DEFICIENCY OF FOOD IN FREE SOCIETY.
The normal state of free society is a state of famine. Agricultural
labor is the most arduous, least respectable, and worst paid of all
labor. Nature and philosophy teach all who can to avoid and escape from
it, and to pursue less laborious, more respectable, and more lucrative
employments. None work in the field who can help it. Hence free society
is in great measure dependent for its food and clothing on slave
society. Western Europe and New England get their cotton, sugar, and
much of their bread and meat from the South, from Cuba, Russia, Poland
and Turkey. After all, the mass of their population suffers continual
physical want. McCulloch informs us in his edition of Adam Smith, "that
the better sort of Irish laborers eat meat once a month, or once in six
months; the lowest order never. The better class of English laborers eat
meat twice or three times a week." Now no Southern negro would believe
this if you were to swear to it. Yet it is a very favorable account of
those laborers. The Irish rarely eat bread, and the English peasantry
have wholly inadequate allowance of it. On the Continent, the peasantry
generally live on fruits, nuts and olives, and other things, which our
slaves do not seek as food at all, but as mere condiments to give a
relish to their meat and bread. Agriculture is the proper pursuit of
slaves, to be superintended and directed, however, by freemen. Its
profits are inadequate to the support of separate families of laborers,
especially of white laborers in cold climates, whose wants are greater
than those of negroes at the South. The expenses of families are greatly
lessened where slavery associates a large number under a common head, or
master, and their labor is rendered more efficient and productive.
This is the great idea of the Socialists, and it is a truer one than the
"every-man-for-himself" doctrine of the political economists. Free
society is in great measure fed and clothed by slave society, which it
pays for in worthless baubles, fashionable trifles, and deleterious
luxuries;--without which, slave society would do much better. Every one
should study the census of the Union, in order to see how dependent the
North-east is on slave labor, and how trifling are her agricultural
products.
The profits of slave farming enure chiefly to the advantage of Western
Europe and our North. Practical men, therefore, at the North, so far
from going to work to abolish slavery, are bringing daily a larger
supply of slaves into the slave market, than ever was brought before.
Add the Coolies of Asia and apprentices from Africa to the old negro
slave trade, and the annual supply of new slaves exceeds by far that of
any other period.
The Abolitionists will probably succeed in dissolving the Union, in
involving us in civil and fratricidal war, and in cutting off the North
from its necessary supply of food and clothing; but they should
recollect that whilst they are engaged in this labor of love, Northern
and English merchants are rapidly extending and increasing slavery, by
opening daily new markets for the purchase and sale of Coolies,
apprentices and Africans.
The foreign slave trade is not necessary for the supply of the slave
markets. The increase of the present slaves, if humanely treated, would
suffice to meet that demand. But Africans and Coolies cost less than the
rearing of slaves in America, and the trade in them, whenever carried
on, induces masters to work their old slaves to death and buy new ones
from abroad.
The foreign slave trade, especially the Cooley trade, is the most
inhuman pursuit in which man ever engaged. Equally inhuman to the
victims which it imports, and to the old slaves, whose treatment and
condition it renders intolerably cruel. By directing philanthropy and
public opinion in a false direction, the Abolitionists have become the
most efficient propagandists of slavery and the slave trade. And
slavery, such as it exists in pursuance of the foreign slave trade,
shocks our sense of humanity quite as much as that of the most sensitive
Abolitionists.
Since writing thus far, we met with the following in the Charleston
Mercury:
"WHEAT IN MASSACHUSETTS.--The deficiency in the production of
wheat in Massachusetts alone, in 1855, for the consumption of her
inhabitants, was 3,915,550 bushels; and of Indian corn, 3,420,675
bushels, (_without allowing any thing for the consumption of corn
by cattle_.)
"In 1850, the deficiency in the production of wheat in all the New
England States, was equal to 1,691,502 barrels of flour; and to
3,464,675 bushels of corn, (_without allowing any thing for the
consumption by cattle_.)
"This is 327,185 barrels more than was exported of domestic flour
from all of the United States to foreign countries during the year
ending 30th June, 1855, and 87,000 more barrels than was exported
both of domestic and foreign flour from the United States for the
same period."
We conclude, from our examination of the census, that the grain and
potatoes made in New England would about feed her cattle, horses, hogs
and sheep--leaving none for her inhabitants. We lately compared
carefully the census of Massachusetts and North Carolina, and found, in
round numbers, that according to population, North Carolina produced
annually ten times as much of human food as Massachusetts,--but that
Massachusetts balanced the account by producing annually ten times as
many paupers and criminals as North Carolina. We also discover that the
want of food in the one State and its abundance in the other, tells on
the duration of human life. The mortality in Massachusetts is nearly
double that in North Carolina. We infer that there is ten times as much
of human happiness in North Carolina as in Massachusetts. The census
gives no account of the infidels and the isms--of them there are none in
North Carolina, and Massachusetts may boast that she rivals Germany,
France and Western New York in their production.
Really, it is suicidal folly in New England to talk of disunion and
setting up for herself. She does not possess the elements of separate
nationality. She is intelligent and wealthy; but her wealth is
cosmopolitan--her poverty indigenous. Her commerce, her manufactures,
and moneyed capital, constitute her wealth. Disunion would make these
useless and unprofitable at home, and they would be transferred
immediately to other States and Nations.
North Carolina might well set up for herself, for she can produce all
the necessaries and comforts and luxuries of life within herself, and
has Virginia between herself and danger on the one side, and an
inaccessible sea coast on the other. But we of Virginia, being a border
State, would be badly situated in case of disunion, and mean to cling to
it as long as honor permits. Besides, Virginia loves her nearest sister,
Pennsylvania, and cannot bear the thought of parting company with her.
Tecum vivere amem!
Tecum obeam lubens!