mailing of this
commences on Tuesday night, and occupies about three days.
Ex-Mayor Harper, whom we have found to be one of the most affable and
estimable gentlemen in the city of New-York, informed us, sometime ago,
that, though he had no means of knowing positively, he was of the opinion
that about eighty per cent. of all their publications find final
purchasers in the free States--the remainder, about twenty per cent., in
the slave States. Yet it is probable that, with one or two exceptions, no
other publishing house in the country has so large a per centage of
Southern trade.
Of the "more than three hundred houses engaged in the publication of
books," to which the writer in the "American Publishers' Circular" refers,
upwards of nine-tenths of the number are in the non-slaveholding States,
and these represent not less than ninety-nine hundredths of the whole
capital invested in the business. Baltimore has twice as many publishers
as any other Southern city; and nearly as many as the whole South beside.
The census returns of 1850 give but twenty-four publishers for the entire
South, and ten of these were in Maryland. The relative disproportion which
then existed in this branch of enterprise, between the North and the
South, still exists; or, if it has been changed at all, that change is in
favor of the North. So of all the capital, enterprise and industry
involved in the manufacture of the _material_ that enters into the
composition of books. All the paper manufactories of the South do not
produce enough to supply a single publishing house in the city of
New-York.--Perhaps "a Southern Literature" does not necessarily involve
the enterprises requisite to the _manufacture_ of books; but experience
has shown that there is a somewhat intimate relation between the author,
printer, paper-maker and publisher; in other words, that the intellectual
activity which expresses itself in books, is measurable by the mechanical
activities engaged in their manufacture.--Thus a State that is fruitful in
authors will almost necessarily be fruitful in publishers; and the number
of both classes will be proportioned to the _reading_ population. The
poverty of Southern literature is legitimately shown, therefore, in the
paucity of Southern publishers. We do not deny a high degree of cultivated
talent to the South; we are familiar with the names of her sons whose
genius has made them eminent; all that we insist upon is, that the same
accursed influence which has smitten her industrial enterprises with
paralysis, and retarded indefinitely her material advancement, has exerted
a corresponding influence upon her literature. How it has done this we
shall more fully indicate before we close the chapter.
At the "Southern Convention" held some months since at Savannah, a good
deal was said about "Southern literature," and many suggestions made in
reference to the best means for its promotion. One speaker thought that
"they could get text-books at home without going to either Old England or
New England for them." Well--they can try. The effort will not harm them;
nor the North either. The orator was confident "that the South had talent
enough to do anything that needs to be done, and independence enough to do
it." The _talent_ we shall not deny; the _independence_ we are ready to
believe in when we see it. When she throws off the incubus of slavery
under which she goes staggering like the Sailor of Bagdad under the weight
of the Old Man of the Sea, she will prove her independence, and
demonstrate her ability "to do anything that needs to be done." Till then
she is but a fettered giant, whose vitals are torn by the dogs which her
own folly has engendered.
Another speaker, on the occasion referred to, half-unconsciously it would
seem, threw a gleam of light upon the subject under discussion, which, had
not himself and his hearers been bat-blind, would have revealed the clue
that conducts from the darkness in which they burrow to the day of
redemption for the South. Said he:--
"Northern publishers employ the talent of the South and of the whole
country to write for them, and pour out thousands annually for it;
but Southern men expect to get talent without paying for it. The
_Southern Quarterly Review_ and the _Literary Messenger_ are
literally struggling for existence, for want of material aid. * * *
It is not the South that builds up Northern literature--_they do it
themselves_. There is talent and mind and poetic genius enough in the
South to build up a literature of a high order; but Southern
publishers cannot get money enough to assist them in their
enterprises, and, therefore, the South has no literature.
Here are truths. "Southern men expect to get talent without paying for
it." A very natural expectation, considering that they have been
accustomed to have all their material wants supplied by the uncompensated
toil of their slaves. In this instance it may seem an absurd one, but it
results legitimately from the system of slavery. That system, in fact,
operates in a two-fold way against the Southern publisher: first, by its
practical repudiation of the scriptural axiom that the laborer is worthy
of his hire; and secondly, by restricting the circle of readers through
the ignorance which it inevitably engenders. How is it that the people of
the North build up their literature?--Two words reveal the secret:
_intelligence--compensation_. They are _a reading people_--the poorest
artizan or day-laborer has his shelf of books, or his daily or weekly
paper, whose contents he seldom fails to master before retiring at night;
and _they are accustomed to pay for all the books and papers which they
peruse_. Readers and payers--these are the men who insure the prosperity
of publishers. Where a system of enforced servitude prevails, it is very
apt to beget loose notions about the obligation of paying for anything;
and many minds fail to see the distinction, morally, between compelling
Sambo to pick cotton without paying him wages, or compelling Lippincott &
Co. to manufacture books for the planter's pleasure or edification upon
the same liberal terms. But more than this--where a system of enforced
servitude prevails, a fearful degree of ignorance prevails also, as its
necessary accompaniment. The enslaved masses are, of course, thrust back
from the fountains of knowledge by the strong arm of law, while the poor
non-slaveholding classes are almost as effectually excluded from the
institutions of learning by their poverty--the sparse population of
slaveholding districts being unfavorable to the maintenance of free
schools, and the exigencies of their condition forbidding them to avail
themselves of any more costly educational privileges.
Northern publishers can "employ the talent of the South and of the whole
country to write for them, and pour out thousands annually for it," simply
because a _reading_ population, accustomed to _pay_ for the service which
it receives, enables them to do so. A similar population at the South
would enable Southern publishers to do the same. Substitute free labor for
slave labor, the institutions of freedom for those of slavery, and it
would not long remain true that "Southern publishers cannot get money
enough to assist them in their enterprises, and therefore the South has no
literature." This is the discovery which the South Carolina orator from
whom we quote, but narrowly escaped making, when he stood upon its very
edge, and rounded his periods with the truths in whose unapprehended
meanings was hidden this germ of redemption for a nation.
The self-stultification of folly, however, was never more evident than it
is in the current gabble of the oligarchs about a "Southern literature."
They do not mean by it a healthy, manly, normal utterance of unfettered
minds, without which there can be no proper literature; but an emasculated
substitute therefor, from which the element of freedom is eliminated;
husks, from which the kernel has escaped--a body, from which the
vitalizing spirit has fled--a literature which ignores manhood by
confounding it with brutehood; or, at best, deals with all similes of
freedom as treason against the "peculiar institution." There is not a
single great name in the literary annals of the old or new world that
could dwarf itself to the stature requisite to gain admission into the
Pantheon erected by these devotees of the Inane for their Lilliputian
deities. Thank God, a "Southern literature," in the sense intended by the
champions of slavery, is a simple impossibility, rendered such by that
exility of mind which they demand in its producers as a prerequisite to
admission into the guild of Southern authorship. The tenuous thoughts of
such authorlings could not survive a single breath of manly criticism. The
history of the rise, progress, and decline of their literature could be
easily written on a child's smooth palm, and leave space enough for its
funeral oration and epitaph. The latter might appropriately be that which,
in one of our rural districts, marks the grave of a still-born infant:--
"If so early I am done for,
I wonder what I was begun for!"
We desire to see the South bear its just proportion in the literary
activities and achievements of our common country. It has never yet done
so, and it never will until its own manhood is vindicated in the abolition
of slavery. The impulse which such a measure would give to all industrial
pursuits that deal with the elements of material prosperity, would be
imparted also to the no less valuable but more intangible creations of the
mind. Take from the intellect of the South the incubus which now oppresses
it, and its rebound would be glorious; the era of its diviner
inspirations would begin; and its triumphs would be a perpetual
vindication of the superiority of free institutions over those of slavery.
To Duyckinck's "Cyclopedia of American Literature"--a sort of
_Omnium-gatherum_ that reminds one of Jeremiah's figs--we are indebted for
the following facts: The whole number of "American authors" whose place of
nativity is given, is five hundred and sixty-nine. Of these seventy-nine
were foreign born, eighty-seven were natives of the South, and four
hundred and three--a vast majority of the whole, first breathed the vital
air in the free North. Many of those who were born in the South, received
their education in the North, quite a number of whom became permanent
residents thereof. Still, for the purposes of this computation, we count
them on the side of the South. Yet how significant the comparison which
this computation furnishes! Throwing the foreign born (adopted citizens,
mostly residents of the North) out of the reckoning, and the record
stands,--Northern authors _four hundred and three_; Southern,
_eighty-seven_--a difference of three hundred and sixteen in favor of the
North! And this, probably, indicates very fairly the relative intellectual
activity of the two sections.
We accept the facts gleaned from Duyckinck's work as a basis, simply, of
our estimate: not as being absolutely accurate in themselves, though they
are doubtless reliable in the main, and certainly as fair for the South as
they are for the North. We might dissent from the judgment of the compiler
in reference to the propriety of applying the term "literature" to much
that his compilation contains; but as tastes have proverbially differed
from the days of the venerable dame who kissed her cow--not to extend our
researches into the condition of things anterior to that interesting
event--we will not insist upon _our_ view of the matter, but take it for
granted that he has disentombed from forgotten reviews, newspapers,
pamphlets, and posters, a fair relative proportion of "authors" for both
North and South, for which "American Literature" is unquestionably under
infinite obligations to him!
Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America" and Thomas Buchanan Read's
"Female Poets of America" furnish evidence, equally conclusive, of the
benumbing influence of slavery upon the intellect of a country. Of course,
these compilers say nothing about Slavery, and probably never thought of
it in connection with their respective works, but none the less
significant on that account is the testimony of the _facts_ which they
give. From the last edition of Griswold's compilation, (which contains the
names of none of our female writers, he having included them in a separate
volume) we find the names of one hundred and forty-one writers of verse:
of these _one_ was foreign-born, _seventeen_ natives of the slaveholding,
and _one hundred and twenty-three_ of the non-slaveholding States. Of our
female poets, whose nativity is given by Mr. Read, _eleven_ are natives of
the South; and _seventy-three_ of the North! These simple arithmetical
figures are God's eternal Scripture against the folly and madness of
Slavery, and need no aid of rhetoric to give emphasis to the startling
eloquence of their revelations.
But, after all, literature is not to be estimated by cubic feet or pounds
averdupois, nor measured by the bushel or the yardstick. Quality, rather
than quantity, is the true standard of estimation. The fact, however,
matters little for our present purpose; for the South, we are sorry to
say, is as much behind the North in the former as in the latter. We do not
forget the names of Gayarre, Benton, Simms, and other eminent citizens of
the Slave States, who have by their contributions to American letters
conferred honor upon themselves and upon our common country, when we
affirm, that those among our authors who enjoy a cosmopolitan reputation,
are, with a few honorable exceptions, natives of the Free North; and that
the names which most brilliantly illustrate our literature, in its every
department, are those which have grown into greatness under the nurturing
influence of free institutions. "Comparisons are odious," it is said; and
we will not, unnecessarily, render them more so, in the present instance,
by contrasting, name by name, the literary men of the South with the
literary men of the North. We do not depreciate the former, nor
overestimate the latter. But let us ask, whence come our geographers, our
astronomers, our chemists, our meteorologists, our ethnologists, and
others, who have made their names illustrious in the domain of the Natural
Sciences? Not from the Slave States, certainly. In the Literature of Law,
the South can furnish no name that can claim peership with those of Story
and of Kent; in History, none that tower up to the altitude of Bancroft,
Prescott, Hildreth, Motley and Washington Irving; in Theology, none that
can challenge favorable comparison with those of Edwards, Dwight,
Channing, Taylor, Bushnell, Tyler and Wayland in Fiction, none that take
rank with Cooper, and Mrs. Stowe; and but few that may do so with even the
second class novelists of the North;[9] in Poetry, none that can command
position with Bryant, Halleck, and Percival, with Whittier, Longfellow,
and Lowell, with Willis, Stoddard and Taylor, with Holmes, Saxe, and
Burleigh; and--we might add twenty other Northern names before we found
their Southern peer, with the exception of poor Poe, who, within a narrow
range of subjects, showed himself a poet of consummate art, and occupies a
sort of debatable ground between our first and second-class writers.
We might extend this comparison to our writers in every department of
letters, from the compiler of school-books to the author of the most
profound ethical treatise, and with precisely the same result. But we
forbear. The task is distasteful to our State pride, and would have been
entirely avoided had not a higher principle urged us to its performance.
It remains for us now to enquire,
WHAT HAS PRODUCED THIS LITERARY PAUPERISM OF THE SOUTH? One single word,
most pregnant in its terrible meanings, answers the question. That word
is--SLAVERY! But we have been so long accustomed to the ugly thing itself,
and have become so familiar with its no less ugly fruits, that the common
mind fails to apprehend the connection between the one, as cause, and the
other as effect; and it therefore becomes necessary to give a more
detailed answer to our interrogatory.
Obviously, then, the conditions requisite to a flourishing literature are
wanting at the South. These are--
I. Readers. The people of the South are not a reading people. Many of the
adult population never learned to read; still more, do not care to read.
We have been impressed, during a temporary sojourn in the North, with the
difference between the middle and laboring classes in the Free States, and
the same classes in the Slave States, in this respect. Passing along the
great routes of travel in the former, or taking our seat in the
comfortable cars that pass up and down the avenues of our great commercial
metropolis, we have not failed to contrast the employment of our
fellow-passengers with that which occupies the attention of the
corresponding classes on our various Southern routes of travel. In the one
case, a large proportion of the passengers seem intent upon mastering the
contents of the newspaper, or some recently published book. The merchant,
the mechanic, the artizan, the professional man, and even the common
laborer, going to or returning from their daily avocations, are busy with
their morning or evening paper, or engaged in an intelligent discussion of
some topic of public interest. This is their leisure hour, and it is given
to the acquisition of such information as may be of immediate or ultimate
use, or to the cultivation of a taste for elegant literature. In the other
case, newspapers and books seem generally ignored, and noisy discussions
of village and State politics, the tobacco and cotton crops, filibusterism
in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Sonora, the price of negroes generally, and
especially of "fine-looking wenches," the beauties of lynch-law, the
delights of horse-racing, the excitement of street fights with
bowie-knives and revolvers, the "manifest destiny" theory that justifies
the stealing of all territory contiguous to our own, and kindred topics,
constitute the warp and woof of conversation. All this is on a level with
the general intelligence of the Slave States. It is true, these States
have their educated men,--the majority of whom owe their literary culture
to the colleges of the North. Not that there are no Southern colleges--for
there are institutions, so called, in a majority of the Slave
States.--Some of them, too, are not deficient in the appointments
requisite to our higher educational institutions; but as a general thing,
Southern colleges are colleges only in _name_, and will scarcely take rank
with a third-rate Northern academy, while our academies, with a few
exceptions, are immeasurably inferior to the public schools of New-York,
Philadelphia, and Boston. The truth is, there is a vast inert mass of
stupidity and ignorance, too dense for individual effort to enlighten or
remove, in all communities cursed with the institution of slavery.
Disguise the unwelcome truth as we may, slavery is the parent of
ignorance, and ignorance begets a whole brood of follies and of vices, and
every one of these is inevitably hostile to literary culture. The masses,
if they think of literature at all, think of it only as a costly luxury,
to be monopolized by the few.
The proportion of white adults over twenty years of age, in each State,
who cannot read and write, to the _whole_ white population, is as follows:
Connecticut, 1 to every 568
Vermont, 1 " 473
N. Hampshire, 1 " 310
Massachusetts, 1 " 166
Maine, 1 " 108
Michigan, 1 " 97
Rhode Island, 1 " 67
New Jersey, 1 " 58
New York, 1 " 56
Pennsylvania, 1 " 50
Ohio, 1 " 43
Indiana, 1 " 18
Illinois, 1 " 17
Louisiana, 1 to every 38-1/2
Maryland 1 " 27
Mississippi, 1 " 20
Delaware, 1 " 18
South Carolina, 1 " 17
Missouri, 1 " 16
Alabama, 1 " 15
Kentucky, 1 " 13-1/2
Georgia, 1 " 13
Virginia, 1 " 12-1/2
Arkansas, 1 " 11-1/2
Tennessee, 1 " 11
North Carolina, 1 " 7
In this table, Illinois and Indiana are the only Free States which, in
point of education, are surpassed by any of the Slave States; and this
disgraceful fact is owing, principally, to the influx of foreigners, and
to immigrants from the Slave States. New-York, Rhode Island, and
Pennsylvania have also a large foreign element in their population, that
swells very considerably this percentage of ignorance. For instance,
New-York shows, by the last census, a population of 98,722 who cannot read
and write, and of this number 68,052 are foreigners; Rhode Island, 3,607,
of whom 2,359 are foreigners; Pennsylvania, 76,272, of whom 24,989 are
foreigners. On the other hand, the ignorance of the Slave States is
principally _native_ ignorance, but comparatively few emigrants from
Europe seeking a home upon a soil cursed with "the peculiar institution."
North Carolina has a foreign population of only 340, South Carolina only
104, Arkansas only 27, Tennessee only 505, and Virginia only 1,137, who
cannot read and write; while the aggregate of _native_ ignorance in these
five States (exclusive of the _slaves_, who are debarred all education by
_law_) is 278,948! No longer ago than 1837, Governor Clarke, of Kentucky,
in his message to the Legislature of that State, declared that "by the
computation of those most familiar with the subject, _one-third of the
adult population of the State are unable to write their names_;" and
Governor Campbell, of Virginia, reported to the Legislature, that "from
the returns of ninety-eight clerks, it appeared that of 4,614 applications
for marriage licenses in 1837, no less than 1,047 were made by men unable
to write."
In the Slave States the proportion of free white children between the ages
of five and twenty, who are found at any school or college, is not quite
_one-fifth_ of the whole; in the Free States, the proportion is more than
_three-fifths_.
We could fill our pages with facts like these to an almost indefinite
extent, but it cannot be necessary. No truth is more demonstrable, nay, no
truth has been more abundantly demonstrated, than this: that Slavery is
hostile to general education; its strength, its very life, is in the
ignorance and stolidity of the masses; it naturally and necessarily
represses general literary culture. To talk, therefore, of the "creation
of a purely Southern Literature," without _readers_ to demand, or
_writers_ to produce it, is the mere babble of idiocy.
II. Another thing essential to the creation of a literature is MENTAL
FREEDOM. How much of _that_ is to be found in the region of Slavery? We
will not say that there is _none_; but if it exists, it exists as the
outlawed antagonist of human chattelhood. He who believes that the
despotism of the accursed institution expends its malignant forces upon
the _slave_, leaving intact the white and (so called) free population, is
the victim of a most monstrous delusion. One end of the yoke that bows the
African to the dust, presses heavily upon the neck of his Anglo-Saxon
master. The entire mind of the South either stultifies itself into
acquiescence with Slavery, succumbs to its authority, or chafes in
indignant protest against its monstrous pretensions and outrageous
usurpations. A free press is an institution almost unknown at the South.
Free speech is considered as treason against slavery: and when people dare
neither speak nor print their thoughts, free thought itself is well nigh
extinguished. All that can be said in _defence_ of human bondage, may be
spoken freely; but question either its morality or its policy, and the
terrors of lynch law are at once invoked to put down the pestilent heresy.
The legislation of the Slave States for the suppression of the freedom of
speech and the press, is disgraceful and cowardly to the last degree, and
can find its parallel only in the meanest and bloodiest despotisms of the
Old World. No institution that could bear the light would thus sneakingly
seek to burrow itself in utter darkness. Look, too, at the mobbings,
lynchings, robberies, social and political proscriptions, and all manner
of nameless outrages, to which men in the South have been subjected,
simply upon the suspicion that they were the enemies of Slavery. We could
fill page after page of this volume with the record of such atrocities.
But a simple reference to them is enough. Our countrymen have not yet
forgotten why John C. Underwood was, but a few months since, banished from
his home in Virginia, and the accomplished Hedreck driven from his College
professorship in North Carolina. They believed Slavery inimical to the
best interest of the South, and for daring to give expression to this
belief in moderate yet manly language, they were ostracised by the
despotic Slave Power, and compelled to seek a refuge from its vengeance in
States where the principles of freedom are better understood. Pending the
last Presidential election, there were thousands, nay, tens of thousands
of voters in the Slave States, who desired to give their suffrages for the
Republican nominee, John C. Fremont, himself a Southron, but a
non-slaveholder. The Constitution of the United States guaranteed to these
men an expression of their preference at the ballot-box. But were they
permitted such an expression? Not at all. They were denounced, threatened,
overawed, by the Slave Power--and it is not too much to say that there was
really no _Constitutional election_,--that is, no such free expression of
political preferences as the Constitution aims to secure--in a majority of
the Slave States.
From a multiplicity of facts like these, the inference is unavoidable,
that Slavery tolerates no freedom of the press--no freedom of speech--no
freedom of opinion. To expect that a whole-souled, manly literature can
flourish under such conditions, is as absurd as it would be to look for
health amid the pestilential vapors of a dungeon, or for the continuance
of animal life without the aid of oxygen.
III. Mental activity--force--enterprise--are requisite to the creation of
literature. Slavery tends to sluggishness--imbecility--inertia. Where free
thought is treason, the masses will not long take the trouble of thinking
at all. Desuetude begets incompetence--the _dare-not_ soon becomes the
_cannot_. The mind thus enslaved, necessarily loses its interest in the
processes of other minds; and its tendency is to sink down into absolute
stolidity or sottishness. Our remarks find melancholy confirmation in the
abject servilism in which multitudes of the non-slaveholding whites of the
South are involved. In them, ambition, pride, self-respect, hope, seem
alike extinct. Their slaveholding fellows are, in some respects, in a
still more unhappy condition--helpless, nerveless, ignorant, selfish; yet
vain-glorious, self-sufficient and brutal. Are these the chosen architects
who are expected to build up "a purely Southern literature?"
The truth is, slavery destroys, or vitiates, or pollutes, whatever it
touches. No interest of society escapes the influence of its clinging
curse. It makes Southern religion a stench in the nostrils of
Christendom--it makes Southern politics a libel upon all the principles of
Republicanism--it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honorable
profession of letters. Than the better class of Southern authors
themselves, none will feel more keenly the truth of our remarks. They
write books, but can find for them neither publishers nor remunerative
sales at the South. The executors of Calhoun seek, for his works, a
Northern publisher. Benton writes history and prepares voluminous
compilations, which are given to the world through a Northern publisher.
Simms writes novels and poems, and they are scattered abroad from the
presses of a Northern publisher. Eighty per cent. of all the copies sold
are probably bought by Northern readers.
When will Southern authors understand their own interests? When will the
South, as a whole, abandoning its present suicidal policy, enter upon that
career of prosperity, greatness, and true renown, to which God by his word
and his providences, is calling it? "If thou take away from the midst of
thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger and speaking vanity; and if
thou draw out thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul; then
shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the noonday: And
the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought, and
make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a
spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee
shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of
many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach,
The restorer of paths to dwell in."
Our limits, not our materials, are exhausted. We would gladly say more,
but can only, in conclusion, add as the result of our investigations in
this department of our subject, that _Literature and Liberty are
inseparable; the one can never have a vigorous existence without being
wedded to the other_.
Our work is done. It is the voice of the non-slaveholding whites of the
South, through one identified with them by interest, by feeling, by
position. That voice, by whomsoever spoken, must yet be heard and heeded.
The time hastens--the doom of slavery is written--the redemption of the
South draws nigh.
In taking leave of our readers, we know not how we can give more forcible
expression to our thoughts and intentions than by saying that, in concert
with the intelligent free voters of the North, we, the non-slaveholding
whites of the South, expect to elevate JOHN C. FREMONT, CASSIUS M. CLAY,
JAMES G. BIRNEY, or some other Southern non-slaveholder, to the Presidency
in 1860; and that the patriot thus elevated to that dignified station
will, through our cordial co-operation, be succeeded by WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
CHARLES SUMNER, JOHN MCLEAN, or some other non-slaveholder of the
North;--and furthermore, that if, in these or in any other similar cases,
the oligarchs do not quietly submit to the will of a constitutional
majority of the people, as expressed at the ballot-box, the first battle
between freedom and slavery will be fought at home--and may God defend the
right!
THE END.
GENERAL INDEX.
Abstract of the Author's Plan for the Abolition of Slavery, 155.
Achenwall, 29.
Adams, John Quincy, 239.
Agriculture and other out-door pursuits, number of free white male
Southrons engaged in, 298.
Agricultural Products.--See Corn, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Barley, Hay, Cotton,
Tobacco, &c. &c.
Animals Slaughtered, Value of, 71.
Anti-slavery Letters from native Southrons, 374.
Area of the several States and Territories, 143.
Aristotle, 256.
Attorneys-General, 312.
Baltimore, Letter from the Mayor of, 337.
Baltimore, Past, Present, and Future, 352.
Baltimore, Why this Work was not published there, 360.
Bancroft, George, 384.
Bank Capital of the several States, 286.
Banks, James, 384.
Baptist Testimony, 263.
Barley, 36.
Barnes, Rev. Albert, 259.
Beans and Peas, 37.
Beattie, James, 251.
Beeswax and Honey, 64.
Benton, Thomas II., 19, 105, 167, 207.
Bible Testimony, 275 Bible Cause Contributions, 295.
Birney, James G., 214, 413.
Blackstone, Sir William, 248.
Blair, Francis P., 105, 167, 213.
Bolling, Philip A., 211.
Book Making in America, 392.
Booth, Abraham, 268.
Boston, Letter from the Mayor of, 338.
Botts, John M., 167.
Brisbane, Rev. Mr., 263.
Brissot, 253.
Brooklyn, Letter from the Mayor of, 339.
Brougham, Lord, 250.
Browne, R. K., 322.
Buchanan, James, 170.
Buckwheat, 37.
Buffalo, Letter from the Mayor of, 344.
Buffon, 253.
Burke, Edmund, 250.
Butler, Bishop, 261.
Butter and Cheese, 64.
Cameron, Paul C., 49, 55.
Canals, miles of, in the several States, 285.
Cane, Sugar, 53, 65.
Cartwright, Dr., of New-Orleans, 301.
Catholic Testimony, 271.
Chandler, Mr., of Virginia, 211.
Charleston, Letter from the Mayor of, 340.
Chicago, Letter from, 342.
Churches, Value of, in the several States, 294.
Cicero, 254.
Cincinnati, Letter from the Mayor of, 340.
Cities, nine Free and nine Slave, 347.
Clarke, Dr. Adam, 269.
Clarke, Judge, of Mississippi, 223.
Clay, Henry, 205.
Clay, Cassius M., 206, 301, 413.
Clay, C. C., 56.
Clinton, DeWitt, 242.
Clover and Grass Seed, 37.
Coke, Sir Edward, 249.
Colonization Movements, 183.
Colonization Cause Contributions, 296.
Commercial Cities--Southern Commerce, 33.
Comparison between the Free and the Slave States, 11.
Corn, 35, 69.
Cotton, 53, 65.
Cowper, William, 247.
Cragin, A. H., 190.
Curran, John Philpot, 250.
Curtis, Mr., of Virginia, 101.
Darien (Georgia) Resolutions, 231.
Davis, Henry Winter, 167.
Deaths in the several States in 1850, 297.
DeBow, J. D. B., 30, 50, 83.
Dublin University Magazine, 251.
Emigration to Liberia, 183.
Episcopal Testimony, 261.
Etheridge, Emerson, 167, 173.
Expenditures of the several States, 80.
Exports, 283.
Facts and Arguments by the Wayside, 360.
Farms, Cash Value of, 71.
Faulkner, Charles James, 98, 175.
Flax, 62 Flaxseed, 38.
Fortescue, Sir John, 249.
Fox, Charles James, 246.
Franklin, Benjamin, 235.
Free Figures and Slave, 281.
Free White Agriculturalists in the Slave States, 298.
Freedom and Slavery at the Fair, 323.
Freedom in the South, Progress of, 367.
Fremont, John Charles, 170, 212, 410, 418.
Gaston, Judge, of North Carolina, 225.
Garden Products, Value of, 38.
Goethe, 254.
Goodloe, Daniel R., 112
Goldsmith, Oliver, 384.
Graham, William H., 167.
Graves, Calvin, 167.
Greeley, Horace, 364.
Grotius, 253.
Hall, Dr. James, 182.
Hamilton, Alexander, 237.
Hammond, Gov., 165, 301.
Hampden, John, 249.
Harper Brothers, 394.
Harrington, James, 249.
Hay, 53.
Hedrick, B. S., Prof., 305, 410.
Hemp, 53, 62.
Henry, Patrick, 84, 200.
Hildreth, Richard, 384.
Hoffman, H. W., 167.
Honey, 64.
Hops, 62.
Horsley, Bishop, 261.
How Slavery can be Abolished, 123.
Hunt, Freeman, 349.
Hurlbut, William Henry, 229, 316.
Illiterate Poor Whites of the South, 376.
Illiterate White Adults, 291, 407.
Imports, 283.
Indian Corn, 35, 69.
Inhabitants to the Square Mile, 143.
Inventions, New, Patents issued on, in 1856, 294.
Iredell, Judge, 210.
Jay, John, Judge, 237.
Jay, John, Esq., 261.
Jay, William, 239.
Jefferson, Thomas, 195, 222.
Johnson, Samuel, Dr., 248.
Kansas, Aid for, 318.
Kemp, Henry, 273.
Lactantius, 255.
Lafayette, Gen., 252 O. Lafayette, 252.
Lawrence, Abbott and Amos, 106.
Leigh, Mr., of Virginia, 210.
Leo X., 255.
Liberia, Emigration to, 183.
Libraries Other than Private, 289.
Live Stock, Value of, 71.
Locke, John, 246.
Louis X., 253.
Louisville, Letter from the Mayor of, 341.
Luther, Martin, 254.
McDowell, Gov., 209.
McLane, of Delaware, 215.
Macfarland, Wm, H., 167.
Macknight, James, D.D., 251.
Madison, James, 82, 199.
Mansfield, Lord, 246.
Manufactures, Products of, 284.
Maple Sugar, 63.
Martin, Luther, 216.
Marshall, Humphrey, 167
Marshall, Thomas, 211.
Mason, James M., 223.
Mason, John W., 384.
Mason, Col., of Virginia, 208.
Massachusetts and North Carolina, 14.
Maury, M. F., 213.
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 221.
Methodist Testimony, 269.
Militia Force of the Several States, 286.
Miller, H. W., 167.
Miller, Prof., of Glasgow, 251.
Milton, John, 248.
Missionary Cause Contributions, 296.
Monroe, James, 200.
Montesquieu, 252.
Moore, Mr., of Virginia, 101.
Morehead, John M., 167.
National Political Power of the Several States, 292.
Natives of the Slave States in the Free States, and Natives of the Free
States in the Slave States, 304.
New-Bedford, Letter from the Mayor of, 345.
New-Orleans, Letter from the Mayor of, 337.
Newspapers and Periodicals, 290.
New-York and Virginia, 12.
New-York and North Carolina, 325.
New-York City, Letter from the Mayor of, 336.
Norfolk, Letter from, 344.
North American and United States Gazette, 87, 111, 114.
North Carolina and Massachusetts, 14.
North Carolina and New-York 325.
Northern Testimony, 235.
Nott, J. C., Dr., 302, 303.
Oats, 35, 69.
Oglethorpe, Gen., 230.
Orchard Products, Value of, 38.
Patents Issued on New Inventions, 294.
Pennsylvania and South Carolina, 17.
Perry, B. F., 229.
Pettyjohn, Charles, 363.
Philadelphia, Letter from the Mayor of, 337.
Pinkney, William, 210, 215.
Pitt, William, 246.
Plato, 256.
Polybius, 256.
Pope Gregory XVI., 271.
Pope Leo X., 255.
Popular Vote for President in 1856, 293.
Population of the Several States, 144.
Porteus, Bishop, 261.
Postmasters-General, 311.
Post Office Statistics, 287.
Potatoes, 36, 69.
Powell, Mr., of Virginia, 102.
Precepts and Sayings of the Old Testament, 276.
Precepts and Sayings of the New Testament, 277.
Presbyterian Testimony, 259.
Presidents of the United States, 307.
Presidential Elections in the U. S. from 1796 to 1856, 317.
Preston, Mr., of Virginia, 212.
Price, Dr., of London, 248.
Providence, Letter from the Mayor of, 343.
Railroads, Miles of, in the Several States, 285.
Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 201.
Randolph, Thomas M., 202.
Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 202.
Randolph, Peyton, 204.
Randolph, Edmund, 204.
Raynal, The Abbe, 273.
Raynor, Kenneth, 167, 169.
Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Bushel-Measure Products,
39-40.
Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Pound-Measure Products, 65.
Recapitulation of the Value of Farms and Domestic Animals, 72.
Real and Personal Property, 80.
Reid, Mr., of Georgia, 233.
Revenue of the Several States, 80.
Rice, 53, 65.
Richmond, Letter from, 342.
Ritchie, Thomas, 92, 105.
Rives, Mr., of Virginia, 101, 104.
Rousseau, 253.
Ruffin, Judge, of North Carolina, 224.
Rye, 36, 69, 78.
Savannah, Letter from the Mayor of, 345.
Schools, Public, 288.
Scott, Thomas, (Commentator), 260.
Secretaries of State, 309.
Secretaries of the Interior, 312.
Secretaries of the Treasury, 313.
Secretaries of War, 314.
Secretaries of the Navy, 315.
Shakspeare, 247.
Slaveholders, Number of, in the United States, 146.
Slaves, Value of, at $400 per head, 306.
Slavery, Legislative Acts against, 361.
Slavery Thoughtful--Signs of Contrition, 365.
Smith, Gerrit, 318.
Socrates, 256.
South Carolina and Pennsylvania, 17.
Southern Literature, 383.
Southern Testimony against Slavery, 188.
Speakers of the House of Representatives, 310.
St. Louis, Letter from the Mayor of, 339.
Stanly, Edward, 167.
States, the Several, when First Settled, 321-322.
Statistics, Science of, 29, 30.
Stuart, A. H. H., 167.
Summers, Mr., of Virginia, 212.
Supreme Court, Judges of, 308.
Tarver, M., 164.
Taylor, Wm. C, L.L.D., 29.
Territories, the, Area and Population of, 145.
Testimony of the Nations, 245.
Testimony of the Churches, 258.
Tobacco, 53, 62, 78.
Tonnage of the Several States, 283.
Tract Cause Contributions, 295.
Underwood, John C., 410.
Virginia and New-York, 12.
Votes cast for President in 1856, 293.
Votes, Classification of, Polled at the Five Points Precinct in 1856, 293.
Walker, Robert J., 105.
Warren, Joseph, Gen., 242.
Washington, George, Gen., 193.
Wayland, Francis, D.D., 264.
Wealth of the Several States, 80.
Webster, Daniel, 240.
Webster, Noah, 117, 241, 384.
Wesley, John, Rev., 269.
Weston, George M., 164.
Wheat, 35, 69, 78.
Why the North has surpassed the South, 24.
Wise Henry A., 13, 90, 102.
Footnotes:
[1] Achenwall, a native of Elbing, Prussia. Born 1719, died 1792.
[2] Of the 51,687 inhabitants in the District of Columbia, in 1850, 10,057
were Free Colored, and 3,637 were slaves.
[3] No popular vote.
[4] For colonizing free blacks in Liberia.
[5] For an explanation of this Table see the next six pages.
[6] It is intended that this Table shall be considered in connection with
Tables XX and XXI, on page 80.
[7] No choice by the people; John Q. Adams elected by the House of
Representatives.
[8] The oldest town in the United States.
[9] We Southrons all glory in the literary reputation of Mr. Simms; yet we
must confess his inferiority to Cooper, and prejudice alone will refuse to
admit, that, while in the _art_ of the novelist he is the superior of Mrs.
Stowe in genius he must take position below her.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"Northren" corrected to "Northern" (page 23)
"abolitionits" corrected to "abolitionist" (page 26)
"propable" corrected to "probable" (page 26)
"XVI" corrected to "XIV" (page 64)
"east" corrected to "least" (page 75)
"statictics" corrected to "statistics" (page 77)
"Virgina" corrected to "Virginia" (page 77)
"Enqurier" corrected to "Enquirer" (page 92)
"known" corrected to "know" (page 105)
"furnance" corrected to "furnace" (page 128)
"imstruments" corrected to "instruments" (page 153)
"wisdon" corrected to "wisdom" (page 154)
"then than" corrected to "than" (page 159)
"dis ainfully" corrected to "disdainfully" (page 163)
"slav" corrected to "slave" (page 178)
"graphicallly" corrected to "graphically" (page 190)
"Amercia" corrected to "America" (page 244)
"a ways" corrected to "always" (page 253)
"Tennesse" corrected to "Tennessee" (page 284, Table XXIX)
"Tennesee" corrected to "Tennessee" (page 304, Table LVII)
"Pennsylvvania" corrected to "Pennsylvania" (page 313)
"1819" corrected to "1829" (page 315)
"7796" corrected to "1796" (page 317)
"drawf" corrected to "dwarf" (page 400)
Missing "24" added (index)
Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been retained from the original.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Impending Crisis of the South, by
Hinton Rowan Helper
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH ***
***** This file should be named 36055-8.txt or 36055-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/5/36055/
Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
[email protected]. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
https://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
