SOUTHERN LITERATURE.
It is with some degree of hesitation that we add a chapter on Southern
Literature--not that the theme is inappropriate to this work; still less,
that it is an unfruitful one; but our hesitation results from our
conscious inability, in the limited time and space at our command, to do
the subject justice. Few, except those whose experience has taught them,
have any adequate idea of the amount of preparatory labor requisite to the
production of a work into which the statistical element largely enters;
especially is this so, when the statistics desired are not readily
accessible through public and official documents. The author who honestly
aims at entire accuracy in his statements, may find himself baffled for
weeks in his pursuit of a single item of information, not of much
importance in itself perhaps, when separately considered, but necessary in
its connection with others, to the completion of a harmonious whole. Not
unfrequently, during the preparation of the preceding pages, have we been
subjected to this delay and annoyance.
The following brief references to the protracted preparatory labors and
inevitable delays to which authors are subjected, may interest our
readers, and induce them to regard with charity any deficiencies, either
in detail or in general arrangement, which, owing to the necessary haste
of preparation, these concluding pages of our work may exhibit:
Goldsmith was engaged nine years in the preparation of "_The Traveller_,"
and five years in gathering and arranging the incidents of his "_Deserted
Village_," and two years in their versification.
Bancroft, the American Historian, has been more than thirty years engaged
upon his History of the United States, from his projection of the work to
the present date; and that History is not yet completed.
Hildreth, a no less eminent historian, from the time he began to collect
materials for his History of the United States to the date of its
completion, devoted no less than twenty-five years to the work.
Webster, our great lexicographer, gave thirty-five years of his life in
bringing his Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language to the degree
of accuracy and completeness in which we now find it.
Dr. John W. Mason, after ten years' labor in the accumulation of materials
for a Life of Alexander Hamilton, was compelled to relinquish the work on
account of impaired health.
Mr. James Banks, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who recently delivered a
lecture upon the Life and Character of Flora McDonald, was eighteen years
in the collection of his materials.
Oulibicheff, a distinguished Russian author, spent twenty-five years in
writing the Life of Mozart.
Examples of this kind might be multiplied to an almost indefinite extent.
Indeed, almost all the poets, prose-writers, painters, sculptors,
composers, and other devotees of Art, who have won undying fame for
themselves, have done so through long years of earnest and almost
unremitted toil.
We are quite conscious that the fullness and accuracy of statement which
are desirable in this chapter cannot be attained in the brief time allowed
us for its completion; but, though much will necessarily be omitted that
ought to be said, we shall endeavor to make no statement of facts which
are not well authenticated, and no inferences from the same which are not
logically true. We can only promise to do the best in our power, with the
materials at our command, to exhibit the inevitable influence of slavery
upon Southern Literature, and to demonstrate that the accursed institution
so cherished by the oligarchy, is no less prejudicial to our advancement
in letters, than it is destructive of our material prosperity.
What is the actual condition of Literature at the South? Our question
includes more than simple authorship in the various departments of
letters, from the compilation of a primary reader to the production of a
Scientific or Theological Treatise. We comprehend in it all the activities
engaged in the creation, publication, and sale of books and periodicals,
from the penny primer to the heavy folio, and from the dingy, coarse-typed
weekly paper, to the large, well-filled daily.
It were unjust to deny a degree of intellectual activity to the South. It
has produced a few good authors--a few competent editors, and a moderately
large number of clever magazinists, paragraphists, essayists and critics.
Absolutely, then, it must be conceded that the South has something that
may be called a literature; it is only when we speak of her in comparison
with the North, that we say, with a pardonably strong expression, "The
South has no literature." This was virtually admitted by more than one
speaker at the late "Southern Convention" at Savannah. Said a South
Carolina orator on that occasion: "It is important that the South _should
have_ a literature of her own, to defend her principles and her rights;" a
sufficiently plain concession that she has not, now, such a literature.
But _facts_ speak more significantly than the rounded periods of
Convention orators. Let us look at facts, then.
First, turning our attention to the periodical literature of the South, we
obtain these results: By the census of 1850, we ascertain that the entire
number of periodicals, daily, semi-weekly, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly
and quarterly, published in the slave States, including the District of
Columbia, were seven hundred and twenty-two. These had an aggregate
_yearly_ circulation of ninety-two million one hundred and sixty-seven
thousand one hundred and twenty-nine. (92,167,129). The number of
periodicals, of every class, published in the non-slaveholding States
(exclusive of California) was one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three,
with an aggregate yearly circulation of three hundred and thirty-three
million three hundred and eighty-six thousand and eighty-one.
(333,386,081).
We are aware that there may be inaccuracies in the foregoing estimates;
but the compilers of the census, not we, are responsible for them.
Besides, the figures are unquestionably as fair for the South as for the
North; we accept them, therefore, as a just basis of our comparisons.
Nearly seven years have elapsed since these statistics were taken, and
these seven years have wrought an immense change in the journalism of the
North, without any corresponding change in that of the South. It is
noteworthy that, as a general thing, the principal journals of the free
States are more comprehensive in their scope, more complete in every
department, and enlist, if not a higher order of talent, at least _more_
talent, than they did seven years ago. This improvement extends not only
to the metropolitan, but to the country papers also. In fact, the very
highest literary ability, in finance, in political economy, in science, in
statism, in law, in theology, in medicine, in the belles-lettres, is laid
under contribution by the journals of the non-slaveholding States. This is
true only to a very limited degree of Southern journals. Their position,
with but few exceptions, is substantially the same that it was ten years
ago. They are neither worse nor better--the imbecility and inertia which
attaches to everything which slavery touches, clings to them now as
tenaciously as it did when Henry A. Wise thanked God for the paucity of
newspapers in the Old Dominion, and the platitudes of "Father" Ritchie
were recognized as the political gospel of the South. They have not, so
far as we can learn, increased materially in number, nor in the aggregate
of their yearly circulation. In the free States no week passes that does
not add to the number of their journals, and extend the circle of their
readers and their influence. Since the census tables to which we have
referred were prepared, two of the many excellent weekly journals of which
the city of New-York can boast, have sprung into being, and attained an
aggregate circulation more than twice as large as that of the entire
newspaper press of Virginia in 1850--and exceeding, by some thousands, the
aggregate circulation of the two hundred and fifty journals of which
Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, could
boast at the time above-mentioned.
In this connection, we beg leave to introduce the following letter, kindly
furnished us by the proprietors of the N. Y. Tribune, in answer to
enquiries which we addressed to them:--
TRIBUNE OFFICE, New York,}
30th May, 1857. }
MR. H. R. HELPER,
_Sir_:--
In answer to your inquiry we inform you that we employ in our
building one hundred and seventy-six persons regularly: this does not
include our carriers and cartmen, nor does it include the men
employed in the Job Office in our building. During the past year we
have used in printing _The Tribune_, Forty-four thousand nine hundred
and seventy nine (44,979) reams of paper, weighing two million three
hundred and ten thousand one hundred and thirty (2,310,130) pounds.
We publish one hundred and seventy-six thousand copies of our weekly
edition, which goes to press, the second form, at 7-1/2 o'clock, A.
M. and is finished at 2 A. M. the next morning. Our mailers require
eighteen to nineteen hours to mail our Weekly, which makes from
thirty to thirty-two cart loads.
Very respectfully,
GREELEY & MCELRATH.
Throughout the non-slaveholding States, the newspaper or magazine that has
_not_ improved during the last decade of years, is an exception to the
general rule. Throughout the entire slaveholding States, the newspaper or
magazine that _has_ improved during that time, is no less an exception to
the general rule that there obtains. Outside of the larger cities of the
South, there are not, probably, half a dozen newspapers in the whole
slaveholding region that can safely challenge a comparison with the
country-press of the North. What that country-press was twenty years ago,
the country-press of the South is now.
We do not deny that the South has produced able journalists; and that some
of the newspapers of her principal cities exhibit a degree of enterprise
and talent that cannot fail to command for them the respect of all
intelligent men. But these journals, we regret to say, are marked
exceptions to the general condition of the Southern press; and even the
best of these fall far below the standard of excellence attained by the
leading journals of the North. In fact, whether our comparison embraces
quantity only, or extends to both quantity and quality, it is found to be
immeasurably in favor of the non-slaveholding States, which in journalism,
as in all other industrial pursuits, leave their slavery-cursed
competitors at an infinite distance behind them, and thus vindicate the
superiority of free institutions, which, recognizing labor as honorable,
secure its rewards for all.
The literary vassalage of the South to the North constitutes in itself a
most significant commentary upon the diatribes of the former concerning "a
purely Southern literature." To begin at the beginning--the Alphabetical
Blocks and Educational tables from which our Southern abecedarian takes
his initial lesson, were projected and manufactured in the North. Going
forward a step, we find the youngling intent in spelling short sentences,
or gratifying his juvenile fondness for the fine arts by copying the
wood-cuts from his Northern primer. Yet another step, and we discover him
with his Sanders' Reader, his Mitchell's Geography, his Emerson's
Arithmetic, all produced by Northern mind and Northern enterprise. There
is nothing _wrong_ in this; it is only a little ridiculous in view of the
fulminations of the Southern proslavery press against the North.
Occasionally however we are amused by the efforts of the oligarchs to make
their own school-books, or to root out of all educational text-books every
reference to the pestilential heresy of freedom. A "gentleman" in
Charleston, S. C. is devoting his energies to the preparation of a series
of pro-slavery elementary works, consisting of primers, readers, &c.--and
lo! they are all printed, stitched and bound north of Mason and Dixon's
line! A single _fact_ like this is sufficient to overturn whole folios of
_theory_ concerning the divinity of slavery. The truth is, that, not
school-books alone, but works of almost every class produced by the South,
depend upon Northern enterprise and skill for their introduction to the
public. Mr. DeBow, the eminent Statistician, publishes a Southern Review,
purporting to be issued from New Orleans. It is printed and bound in the
city of New York. We clip the following paragraph from a recent number of
the Vicksburgh (Miss.) _Whig_:--
"SOUTHERN ENTERPRIZE.--Even the Mississippi Legislature, at its late
session allowed its laws to go to Boston to be printed, and made an
appropriation of $3,000 to pay one of its members to go there and
read the proof sheets instead of having it done in the State, and
thereby assisting in building up a Southern publishing house. What a
commentary on the Yankee-haters!"
The Greensboro (N. C.) _Patriot_ thus records a similar contribution, on
the part of that State, to "the creation of a purely Southern Literature:"
"We have heard it said, that those who had the control of the
printing of the revised Statutes of North Carolina, in order to save
a few dimes, had the work executed in Boston, in preference to giving
the job to a citizen of this State. We impugn not the motives of the
agents in this matter; but it is a little humiliating that no work
except the commonest labor, can be done in North Carolina; that
everything which requires a little skill, capital, or ingenuity, must
be sent North. In the case under consideration, we have heard it
remarked, that when the whole bill of expenses connected with the
printing of the Revised Statutes in Boston was footed up, it only
amounted to a few thousand dollars more than the job would have cost
in this State. But then we have the consolation of knowing that the
book _came from the North_, and that it was printed among the
_abolitionists_ of Boston; the _peculiar friends_ of North Carolina
and the South generally.--Of course we ought to be willing to pay a
few extra thousands in consideration of these important facts!"
Southern divines give us elaborate "Bible Arguments;" Southern statists
heap treatise upon treatise through which the Federal Constitution is
tortured into all monstrous shapes; Southern novelists bore us _ad
infinitum_ with pictures of the beatitudes of plantation life and the
negro-quarters; Southern verse-wrights drone out their drowsy dactyls or
grow ventricous with their turgid heroics all in defence of
slavery,--priest, politician, novelist, bardling, severally ringing the
changes upon "the Biblical institution," "the conservative institution,"
"the humanizing institution," "the patriarchal institution"--and
then--have their books printed on Northern paper, with Northern types, by
Northern artizans, stitched, bound and made ready for the market by
Northern industry; and yet fail to see in all this, as a true
philosophical mind _must_ see, an overwhelming refutation of their
miserable sophisms in behalf of a system against which humanity in all its
impulses and aspirations, and civilization in all its activities and
triumphs, utter their perpetual protest.
From a curious article in the "American Publishers Circular" on "Book
Making in America," we give the following extracts:
"It is somewhat alarming to know that the number of houses now
actually engaged in the publishing of books, not including
periodicals, amounts to more than three hundred. About three-fourths
of these are engaged in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore--the balance being divided between Cincinnati, Buffalo,
Auburn, Albany, Louisville, Chicago, St. Louis, and a few other
places. There are more than three thousand booksellers who dispense
the publications of these three hundred, besides six or seven
thousand apothecaries, grocers, and hardware dealers, who connect
literature with drugs, molasses, and nails.
"The best printing in America is probably now done in Cambridge; the
best cloth binding in Boston, and the best calf and morocco in
New-York and Philadelphia. In these two latter styles we are, as yet,
a long distance from Heyday, the pride of London. His finish is
supreme. There is nothing between it and perfection.
"Books have multiplied to such an extent in our country, that it now
takes 750 paper mills, with 2,000 engines in constant operation, to
supply the printers, who work day and night, endeavoring to keep
their engagements with publishers. These tireless mills produced
270,000,000 pounds of paper the past year, which immense supply has
sold for about $27,000,000. A pound and a quarter of rags were
required for a pound of paper, and 400,000,000 pounds were therefore
consumed in this way last year. The cost of manufacturing a twelve
months' supply of paper for the United States, aside from labor and
rags, is computed at $4,000,000. * * *
"The Harper establishment, the largest of our publishing houses,
covers half an acre of ground. If old Mr. Caxton, who printed those
stories of the Trojan war so long ago, could follow the Ex-Mayor of
New-York in one of his morning rounds in Franklin Square, he would
be, to say the least, a little surprised. He would see in one room
the floor loaded with the weight of 150 tons of presses. The
electrotyping process would puzzle him somewhat; the drying and
pressing process would startle him; the bustle would make his head
ache; and the stock-room would quite finish him. An edition of
Harpers' Monthly Magazine alone consists of 175,000. Few persons have
any idea how large a number this is as applied to the edition of a
book. It is computed that if these magazines were to rain down, and
one man should attempt to pick them up like chips, it would take him
a fortnight to pick up the copies of one single number, supposing him
to pick up one every second, and to work ten hours a day."
"The rapidity with which books are now manufactured is almost
incredible. A complete copy of one of Bulwer's novels, published
across the water in three volumes, and reproduced here in one, was
swept through the press in New-York in fifty hours, and offered for
sale smoking hot in the streets. The fabulous edifice proposed by a
Yankee from Vermont, no longer seems an impossibility. 'Build the
establishment according to my plan,' said he; 'drive a sheep in at
one end, and he shall immediately come out at the other, four
quarters of lamb, a felt hat, a leather apron, and a quarto Bible.'"
The business of the Messrs. Harper, whose establishment is referred to in
the foregoing extract, is probably more generally diffused over every
section of this country than that of any other publishing house. From
enquiries recently made of them we learn that they issue, on an average,
3,000 bound volumes per day, throughout the year, and that each volume
will average 500 pages--making a total of about one million of volumes,
and not less than five hundred millions of pages per annum. This does not
include the Magazine and books in pamphlet form, each of which contains as
much matter as a bound volume.--Their bills for paper exceed $300,000
annually, and as the average cost is fifteen cents per pound, they consume
more than two millions of pounds--say one thousand tons of white paper.
There are regularly employed in their own premises about 550 persons,
including printers, binders, engravers, and clerks. These are all paid in
full once a fortnight in bankable money. Besides these, there are numerous
authors and artists in every section of the country, who furnish
manuscripts and illustrations, on terms generally satisfactory to all the
parties interested.
The Magazine has a monthly circulation of between 115,000 and 200,000, or
about two millions of copies annually. Each number of the Magazine is
closed up about the fifth of the month previous to its date. Three or four
days thereafter the mailing begins, commencing with more distant
subscribers, all of whom are supplied before any copies are sold for
delivery in New-York. The intention of the publishers is, that it shall be
delivered as nearly as possible on the same day in St. Louis,
New-Orleans, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, and New-York. It takes from
ten to twelve days to dispatch the whole edition, (which weighs between
four and five tons,) by mail and express.
Their new periodical, "Harpers' Weekly," has, in a little more than four
months, reached a sale of nearly 70,000 copies. The mailing of this
commences on Tuesday night, and occupies about three days.
Ex-Mayor Harper, whom we have found to be one of the most affable and
estimable gentlemen in the city of New-York, informed us, sometime ago,
that, though he had no means of knowing positively, he was of the opinion
that about eighty per cent. of all their publications find final
purchasers in the free States--the remainder, about twenty per cent., in
the slave States. Yet it is probable that, with one or two exceptions, no
other publishing house in the country has so large a per centage of
Southern trade.
Of the "more than three hundred houses engaged in the publication of
books," to which the writer in the "American Publishers' Circular" refers,
upwards of nine-tenths of the number are in the non-slaveholding States,
and these represent not less than ninety-nine hundredths of the whole
capital invested in the business. Baltimore has twice as many publishers
as any other Southern city; and nearly as many as the whole South beside.
The census returns of 1850 give but twenty-four publishers for the entire
South, and ten of these were in Maryland. The relative disproportion which
then existed in this branch of enterprise, between the North and the
South, still exists; or, if it has been changed at all, that change is in
favor of the North. So of all the capital, enterprise and industry
involved in the manufacture of the _material_ that enters into the
composition of books. All the paper manufactories of the South do not
produce enough to supply a single publishing house in the city of
New-York.--Perhaps "a Southern Literature" does not necessarily involve
the enterprises requisite to the _manufacture_ of books; but experience
has shown that there is a somewhat intimate relation between the author,
printer, paper-maker and publisher; in other words, that the intellectual
activity which expresses itself in books, is measurable by the mechanical
activities engaged in their manufacture.--Thus a State that is fruitful in
authors will almost necessarily be fruitful in publishers; and the number
of both classes will be proportioned to the _reading_ population. The
poverty of Southern literature is legitimately shown, therefore, in the
paucity of Southern publishers. We do not deny a high degree of cultivated
talent to the South; we are familiar with the names of her sons whose
genius has made them eminent; all that we insist upon is, that the same
accursed influence which has smitten her industrial enterprises with
paralysis, and retarded indefinitely her material advancement, has exerted
a corresponding influence upon her literature. How it has done this we
shall more fully indicate before we close the chapter.
At the "Southern Convention" held some months since at Savannah, a good
deal was said about "Southern literature," and many suggestions made in
reference to the best means for its promotion. One speaker thought that
"they could get text-books at home without going to either Old England or
New England for them." Well--they can try. The effort will not harm them;
nor the North either. The orator was confident "that the South had talent
enough to do anything that needs to be done, and independence enough to do
it." The _talent_ we shall not deny; the _independence_ we are ready to
believe in when we see it. When she throws off the incubus of slavery
under which she goes staggering like the Sailor of Bagdad under the weight
of the Old Man of the Sea, she will prove her independence, and
demonstrate her ability "to do anything that needs to be done." Till then
she is but a fettered giant, whose vitals are torn by the dogs which her
own folly has engendered.
Another speaker, on the occasion referred to, half-unconsciously it would
seem, threw a gleam of light upon the subject under discussion, which, had
not himself and his hearers been bat-blind, would have revealed the clue
that conducts from the darkness in which they burrow to the day of
redemption for the South. Said he:--
"Northern publishers employ the talent of the South and of the whole
country to write for them, and pour out thousands annually for it;
but Southern men expect to get talent without paying for it. The
_Southern Quarterly Review_ and the _Literary Messenger_ are
literally struggling for existence, for want of material aid. * * *
It is not the South that builds up Northern literature--_they do it
themselves_. There is talent and mind and poetic genius enough in the
South to build up a literature of a high order; but Southern
publishers cannot get money enough to assist them in their
enterprises, and, therefore, the South has no literature.
Here are truths. "Southern men expect to get talent without paying for
it." A very natural expectation, considering that they have been
accustomed to have all their material wants supplied by the uncompensated
toil of their slaves. In this instance it may seem an absurd one, but it
results legitimately from the system of slavery. That system, in fact,
operates in a two-fold way against the Southern publisher: first, by its
practical repudiation of the scriptural axiom that the laborer is worthy
of his hire; and secondly, by restricting the circle of readers through
the ignorance which it inevitably engenders. How is it that the people of
the North build up their literature?--Two words reveal the secret:
_intelligence--compensation_. They are _a reading people_--the poorest
artizan or day-laborer has his shelf of books, or his daily or weekly
paper, whose contents he seldom fails to master before retiring at night;
and _they are accustomed to pay for all the books and papers which they
peruse_. Readers and payers--these are the men who insure the prosperity
of publishers. Where a system of enforced servitude prevails, it is very
apt to beget loose notions about the obligation of paying for anything;
and many minds fail to see the distinction, morally, between compelling
Sambo to pick cotton without paying him wages, or compelling Lippincott &
Co. to manufacture books for the planter's pleasure or edification upon
the same liberal terms. But more than this--where a system of enforced
servitude prevails, a fearful degree of ignorance prevails also, as its
necessary accompaniment. The enslaved masses are, of course, thrust back
from the fountains of knowledge by the strong arm of law, while the poor
non-slaveholding classes are almost as effectually excluded from the
institutions of learning by their poverty--the sparse population of
slaveholding districts being unfavorable to the maintenance of free
schools, and the exigencies of their condition forbidding them to avail
themselves of any more costly educational privileges.
Northern publishers can "employ the talent of the South and of the whole
country to write for them, and pour out thousands annually for it," simply
because a _reading_ population, accustomed to _pay_ for the service which
it receives, enables them to do so. A similar population at the South
would enable Southern publishers to do the same. Substitute free labor for
slave labor, the institutions of freedom for those of slavery, and it
would not long remain true that "Southern publishers cannot get money
enough to assist them in their enterprises, and therefore the South has no
literature." This is the discovery which the South Carolina orator from
whom we quote, but narrowly escaped making, when he stood upon its very
edge, and rounded his periods with the truths in whose unapprehended
meanings was hidden this germ of redemption for a nation.
The self-stultification of folly, however, was never more evident than it
is in the current gabble of the oligarchs about a "Southern literature."
They do not mean by it a healthy, manly, normal utterance of unfettered
minds, without which there can be no proper literature; but an emasculated
substitute therefor, from which the element of freedom is eliminated;
husks, from which the kernel has escaped--a body, from which the
vitalizing spirit has fled--a literature which ignores manhood by
confounding it with brutehood; or, at best, deals with all similes of
freedom as treason against the "peculiar institution." There is not a
single great name in the literary annals of the old or new world that
could dwarf itself to the stature requisite to gain admission into the
Pantheon erected by these devotees of the Inane for their Lilliputian
deities. Thank God, a "Southern literature," in the sense intended by the
champions of slavery, is a simple impossibility, rendered such by that
exility of mind which they demand in its producers as a prerequisite to
admission into the guild of Southern authorship. The tenuous thoughts of
such authorlings could not survive a single breath of manly criticism. The
history of the rise, progress, and decline of their literature could be
easily written on a child's smooth palm, and leave space enough for its
funeral oration and epitaph. The latter might appropriately be that which,
in one of our rural districts, marks the grave of a still-born infant:--
"If so early I am done for,
I wonder what I was begun for!"
We desire to see the South bear its just proportion in the literary
activities and achievements of our common country. It has never yet done
so, and it never will until its own manhood is vindicated in the abolition
of slavery. The impulse which such a measure would give to all industrial
pursuits that deal with the elements of material prosperity, would be
imparted also to the no less valuable but more intangible creations of the
mind. Take from the intellect of the South the incubus which now oppresses
it, and its rebound would be glorious; the era of its diviner
inspirations would begin; and its triumphs would be a perpetual
vindication of the superiority of free institutions over those of slavery.
To Duyckinck's "Cyclopedia of American Literature"--a sort of
_Omnium-gatherum_ that reminds one of Jeremiah's figs--we are indebted for
the following facts: The whole number of "American authors" whose place of
nativity is given, is five hundred and sixty-nine. Of these seventy-nine
were foreign born, eighty-seven were natives of the South, and four
hundred and three--a vast majority of the whole, first breathed the vital
air in the free North. Many of those who were born in the South, received
their education in the North, quite a number of whom became permanent
residents thereof. Still, for the purposes of this computation, we count
them on the side of the South. Yet how significant the comparison which
this computation furnishes! Throwing the foreign born (adopted citizens,
mostly residents of the North) out of the reckoning, and the record
stands,--Northern authors _four hundred and three_; Southern,
_eighty-seven_--a difference of three hundred and sixteen in favor of the
North! And this, probably, indicates very fairly the relative intellectual
activity of the two sections.
We accept the facts gleaned from Duyckinck's work as a basis, simply, of
our estimate: not as being absolutely accurate in themselves, though they
are doubtless reliable in the main, and certainly as fair for the South as
they are for the North. We might dissent from the judgment of the compiler
in reference to the propriety of applying the term "literature" to much
that his compilation contains; but as tastes have proverbially differed
from the days of the venerable dame who kissed her cow--not to extend our
researches into the condition of things anterior to that interesting
event--we will not insist upon _our_ view of the matter, but take it for
granted that he has disentombed from forgotten reviews, newspapers,
pamphlets, and posters, a fair relative proportion of "authors" for both
North and South, for which "American Literature" is unquestionably under
infinite obligations to him!
Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America" and Thomas Buchanan Read's
"Female Poets of America" furnish evidence, equally conclusive, of the
benumbing influence of slavery upon the intellect of a country. Of course,
these compilers say nothing about Slavery, and probably never thought of
it in connection with their respective works, but none the less
significant on that account is the testimony of the _facts_ which they
give. From the last edition of Griswold's compilation, (which contains the
names of none of our female writers, he having included them in a separate
volume) we find the names of one hundred and forty-one writers of verse:
of these _one_ was foreign-born, _seventeen_ natives of the slaveholding,
and _one hundred and twenty-three_ of the non-slaveholding States. Of our
female poets, whose nativity is given by Mr. Read, _eleven_ are natives of
the South; and _seventy-three_ of the North! These simple arithmetical
figures are God's eternal Scripture against the folly and madness of
Slavery, and need no aid of rhetoric to give emphasis to the startling
eloquence of their revelations.
But, after all, literature is not to be estimated by cubic feet or pounds
averdupois, nor measured by the bushel or the yardstick. Quality, rather
than quantity, is the true standard of estimation. The fact, however,
matters little for our present purpose; for the South, we are sorry to
say, is as much behind the North in the former as in the latter. We do not
forget the names of Gayarre, Benton, Simms, and other eminent citizens of
the Slave States, who have by their contributions to American letters
conferred honor upon themselves and upon our common country, when we
affirm, that those among our authors who enjoy a cosmopolitan reputation,
are, with a few honorable exceptions, natives of the Free North; and that
the names which most brilliantly illustrate our literature, in its every
department, are those which have grown into greatness under the nurturing
influence of free institutions. "Comparisons are odious," it is said; and
we will not, unnecessarily, render them more so, in the present instance,
by contrasting, name by name, the literary men of the South with the
literary men of the North. We do not depreciate the former, nor
overestimate the latter. But let us ask, whence come our geographers, our
astronomers, our chemists, our meteorologists, our ethnologists, and
others, who have made their names illustrious in the domain of the Natural
Sciences? Not from the Slave States, certainly. In the Literature of Law,
the South can furnish no name that can claim peership with those of Story
and of Kent; in History, none that tower up to the altitude of Bancroft,
Prescott, Hildreth, Motley and Washington Irving; in Theology, none that
can challenge favorable comparison with those of Edwards, Dwight,
Channing, Taylor, Bushnell, Tyler and Wayland in Fiction, none that take
rank with Cooper, and Mrs. Stowe; and but few that may do so with even the
second class novelists of the North;[9] in Poetry, none that can command
position with Bryant, Halleck, and Percival, with Whittier, Longfellow,
and Lowell, with Willis, Stoddard and Taylor, with Holmes, Saxe, and
Burleigh; and--we might add twenty other Northern names before we found
their Southern peer, with the exception of poor Poe, who, within a narrow
range of subjects, showed himself a poet of consummate art, and occupies a
sort of debatable ground between our first and second-class writers.
We might extend this comparison to our writers in every department of
letters, from the compiler of school-books to the author of the most
profound ethical treatise, and with precisely the same result. But we
forbear. The task is distasteful to our State pride, and would have been
entirely avoided had not a higher principle urged us to its performance.
It remains for us now to enquire,
WHAT HAS PRODUCED THIS LITERARY PAUPERISM OF THE SOUTH? One single word,
most pregnant in its terrible meanings, answers the question. That word
is--SLAVERY! But we have been so long accustomed to the ugly thing itself,
and have become so familiar with its no less ugly fruits, that the common
mind fails to apprehend the connection between the one, as cause, and the
other as effect; and it therefore becomes necessary to give a more
detailed answer to our interrogatory.
Obviously, then, the conditions requisite to a flourishing literature are
wanting at the South. These are--
I. Readers. The people of the South are not a reading people. Many of the
adult population never learned to read; still more, do not care to read.
We have been impressed, during a temporary sojourn in the North, with the
difference between the middle and laboring classes in the Free States, and
the same classes in the Slave States, in this respect. Passing along the
great routes of travel in the former, or taking our seat in the
comfortable cars that pass up and down the avenues of our great commercial
metropolis, we have not failed to contrast the employment of our
fellow-passengers with that which occupies the attention of the
corresponding classes on our various Southern routes of travel. In the one
case, a large proportion of the passengers seem intent upon mastering the
contents of the newspaper, or some recently published book. The merchant,
the mechanic, the artizan, the professional man, and even the common
laborer, going to or returning from their daily avocations, are busy with
their morning or evening paper, or engaged in an intelligent discussion of
some topic of public interest. This is their leisure hour, and it is given
to the acquisition of such information as may be of immediate or ultimate
use, or to the cultivation of a taste for elegant literature. In the other
case, newspapers and books seem generally ignored, and noisy discussions
of village and State politics, the tobacco and cotton crops, filibusterism
in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Sonora, the price of negroes generally, and
especially of "fine-looking wenches," the beauties of lynch-law, the
delights of horse-racing, the excitement of street fights with
bowie-knives and revolvers, the "manifest destiny" theory that justifies
the stealing of all territory contiguous to our own, and kindred topics,
constitute the warp and woof of conversation. All this is on a level with
the general intelligence of the Slave States. It is true, these States
have their educated men,--the majority of whom owe their literary culture
to the colleges of the North. Not that there are no Southern colleges--for
there are institutions, so called, in a majority of the Slave
States.--Some of them, too, are not deficient in the appointments
requisite to our higher educational institutions; but as a general thing,
Southern colleges are colleges only in _name_, and will scarcely take rank
with a third-rate Northern academy, while our academies, with a few
exceptions, are immeasurably inferior to the public schools of New-York,
Philadelphia, and Boston. The truth is, there is a vast inert mass of
stupidity and ignorance, too dense for individual effort to enlighten or
remove, in all communities cursed with the institution of slavery.
Disguise the unwelcome truth as we may, slavery is the parent of
ignorance, and ignorance begets a whole brood of follies and of vices, and
every one of these is inevitably hostile to literary culture. The masses,
if they think of literature at all, think of it only as a costly luxury,
to be monopolized by the few.
The proportion of white adults over twenty years of age, in each State,
who cannot read and write, to the _whole_ white population, is as follows:
Connecticut, 1 to every 568
Vermont, 1 " 473
N. Hampshire, 1 " 310
Massachusetts, 1 " 166
Maine, 1 " 108
Michigan, 1 " 97
Rhode Island, 1 " 67
New Jersey, 1 " 58
New York, 1 " 56
Pennsylvania, 1 " 50
Ohio, 1 " 43
Indiana, 1 " 18
Illinois, 1 " 17
Louisiana, 1 to every 38-1/2
Maryland 1 " 27
Mississippi, 1 " 20
Delaware, 1 " 18
South Carolina, 1 " 17
Missouri, 1 " 16
Alabama, 1 " 15
Kentucky, 1 " 13-1/2
Georgia, 1 " 13
Virginia, 1 " 12-1/2
Arkansas, 1 " 11-1/2
Tennessee, 1 " 11
North Carolina, 1 " 7
In this table, Illinois and Indiana are the only Free States which, in
point of education, are surpassed by any of the Slave States; and this
disgraceful fact is owing, principally, to the influx of foreigners, and
to immigrants from the Slave States. New-York, Rhode Island, and
Pennsylvania have also a large foreign element in their population, that
swells very considerably this percentage of ignorance. For instance,
New-York shows, by the last census, a population of 98,722 who cannot read
and write, and of this number 68,052 are foreigners; Rhode Island, 3,607,
of whom 2,359 are foreigners; Pennsylvania, 76,272, of whom 24,989 are
foreigners. On the other hand, the ignorance of the Slave States is
principally _native_ ignorance, but comparatively few emigrants from
Europe seeking a home upon a soil cursed with "the peculiar institution."
North Carolina has a foreign population of only 340, South Carolina only
104, Arkansas only 27, Tennessee only 505, and Virginia only 1,137, who
cannot read and write; while the aggregate of _native_ ignorance in these
five States (exclusive of the _slaves_, who are debarred all education by
_law_) is 278,948! No longer ago than 1837, Governor Clarke, of Kentucky,
in his message to the Legislature of that State, declared that "by the
computation of those most familiar with the subject, _one-third of the
adult population of the State are unable to write their names_;" and
Governor Campbell, of Virginia, reported to the Legislature, that "from
the returns of ninety-eight clerks, it appeared that of 4,614 applications
for marriage licenses in 1837, no less than 1,047 were made by men unable
to write."
In the Slave States the proportion of free white children between the ages
of five and twenty, who are found at any school or college, is not quite
_one-fifth_ of the whole; in the Free States, the proportion is more than
_three-fifths_.
We could fill our pages with facts like these to an almost indefinite
extent, but it cannot be necessary. No truth is more demonstrable, nay, no
truth has been more abundantly demonstrated, than this: that Slavery is
hostile to general education; its strength, its very life, is in the
ignorance and stolidity of the masses; it naturally and necessarily
represses general literary culture. To talk, therefore, of the "creation
of a purely Southern Literature," without _readers_ to demand, or
_writers_ to produce it, is the mere babble of idiocy.
II. Another thing essential to the creation of a literature is MENTAL
FREEDOM. How much of _that_ is to be found in the region of Slavery? We
will not say that there is _none_; but if it exists, it exists as the
outlawed antagonist of human chattelhood. He who believes that the
despotism of the accursed institution expends its malignant forces upon
the _slave_, leaving intact the white and (so called) free population, is
the victim of a most monstrous delusion. One end of the yoke that bows the
African to the dust, presses heavily upon the neck of his Anglo-Saxon
master. The entire mind of the South either stultifies itself into
acquiescence with Slavery, succumbs to its authority, or chafes in
indignant protest against its monstrous pretensions and outrageous
usurpations. A free press is an institution almost unknown at the South.
Free speech is considered as treason against slavery: and when people dare
neither speak nor print their thoughts, free thought itself is well nigh
extinguished. All that can be said in _defence_ of human bondage, may be
spoken freely; but question either its morality or its policy, and the
terrors of lynch law are at once invoked to put down the pestilent heresy.
The legislation of the Slave States for the suppression of the freedom of
speech and the press, is disgraceful and cowardly to the last degree, and
can find its parallel only in the meanest and bloodiest despotisms of the
Old World. No institution that could bear the light would thus sneakingly
seek to burrow itself in utter darkness. Look, too, at the mobbings,
lynchings, robberies, social and political proscriptions, and all manner
of nameless outrages, to which men in the South have been subjected,
simply upon the suspicion that they were the enemies of Slavery. We could
fill page after page of this volume with the record of such atrocities.
But a simple reference to them is enough. Our countrymen have not yet
forgotten why John C. Underwood was, but a few months since, banished from
his home in Virginia, and the accomplished Hedreck driven from his College
professorship in North Carolina. They believed Slavery inimical to the
best interest of the South, and for daring to give expression to this
belief in moderate yet manly language, they were ostracised by the
despotic Slave Power, and compelled to seek a refuge from its vengeance in
States where the principles of freedom are better understood. Pending the
last Presidential election, there were thousands, nay, tens of thousands
of voters in the Slave States, who desired to give their suffrages for the
Republican nominee, John C. Fremont, himself a Southron, but a
non-slaveholder. The Constitution of the United States guaranteed to these
men an expression of their preference at the ballot-box. But were they
permitted such an expression? Not at all. They were denounced, threatened,
overawed, by the Slave Power--and it is not too much to say that there was
really no _Constitutional election_,--that is, no such free expression of
political preferences as the Constitution aims to secure--in a majority of
the Slave States.
From a multiplicity of facts like these, the inference is unavoidable,
that Slavery tolerates no freedom of the press--no freedom of speech--no
freedom of opinion. To expect that a whole-souled, manly literature can
flourish under such conditions, is as absurd as it would be to look for
health amid the pestilential vapors of a dungeon, or for the continuance
of animal life without the aid of oxygen.
III. Mental activity--force--enterprise--are requisite to the creation of
literature. Slavery tends to sluggishness--imbecility--inertia. Where free
thought is treason, the masses will not long take the trouble of thinking
at all. Desuetude begets incompetence--the _dare-not_ soon becomes the
_cannot_. The mind thus enslaved, necessarily loses its interest in the
processes of other minds; and its tendency is to sink down into absolute
stolidity or sottishness. Our remarks find melancholy confirmation in the
abject servilism in which multitudes of the non-slaveholding whites of the
South are involved. In them, ambition, pride, self-respect, hope, seem
alike extinct. Their slaveholding fellows are, in some respects, in a
still more unhappy condition--helpless, nerveless, ignorant, selfish; yet
vain-glorious, self-sufficient and brutal. Are these the chosen architects
who are expected to build up "a purely Southern literature?"
The truth is, slavery destroys, or vitiates, or pollutes, whatever it
touches. No interest of society escapes the influence of its clinging
curse. It makes Southern religion a stench in the nostrils of
Christendom--it makes Southern politics a libel upon all the principles of
Republicanism--it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honorable
profession of letters. Than the better class of Southern authors
themselves, none will feel more keenly the truth of our remarks. They
write books, but can find for them neither publishers nor remunerative
sales at the South. The executors of Calhoun seek, for his works, a
Northern publisher. Benton writes history and prepares voluminous
compilations, which are given to the world through a Northern publisher.
Simms writes novels and poems, and they are scattered abroad from the
presses of a Northern publisher. Eighty per cent. of all the copies sold
are probably bought by Northern readers.
When will Southern authors understand their own interests? When will the
South, as a whole, abandoning its present suicidal policy, enter upon that
career of prosperity, greatness, and true renown, to which God by his word
and his providences, is calling it? "If thou take away from the midst of
thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger and speaking vanity; and if
thou draw out thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul; then
shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the noonday: And
the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought, and
make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a
spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee
shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of
many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach,
The restorer of paths to dwell in."
Our limits, not our materials, are exhausted. We would gladly say more,
but can only, in conclusion, add as the result of our investigations in
this department of our subject, that _Literature and Liberty are
inseparable; the one can never have a vigorous existence without being
wedded to the other_.
Our work is done. It is the voice of the non-slaveholding whites of the
South, through one identified with them by interest, by feeling, by
position. That voice, by whomsoever spoken, must yet be heard and heeded.
The time hastens--the doom of slavery is written--the redemption of the
South draws nigh.
In taking leave of our readers, we know not how we can give more forcible
expression to our thoughts and intentions than by saying that, in concert
with the intelligent free voters of the North, we, the non-slaveholding
whites of the South, expect to elevate JOHN C. FREMONT, CASSIUS M. CLAY,
JAMES G. BIRNEY, or some other Southern non-slaveholder, to the Presidency
in 1860; and that the patriot thus elevated to that dignified station
will, through our cordial co-operation, be succeeded by WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
CHARLES SUMNER, JOHN MCLEAN, or some other non-slaveholder of the
North;--and furthermore, that if, in these or in any other similar cases,
the oligarchs do not quietly submit to the will of a constitutional
majority of the people, as expressed at the ballot-box, the first battle
between freedom and slavery will be fought at home--and may God defend the
right!
THE END.
GENERAL INDEX.
Abstract of the Author's Plan for the Abolition of Slavery, 155.
Achenwall, 29.
Adams, John Quincy, 239.
Agriculture and other out-door pursuits, number of free white male
Southrons engaged in, 298.
Agricultural Products.--See Corn, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Barley, Hay, Cotton,
Tobacco, &c. &c.
Animals Slaughtered, Value of, 71.
Anti-slavery Letters from native Southrons, 374.
Area of the several States and Territories, 143.
Aristotle, 256.
Attorneys-General, 312.
Baltimore, Letter from the Mayor of, 337.
Baltimore, Past, Present, and Future, 352.
Baltimore, Why this Work was not published there, 360.
Bancroft, George, 384.
Bank Capital of the several States, 286.
Banks, James, 384.
Baptist Testimony, 263.
Barley, 36.
Barnes, Rev. Albert, 259.
Beans and Peas, 37.
Beattie, James, 251.
Beeswax and Honey, 64.
Benton, Thomas II., 19, 105, 167, 207.
Bible Testimony, 275 Bible Cause Contributions, 295.
Birney, James G., 214, 413.
Blackstone, Sir William, 248.
Blair, Francis P., 105, 167, 213.
Bolling, Philip A., 211.
Book Making in America, 392.
Booth, Abraham, 268.
Boston, Letter from the Mayor of, 338.
Botts, John M., 167.
Brisbane, Rev. Mr., 263.
Brissot, 253.
Brooklyn, Letter from the Mayor of, 339.
Brougham, Lord, 250.
Browne, R. K., 322.
Buchanan, James, 170.
Buckwheat, 37.
Buffalo, Letter from the Mayor of, 344.
Buffon, 253.
Burke, Edmund, 250.
Butler, Bishop, 261.
Butter and Cheese, 64.
Cameron, Paul C., 49, 55.
Canals, miles of, in the several States, 285.
Cane, Sugar, 53, 65.
Cartwright, Dr., of New-Orleans, 301.
Catholic Testimony, 271.
Chandler, Mr., of Virginia, 211.
Charleston, Letter from the Mayor of, 340.
Chicago, Letter from, 342.
Churches, Value of, in the several States, 294.
Cicero, 254.
Cincinnati, Letter from the Mayor of, 340.
Cities, nine Free and nine Slave, 347.
Clarke, Dr. Adam, 269.
Clarke, Judge, of Mississippi, 223.
Clay, Henry, 205.
Clay, Cassius M., 206, 301, 413.
Clay, C. C., 56.
Clinton, DeWitt, 242.
Clover and Grass Seed, 37.
Coke, Sir Edward, 249.
Colonization Movements, 183.
Colonization Cause Contributions, 296.
Commercial Cities--Southern Commerce, 33.
Comparison between the Free and the Slave States, 11.
Corn, 35, 69.
Cotton, 53, 65.
Cowper, William, 247.
Cragin, A. H., 190.
Curran, John Philpot, 250.
Curtis, Mr., of Virginia, 101.
Darien (Georgia) Resolutions, 231.
Davis, Henry Winter, 167.
Deaths in the several States in 1850, 297.
DeBow, J. D. B., 30, 50, 83.
Dublin University Magazine, 251.
Emigration to Liberia, 183.
Episcopal Testimony, 261.
Etheridge, Emerson, 167, 173.
Expenditures of the several States, 80.
Exports, 283.
Facts and Arguments by the Wayside, 360.
Farms, Cash Value of, 71.
Faulkner, Charles James, 98, 175.
Flax, 62 Flaxseed, 38.
Fortescue, Sir John, 249.
Fox, Charles James, 246.
Franklin, Benjamin, 235.
Free Figures and Slave, 281.
Free White Agriculturalists in the Slave States, 298.
Freedom and Slavery at the Fair, 323.
Freedom in the South, Progress of, 367.
Fremont, John Charles, 170, 212, 410, 418.
Gaston, Judge, of North Carolina, 225.
Garden Products, Value of, 38.
Goethe, 254.
Goodloe, Daniel R., 112
Goldsmith, Oliver, 384.
Graham, William H., 167.
Graves, Calvin, 167.
Greeley, Horace, 364.
Grotius, 253.
Hall, Dr. James, 182.
Hamilton, Alexander, 237.
Hammond, Gov., 165, 301.
Hampden, John, 249.
Harper Brothers, 394.
Harrington, James, 249.
Hay, 53.
Hedrick, B. S., Prof., 305, 410.
Hemp, 53, 62.
Henry, Patrick, 84, 200.
Hildreth, Richard, 384.
Hoffman, H. W., 167.
Honey, 64.
Hops, 62.
Horsley, Bishop, 261.
How Slavery can be Abolished, 123.
Hunt, Freeman, 349.
Hurlbut, William Henry, 229, 316.
Illiterate Poor Whites of the South, 376.
Illiterate White Adults, 291, 407.
Imports, 283.
Indian Corn, 35, 69.
Inhabitants to the Square Mile, 143.
Inventions, New, Patents issued on, in 1856, 294.
Iredell, Judge, 210.
Jay, John, Judge, 237.
Jay, John, Esq., 261.
Jay, William, 239.
Jefferson, Thomas, 195, 222.
Johnson, Samuel, Dr., 248.
Kansas, Aid for, 318.
Kemp, Henry, 273.
Lactantius, 255.
Lafayette, Gen., 252 O. Lafayette, 252.
Lawrence, Abbott and Amos, 106.
Leigh, Mr., of Virginia, 210.
Leo X., 255.
Liberia, Emigration to, 183.
Libraries Other than Private, 289.
Live Stock, Value of, 71.
Locke, John, 246.
Louis X., 253.
Louisville, Letter from the Mayor of, 341.
Luther, Martin, 254.
McDowell, Gov., 209.
McLane, of Delaware, 215.
Macfarland, Wm, H., 167.
Macknight, James, D.D., 251.
Madison, James, 82, 199.
Mansfield, Lord, 246.
Manufactures, Products of, 284.
Maple Sugar, 63.
Martin, Luther, 216.
Marshall, Humphrey, 167
Marshall, Thomas, 211.
Mason, James M., 223.
Mason, John W., 384.
Mason, Col., of Virginia, 208.
Massachusetts and North Carolina, 14.
Maury, M. F., 213.
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 221.
Methodist Testimony, 269.
Militia Force of the Several States, 286.
Miller, H. W., 167.
Miller, Prof., of Glasgow, 251.
Milton, John, 248.
Missionary Cause Contributions, 296.
Monroe, James, 200.
Montesquieu, 252.
Moore, Mr., of Virginia, 101.
Morehead, John M., 167.
National Political Power of the Several States, 292.
Natives of the Slave States in the Free States, and Natives of the Free
States in the Slave States, 304.
New-Bedford, Letter from the Mayor of, 345.
New-Orleans, Letter from the Mayor of, 337.
Newspapers and Periodicals, 290.
New-York and Virginia, 12.
New-York and North Carolina, 325.
New-York City, Letter from the Mayor of, 336.
Norfolk, Letter from, 344.
North American and United States Gazette, 87, 111, 114.
North Carolina and Massachusetts, 14.
North Carolina and New-York 325.
Northern Testimony, 235.
Nott, J. C., Dr., 302, 303.
Oats, 35, 69.
Oglethorpe, Gen., 230.
Orchard Products, Value of, 38.
Patents Issued on New Inventions, 294.
Pennsylvania and South Carolina, 17.
Perry, B. F., 229.
Pettyjohn, Charles, 363.
Philadelphia, Letter from the Mayor of, 337.
Pinkney, William, 210, 215.
Pitt, William, 246.
Plato, 256.
Polybius, 256.
Pope Gregory XVI., 271.
Pope Leo X., 255.
Popular Vote for President in 1856, 293.
Population of the Several States, 144.
Porteus, Bishop, 261.
Postmasters-General, 311.
Post Office Statistics, 287.
Potatoes, 36, 69.
Powell, Mr., of Virginia, 102.
Precepts and Sayings of the Old Testament, 276.
Precepts and Sayings of the New Testament, 277.
Presbyterian Testimony, 259.
Presidents of the United States, 307.
Presidential Elections in the U. S. from 1796 to 1856, 317.
Preston, Mr., of Virginia, 212.
Price, Dr., of London, 248.
Providence, Letter from the Mayor of, 343.
Railroads, Miles of, in the Several States, 285.
Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 201.
Randolph, Thomas M., 202.
Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 202.
Randolph, Peyton, 204.
Randolph, Edmund, 204.
Raynal, The Abbe, 273.
Raynor, Kenneth, 167, 169.
Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Bushel-Measure Products,
39-40.
Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Pound-Measure Products, 65.
Recapitulation of the Value of Farms and Domestic Animals, 72.
Real and Personal Property, 80.
Reid, Mr., of Georgia, 233.
Revenue of the Several States, 80.
Rice, 53, 65.
Richmond, Letter from, 342.
Ritchie, Thomas, 92, 105.
Rives, Mr., of Virginia, 101, 104.
Rousseau, 253.
Ruffin, Judge, of North Carolina, 224.
Rye, 36, 69, 78.
Savannah, Letter from the Mayor of, 345.
Schools, Public, 288.
Scott, Thomas, (Commentator), 260.
Secretaries of State, 309.
Secretaries of the Interior, 312.
Secretaries of the Treasury, 313.
Secretaries of War, 314.
Secretaries of the Navy, 315.
Shakspeare, 247.
Slaveholders, Number of, in the United States, 146.
Slaves, Value of, at $400 per head, 306.
Slavery, Legislative Acts against, 361.
Slavery Thoughtful--Signs of Contrition, 365.
Smith, Gerrit, 318.
Socrates, 256.
South Carolina and Pennsylvania, 17.
Southern Literature, 383.
Southern Testimony against Slavery, 188.
Speakers of the House of Representatives, 310.
St. Louis, Letter from the Mayor of, 339.
Stanly, Edward, 167.
States, the Several, when First Settled, 321-322.
Statistics, Science of, 29, 30.
Stuart, A. H. H., 167.
Summers, Mr., of Virginia, 212.
Supreme Court, Judges of, 308.
Tarver, M., 164.
Taylor, Wm. C, L.L.D., 29.
Territories, the, Area and Population of, 145.
Testimony of the Nations, 245.
Testimony of the Churches, 258.
Tobacco, 53, 62, 78.
Tonnage of the Several States, 283.
Tract Cause Contributions, 295.
Underwood, John C., 410.
Virginia and New-York, 12.
Votes cast for President in 1856, 293.
Votes, Classification of, Polled at the Five Points Precinct in 1856, 293.
Walker, Robert J., 105.
Warren, Joseph, Gen., 242.
Washington, George, Gen., 193.
Wayland, Francis, D.D., 264.
Wealth of the Several States, 80.
Webster, Daniel, 240.
Webster, Noah, 117, 241, 384.
Wesley, John, Rev., 269.
Weston, George M., 164.
Wheat, 35, 69, 78.
Why the North has surpassed the South, 24.
Wise Henry A., 13, 90, 102.
Footnotes:
[1] Achenwall, a native of Elbing, Prussia. Born 1719, died 1792.
[2] Of the 51,687 inhabitants in the District of Columbia, in 1850, 10,057
were Free Colored, and 3,637 were slaves.
[3] No popular vote.
[4] For colonizing free blacks in Liberia.
[5] For an explanation of this Table see the next six pages.
[6] It is intended that this Table shall be considered in connection with
Tables XX and XXI, on page 80.
[7] No choice by the people; John Q. Adams elected by the House of
Representatives.
[8] The oldest town in the United States.
[9] We Southrons all glory in the literary reputation of Mr. Simms; yet we
must confess his inferiority to Cooper, and prejudice alone will refuse to
admit, that, while in the _art_ of the novelist he is the superior of Mrs.
Stowe in genius he must take position below her.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"Northren" corrected to "Northern" (page 23)
"abolitionits" corrected to "abolitionist" (page 26)
"propable" corrected to "probable" (page 26)
"XVI" corrected to "XIV" (page 64)
"east" corrected to "least" (page 75)
"statictics" corrected to "statistics" (page 77)
"Virgina" corrected to "Virginia" (page 77)
"Enqurier" corrected to "Enquirer" (page 92)
"known" corrected to "know" (page 105)
"furnance" corrected to "furnace" (page 128)
"imstruments" corrected to "instruments" (page 153)
"wisdon" corrected to "wisdom" (page 154)
"then than" corrected to "than" (page 159)
"dis ainfully" corrected to "disdainfully" (page 163)
"slav" corrected to "slave" (page 178)
"graphicallly" corrected to "graphically" (page 190)
"Amercia" corrected to "America" (page 244)
"a ways" corrected to "always" (page 253)
"Tennesse" corrected to "Tennessee" (page 284, Table XXIX)
"Tennesee" corrected to "Tennessee" (page 304, Table LVII)
"Pennsylvvania" corrected to "Pennsylvania" (page 313)
"1819" corrected to "1829" (page 315)
"7796" corrected to "1796" (page 317)
"drawf" corrected to "dwarf" (page 400)
Missing "24" added (index)
Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been retained from the original.