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,
bushels. |
Oats,
bushels. |
Indian Corn,
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,
bushels. |
Oats,
bushels. |
Indian Corn,
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.
& S.) bush. |
Rye,
bushels. |
Barley,
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.
& S.) bush. |
Rye,
bushels. |
Barley,
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,
bushels. |
Beans & Peas,
bushels. |
Clover & Grass
seeds bush. |
| 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,
bushels. |
Beans & Peas,
bushels. |
Clover & Grass
seeds bush. |
| 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,
bushels. |
Val. of Garden
products. |
Val. of Orchard
products. |
| 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,
bushels. |
Val. of Garden
products. |
Val. of Orchard
products. |
| 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 manœuverings 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 $13,08⅓—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,
lbs. |
Maple Sugar
lbs. |
Tobacco
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,
lbs. |
Maple Sugar
lbs. |
Tobacco
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,
lbs. |
Butter and
Cheese, lbs. |
Beeswax and
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,
lbs. |
Butter and
Cheese, lbs. |
Beeswax and
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
of 400 lbs. |
Cane Sugar,
hhds. 1000lbs. |
Rough Rice,
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. |
@ |
½ |
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. |
@ |
½ |
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,
bushels. |
Oats,
bushels. |
Rye,
bushels. |
Ind. Corn,
bushels. |
Irish Potatoes,
bushels. |
| 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,
bushels. |
Oats,
bushels. |
Rye,
bushels. |
Ind. Corn,
bushels. |
Irish Potatoes,
bushels. |
| 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 |
1360 |
RECAPITULATION OF ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE—1850.
| FREE STATES. | | SLAVE STATES. |
| Wheat | 12 | bushels | per acre. | |
Wheat | 9 | bushels | per acre. |
| Oats | 27 | " | " | |
Oats | 17 | " | " |
| Rye | 18 | " | " | |
Rye | 11 | " | " |
| Indian Corn | 31 | " | " | |
Indian Corn | 20 | " | " |
| Irish Potatoes | 125 | " | " | |
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
Live Stock. |
Val. of Animals
Slaughtered. |
Cash Val. of Farms,
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
Live Stock. |
Val. of Animals
Slaughtered. |
Cash Val. of Farms,
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.
| |
Wheat, 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
property. |
Revenue. |
Expenditure. |
| 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
property. |
Revenue. |
Expenditure. |
| 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.