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THE
IMPENDING CRISIS
OF
THE SOUTH:
HOW TO MEET IT.
BY
HINTON ROWAN HELPER,
OF NORTH CAROLINA.
COUNTRYMEN! I sue for simple justice at your hands,
Naught else I ask, nor less will have;
Act right, therefore, and yield my claim,
Or, by the great God that made all things,
I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd!--_Shakspeare._
The liberal deviseth liberal things,
And by liberal things shall he stand.--_Isaiah._
14TH THOUSAND.
NEW YORK:
A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER,
No. 8 SPRUCE STREET.
1859.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by
HINTON ROWAN HELPER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
J. J. REED, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER,
43 Centre Street.
To
HENRY M. WILLIS,
OF CALIFORNIA,
FORMERLY OF MARYLAND,
WOODFORD C. HOLMAN,
OF OREGON,
FORMERLY OF KENTUCKY,
MATTHEW K. SMITH,
OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY,
FORMERLY OF VIRGINIA,
AND TO THE
NON-SLAVEHOLDING WHITES OF THE SOUTH
GENERALLY,
WHETHER AT HOME OR ABROAD
THIS WORK IS MOST CORDIALLY
DEDICATED
BY THEIR
SINCERE FRIEND AND FELLOW-CITIZEN,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
If my countrymen, particularly my countrymen of the South, still more
particularly those of them who are non-slaveholders, shall peruse this
work, they will learn that no narrow and partial doctrines of political or
social economy, no prejudices of early education have induced me to write
it. If, in any part of it, I have actually deflected from the tone of true
patriotism and nationality, I am unable to perceive the fault. What I have
committed to paper is but a fair reflex of the honest and long-settled
convictions of my heart.
In writing this book, it has been no part of my purpose to cast unmerited
opprobrium upon slaveholders, or to display any special friendliness or
sympathy for the blacks. I have considered my subject more particularly
with reference to its economic aspects as regards the whites--not with
reference, except in a very slight degree, to its humanitarian or
religious aspects. To the latter side of the question, Northern writers
have already done full and timely justice. The genius of the North has
also most ably and eloquently discussed the subject in the form of novels.
Yankee wives have written the most popular anti-slavery literature of the
day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all well enough for women
to give the fictions of slavery; men should give the facts.
I trust that my friends and fellow-citizens of the South will read this
book--nay, proud as any Southerner though I am, I entreat, I beg of them
to do so. And as the work, considered with reference to its author's
nativity, is a novelty--the South being my birth-place and my home, and my
ancestry having resided there for more than a century--so I indulge the
hope that its reception by my fellow-Southrons will also be novel; that is
to say, that they will receive it, as it is offered, in a reasonable and
friendly spirit, and that they will read it and reflect upon it as an
honest and faithful endeavor to treat a subject of enormous import,
without rancor or prejudice, by one who naturally comes within the pale of
their own sympathies.
An irrepressibly active desire to do something to elevate the South to an
honorable and powerful position among the enlightened quarters of the
globe, has been the great leading principle that has actuated me in the
preparation of the present volume; and so well convinced am I that the
plan which I have proposed is the only really practical one for achieving
the desired end, that I earnestly hope to see it prosecuted with energy
and zeal, until the Flag of Freedom shall wave triumphantly alike over the
valleys of Virginia and the mounds of Mississippi.
H. R. H.
JUNE, 1857.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I.
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES 11
Progress and Prosperity of the North--Inertness and Imbecility
of the South--The True Cause and the Remedy--Quantity and
Value of the Agricultural Products of the two Sections--
Important Statistics--Wealth, Revenue, and Expenditure of the
several States--Sterling Extracts and General Remarks on Free
and Slave Labor--The Immediate Abolition of Slavery the True
Policy of the South.
CHAPTER II.
HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED 123
Value of Lands in the Free and in the Slave States--A few Plain
Words addressed to Slaveholders--The Old Homestead--Area and
Population of the several States, of the Territories, and of
the District of Columbia--Number of Slaveholders in the United
States--Abstract of the Author's Plan for the Abolition of
Slavery--Official Power and Despotism of the Oligarchy--
Mal-treatment of the Non-slaveholding Whites--Liberal
Slaveholders, and what may be expected of them--Slave-driving
Democrats--Classification of Votes Polled at the Five Points
Precinct in 1856--Parts played by the Republicans, Whigs,
Democrats, and Know-Nothings during the last Presidential
Campaign--How and why Slavery should be Abolished without
direct Compensation to the Masters--The American Colonization
Society--Emigration to Liberia--Ultimatum of the
Non-slaveholding Whites.
CHAPTER III.
SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 188
What the Fathers of the Republic thought of Slavery--Opinions
of Washington--Jefferson--Madison--Monroe--Henry--Randolph--
Clay--Benton--Mason--McDowell--Iredell--Pinkney--Leigh--
Marshall--Bolling--Chandler--Summers--Preston--Fremont--Blair--
Maury--Birney. Delaware--McLane. Maryland--Martin. Virginia--
Bill of Rights. North Carolina--Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence--Judge Ruffin. South Carolina--Extracts from the
Writings of some of her more Sensible Sons. Georgia--Gen.
Oglethorpe--Darien Resolutions.
CHAPTER IV.
NORTHERN TESTIMONY 235
Opinions of Franklin--Hamilton--Jay--Adams--Webster--Clinton--
Warren--Complimentary Allusions to Garrison, Greeley, Seward,
Sumner, and others.
CHAPTER V.
TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS 245
The Voice of England--Opinions of Mansfield--Locke--Pitt--
Fox--Shakspeare--Cowper--Milton--Johnson--Price--Blackstone--
Coke--Hampden--Harrington--Fortescue--Brougham--The Voice of
Ireland--Opinions of Burke--Curran--Extract from the Dublin
University Magazine for December, 1856--The Voice of Scotland--
Opinions of Beattie--Miller--Macknight--The Voice of France--
Opinions of Lafayette--Montesquieu--Louis X--Buffon--Rousseau--
Brissot--The Voice of Germany--Opinions of Grotius--Goethe--
Luther--Extract from the Letter of a living German writer to his
Friends in this Country--The Voice of Italy--Opinions of
Cicero--Lactantius--Leo X--The Voice of Greece--Opinions of
Socrates--Aristotle--Polybius--Plato.
CHAPTER VI.
TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES 258
Introductory Remarks--Presbyterian Testimony--Albert Barnes--
Thomas Scott--General Assembly in 1818--Synod of Kentucky--
Episcopal Testimony--Bishop Horsley--Bishop Butler--Bishop
Porteus--John Jay--Anti-slavery Churchman--Baptist Testimony--
Rev. Mr. Brisbane, of South Carolina--Francis Wayland--Abraham
Booth--Baptists of Virginia in 1789--Methodist Testimony--John
Wesley--Adam Clarke--Extracts from the Discipline for 1784, '85
and '97--Catholic Testimony--Pope Gregory XVI--Pope Leo X--The
Abbe Raynal--Henry Kemp.
CHAPTER VII.
BIBLE TESTIMONY 275
The Bible an Anti-Slavery Text-book--Selected Precepts and
Sayings of the Old Testament--Selected Precepts and Sayings of
the New Testament--Irrefragability of the Arguments here and
elsewhere introduced against Slavery.
CHAPTER VIII.
FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 281
Opening Remarks--General Statistics of the Free and of the
Slave States--Tonnage, Exports, and Imports--Products of
Manufactures--Miles of Canals and Railroads in Operation--
Public Schools--Libraries other than Private--Newspapers and
Periodicals--Illiterate White Adults--National Political Power
of the two Sections--Popular Vote for President in 1856--
Patents Issued on New Inventions--Value of Church Property--
Acts of Benevolence--Contributions for the Bible Cause, Tract
Cause, Missionary Cause, and Colonization Cause--Table of
deaths in the several States in 1850--Number of Free White
Male Persons over fifteen years of age engaged in Agriculture
or other out-door Labor in the Slave States--Falsity of the
Assertion that White Men cannot cultivate Southern Soil--White
Female Agriculturists in North Carolina--Number of Natives of
the Slave States in the Free States, and of Natives of the Free
States in the Slave States--Value of the Slaves at $400 per
head--List of Presidents of the United States--Judges of the
Supreme Court--Secretaries of State--Presidents of the Senate--
Speakers of the House--Postmasters General--Secretaries of the
Interior--Secretaries of the Treasury--Secretaries of War--
Secretaries of the Navy--Result of the Presidential Elections
in the United States from 1796 to 1856--Aid for Kansas--
Contributions for the Sufferers in Portsmouth, Va., during the
Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in the Summer of 1855--
Congressional Representation--Custom House Receipts--When the
Old States were Settled and the New Admitted into the Union--
First European Settlements in America--Freedom and Slavery at
the Fair--What Freedom Did--What Slavery Did--Average Value per
Acre of Lands in the States of New York and North Carolina.
CHAPTER IX.
COMMERCIAL CITIES--SOUTHERN COMMERCE 331
Plea for a great Southern Commercial City--Importance of Cities
in General--Letters from the Mayors of sundry American Cities,
North and South--Wealth and Population of New-York, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New-Orleans, Boston, St. Louis, Brooklyn,
Charleston, Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, Richmond,
Providence, Norfolk, Buffalo, Savannah, New-Bedford,
Wilmington--Wealth Concentrated at Commercial Points--Boston and
its Business--Progressive Growth of Cities--A Fleet of
Merchantmen--Commerce of Norfolk--Baltimore, Past, Present, and
Future--Insignificance of Southern Commerce--Enslavement of
Slaveholders to the Products of Northern Industry--Almost Utter
Lack of Patriotism in Southern Merchants and Slaveholders.
CHAPTER X.
FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE 360
Why this Work was not Published in Baltimore--Legislative Acts
Against Slavery--Testimony of a West India Planter to the
Advantages of Free over Slave Labor--The True Friends of the
South--Slavery Thoughtful--Signs of Contrition--Progress of
Freedom in the South--Anti-slavery Extracts from Southern
Journals--A Right Feeling in the Right Quarter--The Illiterate
Poor Whites of the South.
CHAPTER XI.
SOUTHERN LITERATURE 383
Instances of Protracted Literary Labor--Comparative
Insignificance of Periodical and General Literature in the
Southern States--The New-York Tribune--Southern System of
Publishing--Book-making in America--The Business of the Messrs.
Harper--Southern Journals Struggling for Existence--Paucity of
Southern Authors--Proportion of White Adults, over Twenty Years
of Age, in each State, who cannot Read and Write, to the Whole
White Population--Southern Authors Compelled to Seek Northern
Publishers--Conclusion.
CHAPTER I
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES.
It is not our intention in this chapter to enter into an elaborate
ethnographical essay, to establish peculiarities of difference, mental,
moral, and physical, in the great family of man. Neither is it our design
to launch into a philosophical disquisition on the laws and principles of
light and darkness, with a view of educing any additional evidence of the
fact, that as a general rule, the rays of the sun are more fructifying and
congenial than the shades of night. Nor yet is it our purpose, by writing
a formal treatise on ethics, to draw a broad line of distinction between
right and wrong, to point out the propriety of morality and its advantages
over immorality, nor to waste time in pressing a universally admitted
truism--that virtue is preferable to vice. Self-evident truths require no
argumentative demonstration.
What we mean to do is simply this: to take a survey of the relative
position and importance of the several states of this confederacy, from
the adoption of the national compact; and when, of two sections of the
country starting under the same auspices, and with equal natural
advantages, we find the one rising to a degree of almost unexampled power
and eminence, and the other sinking into a state of comparative
imbecility and obscurity, it is our determination to trace out the causes
which have led to the elevation of the former, and the depression of the
latter, and to use our most earnest and honest endeavors to utterly
extirpate whatever opposes the progress and prosperity of any portion of
the union.
This survey we have already made; we have also instituted an impartial
comparison between the cardinal sections of the country, north, south,
east, and west; and as a true hearted southerner, whose ancestors have
resided in North Carolina between one and two hundred years, and as one
who would rather have his native clime excel than be excelled, we feel
constrained to confess that we are deeply abashed and chagrined at the
disclosures of the comparison thus instituted. At the time of the adoption
of the Constitution, in 1789, we commenced an even race with the North.
All things considered, if either the North or the South had the advantage,
it was the latter. In proof of this, let us introduce a few statistics,
beginning with the states of
NEW YORK AND VIRGINIA.
In 1790, when the first census was taken, New York contained 340,120
inhabitants; at the same time the population of Virginia was 748,308,
being more than twice the number of New York. Just sixty years afterward,
as we learn from the census of 1850, New York had a population of
3,097,394; while that of Virginia was only 1,421,661, being less than half
the number of New York! In 1791, the exports of New York amounted to
$2,505,465; the exports of Virginia amounted to $3,130,865. In 1852, the
exports of New York amounted to $87,484,456; the exports of Virginia,
during the same year, amounted to only $2,724,657. In 1790, the imports of
New York and Virginia were about equal; in 1853, the imports of New York
amounted to the enormous sum of $178,270,999; while those of Virginia, for
the same period, amounted to the pitiful sum of only $399,004. In 1850,
the products of manufactures, mining and the mechanic arts in New York
amounted to $237,597,249; those of Virginia amounted to only $29,705,387.
At the taking of the last census, the value of real and personal property
in Virginia, including negroes, was $391,646,438; that of New York,
exclusive of any monetary valuation of human beings, was $1,080,309,216.
In August, 1856, the real and personal estate assessed in the City of
New-York amounted in valuation to $511,740,491, showing that New-York City
alone is worth far more than the whole State of Virginia.
What says one of Virginia's own sons? He still lives; hear him speak. Says
Gov. Wise:
"It may be painful, but nevertheless, profitable, to recur occasionally to
the history of the past; to listen to the admonitions of experience, and
learn lessons of wisdom from the efforts and actions of those who have
preceded us in the drama of human life. The records of former days show
that at a period not very remote, Virginia stood pre-eminently the first
commercial State in the Union; when her commerce exceeded in amount that
of all the New England States combined; when the City of Norfolk owned
more than one hundred trading ships, and her direct foreign trade exceeded
that of the City of New-York, now the centre of trade and the great
emporium of North America. At the period of the war of independence, the
commerce of Virginia was four times larger than that of New-York."
The cash value of all the farms, farming implements and machinery in
Virginia, in 1850, was $223,423,315; the value of the same in New-York, in
the same year, was $576,631,568. In about the same ratio does the value of
the agricultural products and live stock of New-York exceed the value of
the agricultural products and live stock of Virginia. But we will pursue
this humiliating comparison no further. With feelings mingled with
indignation and disgust, we turn from the picture, and will now pay our
respects to
MASSACHUSETTS AND NORTH CAROLINA.
In 1790, Massachusetts contained 378,717 inhabitants; in the same year
North Carolina contained 393,751; in 1850, the population of Massachusetts
was 994,514, all freemen; while that of North Carolina was only 869,039,
of whom 288,548 were slaves. Massachusetts has an area of only 7,800
square miles; the area of North Carolina is 50,704 square miles, which,
though less than Virginia, is considerably larger than the State of
New-York. Massachusetts and North Carolina each have a harbor, Boston and
Beaufort, which harbors, with the States that back them, are, by nature,
possessed of about equal capacities and advantages for commercial and
manufacturing enterprise. Boston has grown to be the second commercial
city in the Union; her ships, freighted with the useful and unique
inventions and manufactures of her ingenious artisans and mechanics, and
bearing upon their stalwart arms the majestic flag of our country, glide
triumphantly through the winds and over the waves of every ocean. She has
done, and is now doing, great honor to herself, her State and the nation,
and her name and fame are spoken with reverence in the remotest regions of
the earth.
How is it with Beaufort, in North Carolina, whose harbor is said to be the
safest and most commodious anywhere to be found on the Atlantic coast
south of the harbor of New-York, and but little inferior to that? Has
anybody ever heard of her? Do the masts of her ships ever cast a shadow on
foreign waters? Upon what distant or benighted shore have her merchants
and mariners ever hoisted our national ensign, or spread the arts of
civilization and peaceful industry? What changes worthy of note have taken
place in the physical features of her superficies since "the evening and
the morning were the third day?" But we will make no further attempt to
draw a comparison between the populous, wealthy, and renowned city of
Boston and the obscure, despicable little village of Beaufort, which,
notwithstanding "the placid bosom of its deep and well-protected harbor,"
has no place in the annals or records of the country, and has scarcely
ever been heard of fifty miles from home.
In 1853, the exports of Massachusetts amounted to $16,895,304, and her
imports to $41,367,956; during the same time, and indeed during all the
time, from the period of the formation of the government up to the year
1853, inclusive, the exports and imports of North Carolina were so utterly
insignificant that we are ashamed to record them. In 1850, the products of
manufactures, mining and the mechanic arts in Massachusetts, amounted to
$151,137,145; those of North Carolina, to only $9,111,245. In 1856, the
products of these industrial pursuits in Massachusetts had increased to
something over $288,000,000, a sum more than twice the value of the entire
cotton crop of all the Southern States! In 1850, the cash value of all the
farms, farming implements and machinery in Massachusetts, was
$112,285,931; the value of the same in North Carolina, in the same year,
was only $71,823,298. In 1850, the value of all the real and personal
estate in Massachusetts, without recognizing property in man, or setting a
monetary price on the head of a single citizen, white or black, amounted
to $573,342,286; the value of the same in North Carolina, including
negroes, amounted to only $226,800,472. In 1856, the real and personal
estate assessed in the City of Boston amounted in valuation to within a
fraction of $250,000,000, showing conclusively that so far as dollars and
cents are concerned, that single city could buy the whole State of North
Carolina, and by right of purchase, if sanctioned by the Constitution of
the United States, and by State Constitutions, hold her as a province. In
1850, there were in Massachusetts 1,861 native white and free colored
persons over twenty years of age who could not read and write; in the
same year, the same class of persons in North Carolina numbered 80,083;
while her 288,548 slaves were, by legislative enactments, kept in a state
of absolute ignorance and unconditional subordination.
Hoping, however, and believing, that a large majority of the most
respectable and patriotic citizens of North Carolina have resolved, or
will soon resolve, with unyielding purpose, to cast aside the great
obstacle that impedes their progress, and bring into action a new policy
which will lead them from poverty and ignorance to wealth and intellectual
greatness, and which will shield them not only from the rebukes of their
own consciences, but also from the just reproaches of the civilized world,
we will, for the present, in deference to their feelings, forbear the
further enumeration of these degrading disparities, and turn our attention
to
PENNSYLVANIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA.
An old gentleman, now residing in Charleston, told us, but a few months
since, that he had a distinct recollection of the time when Charleston
imported foreign fabrics for the Philadelphia trade, and when, on a
certain occasion, his mother went into a store on Market-street to select
a silk dress for herself, the merchant, unable to please her fancy,
persuaded her to postpone the selection for a few days, or until the
arrival of a new stock of superb styles and fashions which he had recently
purchased in the metropolis of South Carolina. This was all very proper.
Charleston had a spacious harbor, a central position, and a mild climate;
and from priority of settlement and business connections, to say nothing
of other advantages, she enjoyed greater facilities for commercial
transactions than Philadelphia. She had a right to get custom wherever she
could find it, and in securing so valuable a customer as the Quaker City,
she exhibited no small degree of laudable enterprise. But why did she not
maintain her supremacy? If the answer to this query is not already in the
reader's mind, it will suggest itself before he peruses the whole of this
work. For the present, suffice it to say, that the cause of her shameful
insignificance and decline is essentially the same that has thrown every
other Southern city and State in the rear of progress, and rendered them
tributary, in a commercial and manufacturing point of view, almost
entirely tributary, to the more sagacious and enterprising States and
cities of the North.
A most unfortunate day was that for the Palmetto State, and indeed for the
whole South, when the course of trade was changed, and she found herself
the retailer of foreign and domestic goods, imported and vended by
wholesale merchants at the North. Philadelphia ladies no longer look to
the South for late fashions, and fine silks and satins; no Quaker dame now
wears drab apparel of Charleston importation. Like all other
_niggervilles_ in our disreputable part of the confederacy, the commercial
emporium of South Carolina is sick and impoverished; her silver cord has
been loosed; her golden bowl has been broken; and her unhappy people,
without proper or profitable employment, poor in pocket, and few in
number, go mourning or loafing about the streets. Her annual importations
are actually less now than they were a century ago, when South Carolina
was the second commercial province on the continent, Virginia being the
first.
In 1760, as we learn from Mr. Benton's "Thirty Years' View," the foreign
imports into Charleston were $2,662,000; in 1855, they amounted to only
$1,750,000! In 1854, the imports into Philadelphia, which, in foreign
trade, ranks at present but fourth among the commercial cities of the
union, were $21,963,021. In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining,
and the mechanic arts, in Pennsylvania, amounted to $155,044,910; the
products of the same in South Carolina, amounted to only $7,063,513.
As shown by the census report of 1850, which was prepared under the
superintendence of a native of South Carolina, who certainly will not be
suspected of injustice to his own section of the country, the Southern
states, the cash value of all the farms, farming implements, and machinery
in Pennsylvania, was $422,598,640; the value of the same in South
Carolina, in the same year, was only $86,518,038. From a compendium of the
same census, we learn that the value of all the real and personal property
in Pennsylvania, actual property, no slaves, amounted to $729,144,998; the
value of the same in South Carolina, including the estimated--we were
about to say fictitious--value of 384,925 negroes, amounted to only
$288,257,694. We have not been able to obtain the figures necessary to
show the exact value of the real and personal estate in Philadelphia, but
the amount is estimated to be not less than $300,000,000; and as, in 1850,
there were 408,762 free inhabitants in the single city of Philadelphia,
against 283,544 of the same class, in the whole state of South Carolina,
it is quite evident that the former is more powerful than the latter, and
far ahead of her in all the elements of genuine and permanent superiority.
In Pennsylvania, in 1850, the annual income of public schools amounted to
$1,348,249; the same in South Carolina, in the same year, amounted to only
$200,000; in the former state there were 393 libraries other than private,
in the latter only 26; in Pennsylvania 310 newspapers and periodicals were
published, circulating 84,898,672 copies annually; in South Carolina only
46 newspapers and periodicals were published, circulating but 7,145,930
copies per annum.
The incontrovertible facts we have thus far presented are, we think, amply
sufficient, both in number and magnitude, to bring conviction to the mind
of every candid reader, that there is something wrong, socially,
politically and morally wrong, in the policy under which the South has so
long loitered and languished. Else, how is it that the North, under the
operations of a policy directly the opposite of ours, has surpassed us in
almost everything great and good, and left us standing before the world,
an object of merited reprehension and derision?
For one, we are heartily ashamed of the inexcusable weakness, inertia and
dilapidation everywhere so manifest throughout our native section; but the
blame properly attaches itself to an usurping minority of the people, and
we are determined that it shall rest where it belongs. More on this
subject, however, after a brief but general survey of the inequalities and
disparities that exist between those two grand divisions of the country,
which, without reference to the situation that any part of their territory
bears to the cardinal points, are every day becoming more familiarly known
by the appropriate appellation of
THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES.
It is a fact well known to every intelligent Southerner that we are
compelled to go to the North for almost every article of utility and
adornment, from matches, shoepegs and paintings up to cotton-mills,
steamships and statuary; that we have no foreign trade, no princely
merchants, nor respectable artists; that, in comparison with the free
states, we contribute nothing to the literature, polite arts and
inventions of the age; that, for want of profitable employment at home,
large numbers of our native population find themselves necessitated to
emigrate to the West, whilst the free states retain not only the larger
proportion of those born within their own limits, but induce, annually,
hundreds of thousands of foreigners to settle and remain amongst them;
that almost everything produced at the North meets with ready sale, while,
at the same time, there is no demand, even among our own citizens, for the
productions of Southern industry; that, owing to the absence of a proper
system of business amongst us, the North becomes, in one way or another,
the proprietor and dispenser of all our floating wealth, and that we are
dependent on Northern capitalists for the means necessary to build our
railroads, canals and other public improvements; that if we want to visit
a foreign country, even though it may lie directly South of us, we find
no convenient way of getting there except by taking passage through a
Northern port; and that nearly all the profits arising from the exchange
of commodities, from insurance and shipping offices, and from the thousand
and one industrial pursuits of the country, accrue to the North, and are
there invested in the erection of those magnificent cities and stupendous
works of art which dazzle the eyes of the South, and attest the
superiority of free institutions!
The North is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they must and do make
two pilgrimages per annum--one in the spring and one in the fall. All our
commercial, mechanical, manufactural, and literary supplies come from
there. We want Bibles, brooms, buckets and books, and we go to the North;
we want pens, ink, paper, wafers and envelopes, and we go to the North; we
want shoes, hats, handkerchiefs, umbrellas and pocket knives, and we go to
the North; we want furniture, crockery, glassware and pianos, and we go to
the North; we want toys, primers, school books, fashionable apparel,
machinery, medicines, tombstones, and a thousand other things, and we go
to the North for them all. Instead of keeping our money in circulation at
home, by patronizing our own mechanics, manufacturers, and laborers, we
send it all away to the North, and there it remains; it never falls into
our hands again.
In one way or another we are more or less subservient to the North every
day of our lives. In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin; in
childhood we are humored with Northern gewgaws; in youth we are instructed
out of Northern books; at the age of maturity we sow our "wild oats" on
Northern soil; in middle-life we exhaust our wealth, energies and talents
in the dishonorable vocation of entailing our dependence on our children
and on our children's children, and, to the neglect of our own interests
and the interests of those around us, in giving aid and succor to every
department of Northern power; in the decline of life we remedy our
eye-sight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with
Northern canes; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic; and,
finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern cambric,
are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern carriage,
entombed with a Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern slab!
But it can hardly be necessary to say more in illustration of this unmanly
and unnational dependence, which is so glaring that it cannot fail to be
apparent to even the most careless and superficial observer. All the world
sees, or ought to see, that in a commercial, mechanical, manufactural,
financial, and literary point of view, we are as helpless as babes; that,
in comparison with the Free States, our agricultural resources have been
greatly exaggerated, misunderstood and mismanaged; and that, instead of
cultivating among ourselves a wise policy of mutual assistance and
co-operation with respect to individuals, and of self-reliance with
respect to the South at large, instead of giving countenance and
encouragement to the industrial enterprises projected in our midst, and
instead of building up, aggrandizing and beautifying our own States,
cities and towns, we have been spending our substance at the North, and
are daily augmenting and strengthening the very power which now has us so
completely under its thumb.
It thus appears, in view of the preceding statistical facts and arguments,
that the South, at one time the superior of the North in almost all the
ennobling pursuits and conditions of life, has fallen far behind her
competitor, and now ranks more as the dependency of a mother country than
as the equal confederate of free and independent States. Following the
order of our task, the next duty that devolves upon us is to trace out the
causes which have conspired to bring about this important change, and to
place on record the reasons, as we understand them,
WHY THE NORTH HAS SURPASSED THE SOUTH.
And now that we have come to the very heart and soul of our subject, we
feel no disposition to mince matters, but mean to speak plainly, and to
the point, without any equivocation, mental reservation, or secret evasion
whatever. The son of a venerated parent, who, while he lived, was a
considerate and merciful slaveholder, a native of the South, born and bred
in North Carolina, of a family whose home has been in the valley of the
Yadkin for nearly a century and a half, a Southerner by instinct and by
all the influences of thought, habits, and kindred, and with the desire
and fixed purpose to reside permanently within the limits of the South,
and with the expectation of dying there also--we feel that we have the
right to express our opinion, however humble or unimportant it may be, on
any and every question that affects the public good; and, so help us God,
"sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish," we are determined to
exercise that right with manly firmness, and without fear, favor or
affection.
And now to the point. In our opinion, an opinion which has been formed
from data obtained by assiduous researches, and comparisons, from
laborious investigation, logical reasoning, and earnest reflection, the
causes which have impeded the progress and prosperity of the South, which
have dwindled our commerce, and other similar pursuits, into the most
contemptible insignificance; sunk a large majority of our people in
galling poverty and ignorance, rendered a small minority conceited and
tyrannical, and driven the rest away from their homes; entailed upon us a
humiliating dependence on the Free States; disgraced us in the recesses of
our own souls, and brought us under reproach in the eyes of all civilized
and enlightened nations--may all be traced to one common source, and there
find solution in the most hateful and horrible word, that was ever
incorporated into the vocabulary of human economy--_Slavery_!
Reared amidst the institution of slavery, believing it to be wrong both in
principle and in practice, and having seen and felt its evil influences
upon individuals, communities and states, we deem it a duty, no less than
a privilege, to enter our protest against it, and to use our most
strenuous efforts to overturn and abolish it! Then we are an abolitionist?
Yes! not merely a freesoiler, but an abolitionist, in the fullest sense of
the term. We are not only in favor of keeping slavery out of the
territories, but, carrying our opposition to the institution a step
further, we here unhesitatingly declare ourself in favor of its immediate
and unconditional abolition, in every state in this confederacy, where it
now exists! Patriotism makes us a freesoiler; state pride makes us an
emancipationist; a profound sense of duty to the South makes us an
abolitionist; a reasonable degree of fellow feeling for the negro, makes
us a colonizationist. With the free state men in Kanzas and Nebraska, we
sympathize with all our heart. We love the whole country, the great family
of states and territories, one and inseparable, and would have the word
Liberty engraved as an appropriate and truthful motto, on the escutcheon
of every member of the confederacy. We love freedom, we hate slavery, and
rather than give up the one or submit to the other, we will forfeit the
pound of flesh nearest our heart. Is this sufficiently explicit and
categorical? If not, we hold ourself in readiness at all times, to return
a prompt reply to any proper question that may be propounded.
Our repugnance to the institution of slavery, springs from no one-sided
idea, or sickly sentimentality. We have not been hasty in making up our
mind on the subject; we have jumped at no conclusions; we have acted with
perfect calmness and deliberation; we have carefully considered, and
examined the reasons for and against the institution, and have also taken
into account the probable consequences of our decision. The more we
investigate the matter, the deeper becomes the conviction that we are
right; and with this to impel and sustain us, we pursue our labor with
love, with hope, and with constantly renewing vigor.
That we shall encounter opposition we consider as certain; perhaps we may
even be subjected to insult and violence. From the conceited and cruel
oligarchy of the South, we could look for nothing less. But we shall
shrink from no responsibility, and do nothing unbecoming a man; we know
how to repel indignity, and if assaulted, shall not fail to make the blow
recoil upon the aggressor's head. The road we have to travel may be a
rough one, but no impediment shall cause us to falter in our course. The
line of our duty is clearly defined, and it is our intention to follow it
faithfully, or die in the attempt.
But, thanks to heaven, we have no ominous forebodings of the result of the
contest now pending between Liberty and Slavery in this confederacy.
Though neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, our vision is
sufficiently penetrative to divine the future so far as to be able to see
that the "peculiar institution" has but a short, and, as heretofore,
inglorious existence before it. Time, the righter of every wrong, is
ripening events for the desired consummation of our labors and the
fulfillment of our cherished hopes. Each revolving year brings nearer the
inevitable crisis. The sooner it comes the better; may heaven, through our
humble efforts, hasten its advent.
The first and most sacred duty of every Southerner, who has the honor and
the interest of his country at heart, is to declare himself an unqualified
and uncompromising abolitionist. No conditional or half-way declaration
will avail; no mere threatening demonstration will succeed. With those who
desire to be instrumental in bringing about the triumph of liberty over
slavery, there should be neither evasion, vacillation, nor equivocation.
We should listen to no modifying terms or compromises that may be
proposed by the proprietors of the unprofitable and ungodly institution.
Nothing short of the complete abolition of slavery can save the South from
falling into the vortex of utter ruin. Too long have we yielded a
submissive obedience to the tyrannical domination of an inflated
oligarchy; too long have we tolerated their arrogance and self-conceit;
too long have we submitted to their unjust and savage exactions. Let us
now wrest from them the sceptre of power, establish liberty and equal
rights throughout the land, and henceforth and forever guard our
legislative halls from the pollutions and usurpations of pro-slavery
demagogues.
We have stated, in a cursory manner, the reasons, as we understand them,
why the North has surpassed the South, and have endeavored to show, we
think successfully, that the political salvation of the South depends upon
the speedy and unconditional abolition of slavery. We will not, however,
rest the case exclusively on our own arguments, but will again appeal to
incontrovertible facts and statistics to sustain us in our conclusions.
But before we do so, we desire to fortify ourself against a charge that is
too frequently made by careless and superficial readers. We allude to the
objections so often urged against the use of tabular statements and
statistical facts. It is worthy of note, however, that those objections
never come from thorough scholars or profound thinkers. Among the majority
of mankind, the science of statistics is only beginning to be appreciated;
when well understood, it will be recognized as one of the most important
branches of knowledge, and, as a matter of course, be introduced and
taught as an indispensable element of practical education in all our
principal institutions of learning. One of the most vigorous and popular
transatlantic writers of the day, Wm. C. Taylor, LL.D., of Dublin, says:
"The cultivation of statistics must be the source of all future
improvement in the science of political economy, because it is to the
table of the statistician that the economist must look for his facts; and
all speculations not founded upon facts, though they may be admired and
applauded when first propounded, will, in the end, assuredly be forgotten.
Statistical science may almost be regarded as the creation of this age.
The word statistics was invented in the middle of the last century by a
German professor,[1] to express a summary view of the physical, moral, and
social conditions of States; he justly remarked, that a numerical
statement of the extent, density of population, imports, exports,
revenues, etc., of a country, more perfectly explained its social
condition than general statements, however graphic or however accurate.
When such statements began to be collected, and exhibited in a popular
form, it was soon discovered that the political and economical sciences
were likely to gain the position of physical sciences; that is to say,
they were about to obtain records of observation, which would test the
accuracy of recognized principles, and lead to the discovery of new modes
of action. But the great object of this new science is to lead to the
knowledge of human nature; that is, to ascertain the general course of
operation of man's mental and moral faculties, and to furnish us with a
correct standard of judgment, by enabling us to determine the average
amount of the past as a guide to the average probabilities of the future.
This science is yet in its infancy, but has already produced the most
beneficial effects. The accuracy of the tables of life have rendered the
calculations of rates of insurance a matter of much greater certainty than
they were heretofore; the system of keeping the public accounts has been
simplified and improved; and finally, the experimental sciences of
medicine and political economy, have been fixed on a firmer foundation
than could be anticipated in the last century. Even in private life this
science is likely to prove of immense advantage, by directing attention to
the collection and registration of facts, and thus preventing the
formation of hasty judgments and erroneous conclusions."
The compiler, or rather the superintendent of the seventh United States
census, Prof. De Bow, a gentleman of more than ordinary industry and
practical learning, who, in his excellent Review, has, from time to time,
displayed much commendable zeal in his efforts to develop the industrial
resources of the Southern and South-western states, and who is, perhaps,
the greatest statistician in the country, says:--
"Statistics are far from being the barren array of figures ingeniously and
laboriously combined into columns and tables, which many persons are apt
to suppose them. They constitute rather the ledger of a nation, in which,
like the merchant in his books, the citizen can read, at one view, all of
the results of a year or of a period of years, as compared with other
periods, and deduce the profit or the loss which has been made, in morals,
education, wealth or power."
Impressed with a sense of the propriety of introducing, in this as well as
in the succeeding chapters of our work, a number of tabular statements
exhibiting the comparative growth and prosperity of the free and slave
states, we have deemed it eminently proper to adduce the testimony of
these distinguished authors in support of the claims which official facts
and accurate statistics lay to our consideration. And here we may remark
that the statistics which we propose to offer, like those already given,
have been obtained from official sources, and may, therefore, be relied on
as correct. The object we have in view in making a free use of facts and
figures, if not already apparent, will soon be understood. It is not so
much in its moral and religious aspects that we propose to discuss the
question of slavery, as in its social and political character and
influences. To say nothing of the sin and the shame of slavery, we believe
it is a most expensive and unprofitable institution; and if our brethren
of the South will but throw aside their unfounded prejudices and
preconceived opinions, and give us a fair and patient hearing, we feel
confident that we can bring them to the same conclusion. Indeed, we
believe we shall be enabled--not alone by our own contributions, but with
the aid of incontestable facts and arguments which we shall introduce from
other sources--to convince all true-hearted, candid and intelligent
Southerners, who may chance to read our book, (and we hope their name may
be legion) that slavery, and nothing but slavery, has retarded the
progress and prosperity of our portion of the Union; depopulated and
impoverished our cities by forcing the more industrious and enterprising
natives of the soil to emigrate to the free states; brought our domain
under a sparse and inert population by preventing foreign immigration;
made us tributary to the North, and reduced us to the humiliating
condition of mere provincial subjects in fact, though not in name. We
believe, moreover, that every patriotic Southerner thus convinced will
feel it a duty he owes to himself, to his country, and to his God, to
become a thorough, inflexible, practical abolitionist. So mote it be!
Now to our figures. Few persons have an adequate idea of the important
part the cardinal numbers are now playing in the cause of Liberty. They
are working wonders in the South. Intelligent, business men, from the
Chesapeake to the Rio Grande, are beginning to see that slavery, even in a
mercenary point of view, is impolitic, because it is unprofitable. Those
unique, mysterious little Arabic sentinels on the watch-towers of
political economy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, have joined forces,
allied themselves to the powers of freedom, and are hemming in and
combatting the institution with the most signal success. If let alone, we
have no doubt the digits themselves would soon terminate the existence of
slavery; but we do not mean to let them alone; they must not have all the
honor of annihilating the monstrous iniquity. We want to become an
auxiliary in the good work, and facilitate it. The liberation of five
millions of "poor white trash" from the second degree of slavery, and of
three millions of miserable kidnapped negroes from the first degree,
cannot be accomplished too soon. That it was not accomplished many years
ago is our misfortune. It now behooves us to take a bold and determined
stand in defence of the inalienable rights of ourselves and of our fellow
men, and to avenge the multiplicity of wrongs, social and political, which
we have suffered at the hands of a villainous oligarchy. It is madness to
delay. We cannot be too hasty in carrying out our designs. Precipitance in
this matter is an utter impossibility. If to-day we could emancipate all
the slaves in the Union, we would do it, and the country and everybody in
it would be vastly better off to-morrow. Now is the time for action; let
us work.
By taking a sort of inventory of the agricultural products of the free and
slave States in 1850, we now propose to correct a most extraordinary and
mischievous error into which the people of the South have unconsciously
fallen. Agriculture, it is well known, is the sole boast of the South;
and, strange to say, many pro-slavery Southerners, who, in our latitude,
pass for intelligent men, are so puffed up with the idea of our importance
in this respect, that they speak of the North as a sterile region, unfit
for cultivation, and quite dependent on the South for the necessaries of
life! Such rampant ignorance ought to be knocked in the head! We can prove
that the North produces greater quantities of bread-stuffs than the South!
Figures shall show the facts. Properly, the South has nothing left to
boast of; the North has surpassed her in everything, and is going farther
and farther ahead of her every day. We ask the reader's careful attention
to the following tables, which we have prepared at no little cost of time
and trouble, and which, when duly considered in connection with the
foregoing and subsequent portions of our work, will, we believe, carry
conviction to the mind that the downward tendency of the South can be
arrested only by the abolition of slavery.
TABLE NO. I.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, |Indian Corn,
| bushels. | bushels. | bushels.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
California | 17,228 | | 12,236
Connecticut | 41,762 | 1,258,738 | 1,935,043
Illinois | 9,414,575 | 10,087,241 | 57,646,984
Indiana | 6,214,458 | 5,655,014 | 52,964,363
Iowa | 1,530,581 | 1,524,345 | 8,656,799
Maine | 296,259 | 2,181,037 | 1,750,056
Massachusetts | 31,211 | 1,165,146 | 2,345,490
Michigan | 4,925,889 | 2,866,056 | 5,641,420
New Hampshire | 185,658 | 973,381 | 1,573,670
New Jersey | 1,601,190 | 3,378,063 | 8,759,704
New York | 13,121,498 | 26,552,814 | 17,858,400
Ohio | 14,487,351 | 13,472,742 | 59,078,695
Pennsylvania | 15,367,691 | 21,538,156 | 19,835,214
Rhode Island | 49 | 215,232 | 539,201
Vermont | 535,955 | 2,307,734 | 2,032,396
Wisconsin | 4,286,131 | 3,414,672 | 1,988,979
|------------|-------------|------------
| 72,157,486 | 96,590,371 | 242,618,650
============================================================
TABLE NO. II.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, |Indian Corn,
| bushels. | bushels. | bushels.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | 294,044 | 2,965,696 | 28,754,048
Arkansas | 199,639 | 656,183 | 8,893,939
Delaware | 482,511 | 604,518 | 3,145,542
Florida | 1,027 | 66,586 | 1,996,809
Georgia | 1,088,534 | 3,820,044 | 30,080,099
Kentucky | 2,142,822 | 8,201,311 | 58,672,591
Louisiana | 417 | 89,637 | 10,266,373
Maryland | 4,494,680 | 2,242,151 | 10,749,858
Mississippi | 137,990 | 1,503,288 | 22,446,552
Missouri | 2,981,652 | 5,278,079 | 36,214,537
North Carolina | 2,130,102 | 4,052,078 | 27,941,051
South Carolina | 1,066,277 | 2,322,155 | 16,271,454
Tennessee | 1,619,386 | 7,703,086 | 52,276,223
Texas | 41,729 | 199,017 | 6,028,876
Virginia | 11,212,616 | 10,179,144 | 35,254,319
|------------|-------------|------------
| 27,904,476 | 49,882,979 | 348,992,282
TABLE NO. III.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Potatoes, (I. | Rye, | Barley,
| & S.) bush. | bushels. | bushels.
------------------|---------------|------------|------------
California | 10,292 | | 9,712
Connecticut | 2,689,805 | 600,893 | 19,099
Illinois | 2,672,294 | 83,364 | 110,795
Indiana | 2,285,048 | 78,792 | 45,483
Iowa | 282,363 | 19,916 | 25,093
Maine | 3,436,040 | 102,916 | 151,731
Massachusetts | 3,585,384 | 481,021 | 112,385
Michigan | 2,361,074 | 105,871 | 75,249
New Hampshire | 4,307,919 | 183,117 | 70,256
New Jersey | 3,715,251 | 1,255,578 | 6,492
New York | 15,403,997 | 4,148,182 | 3,585,059
Ohio | 5,245,760 | 425,918 | 354,358
Pennsylvania | 6,032,904 | 4,805,160 | 165,584
Rhode Island | 651,029 | 26,409 | 18,875
Vermont | 4,951,014 | 176,233 | 42,150
Wisconsin | 1,402,956 | 81,253 | 209,692
|---------------|------------|------------
| 59,033,170 | 12,575,623 | 5,002,013
============================================================
TABLE NO. IV.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Potatoes, (I. | Rye, | Barley,
| & S.) bush. | bushels. | bushels.
------------------|---------------|------------|------------
Alabama | 5,721,205 | 17,261 | 3,958
Arkansas | 981,981 | 8,047 | 177
Delaware | 305,985 | 8,066 | 56
Florida | 765,054 | 1,152 |
Georgia | 7,213,807 | 53,750 | 11,501
Kentucky | 2,490,666 | 415,073 | 95,343
Louisiana | 1,524,085 | 475 |
Maryland | 973,932 | 226,014 | 745
Mississippi | 5,003,277 | 9,606 | 228
Missouri | 1,274,511 | 44,268 | 9,631
North Carolina | 5,716,027 | 229,563 | 2,735
South Carolina | 4,473,960 | 43,790 | 4,583
Tennessee | 3,845,560 | 89,137 | 2,737
Texas | 1,426,803 | 3,108 | 4,776
Virginia | 3,130,567 | 458,930 | 25,437
|---------------|------------|------------
| 44,847,420 | 1,608,240 | 161,907
TABLE NO. V.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Buckwheat, | Beans & Peas, | Clover & Grass
| bushels. | bushels. | seeds bushels.
---------------|------------|---------------|---------------
California | | 2,292 |
Connecticut | 229,297 | 19,090 | 30,469
Illinois | 184,509 | 82,814 | 17,807
Indiana | 149,740 | 35,773 | 30,271
Iowa | 52,516 | 4,475 | 2,438
Maine | 104,523 | 205,541 | 18,311
Massachusetts | 105,895 | 43,709 | 6,087
Michigan | 472,917 | 74,254 | 26,274
New Hampshire | 65,265 | 70,856 | 8,900
New Jersey | 878,934 | 14,174 | 91,331
New York | 3,183,955 | 741,546 | 184,715
Ohio | 638,060 | 60,168 | 140,501
Pennsylvania | 2,193,692 | 55,231 | 178,943
Rhode Island | 1,245 | 6,846 | 5,036
Vermont | 209,819 | 104,649 | 15,696
Wisconsin | 79,878 | 20,657 | 5,486
|------------|---------------|---------------
| 8,550,245 | 1,542,295 | 762,265
============================================================
TABLE NO. VI.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Buckwheat, | Beans & Peas, | Clover & Grass
| bushels. | bushels. | seeds bushels.
---------------|------------|---------------|---------------
Alabama | 348 | 892,701 | 685
Arkansas | 175 | 285,738 | 526
Delaware | 8,615 | 4,120 | 3,928
Florida | 55 | 135,359 | 2
Georgia | 250 | 1,142,011 | 560
Kentucky | 16,097 | 202,574 | 24,711
Louisiana | 3 | 161,732 | 99
Maryland | 103,671 | 12,816 | 17,778
Mississippi | 1,121 | 1,072,757 | 617
Missouri | 23,641 | 46,017 | 4,965
North Carolina | 16,704 | 1,584,252 | 1,851
South Carolina | 283 | 1,026,900 | 406
Tennessee | 19,427 | 369,321 | 14,214
Texas | 59 | 179,351 | 10
Virginia | 214,898 | 521,579 | 53,155
|------------|---------------|---------------
| 405,357 | 7,637,227 | 123,517
TABLE NO. VII.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
--------------------------------------------------------
States. |Flaxseed,|Val. of Garden|Val. of Orchard
| bushels.| products. | prod'ts.
---------------|---------|--------------|---------------
California | | $75,275 | $17,700
Connecticut | 703 | 196,874 | 175,118
Illinois | 10,787 | 127,494 | 446,049
Indiana | 36,888 | 72,864 | 324,940
Iowa | 1,959 | 8,848 | 8,434
Maine | 580 | 122,387 | 342,865
Massachusetts | 72 | 600,020 | 463,995
Michigan | 519 | 14,738 | 132,650
New Hampshire | 189 | 56,810 | 248,560
New Jersey | 16,525 | 475,242 | 607,268
New York | 57,963 | 912,047 | 1,761,950
Ohio | 188,880 | 214,004 | 695,921
Pennsylvania | 41,728 | 688,714 | 723,389
Rhode Island | | 98,298 | 63,994
Vermont | 939 | 18,853 | 315,255
Wisconsin | 1,191 | 32,142 | 4,823
|---------|--------------|---------------
| 358,923 | $3,714,605 | $6,332,914
========================================================
TABLE NO. VIII.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
--------------------------------------------------------
States. |Flaxseed,|Val. of Garden|Val. of Orchard
| bushels.| products. | prod'ts.
---------------|---------|--------------|---------------
Alabama | 69 | $84,821 | $15,408
Arkansas | 321 | 17,150 | 40,141
Delaware | 904 | 12,714 | 46,574
Florida | | 8,721 | 1,280
Georgia | 622 | 76,500 | 92,776
Kentucky | 75,801 | 303,120 | 106,230
Louisiana | | 148,329 | 22,259
Maryland | 2,446 | 200,869 | 164,051
Mississippi | 26 | 46,250 | 50,405
Missouri | 13,696 | 99,454 | 514,711
North Carolina | 38,196 | 39,462 | 34,348
South Carolina | 55 | 47,286 | 35,108
Tennessee | 18,904 | 97,183 | 52,894
Texas | 26 | 12,354 | 12,505
Virginia | 52,318 | 183,047 | 177,137
|---------|--------------|---------------
| 203,484 | $1,377,260 | $1,355,827
RECAPITULATION--FREE STATES.
Wheat 72,157,486 bush. @ 1.50 $108,236,229
Oats 96,590,371 " " 40 38,636,148
Indian Corn 242,618,650 " " 60 145,571,190
Potatoes (I. & S.) 59,033,170 " " 38 22,432,604
Rye 12,574,623 " " 1.00 12,574,623
Barley 5,002,013 " " 90 4,501,811
Buckwheat 8,550,245 " " 50 4,275,122
Beans & Peas 1,542,295 " " 1.75 2,699,015
Clov. & Grass seeds 762,265 " " 3.00 2,286,795
Flax Seeds 358,923 " " 1.25 448,647
Garden Products 3,714,605
Orchard Products 6,332,914
----------- ------------
Total 499,190,041 bushels,
valued as above, at $351,709,703
RECAPITULATION--SLAVE STATES.
Wheat 27,904,476 bush. @ 1.50 $41,856,714
Oats 49,882,799 " " 40 19,953,191
Indian Corn 348,992,282 " " 60 209,395,369
Potatoes (I. & S.) 44,847,420 " " 38 17,042,019
Rye 1,608,240 " " 1.00 1,608,240
Barley 161,907 " " 90 145,716
Buckwheat 405,357 " " 50 202,678
Beans & Peas 7,637,227 " " 1.75 13,365,147
Clov. & Grass seeds 123,517 " " 3.00 370,551
Flax Seeds 203,484 " " 1.25 254,355
Garden Products 1,377,260
Orchard Products 1,355,827
----------- ------------
Total 481,766,889 bushels,
valued as above, at $306,927,067
TOTAL DIFFERENCE--BUSHEL-MEASURE PRODUCTS.
Bushels. Value.
Free States 499,190,041 $351,709,703
Slave States 481,766,889 306,927,067
----------- -----------
Balance in bushels 17,423,152 Difference in value $44,782,636
So much for the boasted agricultural superiority of the South! Mark well
the balance in bushels, and the difference in value! Is either in favor of
the South? No! Are both in favor of the North? Yes! Here we have
unquestionable proof that of all the bushel-measure products of the
nation, the free states produce far more than one-half; and it is worthy
of particular mention, that _the excess of Northern products is of the
most valuable kind_. The account shows a balance against the South, in
favor of the North, of _seventeen million four hundred and twenty-three
thousand one hundred and fifty-two bushels_, and a difference in value of
_forty-four million seven hundred and eighty-two thousand six hundred and
thirty-six dollars_. Please bear these facts in mind, for, in order to
show positively how the free and slave States do stand upon the great and
important subject of rural economy, we intend to take an account of all
the other products of the soil, of the live-stock upon farms, of the
animals slaughtered, and, in fact, of every item of husbandry of the two
sections; and if, in bringing our tabular exercises to a close, we find
slavery gaining upon freedom--a thing it has never yet been known to
do--we shall, as a matter of course, see that the above amount is
transferred to the credit of the side to which it of right belongs.
In making up these tables we have two objects in view; the first is to
open the eyes of the non-slaveholders of the South, to the system of
deception, that has so long been practiced upon them, and the second is to
show slaveholders themselves--we have reference only to those who are not
too perverse, or ignorant, to perceive naked truths--that free labor is
far more respectable, profitable, and productive, than slave labor. In the
South, unfortunately, no kind of labor is either free or respectable.
Every white man who is under the necessity of earning his bread, by the
sweat of his brow, or by manual labor, in any capacity, no matter how
unassuming in deportment, or exemplary in morals, is treated as if he was
a loathsome beast, and shunned with the utmost disdain. His soul may be
the very seat of honor and integrity, yet without slaves--himself a
slave--he is accounted as nobody, and would be deemed intolerably
presumptuous, if he dared to open his mouth, even so wide as to give faint
utterance to a three-lettered monosyllable, like yea or nay, in the
presence of an august knight of the whip and the lash.
There are few Southerners who will not be astonished at the disclosures of
these statistical comparisons, between the free and the slave States. That
the astonishment of the more intelligent and patriotic non-slaveholders
will be mingled with indignation, is no more than we anticipate. We
confess our own surprise, and deep chagrin, at the result of our
investigations. Until we examined into the matter, we thought and hoped
the South was really ahead of the North in _one_ particular, that of
agriculture; but our thoughts have been changed, and our hopes frustrated,
for instead of finding ourselves the possessors of a single advantage, we
behold our dear native South stripped of every laurel, and sinking deeper
and deeper in the depths of poverty and shame; while, at the same time, we
see the North, our successful rival, extracting and absorbing the few
elements of wealth yet remaining amongst us, and rising higher and higher
in the scale of fame, fortune, and invulnerable power. Thus our
disappointment gives way to a feeling of intense mortification, and our
soul involuntarily, but justly, we believe, cries out for retribution
against the treacherous, slave-driving legislators, who have so basely and
unpatriotically neglected the interests of their poor white constituents
and bargained away the rights of posterity. Notwithstanding the fact that
the white non-slaveholders of the South, are in the majority, as five to
one, they have never yet had any part or lot in framing the laws under
which they live. There is no legislation except for the benefit of
slavery, and slaveholders. As a general rule, poor white persons are
regarded with less esteem and attention than negroes, and though the
condition of the latter is wretched beyond description, vast numbers of
the former are infinitely worse off. A cunningly devised mockery of
freedom is guarantied to them, and that is all. To all intents and
purposes they are disfranchised, and outlawed, and the only privilege
extended to them, is a shallow and circumscribed participation in the
political movements that usher slaveholders into office.
We have not breathed away seven and twenty years in the South, without
becoming acquainted with the demagogical manoeuverings of the oligarchy.
Their intrigues and tricks of legerdemain are as familiar to us as
household words; in vain might the world be ransacked for a more precious
junto of flatterers and cajolers. It is amusing to ignorance, amazing to
credulity, and insulting to intelligence, to hear them in their blattering
efforts to mystify and pervert the sacred principles of liberty, and turn
the curse of slavery into a blessing. To the illiterate poor whites--made
poor and ignorant by the system of slavery--they hold out the idea that
slavery is the very bulwark of our liberties, and the foundation of
American independence! For hours at a time, day after day, will they
expatiate upon the inexpressible beauties and excellencies of this great,
_free_ and _independent_ nation; and finally, with the most extravagant
gesticulations and rhetorical flourishes, conclude their nonsensical
ravings, by attributing all the glory and prosperity of the country, from
Maine to Texas, and from Georgia to California, to the "invaluable
institutions of the South!" With what patience we could command, we have
frequently listened to the incoherent and truth-murdering declamations of
these champions of slavery, and, in the absence of a more politic method
of giving vent to our disgust and indignation, have involuntarily bit our
lips into blisters.
The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of the blacks, who are
bought and sold, and driven about like so many cattle, but they are also
the oracles and arbiters of all non-slaveholding whites, whose freedom is
merely nominal, and whose unparalleled illiteracy and degradation is
purposely and fiendishly perpetuated. How little the "poor white trash,"
the great majority of the Southern people, know of the real condition of
the country is, indeed, sadly astonishing. The truth is, they know nothing
of public measures, and little of private affairs, except what their
imperious masters, the slave-drivers, condescend to tell, and that is but
precious little, and even that little, always garbled and one-sided, is
never told except in public harangues; for the haughty cavaliers of
shackles and handcuffs will not degrade themselves by holding private
converse with those who have neither dimes nor hereditary rights in human
flesh.
Whenever it pleases, and to the extent it pleases, a slaveholder to become
communicative, poor whites may hear with fear and trembling, but not
speak. They must be as mum as dumb brutes, and stand in awe of their
august superiors, or be crushed with stern rebukes, cruel oppressions, or
downright violence. If they dare to think for themselves, their thoughts
must be forever concealed. The expression of any sentiment at all
conflicting with the gospel of slavery, dooms them at once in the
community in which they live, and then, whether willing or unwilling, they
are obliged to become heroes, martyrs, or exiles. They may thirst for
knowledge, but there is no Moses among them to smite it out of the rocks
of Horeb. The black veil, through whose almost impenetrable meshes light
seldom gleams, has long been pendent over their eyes, and there, with
fiendish jealousy, the slave-driving ruffians sedulously guard it.
Non-slaveholders are not only kept in ignorance of what is transpiring at
the North, but they are continually misinformed of what is going on even
in the South. Never were the poorer classes of a people, and those classes
so largely in the majority, and all inhabiting the same country, so basely
duped, so adroitly swindled, or so damnably outraged.
It is expected that the stupid and sequacious masses, the white victims of
slavery, will believe, and, as a general thing, they do believe, whatever
the slaveholders tell them; and thus it is that they are cajoled into the
notion that they are the freest, happiest and most intelligent people in
the world, and are taught to look with prejudice and disapprobation upon
every new principle or progressive movement. Thus it is that the South,
woefully inert and inventionless, has lagged behind the North, and is now
weltering in the cesspool of ignorance and degradation.
We have already intimated that the opinion is prevalent throughout the
South that the free States are quite sterile and unproductive, and that
they are mainly dependent on us for breadstuffs and other provisions. So
far as the cereals, fruits, garden vegetables and esculent roots are
concerned, we have, in the preceding tables, shown the utter falsity of
this opinion; and we now propose to show that it is equally erroneous in
other particulars, and very far from the truth in the general reckoning.
We can prove, and we intend to prove, from facts in our possession, that
the hay crop of the free States is worth considerably more in dollars and
cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the
fifteen slave States. This statement may strike some of our readers with
amazement, and others may, for the moment, regard it as quite incredible;
but it is true, nevertheless, and we shall soon proceed to confirm it. The
single free State of New-York produces more than _three times_ the
quantity of hay that is produced in all the slave States. Ohio produces a
larger number of tons than all the Southern and Southwestern States, and
so does Pennsylvania. Vermont, little and unpretending as she is, does
the same thing, with the exception of Virginia. Look at the facts as
presented in the tables, and let your own eyes, physical and intellectual,
confirm you in the truth.
And yet, forsooth, the slave-driving oligarchy would whip us into the
belief that agriculture is not one of the leading and lucrative pursuits
of the free States, that the soil there is an uninterrupted barren waste,
and that our Northern brethren, having the advantage in nothing except
wealth, population, inland and foreign commerce, manufactures, mechanism,
inventions, literature, the arts and sciences, and their concomitant
branches of profitable industry,--miserable objects of charity--are
dependent on us for the necessaries of life.
Next to Virginia, Maryland is the greatest Southern hay-producing State;
and yet, it is the opinion of several of the most extensive hay and grain
dealers in Baltimore, with whom we have conversed on the subject, that the
domestic crop is scarcely equal to one-third the demand, and that the
balance required for home consumption, about two-thirds, is chiefly
brought from New-York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. At this rate,
Maryland receives and consumes not less than three hundred and fifteen
thousand tons of Northern hay every year; and this, as we are informed by
the dealers above-mentioned, at an average cost to the last purchaser, by
the time it is stowed in the mow, of at least twenty-five dollars per ton;
it would thus appear that this most popular and valuable provender, one of
the staple commodities of the North, commands a market in a single slave
State, to the amount of seven million eight hundred and seventy-five
thousand dollars per annum.
In this same State of Maryland, less than one million of dollar's worth of
cotton finds a market, the whole number of bales sold here in 1850
amounting to only twenty-three thousand three hundred and twenty-five,
valued at seven hundred and forty-six thousand four hundred dollars.
Briefly, then, and in round numbers, we may state the case thus: Maryland
buys annually seven millions of dollars worth of hay from the North, and
one million of dollars worth of cotton from the South. Let slaveholders
and their fawning defenders read, ponder and compare.
The exact quantities of Northern hay, rye, and buckwheat flour, Irish
potatoes, fruits, clover and grass seeds, and other products of the soil,
received and consumed in all the slaveholding States, we have no means of
ascertaining; but for all practical purposes, we can arrive sufficiently
near to the amount by inference from the above data, and from what we see
with our eyes and hear with our ears wherever we go. Food from the North
for man or for beast, or for both, is for sale in every market in the
South. Even in the most insignificant little villages in the interior of
the slave States, where books, newspapers and other mediums of
intelligence are unknown, where the poor whites and the negroes are alike
bowed down in heathenish ignorance and barbarism, and where the news is
received but once a week, and then only in a Northern-built stage-coach,
drawn by horses in Northern harness, in charge of a driver dressed
_cap-a-pie_ in Northern habiliments, and with a Northern whip in his
hand,--the agricultural products of the North, either crude, prepared,
pickled or preserved, are ever to be found.
Mortifying as the acknowledgment of the fact is to us, it is our unbiased
opinion--an opinion which will, we believe, be endorsed by every
intelligent person who goes into a careful examination and comparison of
all the facts in the case--that the profits arising to the North from the
sale of provender and provisions to the South, are far greater than those
arising to the South from the sale of cotton, tobacco and breadstuffs to
the North. It follows, then, that the agricultural interests of the North
being not only equal but actually superior to those of the South, the
hundreds of millions of dollars which the commerce and manufactures of the
former annually yield, is just so much clear and independent gain over the
latter. It follows, also, from a corresponding train or system of
deduction, and with all the foregoing facts in view, that the difference
between freedom and slavery is simply the difference between sense and
nonsense, wisdom and folly, good and evil, right and wrong.
Any observant American, from whatever point of the compass he may hail,
who will take the trouble to pass through the Southern markets, both great
and small, as we have done, and inquire where this article, that and the
other came from, will be utterly astonished at the variety and quantity of
Northern agricultural productions kept for sale. And this state of things
is growing worse and worse every year. Exclusively agricultural as the
South is in her industrial pursuits, she is barely able to support her
sparse and degenerate population. Her men and her domestic animals, both
dwarfed into shabby objects of commiseration under the blighting effects
of slavery, are constantly feeding on the multifarious products of
Northern soil. And if the whole truth must be told, we may here add, that
these products, like all other articles of merchandize purchased at the
North, are generally bought on a credit, and, in a great number of
instances, by far too many, never paid for--not, as a general rule,
because the purchasers are dishonest or unwilling to pay, but because they
are impoverished and depressed by the retrogressive and deadening
operations of slavery, that most unprofitable and pernicious institution
under which they live.
To show how well we are sustained in our remarks upon hay and other
special products of the soil, as well as to give circulation to other
facts of equal significance, we quote a single passage from an address by
Paul C. Cameron, before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, North
Carolina. This production is, in the main, so powerfully conceived, so
correct and plausible in its statements and conclusions, and so well
calculated, though, perhaps, not intended, to arouse the old North State
to a sense of her natural greatness and acquired shame, that we could wish
to see it published in pamphlet form, and circulated throughout the length
and breadth of that unfortunate and degraded heritage of slavery. Mr.
Cameron says:
"I know not when I have been more humiliated, as a North Carolina farmer,
than when, a few weeks ago, at a railroad depot at the very doors of our
State capital, I saw wagons drawn by Kentucky mules, loading with
Northern hay, for the supply not only of the town, but to be taken to the
country. Such a sight at the capital of a State whose population is almost
exclusively devoted to agriculture, is a most humiliating exhibition. Let
us cease to use every thing, as far as it is practicable, that is not the
product of our own soil and workshops--not an axe, or a broom, or bucket,
from Connecticut. By every consideration of self-preservation, we are
called to make better efforts to expel the Northern grocer from the State
with his butter, and the Ohio and Kentucky horse, mule and hog driver,
from our county at least. It is a reproach on us as farmers, and no little
deduction from our wealth, that we suffer the population of our towns and
villages to supply themselves with butter from another Orange County in
New-York."
We have promised to prove that the hay crop of the free states is worth
considerably more than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp
produced in the fifteen slave States. The compilers of the last census, as
we learn from Prof. De Bow, the able and courteous superintendent, in
making up the hay-tables, allowed two thousand two hundred and forty
pounds to the ton. The price per ton at which we should estimate its value
has puzzled us to some extent. Dealers in the article in Baltimore think
it will average twenty-five dollars, in their market. Four or five months
ago they sold it at thirty dollars per ton. At the very time we write,
though there is less activity in the article than usual, we learn, from an
examination of sundry prices-current and commercial journals, that hay is
selling in Savannah at $33 per ton; in Mobile and New Orleans at $26; in
Charleston at $25; in Louisville at $24; and in Cincinnati at $23. The
average of these prices is _twenty-six dollars sixteen and two-third
cents_; and we suppose it would be fair to employ the figures which would
indicate this amount, the net value of a single ton, in calculating the
total market value of the entire crop. Were we to do this--and, with the
foregoing facts in view, we submit to intelligent men whether we would not
be justifiable in doing it,--the hay crop of the free states, 12,690,982
tons, in 1850, would amount in valuation to the enormous sum of
$331,081,695--more than four times the value of all the cotton produced in
the United States during the same period!
But we shall not make the calculation at what we have found to be the
average value per ton throughout the country. What rate, then, shall be
agreed upon as a basis of comparison between the value of the hay crop of
the North and that of the South, and as a means of testing the truth of
our declaration--that the former exceeds the aggregate value of all the
cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen slave States?
Suppose we take $13,08-1/3--just half the average value--as the multiplier
in this arithmetical exercise. This we can well afford to do; indeed, we
might reduce the amount per ton to much less than half the average value,
and still have a large margin left for triumphant demonstration. It is not
our purpose, however, to make an overwhelming display of the incomparable
greatness of the free States.
In estimating the value of the various agricultural products of the two
great sections of the country, we have been guided by prices emanating
from the Bureau of Agriculture in Washington; and in a catalogue of those
prices now before us, we perceive that the average value of hay throughout
the nation is supposed to be not more than half a cent per pound--$11.20
per ton--which, as we have seen above, is considerably less than half the
present market value;--and this, too, in the face of the fact that prices
generally rule higher than they do just now. It will be admitted on all
sides, however, that the prices fixed upon by the Bureau of Agriculture,
taken as a whole, are as fair for one section of the country as for the
other, and that we cannot blamelessly deviate from them in one particular
without deviating from them in another. Eleven dollars and twenty cents
($11.20) per ton shall therefore be the price; and, notwithstanding these
greatly reduced figures, we now renew, with an addendum, our declaration
and promise, that--_We can prove, and we shall now proceed to prove, that
the annual hay crop of the free States is worth considerably more in
dollars and cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, hemp and cane
sugar annually produced in the fifteen slave States_.
HAY CROP OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
12,690,982 tons _a_ 11,20 $142,138,998
SUNDRY PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
Cotton 2,445,779 bales _a_ 32,00 $78,264,928
Tobacco 185,023,906 lbs. " 10 18,502,390
Rice (rough) 215,313,497 lbs. " 4 8,612,539
Hay 1,137,784 tons " 11,20 12,743,180
Hemp 34,673 tons " 112,00 3,883,376
Cane Sugar 237,133,000 lbs. " 7 16,599,310
------------
$138,605,723
RECAPITULATION.
Hay crop of the free States $142,138,998
Sundry products of the slave States 138,605,723
------------
Balance in favor of the free States $3,533,275
There is the account; look at it, and let it stand in attestation of the
exalted virtues and surpassing powers of freedom. Scan it well, Messieurs
lords of the lash, and learn from it new lessons of the utter
inefficiency, and despicable imbecility of slavery. Examine it minutely,
liberty-loving patriots of the North, and behold in it additional
evidences of the beauty, grandeur, and super-excellence of free
institutions. Treasure it up in your minds, outraged friends and
non-slaveholders of the South, and let the recollection of it arouse you
to an inflexible determination to extirpate the monstrous enemy that
stalks abroad in your land, and to recover the inalienable rights and
liberties, which have been filched from you by an unprincipled oligarchy.
In deference to truth, decency and good sense, it is to be hoped that
negro-driving politicians will never more have the effrontery to open
their mouths in extolling the agricultural achievements of slave labor.
Especially is it desirable, that, as a simple act of justice to a basely
deceived populace, they may cease their stale and senseless harangues on
the importance of cotton. The value of cotton to the South, to the North,
to the nation, and to the world, has been so grossly exaggerated, and so
extensive have been the evils which have resulted in consequence of the
extraordinary misrepresentations concerning it, that we should feel
constrained to reproach ourself for remissness of duty, if we failed to
make an attempt to explode the popular error. The figures above show what
it is, and what it is not. Recur to them, and learn the facts.
So hyperbolically has the importance of cotton been magnified by certain
pro-slavery politicians of the South, that the person who would give
credence to all their fustian and bombast, would be under the necessity of
believing that the very existence of almost everything, in the heaven
above, in the earth beneath, and in the water under the earth, depended on
it. The truth is, however, that the cotton crop is of but little value to
the South. New England and Old England, by their superior enterprise and
sagacity, turn it chiefly to their own advantage. It is carried in their
ships, spun in their factories, woven in their looms, insured in their
offices, returned again in their own vessels, and, with double freight and
cost of manufacturing added, purchased by the South at a high premium. Of
all the parties engaged or interested in its transportation and
manufacture, the South is the only one that does not make a profit. Nor
does she, as a general thing, make a profit by producing it.
We are credibly informed that many of the farmers in the immediate
vicinity of Baltimore, where we now write, have turned their attention
exclusively to hay, and that from one acre they frequently gather two
tons, for which they receive fifty dollars. Let us now inquire how many
dollars may be expected from an acre planted in cotton. Mr. Cameron, from
whose able address before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, North
Carolina, we have already gleaned some interesting particulars, informs
us, that the cotton planters in his part of the country, "have contented
themselves with a crop yielding only _ten or twelve dollars per acre_,"
and that "the summing up of a large surface gives but a living result." An
intelligent resident of the Palmetto State, writing in De Bow's Review,
not long since, advances the opinion that the cotton planters of South
Carolina are not realizing more than one per cent. on the amount of
capital they have invested. While in Virginia, very recently, an elderly
slaveholder, whose religious walk and conversation had recommended and
promoted him to an eldership in the Presbyterian church, and who supports
himself and family by raising niggers and tobacco, told us that, for the
last eight or ten years, aside from the increase of his human chattels, he
felt quite confident he had not cleared as much even as one per cent. per
annum on the amount of his investment. The real and personal property of
this aged _Christian_ consists chiefly in a large tract of land and about
thirty negroes, most of whom, according to his own confession, are more
expensive than profitable. The proceeds arising from the sale of the
tobacco they produce, are all absorbed in the purchase of meat and bread
for home consumption, and when the crop is stunted by drought, frost, or
otherwise cut short, one of the negroes must be sold to raise funds for
the support of the others. Such are the agricultural achievements of slave
labor; such are the results of "the sum of all villainies." The diabolical
institution subsists on its own flesh. At one time children are sold to
procure food for the parents, at another, parents are sold to procure food
for the children. Within its pestilential atmosphere, nothing succeeds;
progress and prosperity are unknown; inanition and slothfulness ensue;
everything becomes dull, dismal and unprofitable; wretchedness and
desolation run riot throughout the land; an aspect of most melancholy
inactivity and dilapidation broods over every city and town; ignorance and
prejudice sit enthroned over the minds of the people; usurping despots
wield the sceptre of power; everywhere, and in everything, between
Delaware Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, are the multitudinous evils of
slavery apparent.
The soil itself soon sickens and dies beneath the unnatural tread of the
slave. Hear what the Hon. C. C. Clay, of Alabama, has to say upon the
subject. His testimony is eminently suggestive, well-timed, and truthful;
and we heartily commend it to the careful consideration of every spirited
Southron who loves his country, and desires to see it rescued from the
fatal grasp of "the mother of harlots." Says he:
"I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama, and in my
native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting
culture of cotton. Our small planters, after taking the cream off their
lands, unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are going
further West and South, in search of other virgin lands, which they may
and will despoil and impoverish in like manner. Our wealthier planters,
with greater means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer
neighbors, extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force.
The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give
their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many who are
merely independent. Of the $20,000,000 annually realized from the sales of
the cotton crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting the
producers, is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus the white population
has decreased and the slave increased almost _pari passu_ in several
counties of our State. In 1825, Madison county cast about 3,000 votes;
now, she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing that county, one will
discover numerous farm-houses, once the abode of industrious and
intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted and
dilapidated; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced,
abandoned, and covered with those evil harbingers, fox-tail and
broomsedge; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering walls of once
thrifty villages, and will find 'one only master grasps the whole domain,'
that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a
country in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree had
been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful
signs of senility and decay, apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas."
Some one has said that "an honest confession is good for the soul," and if
the adage be true, as we have no doubt it is, we think Mr. C. C. Clay is
entitled to a quiet conscience on one score at least. In the extract
quoted above, he gives us a graphic description of the ruinous operations
and influences of slavery in the Southwest; and we, as a native of
Carolina, and a traveler through Virginia, are ready to bear testimony to
the fitness of his remarks when he referred to those States as examples of
senility and decay. With equal propriety, however, he might have stopped
nearer home for a subject of comparison. Either of the States bordering
upon Alabama, or, indeed, any other slave States, would have answered his
purpose quite as well as Virginia and the Carolinas. Wherever slavery
exists there he may find parallels to the destruction that is sweeping
with such deadly influence over his own unfortunate State.
As for examples of vigorous, industrious and thrifty communities, they can
be found anywhere beyond the Upas-shadow of slavery--nowhere else.
New-York and Massachusetts, which, by nature, are confessedly far inferior
to Virginia and the Carolinas, have, by the more liberal and equitable
policy which they have pursued, in substituting liberty for slavery,
attained a degree of eminence and prosperity altogether unknown in the
slave States.
Amidst all the hyperbole and cajolery of slave-driving politicians, who,
as we have already seen, are 'the books, the arts, the academies, that
show, contain, and govern all the South,' we are rejoiced to see that Mr.
Clay, Mr. Cameron, and a few others, have had the boldness and honesty to
step forward and proclaim the truth. All such frank admissions are to be
hailed as good omens for the South. Nothing good can come from any attempt
to conceal the unconcealable evidences of poverty and desolation
everywhere trailing in the wake of slavery. Let the truth be told on all
occasions, of the North as well as of the South, and the people will soon
begin to discover the egregiousness of their errors, to draw just
comparisons, to inquire into cause and effect, and to adopt the more utile
measures, manners and customs of their wiser cotemporaries.
In wilfully traducing and decrying everything North of Mason and Dixon's
line, and in excessively magnifying the importance of everything South of
it, the oligarchy have, in the eyes of all liberal and intelligent men,
only made an exhibition of their uncommon folly and dishonesty. For a long
time, it is true, they have succeeded in deceiving the people, in keeping
them humbled in the murky sloughs of poverty and ignorance, and in
instilling into their untutored minds passions and prejudices expressly
calculated to strengthen and protect the accursed institution of slavery;
but, thanks to heaven, their inglorious reign is fast drawing to a close;
with irresistible brilliancy, and in spite of the interdict of tyrants,
light from the pure fountain of knowledge is now streaming over the dark
places of our land, and, ere long--mark our words--there will ascend from
Delaware, and from Texas, and from all the intermediate States, a huzza
for Freedom and for Equal Rights, that will utterly confound the friends
of despotism, set at defiance the authority of usurpers, and carry
consternation to the heart of every slavery-propagandist.
To undeceive the people of the South, to bring them to a knowledge of the
inferior and disreputable position which they occupy as a component part
of the Union, and to give prominence and popularity to those plans which,
if adopted, will elevate us to an equality, socially, morally,
intellectually, industrially, politically, and financially, with the most
flourishing and refined nation in the world, and, if possible, to place us
in the van of even that, is the object of this work. Slaveholders, either
from ignorance or from a wilful disposition to propagate error, contend
that the South has nothing to be ashamed of, that slavery has proved a
blessing to her, and that her superiority over the North in an
agricultural point of view makes amends for all her shortcomings in other
respects. On the other hand, we contend that many years of continual
blushing and severe penance would not suffice to cancel or annul the shame
and disgrace that justly attaches to the South in consequence of
slavery--the direst evil that e'er befell the land--that the South bears
nothing like even a respectable approximation to the North in navigation,
commerce, or manufactures, and that, contrary to the opinion entertained
by ninety-nine hundredths of her people, she is far behind the free States
in the only thing of which she has ever dared to boast--agriculture. We
submit the question to the arbitration of figures, which, it is said, do
not lie. With regard to the bushel-measure products of the soil, of which
we have already taken an inventory, we have seen that there is a balance
against the South in favor of the North of _seventeen million four hundred
and twenty-three thousand one hundred and fifty-two bushels_, and a
difference in the value of the same, also in favor of the North, of
_forty-four million seven hundred and eighty-two thousand six hundred and
thirty-six dollars_. It is certainly a most novel kind of agricultural
superiority that the South claims on that score!
Our attention shall now be directed to the twelve principal pound-measure
products of the free and of the slave States--hay, cotton, butter and
cheese, tobacco, cane, sugar, wool, rice, hemp, maple sugar, beeswax and
honey, flax, and hops--and in taking an account of them, we shall, in
order to show the exact quantity produced in each State, and for the
convenience of future reference, pursue the same plan as that adopted in
the preceding tables. Whether slavery will appear to better advantage on
the scales than it did in the half-bushel, remains to be seen. It is
possible that the rickety monster may make a better show on a new track;
if it makes a more ridiculous display, we shall not be surprised. A
careful examination of its precedents, has taught us the folly of
expecting anything good to issue from it in any manner whatever. It has no
disposition to emulate the magnanimity of its betters, and as for a
laudable ambition to excel, that is a characteristic altogether foreign to
its nature. Languor and inertia are the insalutary viands upon which it
delights to satiate its morbid appetite; and "from bad to worse" is the
ill-omened motto under which, in all its feeble efforts and achievements,
it ekes out a most miserable and deleterious existence.
TABLE NO. IX.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Hay, tons | Hemp, tons | Hops, lbs
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
California | 2,038 | |
Connecticut | 516,131 | | 554
Illinois | 601,952 | | 3,551
Indiana | 403,230 | | 92,796
Iowa | 89,055 | | 8,242
Maine | 755,889 | | 40,120
Massachusetts | 651,807 | | 121,595
Michigan | 404,934 | | 10,663
New Hampshire | 598,854 | | 257,174
New Jersey | 435,950 | | 2,133
New York | 3,728,797 | 4 | 2,536,299
Ohio | 1,443,142 | 150 | 63,731
Pennsylvania | 1,842,970 | 44 | 22,088
Rhode Island | 74,418 | | 277
Vermont | 866,153 | | 288,023
Wisconsin | 275,662 | | 15,930
|------------|-------------|------------
| 12,690,982 | 198 | 3,463,176
============================================================
TABLE NO. X.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Hay, tons | Hemp, tons | Hops, lbs
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | 32,685 | | 276
Arkansas | 3,976 | 15 | 157
Delaware | 30,159 | | 348
Florida | 2,510 | | 14
Georgia | 23,449 | | 261
Kentucky | 113,747 | 17,787 | 4,309
Louisiana | 25,752 | | 125
Maryland | 157,956 | 63 | 1,870
Mississippi | 12,504 | 7 | 473
Missouri | 116,925 | 16,028 | 4,130
North Carolina | 145,653 | 39 | 9,246
South Carolina | 20,925 | | 26
Tennessee | 74,091 | 595 | 1,032
Texas | 8,354 | | 7
Virginia | 369,098 | 139 | 11,506
|------------|-------------|------------
| 1,137,784 | 34,673 | 33,780
TABLE NO. XI.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Flax, | Maple Sugar | Tobacco
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
California | | | 1,000
Connecticut | 17,928 | 50,796 | 1,267,624
Illinois | 160,063 | 248,904 | 841,394
Indiana | 584,469 | 2,921,192 | 1,044,620
Iowa | 62,660 | 78,407 | 6,041
Maine | 17,081 | 93,542 |
Massachusetts | 1,162 | 795,525 | 138,246
Michigan | 7,152 | 2,439,794 | 1,245
New Hampshire | 7,652 | 1,298,863 | 50
New Jersey | 182,965 | 2,197 | 310
New York | 940,577 | 10,357,484 | 83,189
Ohio | 446,932 | 4,588,209 | 10,454,449
Pennsylvania | 530,307 | 2,326,525 | 912,651
Rhode Island | 85 | 28 |
Vermont | 20,852 | 6,349,357 |
Wisconsin | 68,393 | 610,976 | 1,268
|------------|-------------|------------
| 3,048,278 | 32,161,799 | 14,752,087
============================================================
TABLE NO. XII.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Flax, | Maple Sugar | Tobacco
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
--------------------|------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | 3,921 | 643 | 164,990
Arkansas | 12,291 | 9,330 | 218,936
Delaware | 17,174 | |
Florida | 50 | | 998,614
Georgia | 5,387 | 50 | 423,924
Kentucky | 2,100,116 | 437,405 | 55,501,196
Louisiana | | 255 | 26,878
Maryland | 35,686 | 47,740 | 21,407,497
Mississippi | 665 | | 49,960
Missouri | 627,160 | 178,910 | 17,113,784
North Carolina | 593,796 | 27,932 | 11,984,786
South Carolina | 333 | 200 | 74,285
Tennessee | 368,131 | 158,557 | 20,148,932
Texas | 1,048 | | 66,897
Virginia | 1,000,450 | 1,227,665 | 56,803,227
|------------|-------------|------------
| 4,766,198 | 2,088,687 | 185,023,906
TABLE NO. XIII.
ANIMAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
-----------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wool, | Butter and | Beeswax and
| lbs. | Cheese, lbs. | Honey, lbs.
-----------------|------------|--------------|-------------
California | 5,520 | 855 |
Connecticut | 497,454 | 11,861,396 | 93,304
Illinois | 2,150,113 | 13,804,768 | 869,444
Indiana | 2,610,287 | 13,506,099 | 935,329
Iowa | 373,898 | 2,381,028 | 321,711
Maine | 1,864,034 | 11,678,265 | 189,618
Massachusetts | 585,136 | 15,159,512 | 59,508
Michigan | 2,043,283 | 8,077,390 | 359,232
New Hampshire | 1,108,476 | 10,173,619 | 117,140
New Jersey | 375,396 | 9,852,966 | 156,694
New York | 10,071,301 | 129,507,507 | 1,755,830
Ohio | 10,196,371 | 55,268,921 | 804,275
Pennsylvania | 4,481,570 | 42,383,452 | 839,509
Rhode Island | 129,692 | 1,312,178 | 6,347
Vermont | 3,400,717 | 20,858,814 | 249,422
Wisconsin | 253,963 | 4,034,033 | 131,005
|------------|--------------|-------------
| 39,647,211 | 349,860,783 | 6,888,368
===========================================================
TABLE NO. XIV.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
--------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wool, | Butter and | Beeswax and
| lbs. | Cheese, lbs. | Honey, lbs.
--------------------|------------|--------------|-------------
Alabama | 657,118 | 4,040,223 | 897,021
Arkansas | 182,595 | 1,884,327 | 192,338
Delaware | 57,768 | 1,058,495 | 41,248
Florida | 23,247 | 389,513 | 18,971
Georgia | 990,019 | 4,687,535 | 732,514
Kentucky | 2,297,433 | 10,161,477 | 1,158,019
Louisiana | 109,897 | 685,026 | 96,701
Maryland | 477,438 | 3,810,135 | 74,802
Mississippi | 559,619 | 4,367,425 | 397,460
Missouri | 1,627,164 | 8,037,931 | 1,328,972
North Carolina | 970,738 | 4,242,211 | 512,289
South Carolina | 487,233 | 2,986,820 | 216,281
Tennessee | 1,364,378 | 8,317,266 | 1,036,572
Texas | 131,917 | 2,440,199 | 380,825
Virginia | 2,869,765 | 11,525,651 | 880,767
|------------|--------------|-------------
| 12,797,329 | 68,634,224 | 7,964,760
TABLE NO. XV.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.