States. | Cotton, bales | Cane Sugar, | Rough Rice,
| of 400 lbs. | hhds. 1000lbs. | lbs.
-----------------|---------------|----------------|------------
Alabama | 564,429 | 87 | 2,312,252
Arkansas | 65,344 | | 63,179
Delaware | | |
Florida | 45,131 | 2,750 | 1,075,090
Georgia | 499,091 | 846 | 38,950,691
Kentucky | 758 | 10 | 5,688
Louisiana | 178,737 | 226,001 | 4,425,349
Maryland | | |
Mississippi | 484,292 | 8 | 2,719,856
Missouri | | | 700
North Carolina | 50,545 | | 5,465,868
South Carolina | 300,901 | 77 | 159,930,613
Tennessee | 194,532 | 3 | 258,854
Texas | 58,072 | 7,351 | 88,203
Virginia | 3,947 | | 17,154
|---------------|----------------|-------------
| 2,445,779 | 237,133 | 215,313,497
================================================================
RECAPITULATION--FREE STATES.
Hay 28,427,799,680 lbs @ 1/2 _c._ $142,138,998
Hemp 443,520 " " 5 " 22,176
Hops 3,463,176 " " 15 " 519,476
Flax 3,048,278 " " 10 " 304,827
Maple Sugar 32,161,799 " " 8 " 2,572,943
Tobacco 14,752,087 " " 10 " 1,475,208
Wool 39,647,211 " " 35 " 13,876,523
Butter and Cheese 349,860,783 " " 15 " 52,479,117
Beeswax and Honey 6,888,368 " " 15 " 1,033,255
-------------- ------------
Total 28,878,064,902 lbs., valued as above, $214,422,523
RECAPITULATION--SLAVE STATES.
Hay 2,548,636,160 lbs. @ 1/2 _c._ $12,743,180
Hemp 77,667,520 " " 5 " 3,883,376
Hops 33,780 " " 15 " 5,067
Flax 4,766,198 " " 10 " 476,619
Maple Sugar 2,088,687 " " 8 " 167,094
Tobacco 185,023,906 " " 10 " 18,502,390
Wool 12,797,329 " " 35 " 4,479,065
Butter and Cheese 68,634,224 " " 15 " 10,295,133
Beeswax and Honey 7,964,760 " " 15 " 1,194,714
Cotton 978,311,600 " " 8 " 78,264,928
Cane Sugar 237,133,000 " " 7 " 16,599,310
Rice (rough) 215,313,497 " " 4 " 8,612,539
------------- ------------
Total 4,338,370,661 lbs. valued as above, at $155,223,415
TOTAL DIFFERENCE--POUND-MEASURE PRODUCTS.
_Pounds._ _Value._
Free States 28,878,064,902 $214,422,523
Slave States 4,338,370,661 155,223,415
-------------- ------------
Balance in pounds, 24,539,694,241 Difference in value, $59,199,108
Both quantity and value again in favor of the North! Behold also the
enormousness of the difference! In this comparison with the South, neither
hundreds, thousands, nor millions, according to the regular method of
computation, are sufficient to exhibit the excess of the pound-measure
products of the North. Recourse must be had to an almost inconceivable
number; billions must be called into play; and there are the figures
telling us, with unmistakable emphasis and distinctness, that, in this
department of agriculture, as in every other, the North is vastly the
superior of the South--the figures showing a total balance in favor of the
former of _twenty-four billion five hundred and thirty-nine million six
hundred and ninety-four thousand two hundred and forty-one pounds_, valued
at _fifty-nine million one hundred and ninety-nine thousand one hundred
and eight dollars_. And yet, the North is a poor, God-forsaken country,
bleak, inhospitable, and unproductive!
What next? Is it necessary to adduce other facts in order to prove that
the rural wealth of the free States is far greater than that of the slave
States? Shall we make a further demonstration of the fertility of northern
soil, or bring forward new evidences of the inefficient and desolating
system of terra-culture in the South? Will nothing less than
"confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ," suffice to convince the
South that she is standing in her own light, and ruining both body and
soul by the retention of slavery? Whatever duty and expedience require to
be done, we are willing to do. Additional proofs are at hand. Slaveholders
and slave-breeders shall be convinced, confuted, convicted, and converted.
They shall, in their hearts and consciences, if not with their tongues and
pens, bear testimony to the triumphant achievements of free labor. In the
two tables which immediately follow these remarks, they shall see how much
more vigorous and fruitful the soil is when under the prudent management
of free white husbandmen, than it is when under the rude and
nature-murdering tillage of enslaved negroes; and in two subsequent tables
they shall find that the live stock, slaughtered animals, farms, and
farming implements and machinery, in the free States, are worth at least
_one thousand million of dollars_ more than the market value of the same
in the slave States! In the face, however, of all these most significant
and incontrovertible facts, the oligarchy have the unparalleled audacity
to tell us that the South is the greatest agricultural country in the
world, and that the North is a dreary waste, unfit for cultivation, and
quite dependent on us for the necessaries of life. How preposterously
false all such babble is, the following tables will show:--
TABLE NO. XVI.
ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, | Rye, |Ind. Corn,|Irish Potatoes,
|bushels.|bushels.|bushels.| bushels. | bush.
---------------|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
Connecticut | | 21 | | 40 | 85
Illinois | 11 | 29 | 14 | 33 | 115
Indiana | 12 | 20 | 18 | 33 | 100
Iowa | 14 | 36 | | 32 | 100
Maine | 10 | | | 27 | 120
Massachusetts | 16 | 26 | 13 | 31 | 170
Michigan | 10 | 26 | | 32 | 140
New Hampshire | 11 | 30 | | 30 | 220
New Jersey | 11 | 26 | | 33 |
New York | 12 | 25 | 17 | 27 | 100
Ohio | 12 | 21 | 25 | 36 |
Pennsylvania | 15 | | | 20 | 75
Rhode Island | | 30 | | | 100
Vermont | 13 | | 20 | 32 | 178
Wisconsin | 14 | 35 | | 30 |
|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
| 161 | 325 | 107 | 436 | 1,503
=====================================================================
TABLE NO. XVII.
ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Wheat, | Oats, | Rye, |Ind. Corn,|Irish Potatoes,
|bushels.|bushels.|bushels.| bushels. | bush.
---------------|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
Alabama | 5 | 12 | | 15 | 60
Arkansas | | 18 | | 22 |
Delaware | 11 | 20 | | 20 |
Florida | 15 | | | | 175
Georgia | 5 | 18 | 7 | 16 | 125
Kentucky | 8 | 18 | 11 | 24 | 130
Louisiana | | | | 16 |
Maryland | 13 | 21 | 18 | 23 | 75
Mississippi | 9 | 12 | | 18 | 105
Missouri | 11 | 26 | | 34 | 110
North Carolina | 7 | 10 | 15 | 17 | 65
South Carolina | 8 | 12 | | 11 | 70
Tennessee | 7 | 19 | 7 | 21 | 120
Texas | 15 | | | 20 | 250
Virginia | 7 | 13 | 5 | 18 | 75
|--------|--------|--------|----------|---------------
| 121 | 199 | 63 | 275 | 1,360
RECAPITULATION OF ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE--1850.
FREE STATES.
Wheat 12 bushels per acre.
Oats 27 " "
Rye 18 " "
Indian Corn 31 " "
Irish Potatoes 125 " "
SLAVE STATES.
Wheat 9 bushels per acre.
Oats 17 " "
Rye 11 " "
Indian Corn 20 " "
Irish Potatoes 113 " "
What an obvious contrast between the vigor of Liberty and the impotence of
Slavery! What an unanswerable argument in favor of free labor! Add up the
two columns of figures above, and what is the result? Two hundred and
thirteen bushels as the products of five acres in the North, and only one
hundred and seventy bushels as the products of five acres in the South.
Look at each item separately, and you will find that the average crop per
acre of every article enumerated is greater in the free States than it is
in the slave States. Examine the table at large, and you will perceive
that while Massachusetts produces sixteen bushels of wheat to the acre,
Virginia produces only seven; that Pennsylvania produces fifteen and
Georgia only five: that while Iowa produces thirty-six bushels of oats to
the acre, Mississippi produces only twelve; that Rhode Island produces
thirty, and North Carolina only ten: that while Ohio produces twenty-five
bushels of rye to the acre, Kentucky produces only eleven; that Vermont
produces twenty, and Tennessee only seven: that while Connecticut produces
forty bushels of Indian corn to the acre, Texas produces only twenty; that
New Jersey produces thirty-three, and South Carolina only eleven: that
while New Hampshire produces two hundred and twenty bushels of Irish
potatoes to the acre, Maryland produces only seventy-five; that Michigan
produces one hundred and forty, and Alabama only sixty. Now for other
beauties of slavery in another table.
TABLE NO. XVIII.
VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE FREE STATES--1850.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Value of | Val. of Animals | Cash Val. of Farms,
| Live Stock. | Slaughtered. | Farm. Imp. & Mac.
---------------|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
California | $3,351,058 | $107,173 | $3,977,524
Connecticut | 7,467,490 | 2,202,266 | 74,618,963
Illinois | 24,209,258 | 4,972,286 | 102,538,851
Indiana | 22,478,555 | 6,567,935 | 143,089,617
Iowa | 3,689,275 | 821,164 | 17,830,436
Maine | 9,705,726 | 1,646,773 | 57,146,305
Massachusetts | 9,647,710 | 2,500,924 | 112,285,931
Michigan | 8,008,734 | 1,328,327 | 54,763,817
New Hampshire | 8,871,901 | 1,522,873 | 57,560,122
New Jersey | 10,679,291 | 2,638,552 | 124,663,014
New York | 73,570,499 | 13,573,883 | 576,631,568
Ohio | 44,121,741 | 7,439,243 | 371,509,188
Pennsylvania | 41,500,053 | 8,219,848 | 422,598,640
Rhode Island | 1,532,637 | 667,486 | 17,568,003
Vermont | 12,643,228 | 1,861,336 | 66,106,509
Wisconsin | 4,897,385 | 920,178 | 30,170,131
|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
| $286,376,541 | $56,990,237 | $2,233,058,619
======================================================================
TABLE NO. XIX.
VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
States. | Value of | Val. of Animals | Cash Val. of Farms,
| Live Stock. | Slaughtered. | Farm. Imp. & Mac.
---------------|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
Alabama | $21,690,112 | $4,823,485 | $69,448,887
Arkansas | 6,647,969 | 1,163,313 | 16,866,541
Delaware | 1,849,281 | 373,665 | 19,390,310
Florida | 2,880,058 | 514,685 | 6,981,904
Georgia | 25,728,416 | 6,339,762 | 101,647,595
Kentucky | 29,661,436 | 6,462,598 | 160,190,299
Louisiana | 11,152,275 | 1,458,990 | 87,391,336
Maryland | 7,997,634 | 1,954,800 | 89,641,988
Mississippi | 19,403,662 | 3,636,582 | 60,501,561
Missouri | 19,887,580 | 3,367,106 | 67,207,068
North Carolina | 17,717,647 | 5,767,866 | 71,823,298
South Carolina | 15,060,015 | 3,502,637 | 86,568,038
Tennessee | 29,978,016 | 6,401,765 | 103,211,422
Texas | 10,412,927 | 1,116,137 | 18,701,712
Virginia | 33,656,659 | 7,502,986 | 223,423,315
|---------------|-----------------|--------------------
| $253,723,687 | $54,388,377 | $1,183,995,274
RECAPITULATION--FREE STATES.
Value of live Stock $286,376,541
Value of Animals slaughtered 56,990,237
Value of Farms, Farming-Implements and Machinery 2,233,058,619
--------------
$2,576,425,397
RECAPITULATION--SLATE STATES.
Value of Live Stock $253,723,687
Value of Animals slaughtered 54,388,377
Value of Farms, Farming Implements and Machinery 1,183,995,274
--------------
$1,492,107,338
DIFFERENCE IN VALUE--FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
Free States $2,576,425,397
Slave States 1,492,107,338
--------------
Balance in favor of the Free States $1,084,318,059
By adding to this last balance in favor of the free States the differences
in value which we found in their favor in our account of the
bushel-and-pound-measure products, we shall have a very correct idea of
the extent to which the undivided agricultural interests of the free
States preponderate over those of the slave States. Let us add the
differences together, and see what will be the result.
BALANCES--ALL IN FAVOR OF THE NORTH.
Difference in the value of bushel-measure products $44,782,636
Difference in the value of pound-measure products 59,199,108
Difference in the value of farms and domestic animals 1,084,318,059
--------------
Total $1,188,299,803
No figures of rhetoric can add emphasis or significance to these figures
of arithmetic. They demonstrate conclusively the great moral triumph of
Liberty over Slavery. They show unequivocally, in spite of all the blarney
and boasting of slave-driving politicians, that the entire value of all
the agricultural interests of the free States is very nearly twice as
great as the entire value of all the agricultural interests of the slave
States--the value of those interests in the former being twenty-five
hundred million of dollars, that of those in the latter only fourteen
hundred million, leaving a balance in favor of the free States of _one
billion one hundred and eighty-eight million two hundred and ninety-nine
thousand eight hundred and three dollars_! That is what we call a full,
fair and complete vindication of Free Labor. Would we not be correct in
calling it a total eclipse of the Black Orb? Can it be possible that the
slavocracy will ever have the hardihood to open their mouths again on the
subject of terra-culture in the South? Dare they ever think of cotton
again? Ought they not, as a befitting confession of their crimes and
misdemeanors, and as a reasonable expiation for the countless evils which
they have inflicted on society, to clothe themselves in sackcloth, and,
after a suitable season of contrition and severe penance, follow the
example of one Judas Iscariot, and go and hang themselves?
It will be observed that we have omitted the Territories and the District
of Columbia in all the preceding tables. We did this purposely. Our object
was to draw an equitable comparison between the value of free and slave
labor in the thirty-one sovereign States, where the two systems,
comparatively unaffected by the wrangling of politicians, and, as a matter
of course, free from the interference of the general government, have had
the fullest opportunities to exert their influence, to exhibit their
virtues, and to commend themselves to the sober judgments of enlightened
and discriminating minds. Had we counted the Territories on the side of
the North, and the District of Columbia on the side of the South, the
result would have been still greater in behalf of free labor. Though "the
sum of all villanies" has but a mere nominal existence in Delaware and
Maryland, we have invariably counted those States on the side of the
South; and the consequence is, that, in many particulars, the hopeless
fortunes of slavery have been propped up and sustained by an imposing
array of figures which of right ought to be regarded as the property of
freedom. But we like to be generous to an unfortunate foe, and would
utterly disdain the use of any unfair means of attack or defence.
We shall take no undue advantage of slavery. It shall have a fair trial,
and be judged according to its deserts. Already has it been weighed in the
balance, and found wanting; it has been measured in the half-bushel, and
found wanting; it has been apprized in the field, and found wanting.
Whatever redeeming traits or qualities it may possess, if any, shall be
brought to light by subjecting it to other tests.
It was our desire and intention to furnish a correct table of the
gallon-measure products of the several States of the Union; but we have
not been successful in our attempt to procure the necessary statistics.
Enough is known, however, to satisfy us that the value of the milk, wine,
ardent spirits, malt liquors, fluids, oils, and molasses, annually
produced and sold in the free States, is at least fifty millions of
dollars greater than the value of the same articles annually produced and
sold in the slave States. Of sweet milk alone, it is estimated that the
monthly sales in three Northern cities, New York, Philadelphia and Boston,
amount to a larger sum than the marketable value of all the rosin, tar,
pitch, and turpentine, annually produced in the Southern States.
Our efforts to obtain reliable information respecting another very
important branch of profitable industry, the lumber business, have also
proved unavailing; and we are left to conjecture as to the amount of
revenue annually derived from it in the two grand divisions of our
country. The person whose curiosity prompts him to take an account of the
immense piles of Northern lumber now lying on the wharves and houseless
lots in Baltimore, Richmond, and other slaveholding cities, will not, we
imagine, form a very flattering opinion of the products of Southern
forests. Let it be remembered that nearly all the clippers, steamers, and
small craft, are built at the North; that large cargoes of Eastern lumber
are exported to foreign countries; that nine-tenths of the wooden-ware
used in the Southern States is manufactured in New England; that, in
outrageous disregard of the natural rights and claims of Southern
mechanics, the markets of the South are forever filled with Northern
furniture, vehicles, ax helves, walking canes, yard-sticks, clothes-pins
and pen-holders; that the extraordinary number of factories,
steam-engines, forges and machine-shops in the free States, require an
extraordinary quantity of cord-wood; that a large majority of the
magnificent edifices and other structures, both private and public, in
which timber, in its various forms, is extensively used, are to be found
in the free States--we say, let all these things be remembered, and the
truth will at once flash across the mind that the forests of the North are
a source of far greater income than those of the South. The difference is
simply this: At the North everything is turned to advantage. When a tree
is cut down, the main body is sold or used for lumber, railing or paling,
the stump for matches and shoepegs, the knees for ship-building, and the
branches for fuel. At the South everything is either neglected or
mismanaged. Whole forests are felled by the ruthless hand of slavery, the
trees are cut into logs, rolled into heaps, covered with the limbs and
brush, and then burned on the identical soil that gave them birth. The
land itself next falls a prey to the fell destroyer, and that which was
once a beautiful, fertile and luxuriant woodland, is soon despoiled of all
its treasures, and converted into an eye-offending desert.
Were we to go beneath the soil and collect all the mineral and lapidarious
wealth of the free States, we should find it so much greater than the
corresponding wealth of the slave States, that no ordinary combination of
figures would suffice to express the difference. To say nothing of the
gold and quicksilver of California, the iron and coal of Pennsylvania, the
copper of Michigan, the lead of Illinois, or the salt of New-York, _the
marble and freestone quarries of New England are, incredible as it may
seem to those unacquainted with the facts, far more important sources of
revenue than all the subterranean deposits in the slave States_. From the
most reliable statistics within our reach, we are led to the inference
that the total value of all the precious metals, rocks, minerals, and
medicinal waters, annually extracted from the bowels of the free States,
is not less than eighty-five million of dollars; the whole value of the
same substances annually brought up from beneath the surface of the slave
States does not exceed twelve millions. In this respect to what is our
poverty ascribable? To the same cause that has impoverished and dishonored
us in all other respects--the thriftless and degrading institution of
slavery.
Nature has been kind to us in all things. The strata and substrata of the
South are profusely enriched with gold and silver, and precious stones,
and from the natural orifices and aqueducts in Virginia and North
Carolina, flow the purest healing waters in the world. But of what avail
is all this latent wealth? Of what avail will it ever be, so long as
slavery is permitted to play the dog in the manger? To these queries there
can be but one reply. Slavery must be suppressed; the South, so great and
so glorious by nature, must be reclaimed from her infamy and degradation;
our cities, fields and forests, must be kept intact from the unsparing
monster; the various and ample resources of our vast domain, subterraneous
as well as superficial, must be developed, and made to contribute to our
pleasures and to the necessities of the world.
A very significant chapter, and one particularly pertinent to many of the
preceding pages, might be written on the Decline of Agriculture in the
Slave States; but as the press of other subjects admonishes us to be
concise upon this point, we shall present only a few of the more striking
instances. In the first place, let us compare the crops of wheat and rye
in Kentucky, in 1850, with the corresponding crops in the same State in
1840--after which, we will apply a similar rule of comparison to two or
three other slaveholding states.
KENTUCKY.
Wheat, bus. Rye, bus.
Crop of 1840 4,803,152 1,321,373
" " 1850 2,142,822 415,073
--------- --------
Decrease 2,660,330 bus. Decrease 906,300 bus.
TENNESSEE.
Wheat, bus. Tobacco, lbs.
Crop of 1840 4,569,692 29,550,432
" " 1850 1,619,386 20,148,932
--------- ----------
Decrease 2,950,306 bus. Decrease 9,401,500 lbs.
VIRGINIA.
Rye, bus. Tobacco, lbs.
Crop of 1840 1,482,799 75,347,106
" " 1850 458,930 56,803,227
--------- ----------
Decrease 1,023,869 bus. Decrease 18,543,879 lbs.
ALABAMA.
Wheat, bus. Rye, bus.
Crop of 1840 838,052 51,000
" " 1850 294,044 17,261
------- ------
Decrease 544,008 bus. Decrease 33,739 bus.
The story of these figures is too intelligible to require words of
explanation; we shall, therefore, drop this part of our subject, and
proceed to compile a couple of tables that will exhibit on a single page
the wealth, revenue and expenditure, of the several states of the
confederacy. Let it be distinctly understood, however, that, in the
compilation of these tables, three million two hundred and four thousand
three hundred and thirteen negroes are valued as personal property, and
credited to the Southern States as if they were so many horses and asses,
or bridles and blankets--and that no monetary valuation whatever is placed
on any creature, of any age, color, sex or condition, that bears the
upright form of man in the free States.
TABLE NO. XX.
WEALTH, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE FREE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------------------------------
States. |Real and Personal| Revenue. |Expenditure.
| property. | |
----------------|-----------------|-------------|------------
California | $22,161,872 | $366,825 | $925,625
Connecticut | 155,707,980 | 150,189 | 137,326
Illinois | 156,265,006 | 736,030 | 192,940
Indiana | 202,650,264 | 1,283,064 | 1,061,605
Iowa | 23,714,638 | 139,681 | 131,631
Maine | 122,777,571 | 744,879 | 624,101
Massachusetts | 573,342,286 | 598,170 | 674,622
Michigan | 59,787,255 | 548,326 | 431,918
New Hampshire | 103,652,835 | 141,686 | 149,890
New Jersey | 153,151,619 | 139,166 | 180,614
New York | 1,080,309,216 | 2,698,310 | 2,520,932
Ohio | 504,726,120 | 3,016,403 | 2,786,060
Pennsylvania | 729,144,998 | 7,716,552 | 6,876,480
Rhode Island | 80,508,794 | 124,944 | 115,835
Vermont | 92,205,049 | 185,830 | 183,058
Wisconsin | 42,056,595 | 135,155 | 136,096
|-----------------|-------------|------------
| $4,102,172,108 | $18,725,211 | $17,076,733
=============================================================
TABLE NO. XXI.
WEALTH, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850.
-------------------------------------------------------------
States. |Real and Personal| Revenue. |Expenditure.
| property. | |
----------------|-----------------|-------------|------------
Alabama | $228,204,332 | $658,976 | $513,559
Arkansas | 39,841,025 | 68,412 | 74,076
Delaware | 18,855,863 | |
Florida | 23,198,734 | 60,619 | 55,234
Georgia | 335,425,714 | 1,142,405 | 597,882
Kentucky | 301,628,456 | 779,293 | 674,697
Louisiana | 233,998,764 | 1,146,568 | 1,098,911
Maryland | 219,217,364 | 1,279,953 | 1,360,458
Mississippi | 228,951,130 | 221,200 | 223,637
Missouri | 137,247,707 | 326,579 | 207,656
North Carolina | 226,800,472 | 219,000 | 228,173
South Carolina | 288,257,694 | 532,152 | 463,021
Tennessee | 207,454,704 | 502,126 | 623,625
Texas | 55,362,340 | 140,688 | 156,622
Virginia | 391,646,438 | 1,265,744 | 1,272,382
|-----------------|-------------|------------
| $2,936,090,737 | $8,343,715 | $7,549,933
Entire Wealth of the Free States, $4,102,172,108
Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves, 2,936,090,737
-------------
Balance in favor of the Free States, $1,166,081,371
What a towering monument to the beauty and glory of Free Labor! What
irrefragable evidence of the unequaled efficacy and grandeur of free
institutions! These figures are, indeed, too full of meaning to be passed
by without comment. The two tables from which they are borrowed are at
least a volume within themselves; and, after all the pains we have taken
to compile them, we shall, perhaps, feel somewhat disappointed if the
reader fails to avail himself of the important information they impart.
Human life, in all ages, has been made up of a series of adventures and
experiments, and even at this stage of the world's existence, we are
almost as destitute of a perfect rule of action, secular or religious, as
were the erratic cotemporaries of Noah. It is true, however, that we have
made some progress in the right direction; and as it seems to be the
tendency of the world to correct itself, we may suppose that future
generations will be enabled, by intuition, to discriminate between the
true and the false, the good and the bad, and that with the development of
this faculty of the mind, error and discord will begin to wane, and
finally cease to exist. Of all the experiments that have been tried by the
people in America, slavery has proved the most fatal; and the sooner it is
abolished the better it will be for us, for posterity, and for the world.
One of the evils resulting from it, and that not the least, is apparent in
the figures above. Indeed, the _unprofitableness_ of slavery is a
monstrous evil, when considered in all its bearings; it makes us poor;
poverty makes us ignorant; ignorance makes us wretched; wretchedness makes
us wicked, and wickedness leads to the devil!
"Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven."
Facts truly astounding are disclosed in the two last tables, and we could
heartily wish that every intelligent American would commit them to memory.
The total value of all the real and personal property of the free States,
with an area of only 612,597 square miles, is one billion one hundred and
sixty-six million eighty-one thousand three hundred and seventy-one
dollars greater than the total value of all the real and personal
property, including the price of 3,204,313 negroes, of the slave States,
which have an area of 851,508 square miles! But extraordinary as this
difference is in favor of the North, it is much less than the true amount.
_On the authority of Southrons themselves, it is demonstrable beyond the
possibility of refutation that the intrinsic value of all the property in
the free States is more than three times greater than the intrinsic value
of all the property in the slave States._
James Madison, a Southern man, fourth President of the United States, a
most correct thinker, and one of the greatest statesmen the country has
produced, "thought it wrong to admit the idea that there could be property
in man," and we indorse, to the fullest extent, this opinion of the
profound editor of the _Federalist_. We shall not recognize property in
man; the slaves of the South are not worth a groat in any civilized
community; no man of genuine decency and refinement would hold them as
property on any terms; in the eyes of all enlightened nations and
individuals, they are men, not merchandize. Southern pro-slavery
politicians, some of whom have not hesitated to buy and sell their own
sons and daughters, boast that the slaves of the South are worth sixteen
hundred million of dollars, and we have seen the amount estimated as high
as two thousand million. Mr. De Bow, the Southern superintendent of the
seventh census, informs us that the value of all the property in the slave
States, real and personal, including slaves, was, in 1850, only
$2,936,090,737; while, according to the same authority, the value of all
the real and personal property in the free States, genuine property,
property that is everywhere recognized as property, was, at the same time,
$4,102,172,108. Now all we have to do in order to ascertain the real value
of all the property of the South, independent of negroes, whose value, if
valuable at all, is of a local and precarious character, is to subtract
from the sum total of Mr. De Bow's return of the entire wealth of the
slave States the estimated value of the slaves themselves; and then, by
deducting the difference from the intrinsic value of all the property in
the free States, we shall have the exact amount of the overplus of wealth
in the glorious land of free soil, free labor, free speech, free presses,
and free schools. And now to the task.
Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves, $2,936,090,737
Estimated Value of the Slaves, 1,600,000,000
-------------
True Wealth of the Slave States, $1,336,090,737
True Wealth of the Free States, $4,102,172,108
True Wealth of the Slave States, 1,336,090,737
--------------
Balance in favor of the Free States $2,766,081,371
There, friends of the South and of the North, you have the conclusion of
the whole matter. Liberty and slavery are before you; choose which you
will have; as for us, in the memorable language of the immortal Henry, we
say, "give us liberty, or give us death!" In the great struggle for wealth
that has been going on between the two rival systems of free and slave
labor, the balance above exhibits the net profits of the former. The
struggle on the one side has been calm, laudable, and eminently
successful; on the other, it has been attended by tumult, unutterable
cruelties and disgraceful failure. We have given the slave drivers every
conceivable opportunity to vindicate their domestic policy, but for them
to do it is a moral impossibility.
Less than three-quarters of a century ago--say in 1789, for that was about
the average time of the abolition of slavery in the Northern States--the
South, with advantages in soil, climate, rivers, harbors, minerals,
forests, and, indeed, almost every other natural resource, began an even
race with the North in all the important pursuits of life; and now, in the
brief space of scarce three score years and ten, we find her completely
distanced, enervated, dejected and dishonored. Slave-drivers are the sole
authors of her disgrace; as they have sown so let them reap.
As we have seen above, a careful and correct inventory of all the real and
personal _property_ in the two grand divisions of the country, discloses
the astounding fact that, in 1850 the free States were worth precisely
_two thousand seven hundred and sixty-six million eighty-one thousand
three hundred and seventy-one dollars_ more than the slave States!
Twenty-seven hundred and sixty-six million of dollars!--Think of it! What
a vast and desirable sum, and how much better off the South would be with
it than without it! Such is the enormous amount out of which slavery has
defrauded us during the space of sixty-one years--from 1789 to 1850--being
an average of about forty-five million three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars per annum. During the last twenty-five or thirty years, however,
our annual losses have been far greater than they were formerly. There has
been a gradual increase every year, and now the ratio of increase is
almost incredible. No patriotic Southerner can become conversant with the
facts without experiencing a feeling of alarm and indignation. Until the
North abolished slavery, she had no advantage of us whatever; the South
was more than her equal in every respect. But no sooner had she got rid of
that hampering and pernicious institution than she began to absorb our
wealth, and now it is confidently believed that the merchants and
negro-driving pleasure-seekers of the South annually pour one hundred and
twenty million of dollars into her coffers! Taking into account, then, the
probable amount of money that has been drawn from the South and invested
in the North within the last six years, and adding it to the grand balance
above--the net profits of the North up to 1850--it may be safely assumed
that, in the present year of grace, 1857, _the free States are worth at
least thirty-four hundred million of dollars more than the slave States_!
Let him who dares, gainsay these remarks and calculations; no truthful
tongue will deny them; no honorable pen can controvert them.
One more word now as to the valuation of negroes. Were our nature so
degraded, or our conscience so elastic as to permit us to set a price upon
men, as we would set a price upon cattle and corn, we should be content to
abide by the appraisement of the slaves of the South, and would then enter
into a calculation to ascertain the value of foreigners to the North. Not
long since, it was declared in the South that "one free laborer is equal
to five slaves," and as there are two million five hundred thousand
Europeans in the free States, all of whom are free laborers, we might
bring Southern authority to back us in estimating their value at
_sixty-two hundred million of dollars_--a handsome sum wherewithal to
offset the account of _sixteen hundred million of dollars_, brought
forward as the value of Southern slaves! It is obvious, therefore, that if
we were disposed to follow the barbarian example of the traffickers in
human flesh, we could prove the North vastly richer than the South in bone
and sinew--to say nothing of mind and morals, which shall receive our
attention hereafter. The North has just as good a right to appraise the
Irish immigrant, as the South has to set a price on the African slave. But
as it would be wrong to do either, we shall do neither. It is not our
business to think of man as a merchantable commodity; and we will not,
even by implication, admit "the wild and guilty fantasy," that the
condition of chattelhood may rightfully attach to sentient and immortal
beings.
In this connection, we would direct the special attention of the reader
to the following eloquent passage, exhibiting the philosophy of free and
slave labor, from the facile pen of the editor of the _North American and
United States Gazette_:
"In the very nature of things, the freeman must produce more than the
slave. There is no conclusion of science more certain. Under a system
which gives to a laboring man the fruit of his toil, there is every motive
to render him diligent and assiduous. If he relies on being employed by
others, his wages rise with his reputation for industry, skill, and
faithfulness. And as owner of the soil, there is every assurance that he
will do what he can to cultivate it to the best advantage, and develope
its latent wealth. Self-interest will call forth what powers of intellect
and of invention he has to aid him in his work, and employ his physical
strength to the greatest possible advantage. Free labor receives an
immediate reward, which cheers and invigorates it; and above all, it has
that chief spring of exertion, hope, whose bow always spans the heaven
before it. It has an inviolate hearth; it has a home. But it looks forward
to a still better condition, to brighter prospects in the future, to which
its efforts all contribute. The children in such a household are chief
inducements to nerve the arm of labor, that they may be properly cared
for, fed, clothed, educated, accomplished, instructed in some useful and
honorable calling, and provided for when they shall go out upon the world.
All its sentiments, religious and otherwise, all its affections for
parents and kindred, all its tastes are so many impelling and stimulating
forces. It is disposed to read, to ornament its home, to travel, to enjoy
social intercourse, and to attain these ends, it rises to higher exertions
and a stricter economy of time; it explores every path of employment, and
is, therefore, in the highest degree productive.
"How different is it with slave labor! The slave toils for another, and
not for himself. Whether he does little or much, whether his work is well
or ill performed, he has a subsistence, nothing less, nothing more; and
why should he toil beyond necessity? He cannot accumulate any property for
the decline of his years, or to leave to his children when he is departed.
Nay, he cannot toil to better the present condition of his children. They
belong to another, and not to him. He cannot supply his hut with comforts,
or embellish it with the adornments of taste. He does not read. He does
not journey for pleasure. Inducements to exertion, he has none. That he
may adapt himself to his condition, and enjoy the present hour, he deadens
those aspirations that must always be baffled in his case, and sinks down
into ease and sensuality. His mind is unlighted and untutored; dark with
ignorance. Among those who value him most, he is proverbially indolent,
thievish, and neglectful of his master's interests. It is common for even
the advocates of slavery to declare that one freeman is worth half a dozen
slaves. With every cord to exertion thus sundered, the mind benighted, the
man nearly lost in the animal, it requires no deep philosophy to see why
labor cannot be near as productive as it would be were these conditions
all reversed. Though ever so well directed by the superior skill, and
urged forward by the strong arm of the master, slave labor is necessarily
a blight to the soil--sterility follows in its steps, and not afar off.
"What a difference, plain and heaven-wide, between the outward and
interior life of a slave and of a free community, resulting directly and
palpably from this difference in its labor. The cottage-home, amid trees
and shrubbery, its apartments well adorned and furnished, books on its
shelves, and the passing literature of the day scattered around; the few,
perhaps, but well-tilled acres, belonging to the man who tills them; the
happy children with sunny prospects; the frequent school; the church
arrayed with beauty; the thriving, handsome village; the flourishing
cities and prosperous marts of trade; the busy factories; railroads,
traffic, travel--where free labor tills the ground, how beautiful it all
is in contrast to the forlorn and dreary aspect of a country tilled by
slaves. The villages of such a country are mainly groups of miserable
huts. Its comparatively few churches are too often dilapidated and
unsightly. The common school-house, the poor man's college, is hardly
known, showing how little interest is felt in the chief treasures of the
State, the immortal minds of the multitude who are not born to wealth. The
signs of premature old age are visibly impressed upon everything that
meets the eye. The fields present a dread monotony. Everywhere you see
lands that are worn out, barren and deserted, in consequence of slave
tillage, left for more fertile lands in newer regions, which are also, in
their turn, to be smitten with sterility and forsaken. The free community
may increase its population almost without limit. The capacity of slave
countries to sustain a population is soon at an end, and then, it
diminishes. In all the elements of essential prosperity, in all that
elevates man, how striking the contrast between the region that is tilled
by slave, and the region that is tilled by free labor."
For the purpose of showing what Virginia, once the richest, most populous,
and most powerful of the States, has become under the blight of slavery,
we shall now introduce an extract from one of the speeches delivered by
Henry A. Wise, during the last gubernatorial campaign in that degraded
commonwealth. Addressing a Virginia audience, in language as graphic as it
is truthful, he says:--
"Commerce has long ago spread her sails, and sailed away from you. You
have not, as yet, dug more than coal enough to warm yourselves at your own
hearths; you have set no tilt-hammer of Vulcan to strike blows worthy of
gods in your own iron-foundries; you have not yet spun more than coarse
cotton enough, in the way of manufacture, to clothe your own slaves. You
have no commerce, no mining, no manufactures. You have relied alone on the
single power of agriculture, and _such agriculture_! Your sedge-patches
outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source of wealth, has
seared the very bosom of mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on
a thousand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer through the
sedge-patches to procure a tough beef-steak. The present condition of
things has existed too long in Virginia. The landlord has skinned the
tenant, and the tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor
together."
With tears in its eyes, and truth on its lips, for the first time after an
interval of twenty years, the _Richmond Enquirer_ helps to paint the
melancholy picture. In 1852, that journal thus bewailed the condition of
Virginia:--
"We have cause to feel deeply for our situation. Philadelphia herself
contains a population far greater than the whole free population of
Eastern Virginia. The little State of Massachusetts has an aggregate
wealth exceeding that of Virginia by more than $126,000,000."
Just a score of years before these words were penned, the same paper, then
edited by the elder Ritchie, made a most earnest appeal to the
intelligence and patriotism of Virginia, to adopt an effectual measure for
the speedy overthrow of the damnable institution of human bondage. Here is
an extract from an article which appeared in its editorial column under
date of January 7th, 1832:
"Something must be done, and it is the part of no honest man to deny
it--of no free press to affect to conceal it. When this dark population is
growing upon us; when every new census is but gathering its appalling
numbers upon us; when, within a period equal to that in which this Federal
Constitution has been in existence, these numbers will increase to more
than two millions within Virginia; when our sister States are closing
their doors upon our blacks for sale, and when our whites are moving
westwardly in greater numbers than we like to hear of; when this, the
fairest land on all this continent, for soil, and climate and situation,
combined, might become a sort of garden spot, if it were worked by the
hands of white men alone, can we, ought we, to sit quietly down, fold our
arms, and say to each other, 'Well, well; this thing will not come to the
worst in our days; we will leave it to our children, and our
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, to take care of themselves, and to
brave the storm!' Is this to act like wise men? Means, sure but gradual,
systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted, for reducing the mass of
evil which is pressing upon the South, and will still more press upon her,
the longer it is put off. We say now, in the utmost sincerity of our
hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention to
this subject, nor can they give it too soon."
Better abolition doctrine than this is seldom heard. Why did not the
_Enquirer_ continue to preach it? What potent influence hushed its clarion
voice, just as it began to be lifted in behalf of a liberal policy and an
enlightened humanity? Had Mr. Ritchie continued to press the truth home to
the hearts of the people, as he should have done, Virginia, instead of
being worth only $392,000,000 in 1850--negroes and all--would have been
worth at least $800,000,000 in genuine property; and if the State had
emancipated her slaves at the time of the adoption of the Constitution,
the last census would no doubt have reported her wealth, and correctly, at
a sum exceeding a thousand millions of dollars.
Listen now to the statement of a momentous fact. The value of all the
property, real and personal, including slaves, in seven slave States,
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and
Texas, is less than the real and personal estate, which is unquestionable
property, in the single State of New-York. Nay, worse; if eight entire
slave States, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Missouri,
Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, and the District of Columbia--with all
their hordes of human merchandize--were put up at auction, New-York could
buy them all, and then have one hundred and thirty-three millions of
dollars left in her pocket! Such is the amazing contrast between freedom
and slavery, even in a pecuniary point of view. When we come to compare
the North with the South in regard to literature, general intelligence,
inventive genius, moral and religious enterprises, the discoveries in
medicine, and the progress in the arts and sciences, we shall, in every
instance, find the contrast equally great on the side of Liberty.
It gives us no pleasure to say hard things of the Old Dominion, the mother
of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and other illustrious patriots, who, as
we shall prove hereafter, were genuine abolitionists; but the policy which
she has pursued has been so utterly inexcusable, so unjust to the
non-slaveholding whites, so cruel to the negroes, and so disregardful of
the rights of humanity at large, that it becomes the duty of every one who
makes allusion to her history, to expose her follies, her crimes, and her
poverty, and to publish every fact, of whatever nature, that would be
instrumental in determining others to eschew her bad example. She has
wilfully departed from the faith of the founders of this Republic. She has
not only turned a deaf ear to the counsel of wise men from other States in
the Union, but she has, in like manner, ignored the teachings of the
great warriors and statesmen who have sprung from her own soil. In a
subsequent chapter, we expect to show that all, or nearly all, the
distinguished Virginians, whose bodies have been consigned to the grave,
but whose names have been given to history, and whose memoirs have a place
in the hearts of their countrymen, were the friends and advocates of
universal freedom--that they were inflexibly opposed to the extension of
slavery into the Territories, devised measures for its restriction, and,
with hopeful anxiety, looked forward to the time when it should be
eradicated from the States themselves. With them, the rescue of our
country from British domination, and the establishment of the General
Government upon a firm basis, were considerations of paramount importance;
they supposed, and no doubt earnestly desired, that the States, in their
sovereign capacities, would soon abolish an institution which was so
palpably in conflict with the principles enunciated in the Declaration of
Independence. Indeed, it would seem that, among the framers of that
immortal instrument and its equally immortal sequel, the Constitution of
the United States, there was a tacit understanding to this effect; and the
Northern States, true to their implied faith, abolished it within a short
period after our national independence had been secured. Not so with the
South. She has pertinaciously refused to perform her duty. She has
apostatized from the faith of her greatest men, and even at this very
moment repudiates the sacred principle that "all men are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights," among which "are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness." It is evident, therefore, that the free
States are the only members of this confederacy that have established
republican forms of government based upon the theories of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and other eminent statesmen of Virginia.
The great revolutionary movement which was set on foot in Charlotte,
Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, on the 20th day of May, 1775, has not
yet been terminated, nor will it be, until every slave in the United
States is freed from the tyranny of his master. Every victim of the vile
institution, whether white or black, must be reinvested with the sacred
rights and privileges of which he has been deprived by an inhuman
oligarchy. What our noble sires of the revolution left unfinished it is
our duty to complete. They did all that true valor and patriotism could
accomplish. Not one iota did they swerve from their plighted faith; the
self-sacrificing spirit which they evinced will command the applause of
every succeeding age. Not in vindication of their own personal rights
merely, but of the rights of humanity; not for their own generation and
age simply, but for all ages to the end of time, they gave their toil,
their treasure and their blood, nor deemed them all too great a price to
pay for the establishment of so comprehensive and beneficent a principle.
Let their posterity emulate their courage, their disinterestedness, and
their zeal, and especially remember that it is the duty of every existing
generation so to provide for its individual interests, as to confer
superior advantages on that which is to follow. To this principle the
North has adhered with the strictest fidelity. How has it been with the
South? Has she imitated the praiseworthy example of our illustrious
ancestors? No! She has treated it with the utmost contempt; she has been
extremely selfish--so selfish, indeed, that she has robbed posterity of
its natural rights. From the period of the formation of the government
down to the present moment, her policy has been downright suicidal, and,
as a matter of course, wholly indefensible. She has hugged a viper to her
breast; her whole system has been paralyzed, her conscience is seared, and
she is becoming callous to every principle of justice and magnanimity.
Except among the non-slaveholders, who, besides being kept in the grossest
ignorance, are under the restraint of all manner of iniquitous laws,
patriotism has ceased to exist within her borders. And here we desire to
be distinctly understood, for we shall have occasion to refer to this
matter again. We repeat, therefore, the substance of our averment, that,
at this day, there is not a grain of patriotism in the South, except among
the non-slaveholders. Subsequent pages shall testify to the truth of this
assertion. Here and there, it is true, a slaveholder, disgusted with the
institution, becomes ashamed of himself, emancipates his negroes, and
enters upon the walks of honorable life; but these cases are exceedingly
rare, and do not, in any manner, disprove the general correctness of our
remark. All persons who do voluntarily manumit their slaves, as mentioned
above, are undeniably actuated by principles of pure patriotism, justice
and humanity; and so believing, we delight to do them honor.
Once more to the Old Dominion. At her door we lay the bulk of the evils of
slavery. The first African sold in America was sold on James River, in
that State, on the 20th of August, 1620; and although the institution was
fastened upon her and the other colonies by the mother country, she was
the first to perceive its blighting and degrading influences, her wise men
were the first to denounce it, and, after the British power was overthrown
at York Town, she should have been the first to abolish it. Fifty-seven
years ago she was the Empire State; now, with half a dozen other
slaveholding states thrown into the scale with her, she is far inferior to
New-York, which, at the time Cornwallis surrendered his sword to
Washington, was less than half her equal. Had she obeyed the counsels of
the good, the great and the wise men of our nation--especially of her own
incomparable sons, the extendible element of slavery would have been
promptly arrested, and the virgin soil of nine Southern States, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida,
and Texas, would have been saved from its horrid pollutions. Confined to
the original states in which it existed, the institution would soon have
been disposed of by legislative enactments, and long before the present
day, by a gradual process that could have shocked no interest and alarmed
no prejudice, we should have rid ourselves not only of African slavery,
which is an abomination and a curse, but also of the negroes themselves,
who, in our judgment, whether viewed in relation to their actual
characteristics and condition, or through the strong antipathies of the
whites, are, to say the least, an undesirable population.
This, then, is the ground of our expostulation with Virginia: that, in
stubborn disregard of the advice and friendly warnings of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and a host of other distinguished patriots who
sprang from her soil--patriots whose voices shall be heard before we
finish our task--and in utter violation of every principle of justice and
humanity, _she still persists_ in fostering an institution which is so
manifestly detrimental to her vital interests. Every Virginian, whether
living or dead, whose name is an honor to his country, has placed on
record his abhorrence of slavery, and in doing so, has borne testimony to
the blight and degradation that everywhere follow in its course. One of
the best abolition speeches we have ever read was delivered in the
Virginia House of Delegates, January 20th, 1832, by Charles James
Faulkner, who still lives, and who has, we understand, generously
emancipated several of his slaves, and sent them to Liberia. Here follows
an extract from his speech; let Southern politicians read it attentively,
and imbibe a moiety of the spirit of patriotism which it breathes:--
"Sir, I am gratified to perceive that no gentleman has yet risen in this
Hall, the avowed advocate of slavery. _The day has gone by when such a
voice could be listened to with patience, or even with forbearance._ I
even regret, Sir, that we should find those amongst us who enter the lists
of discussion as its _apologists_, except alone upon the ground of
uncontrollable necessity. And yet, who could have listened to the very
eloquent remarks of the gentleman from Brunswick, without being forced to
conclude that he at least considered slavery, however _not to be defended
upon principle_, yet as being divested of much of its enormity, as you
approach it in practice.
"Sir, if there be one who concurs with that gentleman in the harmless
character of this institution, let me request him to compare the condition
of the slaveholding portion of this commonwealth--_barren, desolate, and
seared as it were by the avenging hand of Heaven_--with the descriptions
which we have of this country from those who first broke its virgin soil.
To what is this change ascribable? _Alone to the withering and blasting
effects of slavery._ If this does not satisfy him, let me request him to
extend his travels to the _Northern States of this Union_, and beg him to
contrast the happiness and contentment which prevail throughout that
country, the busy and cheerful sound of industry, the rapid and swelling
growth of their population, their means and institutions of education,
their skill and proficiency in the useful arts, their enterprise and
public spirit, the monuments of their commercial and manufacturing
industry; and, above all, their devoted attachment to the government from
which they derive their protection, _with the derision, discontent,
indolence, and poverty of the Southern country_. To what, Sir, is all this
ascribable? _To that vice in the organization of society, by which
one-half of its inhabitants are arrayed in interest and feeling against
the other half_--to that unfortunate state of society in which freemen
regard labor as disgraceful, and slaves shrink from it as a burden
tyrannically imposed upon them--to that condition of things in which half
a million of your population can feel no sympathy with the society in the
prosperity of which they are forbidden to participate, and no attachment
to a government at whose hands they receive nothing but injustice.
"If this should not be sufficient, and the curious and incredulous
inquirer should suggest that the contrast which has been adverted to, and
which is so manifest, might be traced to a difference of climate, or other
causes distinct from slavery itself, permit me to refer him to the two
States of Kentucky and Ohio. No difference of soil, no diversity of
climate, no diversity in the original settlement of those two States, can
account for the remarkable disproportion in their natural advancement.
Separated by a river alone, _they seem to have been purposely and
providentially designed to exhibit in their future histories the
difference which necessarily results from a country free from, and a
country afflicted with, the curse of slavery_.
"Vain and idle is every effort to strangle this inquiry. As well might you
attempt to chain the ocean, or stay the avenging thunderbolts of Heaven,
as to drive the people from any inquiry which may result in their better
condition. This is too deep, too engrossing a subject of consideration. It
addresses itself too strongly to our interests, to our passions, and to
our feelings. I shall advocate no scheme that does not respect the right
of property, _so far as it is entitled to be respected_, with a just
regard to the safety and resources of the State. I would approach the
subject as one of great magnitude and delicacy, as one whose varied and
momentous consequences demand the calmest and most deliberate
investigation. But still, Sir, I would approach it--aye, delicate as it
may be, encompassed as it may be with difficulties and hazards, I would
still approach it. The people demand it. Their security requires it. In
the language of the wise and prophetic Jefferson, 'You must approach
it--you must bear it--you must adopt some plan of emancipation, or worse
will follow.'"
Mr. Curtis, in a speech in the Virginia Legislature in 1832, said:
"There is a malaria in the atmosphere of these regions, which the new
comer shuns, as being deleterious to his views and habits. See the
wide-spreading ruin which the avarice of our ancestral government has
produced in the South, as witnessed in a sparse population of freemen,
deserted habitations, and fields without culture! Strange to tell, even
the wolf, driven back long since by the approach of man, now returns,
after the lapse of a hundred years, to howl over the desolations of
slavery."
Mr. Moore, also a member of the Legislature of Virginia, in speaking of
the evils of slavery, said:
"The first I shall mention is the irresistible tendency which it has to
undermine and destroy everything like virtue and morality in the
community. If we look back through the long course of time which has
elapsed since the creation to the present moment, we shall scarcely be
able to point out a people whose situation was not, in many respects,
preferable to our own, and that of the other States, in which negro
slavery exists.
"In that part of the State below tide-water, the whole face of the country
wears an appearance of almost utter desolation, distressing to the
beholder. The very spot on which our ancestors landed, a little more than
two hundred years ago, appears to be on the eve of again becoming the
haunt of wild beasts."
Mr. Rives, of Campbell county, said:
"On the multiplied and desolating evils of slavery, he was not disposed to
say much. The curse and deteriorating consequence were within the
observation and experience of the members of the House and the people of
Virginia, and it did not seem to him that there could be two opinions
about it."
Mr. Powell said:
"I can scarcely persuade myself that there is a solitary gentleman in this
House who will not readily admit that slavery is an evil, and that its
removal, if practicable, is a consummation most devoutly to be wished. I
have not heard, nor do I expect to hear, a voice raised in this Hall to
the contrary."
In the language of another, "we might multiply extracts almost
indefinitely from Virginia authorities--testifying to the blight and
degradation that have overtaken the Old Dominion, in every department of
her affairs. Her commerce gone, her agriculture decaying, her land falling
in value, her mining and manufactures nothing, her schools dying out,--she
presents, according to the testimony of her own sons, the saddest of all
pictures--that of a sinking and dying State." Every year leaves her in a
worse condition than it found her; and as it is with Virginia, so it is
with the entire South. In the terse language of Governor Wise, "all have
grown poor together." The black god of slavery, which the South has
worshipped for two hundred and thirty-seven years, is but a devil in
disguise; and if we would save ourselves from being engulphed in utter
ruin we must repudiate this foul god, for a purer deity, and abandon his
altars for a holier shrine. No time is to be lost; his fanatical adorers,
the despotic adversaries of human liberty, are concocting schemes for the
enslavement of all the laboring classes irrespective of race or color. The
issue is before us; we cannot evade it; we must meet it with firmness, and
with unflinching valor.
What it was that paralyzed the tongues of all those members of the Virgina
Legislature, who, at the session of 1831-'32, distinguished themselves by
advocating a system of emancipation, is a mystery that has never yet been
solved. Whether any or all of them shared a division of spoils with a
certain newspaper editor, we have no means of knowing; but if all accounts
be true, there was consummated in Richmond, in the latter part of the year
1832, one of the blackest schemes of bribery and corruption that was ever
perpetrated in this or any other country. We are assured, however, that
one thing is certain, and it is this: that the negro population of
Virginia was very considerably and suddenly decreased by forcible
emigration--that a large gang was driven further South, sold, and the
proceeds divided among certain renegades and traitors, who, Judas-like,
had agreed to serve the devil for a price.
We would fain avoid all personalities and uncomplimentary allusions to the
dead, but when men, from love of lucre, from mere selfish motives, or from
sheer turpitude of heart, inflict great injuries and outrages on the
public, their villainy ought to be exposed, so that others may be deterred
from following in their footsteps. As a general rule, man's moral nature
is, we believe, so strong that it invariably prompts him to eschew vice
and practice virtue--in other words, to do right; but this rule, like all
others, has its exceptions, as might be most strikingly illustrated in the
character of ---- ----, and some half-dozen or more of his pro-slavery
coadjutors. From whose hands did this man receive fifty thousand
dollars--improperly, if not illegally, taken from the public funds in
Washington? When did he receive it?--and for what purpose?--and who was
the arch-demagogue through whose agency the transfer was made? He was an
oligarchical member of the Cabinet under Mr. Polk's administration in
1845,--and the money was _used_,--and who can doubt _intended_?--for the
express purpose of establishing another negro-driving journal to support
the tottering fortunes of slavery. From the second volume of a valuable
political work, "by a Senator of thirty years," we make the following
pertinent extract:--
"The _Globe_ was sold, and was paid for, and how? becomes a question of
public concern to answer; for it was paid for out of public money--those
same $50,000 which were removed to the village bank in the interior of
Pennsylvania by a Treasury order on the fourth of November, 1844. Three
annual installments made the payment, and the Treasury did not reclaim the
money for these three years; and, though traveling through tortuous
channels, the sharpsighted Mr. Rives traced the money back to its starting
point from that deposit. Besides, Mr. Cameron, who had control of the
village bank, admitted before a committee of Congress, that he had
furnished money for the payments--an admission which the obliging
Committee, on request, left out of their report. Mr. Robert J. Walker was
Secretary of the Treasury during these three years, and the conviction was
absolute, among the close observers of the course of things, that he was
the prime contriver and zealous manager of the arrangements which
displaced Mr. Blair and installed Mr. Ritchie."
Thus, if we are to believe Mr. Benton, in his "Thirty Year's View," and we
are disposed to regard him as good authority, the Washington _Union_ was
brought into existence under the peculiar auspices of the ostensible
editor of the Richmond _Enquirer_; and the two papers, fathered by the
same individual, have gone hand in hand for the last dozen or thirteen
years, the shameless advocates and defenders of human bondage. To suppose
that either has been sustained by fairer means than it was commenced with,
would be wasting imagination on a great improbability. Both have uniformly
and pertinaciously opposed every laudable enterprise that the white
non-slaveholder has projected; indeed, so unmitigated has been their
hostility to all manual pursuits in which their stupid and vulgar slaves
can not be employed to advantage--and if there is any occupation under the
sun in which they can be employed to good advantage, we know not what it
is--that it is an extremely difficult matter to find a respectable
merchant, mechanic, manufacturer, or business man of any calling whatever,
within the bounds of their circulation.
We have been credibly informed by a gentleman from Powhattan county, in
Virginia, that in the year 1836 or '37, or about that time, the Hon.
Abbott Lawrence, of Boston, backed by his brother Amos and other
millionaires of New England, went down to Richmond with the sole view of
reconnoitering the manufacturing facilities of that place--fully
determined, if pleased with the water-power, to erect a large number of
cotton-mills and machine-shops. He had been in the capital of Virginia
only a day or two before he discovered, much to his gratification, that
nature had shaped everything to his liking; and as he was a business man
who transacted business in a business-like manner, he lost no time in
making preliminary arrangements for the consummation of his noble purpose.
His mission was one of peace and promise; others were to share the
benefits of his laudable and concerted scheme; thousands of poor boys and
girls in Virginia, instead of growing up in extreme poverty and ignorance,
or of having to emigrate to the free States of the West, were to have
avenues of profitable employment opened to them at home; thus they would
be enabled to earn an honest and reputable living, to establish and
sustain free schools, free libraries, free lectures, and free presses, to
become useful and exemplary members of society, and to die fit candidates
for heaven. The magnanimous New Englander was in ecstasies with the
prospect that opened before him. Individually, so far as mere money was
concerned, he was perfectly independent; his industry and economy in early
life had secured to him the ownership and control of an ample fortune.
With the aid of eleven other men, each equal to himself, he could have
bought the whole city of Richmond--negroes and all--though it is not to be
presumed that he would have disgraced his name by becoming a trader in
human flesh. But he was not selfish; unlike the arrogant and illiberal
slaveholder, he did not regard himself as the centre around whom everybody
else should revolve. On the contrary, he was a genuine philanthropist.
While, with a shrewdness that will command the admiration of every
practical business man, he engaged in nothing that did not swell the
dimensions of his own purse, he was yet always solicitous to invest his
capital in a manner calculated to promote the interest of those around
him. Nor was he satisfied with simply furnishing the means whereby his
less fortunate neighbors were to become prosperous, intelligent and
contented. With his generous heart and sagacious mind, he delighted to aid
them in making a judicious application of his wealth to their own use.
Moreover, as a member of society, he felt that the community had some
reasonable claims upon him, and he made it obligatory on himself
constantly to devise plans and exert his personal efforts for the public
good. Such was the character of the distinguished manufacturer who honored
Richmond with his presence nineteen or twenty years ago; such was the
character of the men whom he represented, and such were the grand designs
which they sought to accomplish.
To the enterprising and moneyed descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers it was a
matter of no little astonishment, that the immense water-power of Richmond
had been so long neglected. He expressed his surprise to a number of
Virginians, and was at a loss to know why they had not, long prior to the
period of his visit amongst them, availed themselves of the powerful
element that is eternally gushing and foaming over the falls of James
River. Innocent man! He was utterly unconscious of the fact that he was
"interfering with the beloved institutions of the South," and little was
he prepared to withstand the terrible denunciations that were immediately
showered on his head through the columns of the Richmond _Enquirer_. Few
words will suffice to tell the sequel. That negro-worshipping sheet, whose
hireling policy, for the last four and twenty years, has been to support
the worthless black slave and his tyrannical master at the expense of the
free white laborer, wrote down the enterprise! and the noble son of New
England, abused, insulted and disgusted, quietly returned to
Massachusetts, and there employed his capital in building up the cities of
Lowell and Lawrence, either of which, in all those elements of material
and social prosperity that make up the greatness of States, is already far
in advance of the most important of all the seedy and squalid niggervilles
in the Old Dominion. Such is an inkling of the infamous means that have
been resorted to, from time to time, for the purpose of upholding and
perpetuating in America the accursed institution of slavery.
Having in view all the foregoing facts, we were not in the least surprised
when, while walking through Hollywood Cemetery, in the western suburbs of
Richmond, not long since, our companion, a Virginian of the true school,
directed our attention to a monument of some pretentions, and exclaimed,
"There lie the remains of a man upon whose monument should be inscribed in
everlasting prominence the finger of scorn pointing downward." The reader
scarcely needs to be told that we were standing at the tomb of ---- ----,
who in the opinion of our friend, had, by concentrating within himself the
views and purposes of all the evil spirits in Virginia, greatly retarded
the abolition of slavery; so greatly, indeed, as, thereby, to throw the
State at least fifty years behind her free competitors of the North, of
the East, and of the West. It is to be hoped that Virginia may never give
birth to another man whose evil influence will so justly entitle him to
the reprobation of posterity.
How any rational man in this or any other country, with the astounding
contrasts between Freedom and Slavery ever looming in his view, can offer
an apology for the existing statism of the South, is to us a most
inexplicable mystery. Indeed, we cannot conceive it possible that the
conscience of any man, who is really sane, would permit him to become the
victim of such an egregious and diabolical absurdity. Therefore, at this
period of our history, with the light of the past, the reality of the
present, and the prospect of the future, all so prominent and so palpable,
we infer that every person who sets up an unequivocal defence of the
institution of slavery, must, of necessity, be either a fool, a knave, or
a madman.
It is much to be regretted that the slavocrats look at but one side of the
question. Of all the fanatics in the country, they have, of late, become
the most unreasonable and ridiculous. Let them deliberately view the
subject of slavery in all its aspects and bearings, and if they are
possessed of honest hearts and convincible minds, they will readily
perceive the grossness of their past errors, renounce their allegiance to
a cause so unjust and disgraceful, and at once enroll themselves among the
hosts of Freedom and the friends of universal Liberty. There are
thirty-one States in the Union; let them drop California, or any other new
free State, and then institute fifteen comparisons, first comparing
New-York with Virginia, Pennsylvania with Carolina, Massachusetts with
Georgia, and so on, until they have exhausted the catalogue. Then, for
once, let them be bold enough to listen to the admonitions of their own
souls, and if they do not soon start to their feet _demanding_ the
abolition of slavery, it will only be because they have reasons for
suppressing their inmost sentiments. Whether we compare the old free
States with the old slave States, or the new free States with the new
slave States, the difference, unmistakable and astounding, is
substantially the same. All the free States are alike, and all the slave
States are alike. In the former, wealth, intelligence, power, progress,
and prosperity, are the prominent characteristics; in the latter, poverty,
ignorance, imbecility, inertia, and extravagance, are the distinguishing
features. To be convinced, it is only necessary for us to open our eyes
and look at facts--to examine the _statistics_ of the country, to free
ourselves from obstinacy and prejudice, and to unbar our minds to
convictions of truth. Let figures be the umpire. Close attention to the
preceding and subsequent tables is all we ask; so soon as they shall be
duly considered and understood, the primary object of this work will have
been accomplished.
Not content with eating out the vitals of the South, slavery, true to the
character which it has acquired for insatiety and rapine, is beginning to
make rapid encroachments on new territory; and as a basis for a few
remarks on the blasting influence which it is shedding over the broad and
fertile domains of the West, which in accordance with the views and
resolutions offered by the immortal Jefferson, should have been
irrevocably dedicated to freedom, we beg leave to call the attention of
the reader to another presentation of the philosophy of free and slave
labor. Says the _North American and United States Gazette_:
"We have but to compare the States, possessing equal natural advantages,
in which the two kinds of labor are employed, in order to decide with
entire confidence as to which kind is the more profitable. At the origin
of the government, Virginia, with a much larger extent of territory than
New-York, contained a population of seven hundred and fifty thousand, and
sent ten representatives to Congress; while New-York contained a
population of three hundred and forty thousand, and sent six
representatives to Congress. Behold how the figures are reversed. The
population of New-York is three and a half millions, represented by
thirty-three members in Congress; while the population of Virginia is but
little more than one and a half millions, represented by thirteen members
in Congress. It is the vital sap of free labor that makes the one tree so
thrifty and vigorous, so capable of bearing with all ease the fruit of
such a population. And it is slave labor which strikes a decadence through
the other, drying up many of its branches with a fearful sterility, and
rendering the rest but scantily fruitful; really incapable of sustaining
more. Look at Ohio, teeming with inhabitants, its soil loaded with every
kind of agricultural wealth, its people engaged in every kind of freedom's
diversified employments, abounding with numberless happy homes, and with
all the trophies of civilization, and it exhibits the magic effect of free
labor, waking a wilderness into life and beauty; while Kentucky, with
equal or superior natural advantages, nature's very garden in this Western
world, which commenced its career at a much earlier date, and was in a
measure populous when Ohio was but a slumbering forest, but which in all
the elements of progress, is now left far, very far, behind its young
rival, shows how slave labor hinders the development of wealth among a
people, and brings a blight on their prosperity. The one is a grand and
beautiful poem in honor of free labor. The other is an humble confession
to the world of the inferiority of slave labor."
Equally significant is the testimony of Daniel R. Goodloe, of North
Carolina, who says:--
"The history of the United States shows, that while the slave States
increase in population less rapidly than the free, there is a tendency in
slave society to diffusion, greater than is exhibited by free society. In
fact, diffusion, or extension of area, is one of the necessities of
slavery; the prevention of which is regarded as directly and immediately
menacing to the existence of the institution. This arises from the almost
exclusive application of slave labor to the one occupation of agriculture,
and the difficulty, if not impossibility, of diversifying employments.
Free society, on the contrary, has indefinite resources of development
within a restricted area. It will far excel slave society in the
cultivation of the ground--first, on account of the superior intelligence
of the laborers; and secondly, in consequence of the greater and more
various demands upon the earth's products, where commerce, manufactures,
and the arts, abound. Then, these arts of life, by bringing men together
in cities and towns, and employing them in the manufacture or
transportation of the raw materials of the farmer, give rise to an
indefinite increase of wealth and population. The confinement of a free
people within narrow limits seems only to develop new resources of wealth,
comfort and happiness; while slave society, pent up, withers and dies. It
must continually be fed by new fields and forests, to be wasted and wilted
under the poisonous tread of the slave."
Were we simply a freesoiler, or anything else less than a thorough and
uncompromising abolitionist, we should certainly tax our ability to the
utmost to get up a cogent argument against the extension of slavery over
any part of our domain where it does not now exist; but as our principles
are hostile to the institution even where it does exist, and, therefore,
by implication and in fact, more hostile still to its introduction into
new territory, we forbear the preparation of any special remarks on this
particular subject.
With regard to the unnational and demoralizing institution of slavery, we
believe the majority of Northern people are too scrupulous. They seem to
think that it is enough for them to be mere freesoilers, to keep in check
the diffusive element of slavery, and to prevent it from crossing over
the bounds within which it is now regulated by municipal law. Remiss in
their _national_ duties, as we contend, they make no positive attack upon
the institution in the Southern States. Only a short while since, one of
their ablest journals--the _North American and United States Gazette_,
published in Philadelphia--made use of the following language:--
"With slavery in the States, we make no pretence of having anything
politically to do. For better or for worse, the system belongs solely to
the people of those States; and is separated by an impassable gulf of
State sovereignty from any legal intervention of ours. We cannot vote it
down any more than we can vote down the institution of caste in Hindostan,
or abolish polygamy in the Sultan's dominions. Thus, precluded from all
political action in reference to it, prevented from touching one stone of
the edifice, not the slightest responsibility attaches to us as citizens
for its continued existence. But on the question of extending slavery over
the free Territories of the United States, it is our right, it is our
imperative duty to think, to feel, to speak and to vote. We cannot
interfere to cover the shadows of slavery with the sunshine of freedom,
but we can interfere to prevent the sunshine of freedom from being
eclipsed by the shadows of slavery. We can interpose to stay the progress
of that institution, which aims to drive free labor from its own heritage.
Kansas should be divided up into countless homes for the ownership of men
who have a right to the fruit of their own labors. Free labor would make
it bud and blossom like the rose; would cover it with beauty, and draw
from it boundless wealth; would throng it with population; would make
States, nations, empires out of it, prosperous, powerful, intelligent and
free, illustrating on a wide theatre the beneficent ends of Providence in
the formation of our government, to advance and elevate the millions of
our race, and, like the heart in the body, from its central position,
sending out on every side, far and near, the vital influences of freedom
and civilization. May that region, therefore, be secured to free labor."
Now we fully and heartily indorse every line of the latter part of this
extract; but, with all due deference to our sage cotemporary, we do most
emphatically dissent from the sentiments embodied in the first part. Pray,
permit us to ask--have the people of the North no interest in the United
States as a _nation_, and do they not see that slavery is a great injury
and disgrace to the _whole country_? Did they not, in "the days that tried
men's souls," strike as hard blows to secure the independence of Georgia
as they did in defending the liberties of Massachusetts, and is it not
notoriously true that the Toryism of South Carolina prolonged the war two
years at least? Is it not, moreover, equally true that the oligarchs of
South Carolina have been unmitigated pests and bores to the General
Government ever since it was organized, and that the free and
conscientious people of the North are virtually excluded from her soil, in
consequence of slavery? It is a well-known and incontestible fact, that
the Northern States furnished about two-thirds of all the American troops
engaged in the Revolutionary War; and, though they were neither more nor
less brave or patriotic than their fellow-soldiers of the South, yet,
inasmuch as the independence of our country was mainly secured by virtue
of their numerical strength, we think they ought to consider it not only
their right but their _duty_ to make a firm and decisive effort to save
the States which they fought to free, from falling under the yoke of a
worse tyranny than that which overshadowed them under the reign of King
George the Third. Freemen of the North! we earnestly entreat you to think
of these things. Hitherto, as mere freesoilers, you have approached but
half-way to the line of your duty; now, for your own sakes and for ours,
and for the purpose of perpetuating this glorious Republic, which your
fathers and our fathers founded in septennial streams of blood, we ask
you, in all seriousness, to organize yourselves as _one man_ under the
banners of Liberty, and to aid us in _exterminating_ slavery, which is the
only thing that militates against our complete aggrandizement as a nation.
In this extraordinary crisis of affairs, no man can be a true patriot
without first becoming an abolitionist. (A freesoiler is only a tadpole in
an advanced state of transformation; an abolitionist is the full and
perfectly developed frog.) And here, perhaps, we may be pardoned for the
digression necessary to show the exact definition of the terms _abolish_,
_abolition_ and _abolitionist_. We have looked in vain for an explanation
of the signification of these words in any Southern publication; for no
dictionary has ever yet been published in the South, nor is there the
least probability that one ever will be published within her borders,
until slavery is _abolished_; but, thanks to Heaven, a portion of this
continent is what our Revolutionary Fathers and the Fathers of the
Constitution fought and labored and prayed to make it--a land of freedom,
of power, of progress, of prosperity, of intelligence, of religion, of
literature, of commerce, of science, of arts, of agriculture, of
manufactures, of ingenuity, of enterprise, of wealth, of renown, of
goodness, and of grandeur. From that glorious part of our
confederacy--from the North, whence, on account of slavery in the South,
we are under the humiliating necessity of procuring almost everything that
is useful or ornamental, from primers to Bibles, from wafers to
printing-presses, from ladles to locomotives, and from portfolios to
portraits and pianos--comes to us a huge volume bearing the honored name
of Webster--Noah Webster, who, after thirty-five years of unremitting
toil, completed a work which is, we believe, throughout Great Britain and
the United States, justly regarded as the standard vocabulary of the
English language--and in it the terms _abolish_, _abolition_, and
_abolitionist_, are defined as follows:--
"Abolish, _v. t._ To make void; to annul; to abrogate; applied
chiefly and appropriately to establish laws, contracts, rites,
customs and institutions; as to _abolish_ laws by a repeal, actual or
virtual. To destroy or put an end to; as to _abolish_ idols."
"Abolition, _n._ The act of abolishing; or the state of being
abolished; an annulling; abrogation; utter destruction; as the
_abolition_ of laws, decrees, or ordinances, rites, customs, &c. The
putting an end to slavery; emancipation."
"Abolitionist, _n._ A person who favors abolition, or the immediate
emancipation of slaves."
There, gentlemen of the South, you have the definitions of the transitive
verb _abolish_ and its two derivative nouns, _abolition_ and
_abolitionist_; can you, with the keenest possible penetration of vision,
detect in either of these words even a tittle of the opprobrium which the
oligarchs, in their wily and inhuman efforts to enslave all working
classes irrespective of race or color, have endeavored to attach to them?
We know you cannot; abolition is but another name for patriotism, and its
other special synonyms are generosity, magnanimity, reason, prudence,
wisdom, religion, progress, justice, and humanity.
And here, by the way, we may as well explain whom we refer to when we
speak of gentlemen of the South. We say, therefore, that, deeply impressed
with the conviction that slavery is a great social and political evil, a
_sin and a crime_, in the fullest sense, whenever we speak of gentlemen of
the South, or of gentlemen anywhere, or at whatever time, or in whatever
connection we may speak of gentlemen, we seldom allude to slaveholders,
for the simple reason that, with few exceptions, we cannot conscientiously
recognize _them_ as gentlemen. It is only in those rare instances where
the crime is mitigated by circumstances over which the slaveholder has had
no control, or where he himself, convinced of the impropriety, the folly
and the wickedness of the institution, is anxious to abolish it, that we
can sincerely apply to him the sacred appellation in question--an
appellation which we would no sooner think of applying to a _pro-slavery_
slaveholder, or any other pro-slavery man, than we would think of applying
it to a border-ruffian, a thief or a murderer. Let it be understood,
however, that the rare instances of which we speak are less rare than many
persons may suppose. We are personally acquainted with several
slaveholders in North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia, who
have unreservedly assured us that they were disgusted with the
institution, and some of them went so far as to say they would be glad to
acquiesce in the provision of a statute which would make it obligatory on
them all to manumit their slaves, without the smallest shadow or substance
of compensation. These, we believe, are the sentiments of all the
respectable and patriotic slaveholders, who have eyes to see, and
see--ears to hear, and hear; who, perceiving the impoverishing and
degrading effects of slavery, are unwilling to entail it on their
children, and who, on account of their undeviating adherence to truth and
justice, are, like the more intelligent non-slaveholders, worthy of being
regarded as gentlemen in every sense of the term. Such slaveholders were
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and other illustrious Virginians, who, in
the language of the great chief himself, declared it among their "_first
wishes_ to see some plan adopted by which slavery, in this country, may be
abolished by law." The words embraced within this quotation were used by
Washington, in a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 9th, 1786--a
letter from which we shall quote more freely hereafter; and we think his
emphatic use of the participle _abolished_, at that early day, is proof
positive that the glorious "Father of his Country" is entitled to the
first place in the calendar of primitive American abolitionists.
It is against slavery on the whole, and against slaveholders as a body,
that we wage an exterminating war. Those persons who, under the infamous
slave-laws of the South--laws which have been correctly spoken of as a
"disgrace to civilization," and which must be annulled simultaneously with
the abolition of slavery--have had the vile institution entailed on them
contrary to their wills, are virtually on our side; we may, therefore,
very properly strike them off from the black list of three hundred and
forty-seven thousand slaveholders, who, as a body, have shocked the
civilized world with their barbarous conduct, and from whose conceited and
presumptuous ranks are selected the officers who do all the legislation,
town, county, state and national, for (against) five millions of poor
outraged whites, and three millions of enslaved negroes.
Non-slaveholders of the South! farmers, mechanics and workingmen, we take
this occasion to assure you that the slaveholders, the arrogant demagogues
whom you have elected to offices of honor and profit, have hoodwinked you,
trifled with you, and used you as mere tools for the consummation of their
wicked designs. They have purposely kept you in ignorance, and have, by
moulding your passions and prejudices to suit themselves, induced you to
act in direct opposition to your dearest rights and interests. By a system
of the grossest subterfuge and misrepresentation, and in order to avert,
for a season, the vengeance that will most assuredly overtake them ere
long, they have taught you to hate the abolitionists, who are your best
and only true friends. Now, as one of your own number, we appeal to you
to join us in our patriotic endeavors to rescue the generous soil of the
South from the usurped and desolating control of these political vampires.
Once and forever, at least so far as this country is concerned, the
infernal question of slavery must be disposed of; a speedy and perfect
abolishment of the whole institution is the true policy of the South--and
this is the policy which we propose to pursue. Will you aid us, will you
assist us, will you be freemen, or will you be slaves? These are questions
of vital importance; weigh them well in your minds; come to a prudent and
firm decision, and hold yourselves in readiness to act in accordance
therewith. You must either be for us or against us--anti-slavery or
pro-slavery; it is impossible for you to occupy a neutral ground; it is as
certain as fate itself, that if you do not voluntarily oppose the
usurpations and outrages of the slavocrats, they will force you into
involuntary compliance with their infamous measures. Consider well the
aggressive, fraudulent and despotic power which they have exercised in the
affairs of Kanzas; and remember that, if, by adhering to erroneous
principles of neutrality or non-resistance, you allow them to force the
curse of slavery on that vast and fertile field, the broad area of all the
surrounding States and Territories--the whole nation, in fact--will soon
fall a prey to their diabolical intrigues and machinations. Thus, if you
are not vigilant, will they take advantage of your neutrality, and make
you and others the victims of their inhuman despotism. Do not reserve the
strength of your arms until you shall have been rendered powerless to
strike; the present is the proper time for action; under all the
circumstances, apathy or indifference is a crime. First ascertain, as
nearly as you can, the precise nature and extent of your duty, and then,
without a moment's delay, perform it in good faith. To facilitate you in
determining what considerations of right, justice and humanity require at
your hands, is one of the primary objects of this work; and we shall
certainly fail in our desire if we do not accomplish our task in a manner
acceptable to God and advantageous to man.
But we are carrying this chapter beyond all ordinary bounds; and yet,
there are many important particulars in which we have drawn no comparison
between the free and the slave States. The more weighty remarks which we
intended to offer in relation to the new States of the West and Southwest,
free and slave, shall appear in the succeeding chapter. With regard to
agriculture, and all the multifarious interests of husbandry, we deem it
quite unnecessary to say more. Cotton has been shorn of its magic power,
and is no longer King; _dried grass_, commonly called hay, is, it seems,
the rightful heir to the throne. Commerce, Manufactures, Literature, and
other important subjects, shall be considered as we progress.