Compendium of the Impending Crisis of the South by Hinton Rowan Helper
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Title:Compendium of the impending crisis of the South. By Hinton Rowan Helper.

Author:Helper, Hinton Rowan, 1829-1909.

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Print Source:Compendium of the impending crisis of the South. By Hinton Rowan Helper.

Helper, Hinton Rowan, 1829-1909.

vi, 7-214 p. 20 cm.

New York,

A. B. Burdick,

1860.

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CO M P E N D I U M OF THE IMPI~NDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH. BY IIINTON ROWAN

HELPER, OF NORTH CAROLINA. COUNTRYMEN! I sue for simple justice at your hands, Naught else I ask, nor less will have; Act right, therefore, and yield my claim, Or, by the great God that made all things, I’ll fight, till from my bones my flesh be kack’d!-Shakspeaoe. The liberal deviseth liberal thingS’,, And by liberal things shall he sta.tIsiah. NEW YORK: A.

B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER, No. 145 NASSAU STREET. 1860. ,AP 4-3 - ~ . vI A -

-6

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CAS S IUS M. CLAY, OF KENTUCKY, FIRANCIS P. BLAIR, Jr., OF MISSOURI, B E

NJA M I N, S. I IED R IC IX, OF NORTH CAROLINA, AND TO THE

NONSLAVEHOLDING WHITES OF THE SOUTH, GENERALLY, ‘WHETHER AT HOME OR

ABROAD, THIS W OtK IS MOST CORDIALLY DEDICATED BY THEIR SINCERE FRIEND AND

FELLOW-CITIZEN, THE AUTHOR. A-t1 is I n-. ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by A. B. BURDICK, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. GEO. RUssELL & CO., Printers. I- — I i I .,i… i… W. H. Tixsox, Stereotyper.

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.G, ( r - c-A - /, I P REFACE. IF my countrymen, particularly my countrymen of the South, still more particularly those of them who are nonslaveholders, shall peruse this work, they will learn that no narrow and partial doctrines of political or social economy, no prejudices of early education, have induced me to write it. If, in any part of it, I have actually deflected from the tone of true patriotism and nationality, I am unable to perceive the fault. What I have committed to paper is but a fair reflex of the honest and long-settled convictions of my heart. In writing this book it has been no part of my purpose to cast unmerited opprobrium upon slaveholders, or to display any special friendliness or sympathy for the blacks. I have considered my subject more particularly with reference to its economic aspects as regards the whites-not with reference, except in a very slight degree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects. To the latter side of the question, Northern writers have already done full and timely justice. The genius of the North has also most ably and eloquently discussed the subject in the form of novels.

New England wives have written the most popular antislavery literature of the day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all well enough for women to give the fictions of slavery; men should give the facts. I trust that my friends and fellow-citizens of the South will read this book-nay, proud ascii any Southerner though I am, I entreat, I beg of them to do so.

And as the work, considered with reference to its author’s nativity, is a novelty-the South being my birthplace and my home, and my ancestry having resided there for more than a century-so I indulge the hope that its reception by my fellow-Southrons will also be novel; that is to say, that they will receive it, as it is offered, in a reasonable and friendly spirit, and that they will read it and, reflect upon it as an honest and faithful endeavor to treat a subject of vast import, without rancor or prejudice, by one who naturally comes within the pale of their own sympathies. An irrepressibly active desire to do something to elevate the South to an honorable and powerful position among the enlightened quarters of the globe, has been the great leading principle that has actuated me in the preparation of the present volume; and so well convinced am I that the plan which I have proposed is the only really practicable one for achieving the desired end, that I earnestly hope to see it prosecuted with energy and zeal, until the Flag of Freedom shall wave triumphantly alike over the valleys of Virginia and the mounds of Mississippi. H. R. K /U,n6

21, 1859.

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CONTENTS, ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED. Adams, John Quincy, 116. Addison, Joseph, 207. Agassiz, Louis, 7. Agricultural Products, 20. Alexander II.

of Russia, 126,141. American Emigrant Aid and Homestead Co., 203. Animals Slaughtered, Value of, 40. Area of the several States and Territories, 71, 72. Aristotle, 128. Attorneys-General, 186. Bailey, Gamaliel, 159. Bailey, William S., 164. Bank Capital of the several States, 178. Banks, Nathaniel P., 147. Bapst, M. 126. Baptist Testimony, 18. Barley, 20. Barlow, Joel, 207. Barnes, Albert, 180. Beans and Peas, 21. Beattie, James, 124.

Beecher, Henry Ward, 154. Beeswax and Honey, 36. Bellows, Henry W., 155.

Benton, Thomas H., 99. Berdan, Hiram, 69. Bible Testimony, 188-140. Bible and Tract Cause, 179. Birney, James G., 102. Blackstone, Sir William, 122.

Blair, Francis P., Sen., 148. Blair, Francis P., Jr., 148. Bolling, Phillip A., 101. Booth, Abraham, 184. Brisbane, William H., 188. Brissot, 125. Brougham, Lord, 128. Brown, B. Gratz, 151. Browne, R. K., 191.

Buckwheat, 21. Buffon, 125. Burke, Edmund, 128. Burleigh, C. C., 166.

Burleigh, Wm. Henry, 166. Burlingame, Anson, 149. Burns, Robert, 120.

Bushel-measure Products, 22. Butler, Bishop, 182. Butter and Cheese, 86.

Cameron, Paul C., 27. Canals and Railroads, miles of, 178. Cane, Sugar, 36. Carey, Henry C., 151. iv Cartwrighti, Dr., f Ne w Orlean s, 182.

Catholic Testimony, 186. Chandler, Mr., of Virginia, 101. Channing, Wm.

E., 114. Chapin, E. H., 155. Chase Salmon P., 143. Cheese and Butter, 86.

Cheever, Georg e B., 154 Churches, Value of, 178. Cicero, 127. Cities, nine Free and nine Slave, 198. Clarke, Dr. Adam, 184. Clarke, Judge, of Mississippi, 10T.Clay, Henry, 99. Clay, Cassius M., 141, 144,182. Clay, C.

C., 81. Cleveland, C. D., 181. Clinton, DeWitt, 117. Clover and Grass Seed, 21. Coke, Sir Edward 123. Colonization Movements, 88. Colonization Cause Contributions, 179. Commercial Cities-S9outhern Commerce, 195. 200.

Comparisons between the North and the South, 7-61. Conway, M. D,, 162.

Corn, Indian, 20. Corwin, Thomas, 150. Cotton, 36. Cowper, William, 122.

Crops per Acre, 88, 39. Curran, John Philpot, 123. Curtis, Mr., of Virginia, 54. Darien (Georgia) Resolution, 112. Davis, Thomas, 168. Deaths in the several States in 1850,180. DeBow, J. D. B., 17. Decrease of Agricultural Products, 44. Dublin University Magazine, 123. Elliott, Chas.

W., 165. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 150. Emigration to Liberia, 88. Emperor of Russia, 126,141 England, Voice of, 120. Episcopal Testimony, 182.

Etheridge, Emerson, 84. Expenditures of the several States, 45. Exports and Imports, 172. Facts and Arguments by the Wayside, 201 206. Farms, Cash Value of, 40. Faulkner, Charles James, 58, 85 Fee, John G., 168.

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CONTENTS Five Points, Election at the, in 1856, 82. Flax, 85-Flax Seed, 21. Fortescue, Sir John, 12& Fox, Charles James, 121. France, Voice of, 124, Franking Privilege, availed of, 211. Franklin, Benjamin, 114. Free Figures and Slave, 171-194. Free Labor Movements in the South, 202. Free White Agriculturists in the Slave States, 180. Freedom and Slavery at the Fair, 19L Fremont, John Charles, 144. Frothingham, O. B., 164. Furness, Wm. Henry, 167. Garden Products, Value of, 21. Garrison, Wm. Loyd, 1538.

Gaston, Judge, of North Carolina, 10&. Georgia, Slavery in, 111. Germany, Voice of, 125. Giddings, Joshua R., 149. Godwin, Parke, 165. - Goethe, 125. Goodell, William, 156. Goodloe, Daniel R., 16L Greece, Voice of, 128.

Greeley, Horace, 157. Griffith, Mattie, 160. Grimk6, Sarah, M., 16M

‘Grotius, 125. Grow, Galusha A., 149. Hale, John P., 146. Hamilton, Alexander, 115. Hammond, Gov., of South Carolina, 80, 182 M Hampden, John, 1238. Harrington, James, 123. Hay, 29, 85. Hedrick, B. S., 161. Hemp, 8E.

Henry, Patrick, 96. Hildreth, Richard, 164. Honey and Beeswax, 86. Hops, 85. Horseley, Bishop, 182. How Slavery can be Abolished, 62-90.

Huddlestone, M. P., 121. Hurlbut, William Henry, 110,188. Illiterate Poor Whites of the South, 204. Illiterate White Adults, 176, 212. Imports and Exports, 172. Indian Corn, 20. Inhabitants to the Square Mile, 148.

Inventions, New, Patents issued on, 178. Iredell, Judge, of North Carolina, 100. Ireland, Voice of, 123. Italy, Voice of, 127. Jay, John, Judge 115. Jay John, Esq., 17, 13. Jay, William, 116. O Jefferson, Thomas, 94. Johnson, Oliver, 180. Johnson, Samuel, Dr., 122. Kansas, Aid for, 188.

Kapp, Frederick, 125. Lactantius, 128. Lafayette, Gen., 124-O. Lafayette, 124. Langenschwarz, Dr. Max, 126. Lawrence, Abbott and Amos, 55. Leavitt, Joshua, 156. Leigh, Mr., of Virginia, 101. Liseo X., 128. Liberia, Emigration to, 88. Libra ries other than Priv ate, 175. Lieber, Francis, 62. Live Stock, Value of, 40. Locke, John, 121. Long, Joh n Dix on, 168.

Louis X., 125. Luther, Martin, 125. McDowell, Gov. of Virginia, 100.

McKim, J. Miller, 166. McLane, Louis, 100. Macaulay, T. Babington, 207.

Macknight, James, 124. Madison, James, 96. Mansfield, Lord, 120.

Manufactures, products of, 172. Maple Sugar, 35.? Marion, Francis, 110.

Martin, Luther, 103. Martineau, Harriet, 122. Marshall Thomas, 100.

Maryland, Slavery in, 103. Mason, James M., 107. Mason, Col., of Virginia, 100. Massachusetts and North Carolina, 9. Mattison, Hiram, 135. May, Samuel J., 156. Mayo, A. D., 167. Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 106. Methodist Testimony, 134. Militia Force of the Several States, 174.

Miller, Prof., of Glasgow, 124. Milton, John, 122. Missionary Cause Contributions, 179. Monroe, James, 96. Montesquieu, 124. Moore, Mr., of Virginia, 54. Morgan, Edwin D., 147. Mortality in the Several States, 180.

Newspaper and Periodical Statistics, 176. New York and Virginia, 8. New York and North Carolina, 192. New York Courier and Enquirer, 158. New York Herald, 209. New York Times, 54, 157. New York Tribune, 209. North American and United States Gazette,, 57, 58. J North Carolina, Slavery in, 104. North Carolina and Massachusetts, 9. North Carolina and New York, 192. Northern Testimony, 114-119. Northerners in the Slave States, 184.

:Nott, Dr. J. C., 183. Oats, 20. Oglethorpe, Gen., 111. Olmsted, Fred.

Law, 168. : Orchard Products, Value of, 21. ; Parker, Theodore, 153.

Pauloff, Al., 127. Patents Issued on Near Inventions, 178. Peas and Beans, 21. Pennsylvania and South Carolina, 10. Perry, B F., 111. Philadelphia North American, 57, 58, Phillips, Wendell, 152. Pierpont, John, 137.

Pinkney, William, 101. Pitt, William, 121. Plato, 128. I I v

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CONTENTS. Pollok, Robert, 130. Polybius, 128. Poor Whites of the South, 181, 182, 183, 204. Pope Gregory XVI., 186. Pope Leo X., 128. Popular Vote for President in 1856, 177. Population of the Several States, 71, 72.

Porteus, Bishop, 182. Postmasters-General, 186. Post Office Statistics, 174. Potatoes, 20. Pound-Measure Products, 87. Powell, Mr., of Virginia, 54. Presbyterian Testimony, 180. Presidents of the United States, 185.

Presidential Elections since 1796,188. Preston, Mr., of Virginia, 102.

Prettyman, James D., 168. Price, Dr., of London, 122. Products per Acre, 88, 89. Public School Statistics, 175. Queen Victoria, 121. Railroads and Canals, miles of, 178. Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 97. Randolph, Thomas M., 97. Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 98. Randolph, Peyton, 98. Randolph, Edmund, 98. Raymond, Henry J., 157. Raynal, The Abbe, 137. Real and Personal Property, 45. Reid, Mr. of Georgia, 112. Republican Newspapers in the South, 204. Revenue of the Several States, 45. Rice, 86. Richmond Enquirer, 49. Rives, Mr., of Virginia, 54. Rousseau, 125. Ruffin, Judge, of North Carolina, 107. Russia, Voice of, 126. Rye, 20. Schools, Public, 175. Schurz, Carl, 125. Scotland, Voice of, 124. Scott, Thomas, (Commentator,) 182. Secretaries of State, 185. Secretaries of the Interior, 186. Eecretaries of the Treasury, 187. cretaries of War, 187.

Secretaries of the Navy, 187. Settlement of the Several States, Period and their admission into the Union, 191. Seward, Wm. H., 142. Shakspeare, 121.

Slaveholders, Number of, 72, 73. Slaveholders Classified, 73. Slaves, Value of, at $400 per head, 184. Slavery, how it might be Abolished, 62.

Slavery Thoughtful-Signs of Contrition, 202. Smith, Gerr it, 148.

Snodgrass, J. E., 162. Socrate s, 128. South Carolin a and Pennsylvania, 10. South Carolina, Sla ver y in, 109. Southern Literature, 207-214.

Southern Testimony against Slavery, 91-118. Speakers of the House of Representatives, 186. States, the Several, when First Settled, 191.

Statistics, Science of, 16, 17. Stowe, Harriet Beechefr, 159. Sugar, Cane, 36. Sugar, Maple, 85. Summers, Mr., of Virginia, 102. Sumner, Charles, 145. Supreme Court, Judges of, 185. Swaim, Benjamin, 108. Tappan, Lewis, 156. Tarver, M., 80. Taylor, Wm. C., LL.D., 16. Territories, the, Area and Population of, T2. Testimony of the South, 91-113. Testimony of the North, 114-119. Testimony of the Nations, 120-129. Testimony of the Churches, 10-18T’. Testimony of the Bible, 138-140. Testimony of Living Witnesses, 141-1T0. Thompson, Joseph P., 154. Tobacco, 85. Tonnage of the Several States, 172. Tract Cause Contributions, 179. Underwood, John C., 161, 204.

~ictoria, Queen, 121. Virginia-Bill of Rights, 103. Virginia and New York, 8. Votes cast for President in 1856, 177. Wade, Edward, 147. Warren, Joseph, 117. Washington, George, 93. Wayland, Francis, 183. Wealth of the Several States, 45. Webb, J. Watson, 158. Webster, Daniel, 116. Webster, Noah, 117. Weed, Thurlow, 159. Weld, Angelina E., 160. Weld, Theodore D., 169. Wesley, John, 134. Weston, George M., 79. Wheat, 20. Wilson, Henry, 146. Wise, Henry A., 8, 49. Wool, 86. I vi of,

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OHAPTER I. OOMPARISONS BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. Comparisons are at the bottom of all philosophy. It is by comparisons that we ascertain the difference which exists between things, and it is by comparisons, also, that we ascertain the general features of things, and it is by comparisons that we rehch general propositions. Without comparisons we never can generalize. Without comparisons we never could go beyond the knowledge of isolated, disconnected facts.-AOASSIZ. IT is not our intention in this chapter to enter into an elaborate ethnographical essay, to establish peculiarities of difference, mental, moral, or physical, in the great family of man. Neither is it our design to launch into a philosophical disquisition on the laws and principles of light and darkness, with a view of educing any additional evidence of the fact, that as a general rule, the rays of the sun are more fructifying and congenial than the shades of night. Nor yet is it our purpose, by writing a formal treatise on ethics, to draw a broad line of distinction between right and wrong, to point out the propriety of morality and its advantages over immorality, nor to waste time in pressing a universally admitted truism-that virtue is preferable to vice. Self-evident truths require no argumentative demonstration. What we mean to do is simply this: to take a survey of the relative position and importance of the several states of this confederacy, from the adoption of the national compact; and when, of two sections of the country starting under the same auspices, and with equal natural advantages, we find the one rising to a degree of almost unexampled power and eminence, and the other sinking into a state of comparative imbecility and obscurity, it is our determination to trace out the causes which have led to the elevation of the former, and the depression of the latter, and to use our most earnest and honest endeavors to utterly extirpate whatever opposes the progress and prosperity of any portion of the Union. This survey we have already made; we have also instituted impartial comparisons between the cardinal sections of the country, north, south, east, and west; and as a true-hearted southerner, whose ancestors have resided in North Carolina between one and two hundred years, and as one who would rather have his native clime excel than be excelled, we feel constrained to confess that we are deeply abashed and chagrined at the disclosures of the comparisons thus instituted. At the time of the 7

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE adoption of the Constitution in 1789, we commenced an even race with the North. All things considered, if either the North or the South had the advantage, it was the latter. In proof of this, let us introduce a few statistics, beginning with the states of NEW YORK AND

VIRGINIA. In 1790, when the first census was taken, New York contained 840,120 inhabitants; at the same time the population of Virginia was 748,308, being more than twice the number of New York. Just sixty years afterward, as we learn from the census of 1850, New York had a population of 3,097,394; while that of Virginia was only 1,421,661, being less than half the number of New York! In 1791, the exports of New York amounted to $2,505,465; the exports of Virginia amounted to $3,130,865. In 1852, the exports of New York amounted to $87,484,456; the exports of Virginia, during the same year, amounted to only $2,724,657. In 1790, the imports of New York and Virginia were about equal; in 1853, the imports of New York amounted to the enormous sum of $178,270,999: while those of Virginia, for the same period, amounted to the comparatively pitiful aggregate of only $399,004. In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining and the mechanics rts in New York amounted to $237,597,249; those of Virginia amounted to only $29,705,387. At the taking of the last census, the value of real and personal property in Virginia, including negroes, was $391,646,438; that of New York, exclusive of any monetary valuation of human beings, was $1,080,309,216. In August, 1856, the real and personal estate assessed in the City of New York amounted in valuation to $511,740,491, showing that New York City alone is worth far more than the whole State of Virginia.

What says one of Virginia’s own sons? He still lives; hear him speak. Says Gov. Wise: “It may be painful, but nevertheless, profitable, to recur occasionally to the history of the past; to listen to the admonitions of experience, and learn lessons of wisdom from the efforts and actions of those who have preceded us in the drama of human life. The records of former days show that at a period not very remote, Virginia stood preeminently the first commercial State in the Union; when her commerce exceeded in amount that of all the New England States combined; when the city of Norfolk owned more than one hundred trading ships, and her direct foreign trade exceeded that of the city of New York, now the centre of trade and the great emporium of North America. At the period of the war of independence, the commerce of Virginia was four times larger than that of New York.” The cash value of all the farms, farming implements and machinery in Virginia, in 1850, was $223,423,315; the value of the same in New York, in the same year, was $576,631,568. In about the same ratio does the value of the agricultural products and live stock of New York exceed the value of the agricultural products and live stock of Virginia. But we will pursue this humiliating comparison no further. With feel 8

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. ings mingled with indignation and disgust, we turn from the picture, and will now pay our respects to MASSACHUSETTS AND

NORTH CAROLINA. In 1790, Massachusetts contained 378,717 inhabitants; in the same year North Carolina contained 393,751; in 1850, the population of Massachusetts was 994,514, all freemen; while that of North Carolina was only 869,039, of whom 288,548 were slaves. Massachusetts has an area of only 7,800 square miles; the area of North Carolina is 50,704 square miles, which, though less than Virginia, is considerably larger than the State of New York. Massachusetts and North Carolina each have a harbor, Boston and Beaufort, which harbors, with the States that back them, are, by nature, possessed of about equal capacities and advantages for commercial and manufacturing enterprise. Boston has grown to be the second commercial city in the Union; her ships, freighted with the useful and unique inventions and manufactures of her ingenious artisans and mechanics, and bearing upon their stalwart arms the majestic flag of our country, glide triumphantly through the winds and over the waves of every ocean. She has done, and is now doing, great honor to herself, her State and the nation, and her name and fame are spoken with reverence in the remotest regions of the earth. How is it with Beaufort, in North Carolina, whose harbor is said to be the safest and most commodious anywhere to be found on the Atlantic coast south of the harbor of New York, and but little inferior to that? ias anybody ever heard of her? Do the masts of her ships ever cast a shadow on foreign waters? Upon what distant or benighted shore have her merchants and mariners ever hoisted our national ensign, or spread the arts of civilization and peaceful industry? What changes worthy of note have taken place in the physical features of her superficies since “the evening and the morning were the third day?” But we will make no further attempt to draw a comparison between the populous, wealthy, and renowned city of Boston and the obscure, despicable little village of Beaufort, which, notwithstanding “thee placid bosom of its deep and well-protected harbor,” has no place in t-annals or records of the country, and has scarcely ever been hear f fifty miles from home.?!’: In 1853, the exports of Massachusetts amounted to $16,895,304, and her imports to $41,367,956; during the same time, and indeed during all the time, from the period of the formation of the government up to the year 1853, inclusive, the exports and imports of North Carolina were so utterly insignificant that we are ashamed to record them. In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining and the mechanic arts in Massachusetts, amounted to $151,137,145; those of North Carolina, to only $9,111,245. In 1856, the products of these industrial pursuits in Messa 1* 9

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COMPARISONX BETWEEN THE chusetts had increased to something over $288,000,000, a sum more than twice the value of the entire cotton crop of all the Southern States! In’ 1850, the cash value of all the farms, farming implements and machinery in Massachusetts, was $112,285,931; the value of the same in North Carolina, in the same year, was only $71,823,298. In 1850, the value of all the real and personal estate in Massachusetts, without recognizing property in man, or setting a monetary price on the head of a single citizen, white or black, amounted to $573,342,286; the value of the same in North Carolina, including negroes, amounted to only $226,800,472. In 1856, the real and personal estate assessed in the city of Boston amounted in valuation to within a fraction of $250,000,000, showing conclusively that so far as dollars and cents are concerned, that single city could buy the whole State of North Carolina, and by right of purchase, if sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States, and by State Constitutions, hold her as a province. In 1850, there were in Massachbserts 1,861 native white and free colored persons over twenty years of ae who could not read and write; in the same year, the same class of persons in North Carolina numbered 80,063; while her 288,548
slaves were, by legislative enactments, kept in a state of absolute ignorance and unconditional subordination. Hoping, however, and believing, that a large majority of the most respectable and patriotic citizens of North Carolina have resolved, or will soon resolve, with unyielding purpose, to cast aside the great obstacle that impedes their progress, and bring into action a new policy which will lead them from poverty and ignorance to wealth and intellectual greatness, and which will shield them not only from the rebukes of their own consciences, but also from the just reproaches of the civilized world, we will, for the present, in deference to their feelings, forbear the further enumeration of these degrading disparities, and turn our attention to PENNSYLVANIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA. An old gentleman, now residing in Charleston, told us, but a short while ince, that he had a distinct recollection of the time when Charlesto~
imported foreign fabrics for the Philadelphia trade, and when, on a certain occasion, his mother went into a store on Markect street to select a silk dress for herself, the merchant, unable to please her fancy, persuaded her to postpone the selection for a few days, or until the arrival of a new stock of superb styles and fashions which he had recently purchased in the metropolis of South Carolina. This was all very proper.

Charleston had a spacious harbor, a central position, and a mild climate; and from priority of settlement and business connections, to say nothing of other advantages, she enjoyed greater facilities for commercial transactions than Philadelphia. She had a right to get 10

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. custom wherever she could find it, and in securing so valuable a custo mer as the Quaker City, she exhibited no small degree of laudable enter prise. But why did she not maintain her supremacy? If the answer to this query is not already in the reader’s mind, it will suggest itself before he peruses the whole of this work. For the present, suffice it to say, that the cause of her shameful insignificance and decline is essen tially the same that has thrown every other southern city and State in the rear of progress, and rendered them tributary, in a commercial and manufacturing point of view, almost entirely tributay, to the more sagacious and enterprising States and cities of the North. A most unfortunate day was that for the Palmetto State, and indeed for the whole South, when the course of trade was changed, and she found herself the retailer of foreign and domestic goods, imported and vended by wholesale merchants at the North. Philadelphia ladies no longer look to the South for late fashions, and fine silks and satins; no Quaker dame now wears drab apparel of Charleston importation.

Like all other centres of trade in our disreputable part of the confederacy, the commercial emporium of South Carolina is sick and impoverished; her silver cord has been loosed; her golden bowl has been broken; and her unhappy people, without proper or profitable employment, poor in pocket, and few in number, go mourning or loafing about the streets. Her annual importations are actually less now than they were a century ago, when South Carolina was the second commercial province on the continent, Virginia being the first. In 1760, as we learn from Mr.

Benton’s “Thirty Years’ View,” the foreign imports into Charleston were $2,662,000; in 1855, they amounted to only $1,750,000! In 1854, the imports into Philadelphia, which, in foreign trade, ranks at present but fourth among the commercial cities of the Union, were $21,963,021. In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining, and the mechanic arts, in Pennsylvania, amounted to $155,044,910; the products of the same in South Carolina, amounted to only $7,063,513. As shown by the census report of 1850, which was prepared under the superintendence of a native of South Carolina, who certainly will not be suspected of injustice to his own section-of the country-.the Southern States-the cash value of all the farms, farming implements, and machinery in Pennsylvania, was $422,598,640; the value of the same in South Carolina, in the same year, was only $86,518,038. From a compendium of the same census, we learn that the value of all the real and personal property in Pennsylvania, actual property, no slaves, amounted to $729,144,998; the value of the same in South Carolina, including the estimated-we were about to say fictitious value of 384,925 negroes, amounted to only $288,257,694. We have not been able to obtain the figures necessary to show the exact value of the real and per 11

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE sonal estate in Philadelphia, but the amount is estimated to be not les than $300,000,000; and as, in 1859, there were 408,762 free inhabitants in the single city of Philadelphia, against 283,544 of the same class in the whole State of South Carolina, it is quite evident that the former is more powerful than the latter, and far ahead of her in all the elements of genuine and permanent superiority. In Pennsylvania, in 1850, the annual income of public schools amounted to $1,348,249; the same in South Carolina, in the same year, amounted to only $200,600; in the former State there were 393 libraries other than private, in the latter only 26; in Pennsylvania 310 newspapers and periodicals were published, circulating 84,898,672 copies annually; in Seuth Carolina only 46 newspapers and periodicals were published, circulating but 7,145,930
copies per annum. The incontrovertible facts we have thus far presented are, we think, amply sufficient, both in number and magnitude, to bring conviction to the mind of every candid reader, that there is something wrong, socially, politically and morally wrong, in the policy under which the South has so long loitered and languished. Else, how is it that the North, under the operations of a policy directly the opposite of ours, has surpassed us in almost everything great and good, and left us standing before the world, an object of merited reprehension and derision? For one, we are heartily ashamed of the inexcusable weakness, inertia and dilapidation everywhere so manifest throughout our native section; but the blame properly attaches itself to an usurping minority of the people, and we are determined that it shall rest where it belongs. More on this subject, however, after a brief but general survey of the inequalities and disparities that exist between those two grand divisions of the country, which, without reference to the situation that any part of their territory bears to the cardinal points, are every day becoming more familiarly known by the appropriate appellation of THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. * It is a fact well known to every intelligent Southerner that we are compelled to go to the North for almost every article of utility and adornment, from matches, shoepegs and paintings up to cotton-mills, steamships and statuary; that we have no foreign trade, no princely merchants, nor respectable artists; that, in comparison with the free states, we contribute nothing to the literature, polite arts and inventions of the age; that, for want of profitable employment at home, large numbers of our native population find themselves necessitated to emigrate to the West, whilst the free states retain not only the larger proportion of those born within their own limits, but induce, annually, hundreds of thousands of foreigners to settle and remain amongst them; that almost 12

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. everything produced at the North meets with ready sale, while, at the same time, there is no demand, even among our own citizens, for the productions of Southern industry; that, owing to the absence of a pro per system of business amongst us, the North becomes, in one way or another, the proprietor and dispenser of all our aoating wealth, and that we are dependent on Northern capitalists for’he means necessary to build our railroads, canals and other public improvements; that if we want to visit a foreign country, even though it may lie directly south of us, we find no convenient way of getting there except by taking passage through a Northern port; and that nearly all the profits arising from the exchange of commodities, from insurance and shipping offices, and from the thousand and one industrial pursuits of the country, accrue to the North, and are there invested in the erection of those magnificent cities and stupendous works of art which dazzle the eyes of the South, and attest the superiority of free institutions! The North is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they must and do make two pilgrimages per annum-one in the spring and one in the fall. -All our commercial, mechanical, manufactural, and literary supplies come from there. We want Bibles, brooms, buckets and books, and we go to the North; we want pens, ink, paper, wafers and envelopes, and we go to the North; we want shoes, hats, handkerchiefs, umbrellas and pocket knives, and we go to the North; we want furniture, crockery, glassware and pianos, and we go to the North; we want toys, primers, sehool-books, fashionable apparel, machinery, medicines, tomb-stones, and a thousand other things, and we go to the North for them all. Instead of keeping our money in circulation at home, by patronizing our -own mechanics, manufacturers, and laborers, we send it all away to the North, and there it remains; it never falls into our hands again. In one way or another we are more or less subservient to the North every day of our lives. In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin; in childhood we are humored with Northern gewgaws; in youth we are instructed out of Northern books; at the age of maturity we sow our “wild oats” on Northern soil; in middle-life we exhaust our wealth, energies and talents in the dishonorable vocation of entailing our dependence on our children and on our children’s children, and, to the neglect of our own interests and the interests of those around us, in giving aid and succor to every department of Northern power; in the decline of life we remedy our eye-sight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with Northern canes; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic; and, finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern carriage, entombed with a Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern slab! But it can hardly be necessary to say more in illustration of th’. 13

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE unmanly and unnational dependence, which is so glaring that it cannot fail to be apparent to even the most careless and superficial observer. All the world sees, or ought to see, that in a commercial, mechanical, manufactural, financial, and literary point of view, we are as helpless as babes; that, in comparison with the Free States, our agricultural resources have been greatly exaggerate, misunderstood and mismanaged; and that, instead of cultivating among ourselves a wise policy, of mutual assistance and cooperation with respect to individuals, and of self-reliance with respect to the South at large, instead of giving countenance and encouragement to the industrial enterprises projected among us, and instead of building up, aggrandizing and beautifying our own States, cities and towns, we have been spending our substance at the North, and are daily augmenting and strengthening the very power which now has us so completely under its thumb. It thus appears, in view of the preceding statistical facts and arguments, that the South, at one time the superior of the North in almost all the ennobling pursuits and conditions of life, has fallen far behind her competitor, and now ranks more as the dependency of a mother country than as the equal confederate of free and independent States. Following the order of our task, the next duty that devolves upon us is to trace out the causes which have conspired to bring about this important change, and to place on record the reasons, as we understand them, WHY THE NORTH HAS

SURPASSED THE SOUTH. And now that we have come to the very heart and soul of our subject, we feel no disposition to mince matters, but mean to speak plainly and to the point, without any equivocation, mental reservation, or secret evasion whatever. The son of a venerated parent, who, while he lived, was a considerate and merciful slaveholder, a native of the South, born and bred in North Carolina, of a family whose home has been in the valley of the Yadkin for nearly a century and a hal, a Southerner by instinct and by all the influences of thought, habits and kindred, and with the desire and fixed purpose to reside permanently within the limits of the South, and with the expectation of dying there also-we feel that we have the right to express our opinion, however humble or unimportant it may be, on any and every question that affects the public good; and, so help us God, “sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish,” we are determined to exercise that right with manly firmness, and without fear, favor or affection. And now to the point. In our opinion, an opinion which has been formed from data obtained by assiduous researches, and comparisons, from laborious investigation, logical reasoning, and earnest reflection, the causes which have impeded the progress and prosperity of the South, which have dwindled our commerce and other similar pursuits, into the 0 14

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. most contemptible insignificance; sunk a large majority of our people in galling poverty and ignorance, rendered a small minority conceited and tyrannical, and driven the rest away from their homes; entailed upon us a humiliating dependence on the Free States; disgraced us in the recesses of our own souls and brought us under reproach in the eyes of all civilized and enlightened natiOns-may all be traced to one common source, and there find solution in the most hateful and horrible word, that was ever incorporated into the vocabulary of human economy -Slavery. Reared amidst the institution of slavery, believing it to be wrong both in principle and in practice, and having seen and felt its evil influ ences upon individuals, communities and states, we deem it a duty, no less than a privilege, to enter our protest against it, and, as a Southern man, to use all constitutional means and our most strenuous efforts to overturn and abolish it. Our repugnance to slavery springs from no onesided idea, or sickly sentimentality. We have not been hasty in making up our mind on the subject; we have jumped at no conclusions; we have acted with perfect calmness and deliberation; we have carefully considered, and examined the reasons for and against the institution, and have alsotaken into account the probable consequences of our decision. The more we investigate the matter, the deeper becomes the conviction that we are right; and with this to impel and sustain us, we pursue our labor with love, with hope, and with constantly renewing vigor. That we shall encounter opposition we consider as certain; perhaps we may even be subjected to insult and violence. From the cruel and conceited defenders of slavery we could look for nothing less. But we shall shrink from no responsibility, and do nothing unbecoming a man; we know how to repel indignity, and if assaulted, shall not fail to make the blow recoil upon the aggressor’s head. The road we have to travel may be a rough one, but no impediment shall cause us to falter in our course. The line of our duty is clearly defined, and it is our intention to follow it faithfully, or die in the attempt. But, thanks to heaven, we have no ominous forebodings of the result of the contest now pending between Liberty and Slavery in this confederacy. Though neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, our vision is sufficiently penetrative to divine the future so far as to be able to see that the ” peculiar institution” has but a short and, as heretofore, inglorious existence before it. Time, the righter of every wrong, is ripening events for the desired consummation of our labors and the fulfillment of our cherished hopes. Each revolving year brings nearer the inevitable crisis. The sooner it comes the better; may heaven, through our hum1-le efforts, hasten its advent. The first and most sacred duty of every Southerner, who has the honor 15

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE and the interest of his country at heart, is to declare himself an unquali. fled and uncompromising opponent of slavery.

No conditional or halfway declaration will avail; no mere threatening demonstration will succeed. With those who desire to be instrumental in bringing about the triumph of liberty over slavery, there should be neither evasion, vacillation, nor equivocation. We should Wsten to no modifying terms or compromises that may be proposed by the proprietors of the unprofitable and ungodly institution. Nothing short of the complete abolition of slavery can save the South from falling into the vortex of utter ruin. Too long have we yielded a submissive obedience to the tyrannical domination of an inflated oligarchy; too long have we tolerated their arrogance and self-conceit; too long have we submitted to their unjust and savage exactions. Let us now wrest from them the sceptre of power, establish liberty and equal rights throughout the land, and henceforth and forever guard our legislative halls from the pollutions and usurpations of proslavery demagogues. We have stated, in a cursory manner, the reasons, as we understand them, why the North has surpassed the South, and have endeavored tshow, we think successfully, that the highest future welfare of the South can be attained only by the speedy abolition of slavery. We will not, however, rest the case exclusively on our own arguments, but will again appeal to incontrovertible facts and statistics to sustain us in our conclu sions. But before we do so, we desire to fortify ourself against a charge that is too frequently made by careless and superficial readers. We allude to the objections so often urged against the use of tabular state ments and statistical facts. It is worthy of note, however, that those objections never come from thorough scholars or profound thinkers. Among the majority of mankind, the science of statistics is only begin ning to be appreciated; when well understood, it will be recognized as one of the most important branches of knowledge, and, as a matter of course, be introduced and taught as an indispensable element of practical education in all our principal institutions of learning. One of the most vigorous and popular transatlantic writers of the day, Wm. C. Taylor, LL.D., of Dublin, says: “The cultivation of statistics must be the source of all future improvement in the science of political economy, because it is to the table of the statistician that the economist must look for his facts; and all speculations not founded upon facts, though they may be admired and applauded when first propounded, will, in the end, assuredly be forgotten. Statistical science may almost be regarded as the creation of this age. The word statistics was invented in the middle of the last century by a German professor,* to express a summary view of the physical, moral, and social condition of States; he justly remarked, that a numerical statement of the extent, density of population, imports, exports, revenues, etc., of a country, more perfectly explained its social condition than general statements, however graphic or however accurate. When such statements began to be collected, and exhibited in a popular form, it was soon discovered that the political and economical sciences were likely * Achenwall, a native Af Elbiug, Prussia.

Born l1719, died 1792. 16

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. to gain the position of physical sciences; that is to say, they were about to obtain records of observation, which would test the accuracy of recognized principles, and lead to the discovery of new modes of action. But the great object of this new science is to lead to the knowledge of human nature; that is, to ascertain the general course of operation of man’s mental and moral faculties, and to furnish us with a correct standard of judgment, by enabling us to determine the average amount of the past as a guide to the average probabilities of the future.

This science is yet in its infancy, but has already produced the most beneficial effects. The accuracy of the tables of life have rendered the calculationA of rates of insurance a matter of much greater certainty than they were heretofre; the system of keeping the public accounts has been simplified and improved; and finally, the experimental sciences of medicine and political economy, have been fixed on a firmer foundation than could be anticipated in the last century. Even in private life this science is likely to prove of immense advantage, by directing attention to the collection and registration of facts, and thus preventing the formation of hasty judgments and erroneous conclusions.” The compiler, or rather the superintendent of the seventh United States census, Prof. De Bow, a gentleman of more than ordinary industry and practical learning, who, in his excellent Review, has, from time to time, displayed much commendable zeal in his efforts to develop the industrial resources of the Southern and Southwestern States, and who is, perhaps, the greatest statistician in the country, says: 4’ Statistics are far from being the barren array of figures ingeniously and laboriously combined into columns and tables, which many persons are apt to suppose them. They constitute rather the ledger of a nation, in which, like the merchant in his books, the citizen can read, at one view, all of the results of a year or of a period of years, as compared with other periods, and deduce the profit or the loss which has been made, in morals, education, wealth or power.” The present John Jay, of New York (it is hoped that the city may never be without a John Jay), in a most ingenious and masterly presentation of “The Statistics of American Agriculture,” recently made in the form of an address before the American Geographical and Statistical Society, says: “In England, the labors of the Statistical Society, whose elaborate and most valuable publications enrich our library, through the courtesy of the British government, have aroused the attention of the people and of Parliament to the truth, that the science of politics finds in the statistical element its most solid foundation.” Impressed with a sense of the propriety of introducing, in this ad well as in the succeeding chapters of our work, a number of tabular statements exhibiting the comparative growth and prosperity of the free and slave States, we have deemed it eminently proper to adduce the testimony of these distinguished authors in support of the claims which official facts and accurate statistics lay to our consideration. And here we may remark, that the statistics which we propose to offer, like those already given, have been obtained from official sources, and may, therefore, be relied on as correct. The object we have in view in making a free use of facts and figures, if not already apparent, will soon be understood. It is not so much in its moral and religious aspects that we propose to discuss the question of slavery, as in its 17

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE cocial and political character and influences. To say nothing of the sit and the shame of slavery, we believe it is a most expensive and rnprofit able institution; and if our brethren of the South will but throw aside their unfounded prejudices and preconceived opinions, and give us a fair and patient hearing, we feel confident that we can bring them to the same conclusion. Indeed, we beeve we shall be enabled-not alone by our own contributions, but with the aid of incontestable facts and arguments which we shall introduce from other sources-to convince all true-hearted, candid and intelligent Southerners, who may chance to read our book (and we hope their name may be legion), that slavery, and nothing but slavery, has retarded the progress and prosperity of our portion of the Union; depopulated and impoverished our cities by forcing the more industrious and enterprising natives of the soil to emigrate to the free States; brought our domain under a sparse and inert population by preventing foreign immigration; made us tributary to the North, and reduced us to the humiliating condition of mere provincial subjects in fact, though not in name. We believe, moreover, that every patriotic Southerner thus convinced will feel it a duty he owes to himself, to his country, and to his God, to become a thorough, infexible, practical Abolitionist. So mote it be! Now to our figures. Few persons have an adequate idea of the important part the cardinal numbers are now playing in the cause of liberty. They are working wonders in the South.

Intelligent business men, from the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande, are beginning to see that slavery, even in a mercenary point of view, is impolitic, because it is unprofitable. Those unique, mysterious little Arabic sentinels on the watch-towers of political economy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, have joined forces, allied themselves to the powers of freedom, and are hemming in and combating slavery with the most signal success. If let alone, we have no doubt the digits themselves would soon terminate the existence of human slavery; but we do not mean to let them alone; they must not have all the honor of annihilating the monstrous iniquity. We want to become an auxiliary in the good work, and facilitate it. The liberation of six millions of nonslaveholding whites from the second degree of slavery, and of three millions of miserable kidnapped negroes from the first degree, cannot be accomplished too soon. That it was not accomplished many years ago is our misfortune. It now behooves us to take a bold and determined stand in defence of the alienable rights of ourselves and of our fellow men, and to avenge the multiplicity of wrongs, social and political, which we have suffered at the hands of a most selfish and domineering oligarchy. It is madness to delay. We cannot be too hasty in carrying out our designs. Precipitance in this matter is an utter impossibility. Now is the time for action; let us work. is

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FREE AND THIE SLAVE STATES. By taking a sort of inventory of the agricultural products of the free and slave States in 1850, we now propose to correct a most extraordinary and mischievous error into which the people of the South have unconsciously fallen. Agriculture, it is well known, is the sole boast of the South; and, strange to say, many proslavery Southerners who, in our latitude, pass for intelligent men, are so puffed up with the idea of our importance in this respect, that thy speak of the North as a sterile region, unfit for cultivation, and quite dependent on the-South for the necessaries of life! Such gross, rampant ignorance deserves no audience. We can prove that the North produces greater quantities of breadstuffs than the South. Figures shal show the facts. Properly, the South has nothing left to boast of; the North has surpassed her in everything, and is going further and further ahead of her every day. We ask the reader’s careful attention to the following tables, which we have prepared at no little cost of time and trouble, and which, when duly considered in connection with the foregoing and subsequent portions of our work, will, we believe, carry conviction to the mind that the downward tendency of the South can be arrested only by the abolition of ilavery. 19

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE TABILE 1. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES

1850. ~Whet Oas, Ida oaos Rye, bushels. …… 600,893 83 364 78,792

19,916 102,916 481,021 105,871 188,117 1,255,578 4 14J,182 ‘425,918

4,805,160 ‘26,409 1T6,233 81,253 12,574,623 California………….

Connecticut……….. Illinois……………. Indiana……………

Iowa……………… Maine…………….. Massachusetts………

Michigan………….. New Hampshire…….. New Jersey……….. New York…………. Ohio……………… Pennsylvania………. Rhode Island………. Vermont………….. Wisconsin…………. 72,157,486

96,590,8T71 TABLE 2. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES - 1850.

Wheat, Oats Indian Crn Ptatoes Rye, Barley, STATES. bu,’,I,. - shels bushels. STATES. bushels. bushelis. bushels. (Iusheds-) bushels. bushels.

bushels. Alabama………….. 294,044 2,965,696 28,754,048 5,721,205

17,261 3,958 Arkansas………….. 199,639 656,183 8,893,939 981,981

8,047 177 Delaware…………. 482,511 604,518 8,145,542 805,985 8,066 56

Florida…………… 1,027 66,586 1,996,809 765,054 1,152

Georgia…………… 1,088,534 3,820,044 80,080,099 7,213,807 53,750

11,501 Kentucky………… 2,142 822 8,201,311 58,672,591 2,490,66

415,073 95,348 Louisiana…………. 417 89,637 10,266,873 1,524,085 475

Maryland………… 4,494,680 2,242,151 10,749,858 973,932 226,014 745

Mississippi………… 137,990 1,503,288 22,446,552 5,003 277 9,606 228

Missouri………….. 2,981,652 5,278,079 86,214,537 1,274,511 44,268

9,681 North Carolina…….. 2,130,102 4,052,078 27,941,051 5,716,027

229,563 2,785 South Carolina…….. 1,066,277 2,322,155 16,271,454

4,473,960 48,790 4,583 Tennessee…………. 1,619 386 7703,086

52,276,223 3,845,560 89,137 2,737 Texas…………….. 41,729 199,017

6,028,876 1,426,803 3,108 4,776 Virginia………….. 11,212,616

10,179,144 385,254,319 8,180,567 458,930 25,437 27,904,476 49,882,979

1848,992,282 44,847,420 1,608,240 161,907 ._~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~6,0 20

Pot.toes, (I…d S.) b.shels. 10,292 2,689,805 2‘6T2‘294 2,285:048 282,363

1 1 5,245,T60 6,032,904 .651-029 4,951:014 1, 402,956 59,033,ITO Ba,ley, bushel”. 9,Tl2 19,099 llo,T95 45,483 25,093 151,731 112‘385 1 75,249

TO,256 8,586:492 5 059 354,358 165,584 is 8T5 42:150 209,692 5,002,013

Wheat, b.,shels. 17,228 41,762 9,414,5T5 6,214,458 1,530,581 296,259

31,211 4,925,889 185,658 1,601’,190 13,121,498 14,48T,35.t 1.51367,691 49

.535 955 41286:131 Oat., b.shels. …… 1,258,T3S 10,08T,241 5,655,014

1,524,345 2,181;03T 1 165,146 2:866,056 973‘381 1 3,3T8 1063 26 1552,814

1314T2 IT42 21,53,81156 215.232 2 30T,‘T34 3:414-16T2 I.di.. Co,., b.,,hels. 12,236 1,935,043 5T,646,984 52,964,363 8,656,T99 1,T50,056

2,845,490 5,641,420 1,5T3,6TO 8,T59,‘TO4 17,858,400 59,OTS,695 19,835,214

‘5391 201 2,032,396 11988,979 STATES.

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FPREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. TA.BL3Ef 3. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE

STATES -1850. Flaxseed, Value of Garbus. hels. den Products. ……..

$75,275 $ 7038 196,874 10 787 127,494 36‘888 72,864 1,959 8,848 580

122,387 72 600,020 519 14,788 189 1 56,810 16,525 475,242 6 57 963 912‘047

188’,880 214,004 41,728 688,714 …… 98,298 989 18 858 1,191 82,142

858,928 $8,714,605 TA]3BLE 1. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES-1850. Value of Garden Products. $84,821 17,150 12,714 8,721 76,500 803,120

148,329 200,869 46,250 99,454 89,462 47,286 97,188 12,854 188,047 STATES.

Alabama….. Arkansas….. Delaware….. Florida……. Georgia……

Kentucky…. Louisiana…. Maryland….. Mississippi…. Missouri…… N.

Carolina… S. Carolina… Tennessee…. Texas…….. Virginia……

405,357 T,637,22T 128,517 208,484 $1,877,260 $1,855,827 21 Clo-,. & Gr.ss See,ds, b.sh. 80,469 IT,807 80,2Tl 2,438 ls,311 6,OST 26,2T4 8 91 184 140
iTs 6,036 15,696 5,486 Value 1 i,,4. chard P S’,7,TOO 1. izliis 4t6,049

824,940 8,434 342,865 463 1 995 132,650 248,560 607,268 1,761,950 695,921

723,389 63,994 315‘255 4:82P, $6,38.9,,914 Buckheat, b.shels. ……

229,297 184,509 149,740 52,516 104‘523 105,895 4T2,91T 651265 8T8,9,14

3,183,955 638,060 2,193,692 1‘245 209 819 79:ST8 Bea-s & Peas, b.shels.

2,292 19,090 82,814 35,773 4:475 205,,541 43,709 74:254 70,856 14,lT4

741,546 60 168 55”231 61 846 104,649 20,65T STATES. California….

,Connecticut… Illinois……. Indiana…… Iowa……… Maine……..

Massachusetts Michigan… N. Hampshire. New Jersey..,. New York….

Ohio……. Pennsylvania. Rhode Island.. Vermont…… Wisconsin….

8,550,245 - 1,542,295 762,265 Val.e of O,.,d P,.dlts. $15’ 408 40,141

46,574 1,280 92,776 106,280 22,259 164,051 r)0,405 514,711 84,348 35,108

52,894 12,505 177,137 B.l-heat, b.,;helE.. 848 lT5 8,615 55 250 16,09T 3

103 6Tl 1,121 23,641 16,TO4 283 19,42T 159 214,898 Be-r, & Peas, b.shels.

8921 701 28,51738 41120 135,859 1,142,011 202,574 161,732 12,816 1,OT2,75T

I 46,01T 1,584,2.52 1,026,900 .369 321 1 179,351 52l,,5T9 Clo,. & G,..

Seds, bsh. 685 526 8,928 2 . 560 24,711 99 1TI77, 61T 4,965 1,851 406

14,214 10 58,155 Fl-seed, bushels. 69 321 904 …. -i 2 75,801 - ..i,4 26

131696 88,196 55 18,904 26 52,318

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE REOAPITULATION-FRi:EE STATES.

eat……………… 72,157,486 bushels @ 1 50……….. $108,236,229
s……………….. 96,5907371 ” “40…………38,636,148 ian Corn………….. 242,618,650 ” ” 60………… 145,571,190 Patoes (I. &

S.)……..59,033,170 38………… 22,432,604 e………………..

12,574,623 ” ” 1 00…………12,574,623 Bley………………. 5,002,3

” ” 90………… 4,501,811 Bkwheat…………… 8,550,245

“50………… 4,275,122 ns and Peas………. 1,542,295 ” ” 1

75………… 2,699,015 ver and Grass Seeds… 762,265 ” 3 0 0

2………2,286,795 x Seeds…………… 35 8,923 ” 1 25…………

448,647 Gden Products……………… 3,714,605 hard Products……………….. 6,332,914 Total……………. 499,190,041
bushels, valued as above, at.. $351,709,703 REOAPITULATION-SLAVE STATES.

Wheat……………… 27,904,476 bushels 0 1 50……….. $41,856,714

Oats………………… 49,882,799 ” ” 40…………. 19,953,191 Indian Corn………….. 348,992,282 ” ” 60………… 209,395,369 Potatoes (I.

& S.)…….. 44,847,420’ ” 38………… 17,042,019

Rye…………………. 1,608,240 ” ” 1 00………… 1,608,240

Barley………………. 161,907 a ” 90………… 145,716_

Buckwheat…………… 405,357 ” ” 50………… 202,878 Beans and Peas……….. 7,637,227 ”’ 1 75………… 13,365,147 Clover and Grass Seeds.. 123,517 ” ” 3 00………… 370,551 Flax Seeds……………

203,484 ” ” 1 25………… 254,355 Garden Products…………………

1,377,260 Orchard Products……………….. 1,355,827

Total…………… 481,766,889 bushels, valued as above, at..

$306,927,067 TOTAL DIFFERENCE-BUSHEL-MEASURE PRODUOTS. Bushels. Value.

Free States………….. 499,190,041………………………..

$351,709,703 Slave States…………..

481,766,889……………………….. 306,927,067 Balance in bushels…….. 17,423,152 Difference in value………. $44,782,636 So much for the boasted agricultural superiority of the South! Mark well the balance in bushels, and the difference in value! Is either in favor of the South? No! Are both in favor of the North? Yes! Here we have unquestionable proof that of all the bushel-measure products of the nation, the free States produce far more than one-half; and it is worthy of particular mention, that the excess of Yorthern products is of the most valuable kind. The account shows a balance against the South, in favor of the North, of seventeen million four hundred and twentythree thousand one hundred andftfty-two bushels, and a difference in value of forty-four million seven hundred and eighty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. Please bear these facts in mind, for, in order to show positively how the free and slave States do stand upon the great and important subject of rural economy, we intend to take an account of all the other products of the soil, of the live-stock upon farms, of the animals slaughtered, and, in fact, of every item of husbandry of 22 Wh~ Oat Indi Pot Rye Bar Buc Bea Clo Fla Gar Orc

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. the two sections; and if, in bringing our tabular exercises to a close, we find slavery gaining upon freedom-a thing it has never yet been known to do-we shall, as a matter of course, see that the above amount is transferred to the credit of the side to which it of right belongs. In making up these tables we have two objects in view; the first is to open the eyes of the nonslaveholde* of the South, to the system of deception, that has been so long practised upon them, and the second is to show slaveholders themselves-we have reference only to those who are not too perverse, or ignorant, to perceive naked truths-that free labor is far more respectable, profitable, and productive, than slave labor. In the South, unfortunately, no kind of labor is either free or respectable. Every white man who is under the necessity of earning his bread, by the sweat of his brow, or by manual labor, in any capacity, no matter how unassuming in deportment, or exemplary in morals, is treated as if he were aloathsome beast, and shunned with disdain. Hiis soul may be the very seat of honor and integrity, yet without slaves-himself a slave -he is accounted as nobody, and would be deemed intolerably presumptuous, if he dared to open his mouth, even so wide as to give faint utterance to a three-lettered monosyllable, like yea or nay, in the presence of an august knight of the whip and the lash. There are few Southerners who will not be astonished at the disclosures of these statistical comparisons, between the free and the slave States. That the astonishment of the more intelligent and patriotic nonslaveholders will be mingled with indignation, is no more than we anticipate. We confess our own surprise, and deep chagrin, at the result of our investigations. Until we examined into the matter, we thought and hoped the South was really ahead of the North in one particular, that of agriculture; but our thoughts have been changed, and our hopes frustrated, for instead of finding ourselves the possessors of a single ad vantage, we behold our dlear native South stripped of every laurel, and sinking deeper and deeper in the depths of poverty and shame; while, at the same time, we see the North, our successful rival, extracting and absorbing the few elements of wealth yet remaining among us, and rising higher and higher in the scale of fame, fortune, and invulnerable power. Thus our disappointment gives way to a feeling of intense mortification, and our soul involuntarily, but justly, we believe, cries out for retribution against the treacherous slaveholding legislators, whc have so basely and unpatriotically neglected the interests of their poor white constituents and bargained away the rights of posterity. Notwith standing the fact that the white nonslaveholders of the South are in the majority, as six to one, they have never yet had any uncontrolled part or lot in framing the laws under which they live. There is no legisla tion except for the benefit of slavery, and slaveholders. As a general rule, poor white persons are regarded with less esteem and attention 23

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OOMIPARISONS BETWEEN THE than negroes, and though the condition of the latter is wretched beyond description, vast numbers of the former are infinitely worse off. A cunningly devised mockery of freedom is guaranteed to them, and that is all. To all intents and purposes they are disfranchised, and outlawed, and the only privilege extended to them, is a shallow and circumscribed participation in the political moven[nts that usher slaveholders into office. We have not breathed away nine and twenty years in the South, without becoming acquainted with the demagogical manceuverings of the oligarchy. Their intrigues and tricks of legerdemain are as familiar to us as household words; in vain might the world be ransacked for a more precious junto of flatterers and cajolers. It is amusing to ignorance, amazing to credulity, and insulting to intelligence,’ to hear them in their blustering efforts to mystify and pervert the sacred principles of liberty, and turn the curse of slavery into a blessing. To the illiterate poor whitesmade poor and ignorant by the system of slavery-they hold out the idea that slavery is the very bulwark of our liberties, and the foundation of American independence! For hours at a time, day after day, will they expatiate upon the inexpressible beaut  and excellences of this great free and independent nation; and finally with the most extravagant gesticulations and rhetorical flourishes, conclude their nonsensical ravings, by attributing all the glory and prosperity of the country, from Maine to Texas, and from Georgia to California, to the “invaluable institutions of the South!” On the part of the intelligent listener, who cherishes a high regard for truth and justice, it requires no small degree of patience and forbearance to rest quietly under the incoherent, truth-murdering declamations of these subtle-tongued champions of slavery. The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of the blacks, who are bought and sold, and driven about like so many cattle, but they are also the oracles and arbiters of all nonslaveholding whites, whose freedom is merely nominal, and whose unparalleled illiteracy and degradation is purposely and fiendishly perpetuated. How little the “poor white trash,” the great majority of the Southern people, know of the real condition of the country, is, indeed, sadly astonishing. The truth is, they know nothing of public measures, and little of private affairs, except what their imperious masters, the slave-drivers, condescend to tell, and that is but precious little, and even that little, always garbled and onesided, is never told except in public harangues; for the lhaughty cavaliers of shackles and handcuffs will not degrade themselves by holding private converse with those who have neither dimes nor hereditary rights in human flesh. Whenever it pleases, and to the extent it pleases, a slaveholder to become communicative, poor whites may hear with fear and trembling, but not speak. They must be as mum as dumb brutes, and stand in awe 24

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. of their august superiors, or be crushed with stern rebukes, cruel oppressions, or downright violence. If thley dare to think for them selves, their thoughts must be forever concealed. The expression of any sentiment at all conflicting with the gospel of slavery, dooiis them at once in the community in which they live, and then, whether willing or unwilling, they are obliged t become heroes, martyrs, or exiles They may thirst for knowledge, but there is no lioses amnong thenl to smite it. out of the rocks of Horeb. The black veil, throughl whose almost imnpenetrable meshes light seldom gleams, has long been pendail over their eyes, and there, with fiendish jealousy, slaveholding official. sedulously guard it. Nonslaveholders are not only kept in igniorance of what is transpiring at the North, but they are continually mnis informed of what is going on even in the South. Never were the poorer classes of a people, and those classes so largely inll the mijority, aud all inhabiting the samle country, so basely duped, so adroitly swindled or so unpardonably outriaged. It is expected that the stupid and sequacious masses, the white victims of sl avery, will believe, and, as a general thing, thley do believe, whuIt ever e slaveholders tell themn; and thlus it is that tlhey are c,ajoled into the notion that thley are tlhe freest, happiest, and lmuost intelligent people in the world, and are taught to look with prejudiee aii(l disapprobation 11)pon every new principle or progressive movement. Thus it is, that the South, woefully inert an(i inventionrless, has lagged behind tl-he North, anid is now weltering in the cessl)ool of igrla-i()ice alid (degradation. We have already intimated that tle opinionl is prevailent tliriolgllout the South that the tfree States are quite sterile and unilp odictive, and that tliey are mainly depeiilde-it on us for beadstiitis ail(l other provisions. So flr asthe cereals, fi-uits, garden vegcetables and esculent roots are concerned, we have, in the preceding tables, shown the uttei-falsity of thlis opinion; and we now p)rolpo(se to show that it is equally erroneous in other particulars, arnild very far fi-rom the truth in the general reckoning. We can prove, and we intend to lprove, fromi facts in our possessioni, thlat the hay crop of the free States is wortlh considerably more in dollars and cents thlan all the cot.toii, tobacco, rice, hay and lhemp produced in the fifteen slave States. This statement may strike some of our readlers with amazement, and others may, for the moment, regard it as quite incredible; but it is true, nevertheless, and we sliall soon procee(l to,onifirln it.

The single free State of New York produces more tl.ani three times the quantity of hay that is produced in all thle slave States. Ohio produces a larger nuimber of tons than all the Southern and Southwestern States, arnd so does Pennsylvania. Vermont, little and unpl)reteiding as she is, does thle samne thing, withl the excelp)ti,)n of Virginia. Look at the facts as presented in the tables, arid let, your own eyes, physical and intellectual, confirm you iu the truth. 2 25

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE And yet, forsooth, the slaveholding oligarchy would whip us into the belief that agriculture is not one of the leading and lucrative pursuits of the free States, that the soil there is an uninterrupted barren waste, and that our Northern brethren, having the advantage in nothing except wealth, population, inland and foreign commerce, manufactures, mechanism, inventions, literature, thw arts and sciences, and their concomitant branches of profitable industry-ii-miserable objects of charity I-are dependent on us for the necessaries of life. Next to Virginlia, Maryland is the greatest Southern hay-producing State; and yet, it is the opinion of several of the most extensive hay and grain dealers in Baltimore, with whom we have conversed on the suoject, that the domestic crop is scarcely equal to one-third the demand, and that the balance required for home consumption, about two-thirds, is chiefly brought from New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. At this rate, Maryland receives and consumes not less than three hundred and fifteen thousand tons of Northern hay every year; and this, as we are informed by the dealers above-mentioned, at an average cost to the last purchaser, by the time it is stowed in the mow, of at least twentyfive dollars per ton; it would thus appear that this mostH
and valuable provender, one of the staple commodities of the North, commands a market in a single slave State, to the amount of seven million eight hundred and seventyfive thousand dollars per annum. In this same State of Maryland, less than one million of dollars’ worth of cotton finds a market, the whole number of bales sold here in 1850 amounting to only twventy-three thousand three hundred and twentyfive, valued at seven hundred and forty-six thousand four hundred dollars. Briefly, then, and in round numbers, we may state the case thus: Maryland buys annually seven millions of dollars’ worth of hay from the North, and one million of dollars’ worth of cotton from the South. Let slaveholders and their fawning defenders read, ponder and compare. The exact quantities of Northern hay, rye, and buckwheat flour, Irish potatoes, fruits, clover and grass seeds, and other products of the soil, received and consumed in all the slaveholding States, we have no means of ascertaining; but for all practical purposes, we can arrive sufficiently near to the amount by inference from the above data, and from what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears wherever we go. Food from the North for man or for beast, or for both, is for sale in every market in the South. Even in the most insignificant little villages in the interior of the slave States, where books, newspapers and other mediums of intelligence are unknown, where the poor whites and the negroes are alike bowed down in heathenish ignorance and barbarism, and where the news is received but once a week, and then only in a No)rthern-built stagecoach, drawn by horses in Northern harness, in 26

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. charge of a driver dressed cap-a-pie in Northern habiliments, and with a Northern whip in his hand-the agricultural products of the North, either crude, prepared, pickled or preserved, are ever to be found. Mortifying as the acknowledgment of the fact is to us, it is our unbiased opinion-an opinion which will, we believe, be indorsed by every intelligent person who goes int a careful examination and comparison of all the facts in the cas-that the profits arising to the North from the sale of provender and provisions to the South, are far greater than those arising to the South from the sale of cotton, tobacco and breadstuff-to the North. It follows, then, that the agricultural interests of the Forth being not only equal but actually superior to those of the South, the hundreds of millions of dollars which the commerce and manufactures of the former annually yield, is just so much clear and independent gain over the latter. It follows, also, from a corresponding train or system of deduction, and with all the foregoing facts in view, that the difference between freedom and slavery is simply the difference between sense and nonsense, wisdom and folly, good and evil, right and wrong. -Any observant American, from whatever point of the compass he may hail, who will take the trouble to pass though the Southern markets, both great and small, as we have done, and inquire where this article, that and the other came from, will be utterly astonished at the variety and quantity of Northern agricultural productions kept for sale.

And this state of things is growing worse and worse every year., Exclusive&y agricultural as the South is in her industrial pursuits, she is barely able to support her sparse and degenerate population. Her men and her domestic animals, both dwarfed into shabby objects of commiseration under the blighting effects of slavery, are constantly feeding on the multifarious products of Northern soil. And if the whole truth must be told, we may here add, that these products, like all other articles of merchandise purchased at the North, are generally bought on credit, and, in a great number of instances, by far too many, never paid for-not, as a general rule, because the purchasers are dishonest or unwilling to pay, but because they are impoverished and depressed by the retrogressive and deadening operations of slavery, that most unprofitable and pernicious institution under which they live. To show how well we are sustained in our remarks on hay and other special products of the soil, as well as to give circulation to other facts of equal significance, we quote a single passage from an address by Paul C. Cameron, before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, North Carolina. This production is, in the main, so powerfully conceived, so correct and plausible in its statements and conclusions, and so well calculated, though, perhaps, not intended, to arouse the old North State to a ense of her natural greatness and acquired shame, that we could wisd 27

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COMPAItISONS BETW’EFlN THE to see it published in pamphlet form, and circulated throughout the length and breadth of that unfortunate and degraded heritage of slavery. Mr. Cameron says: “I know sot when I have been more humiliated, as a North Carolina farmer, than when, a few weeks ago, at a railroad depot at the very doors of our State capital, I saw wagons drawn by Kentucky mutles, loading with Northern hay, for the supply not only of the town, but to be taken to the country. Such a sight at the capital of a State whose population is almost exclusively devoted to agriculture, is a most humiliating exhibition. Let us cease to use everything, as far as it is practicable, that is not the product of our own soil and workshops-not an axe, or a broom, or bucket, from Connecticut. By every consideration of self-preservation, we are called to make better efforts to expel the Northern grocer from the State with his butter, and the Ohio and Kentucky horse, mule and hog driver, from our county at least. It is a reproach on us as farmers, and no little deduction from our wealth, that we suffer the population of our towns and villages to supply themselves with butter from another Orange County in New York.” We have promised to prove that the hay crop of the free States is worth considerably more than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen slave States. The compilers of the last census, as we learn from Prof. De Bow, the able and courteous superintendent, in making up the hay-tables, allowed two thousand two hundred and forty pounds to the ton. The price per ton at which we should e s-ate its value has puzzled us to some extent. Dealers in the article at Baltimore think it will average twentyfive dollars, in their market.

Four or five months ago they sold it at thirty dollars per ton. At the very time we write, though there is less activity in the article than usual, we learn, from an examination of sundry prices-current and commercial journals, that hay is selling in Savannah at $33 per ton; in Mobile and New Orleans at $26; in Charleston at $25; in Louisville at $24; and in Cincinnati at $23. The average of these prices is twenty-six dollars sixteen and two-third cents; and we suppose it would be fair to employ the figures which would indicate this amount, the net value of a single ton, in calculating the total market value of the entire crop. Were we to do this-and, with the foregoing facts in view, we submit to intelligent men whether we would not be justifiable in doing it-the hay crop of the free States, 12,690,982 tons, in 1850, would amount in valuation to the enormous sum of $331,081,695-more than four times the value of all the cotton produced in the United States during the same period! But we shall not make the calculation at what we have found to be the average value per ton throughout the country. What rate, then, shall be agreed upon as a basis of comparison between the value of the hay crop of the North and that of the South, and as a means of testing the truth of our declaration-that the former exceeds the aggregate value of all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen slave States?

Suppose we take $13 08~-just half the average value-as the multiplier in this arithmetical exercise. This we can well lffor to do; indeed, we might reduce the amount per ton to muclh less 28

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. than half the average value, and still have a large margin left for tri umphant demonstration. It is not our purpose, however, to make an overwhelming display of the incomparable greatness of the free States. In estimating the value of the various agricultural products of the two great sections of the country, we have been guided by prices emanating from the Bureau of Agriculture in Washington; and in a catalogue of those prices now before us, we perceive that the average value of hay throughout the nation is supposed to be not more than half a cent per pound-$11 20 per ton-which, as we have seen above, is considerably less than half the present market value;-and this, too, in the face of the fact that prices generally rule higher than they do just now. It will be admitted on all sides, however, that the prices fixed upon by the Bureau of Agriculture, taken as a whole, are as fair for one section of the country as for the other, and that we cannot blamelessly deviate from them in one particular without deviating from them in another. Eleven dollars and twenty cents ($11 20) per ton shall therefore be the price; and, notwithstanding these greatly reduced figures, we now renew, with an addendum, our declaration and promise, that-We can prove, and we shalt now proceed to prove, that the annual hay crop of the free States i8 worth considerably more in dollars and cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, 7ay, hemp, and cane sugar annually produced in the fifteen slave States. HIAY CROP OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 12,690,982 tons ( $11 20………………………….$142,138,998 SUNDRY PRODUCTS OF THE

SLAVE STATES-1850. Cotton…………….2,445,779 bales Q $32

00……….$78,264,928 Tobacco…………185,023,906 lbs.

10………..18,502,390 Rice (rough)…….215,313,497 lbs.

4………….8,612.539 Hay………………1,137,784 tons ” 11

20………..12,743,180 Hemnp……………….34,673 tons ” 112

00…………3,883,376 Cane Sugar………237,133,000 lbs.

7………..16,599,310 Total… $138,605,723 REOAPITIULATION. Hay crop of the free States………………………. $142,138,998 Sundry products of the slave States………………… 138,605,723 Balance in favor of the free States…….$3,533,275 There is the account; look at it, and let it stand in attestation of the exalted virtues and surpassing powers of freedom. Scan it well, Messieurs lords of the lash, and learn from it new lessons of the utter inefficiency, and despicable imbecility of slavery.

Examine it minutely, liberty-loving patriots of the North, and behold in it additional evidences of the beauty, grandeur, and superexcellence of free institutions. Treasure it up in your minds, outraged friends and nonslaveholders of the 29

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE South, and let the recollection of it arouse you to an inflexible determination to extirpate the monstrous enemy that stalks abroad in your land, and to recover the inalienable rights and liberties, which have been filched from you by an unscrupulous oligarchy.

In deference to truth, decency and good sense, it is to be hoped that the enemies of free institutions will never more have the effrontery to open their mouths in extolling the agricultural achievements of slave labor.

Especially is it desirable, that, as a simple act of justice to a grossly deceived populace, they may cease their stale and senseless harangues on the importance of cotton. The value of cotton to the South, to the North, to the nation, and to the world, has been so grossly exaggerated, and so extensive have been the evils which have resulted in consequence of the extraordinary misrepresentations concerning it, that we should feel constrained to reproach ourself for remissness of duty, if we failed to make an attempt to explode the popular error. The figures above show what it is, and what it is not. Recur to them, and learn the facts. So hyperbolically has the importance of cotton been magnified by certain proslavery politicians of the South, that the person who-would give credence to all their fustian and bombast, would be under the necessity of believing that the very existence of almost everything, in the heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the water under the earth, depended on it. The truth is, however, that the cotton crop is of but comparatively little value to the South. New England and Old England, by their superior enterprise and sagacity, turn it chiefly to their own advantage. It is carried in their ships, spun in their factories, woven in their looms, insured in their offices, returned again in their own vessels, and, with double freight and cost of manufacturing added, purchased by the South at a high premium. Of all the parties engaged or interested in its transportation and manufacture, the South is the only one that does not make a profit. Nor does she, as a general thing, make a decent profit by producing it. We are credibly informed that many of the farmers in the immediate vicinity of Baltimore, where we now write, have turned their attention exclusively to hay, and that from one acre they frequently gather two tons, for which they receive fifty dollars. Let us now inquire how many dollars may be expected from an acre planted in cotton. Mr.

Cameron, from whose able address before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, North Carolina, we have already gleaned some interest-g particulars, informs us, that the cotton planters in his part of the country, “have contented themselyes with a crop yielding only ten oac twelve dollars per acre,” and that ” the summing up of a large surface gives but a living result.” An intelligent resident of the Palmetto State, writing in De Bow’s Review, not long since, advances the opinion 30

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. that the cotton planters of South Carolina are not realizing inore than one per cent. on the amount of capital they have invested. While in Virginia, very recently, an elderly slaveholder, whose religious walk and conversation had recommended and promoted him to an eldership in the Presbyterian church, and who supports himself and family by raising negroes and tobacco, told us that, for the last eight or ten years, aside firom the increase of his human chattels, he felt quite confident he h-d not cleared as much even as one per cent. per annum on the amount of his investment. The real and personal property of this aged Ctristian consists chiefly in a large tract of land and about thirty negroes, most of whom, according to his own confession, are more expensive than profitable. The proceeds arising from the sale of the tobacco they produce, are all absorbed in the purchase of meat and bread for home consumption. and when the crop is stunted by drought, frost, or otherwise cut short, one of the negroes must be sold to raise funds for the support of the others. Such are the agricultural achievements of slave labor; such are the results of ” the sum of all villainies.”’ The diabolical institution ..bsists on its own flesh. At one time children are sold to procure food for the parents, at another, parents are sold to procure food for tlhe children. Within its pestilential atmosphere, nothing succeeds; progress and prosperity are unknown; inanition and slothfulness ensue; everything becomes dull, dismal and unprofitable; wretchedness and desolation stand or lie in bold relief throughout the land; an aspect of most melancholy inactivity and dilapidation broods over every city and town; ignorance and prejudice sit einthlroned over the minds of tihe people; usurping despots wield the sceptre of power; everywhere, and in everything, between D)elaware Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, are the multitudinous evils of slavery apparent. The soil itself soon sickens and dies beneath the unnatural tread of the slave. HIlear what the Hon. C. C.

Clay, of Alabama, has to say upon the subject. Ijis testimony is eminently suggestive, well-timed, and truthfutl; and we heartily commend it to the careful consideration of every spirited Southliron who loves his country, and desires to see it rescued from the fatal grasp of “the mother of harlots.” Says he: ” I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters, after taking the cream ioff their lands, unablte to restore them by rest, imanures. or otherwise are going further West and South, in search of other viirgin’ands, which they may and will despoil and i,mp)overish in like manniier. Our weailthier planter, with greater means and no mlore skill, are buying, ouit their p)orei-neighbors, extending, thlieir pllantations, amd iadd(ing to their slave force. Tie wvealthy few, who are ab’e to live on snillei p1) oits, and to give their blasted fields somnie rest, are thuis puhin lg off the nitiy who are merely i(lependent. Of the $20, ) 00
annua) li.ed froll y t n tiea is.ee. of the ocotton crop of Alabama, nearly all nlot expended in suiporp)ting the pro(lucers is reinvested io land and negroes. Thus the white population has decreased and the slave increased almost paripassu in several counties of our State. In 1825, Madison county cast about 3,000 votes; now, she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. in traversing tbal 31

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COMPARISONS BETWEENi THE county, one will discover numerous farm-houses, once the abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted and dila’pidated; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfence, abandoned and covered with those evil harbingers, fox-tail and broomnsedge; he will see the moss growing on the moldering walls of once thrifty villages, and will find’ one only master grasps the whole dorlain,’ that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country in its infancyv, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay, apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas.” Some one has said that “an honest confession is good for the soul,” and if the adage be true, as we have no doubt it is, we think Mr. C. C. Clay is entitled to a quiet conscience on one score at least. In the extract quoted above, he gives us a graphic description of the ruinous operations and influences of Slavery in the Southwest; and we, as a native of Carolina, and a traveller through Virginia, are ready to bear testimony to the fitness of his remarks when he referred to those States as examples of senility and decay. With equal propriety, however, he might have stopped nearer home for a subject of comparison. Either of the States bordering upon Alabama, or, indeed, any other slave States, would have answered his purpose quite as well as Virginia — and the Carolinas. Wherever slavery exists there he may find paiels to the destruction that is sweeping with such deadly influence over his own unfortunate State. As for examples of vigorous, industrious and thrifty communities, they can be found anywhere beyond the Upas-shadow of slavery-nowhere else. New York and Massachusetts, which, by nature, are confessedly far imnlerior to Virginia and the Carolinas, have by the more liberal and equitable policy which they have pursued, in substituting liberty for slavery, attained a degree of eminence and prosperity altogether unknown in the slave States. Amiidst all the hyperbole and cajolery of slave-driving politicians who, as we have already seen, are “the books, the arts, the academies, that s]ow, contain and govern all the South,” we are rejoiced to see that MIr. Clay, Mlr. Camerneon, and a few others, have had the boldness and honesty to step forward and proclaim the truth. All such frank admissionb are to be hailed as good omens fi)r the South. Nothing good can come from any attempt to conceal the unconcealable evidences of poverty and desolation everywhere trailing in the wake of slavery. Let the truth be told on all occasions, (,f the North as well as of the South, and the people will soon begin to discover the egregiousness of their errors, to draw just comparisons, to inquire into cause and effect, and to adopt the iore utile measures, manners and customs of their wiser cointeinoor’tries. In willflly traducing and decrying everything North of MAason and Dixon’s line, and in excessively magnifying the importance of everything South of it, the oligarchy have, in the eyes of all liberal and in 3‘2

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. telligent men, only made an exhibition of their uncommon folly and dishonesty. For a long time, it is true, they have succeeded in deceiving the people, in keeping them humbled in the murky sloughs of poverty and ignorance, and in instilling into their untutored minds passions and prejudices expressly calculated to strengthen and protect the accursed institution of slavery; but, thanks to heaven, their inglorious reign is fast drawing to a close; with irresistible brilliancy, and in spite of the interdict of tyrants, light from the pure fountain of knowledge is now streaming over the dark places of our land, and, ere long mark our words-there will ascend from Delaware, and from Texas, and from all the intermediate States, a huzza for Freedom and for Equal Rights, that will utterly confound the friends of despotism, set at defiance the authority of usurpers, and carry consternation to the heart of every slavery-propagandist. To undeceive the people of the South, to bring them to a knowledge of the inferior and disreputable position which they occupy as a component part of the Union, and to give prominence and popularity to those plans which, if adopted, will elevate us to an equality, socially, morally, intellectually, industrially, politically, and financially, with the most flourishing and refined nation in the world, and, if possible, to place us in the van of even that, is the object of this work.

Slaveholders, either from ignorance or from a willful disposition to propagate error, contend that the South has nothing to be ashamed of, that slavery has proved a blessing to her, and that her superiority over the North in an agricultural point of view, makes amends for all her short-comings in other respects. On the other hand, we contend that many years of continual blushing and severe penance would not suffice to cancel or annul the shame and disgrace that justly attaches to the South in consequence of slavery-the direst evil that e’er befell the land-that the South bears nothing like even a respectable approximation to the North in navigation, commerce or manufactures, and that, contrary to the opinion entertained by ninety-nine hundredths of her people, she is far behind the free States in the only thing of which she has ever dared to boast-agriculture. We submit the question to the arbitration of figures, which, it is said, do not lie. With regard to the bushel-measure products of the soil, of which we have already taken an inventory, we have seen that there is a balance against the South in favor of the North of seventeen million four hundred and twentythree thousand one hundred andfifty-two bushels, and a difference in the value of the same, also in favor of the North, of forty-four mnillion seven hundred and eighty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. It is certainly a most novel kind of agricultural superiority that the South claims on that score I Our attention shall now be directed to the twelve principal pound 2* 33

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THEI measure products of the free and of the slave States-hay, cotton, butter and cheese, tobacco, cane-sugar, wool, rice, heyt, mapple sugar, beeswax and honey, flax, and hops-and in taking an account of them, we shall, in order to show the exact quantity produced in each State, and for the convenience of future reference, pursue the same plan as that adopted in the preceding tables. Whether slavery will appear to better advantage on the scales than it did in the half-bushel, remains to be seen. It is possible that the rickety monster may make a better show on a new track; but if it makes a more ridiculous display, we shall not be surprised. A careful examination of its precedents, has taught us the folly of expecting anything good to issue from it in any manner whatever.

It has no disposition to emulate the magnanimity of its betters, and as for a laudable ambition to excel, that is a characteristic altogether foreign to its nature. Languor and inertia are the insalutary viands upon whieh it delights to satiate its morbid appetite; and‘“from bad to worse”

is the ill-omened motto under which, in all its feeble efforts and achievements, it ekes out a most miserable and deleterious exi sne. 34

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE TABLILEL 5. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF TIlE FREE

STATES - 1850. STATES. |Hay, tons. Hemp, tons. Hops, lbs. Flax, lbs. Maple Tb o, ls. lbs ose,lbs. California… 2,038………… 11000

Connecticut… 51.6,131…… 554 17,928 5,796 1,267,624 Illinois…….

601,952…… 3,551 160,0l3 248,904 841,394 Indiana……. 403,230……

92,796 594,469 2,921,192 1,044,620 Iowa……… 89,0a5…… 8,242 62,660

78,407 6,041 Maine……. 755,889…… 40,120 17,081 93,542

Massachusetts. 651,807….. 121,595 1,162 795,.525 188,246 Michigan….

404,9.34…… 10,663 7,152 2,439,794 1,245 N. Hatnpshire.. 598,854……

257,174 7,652 1,29S,563 50 New Jersey.. 435,9o0…… 2,133 182,965 219 7

810 New York….. 8,728,797 4 2,5836,299 940,5T77 10,357,484 88,189

Ohio………. 1,443,142 150 63,731 446,932 4,5S$ 209 10,454,449

Pennsylvania. 1,842,970 44 22,0SS 530,317 2),326,525 912,651 Rhode Island.. 74,418…… 277 85 2S Vermont…… 866,13…… 28S,023 20,852

6,349,357 Wisconsin….. 275,662…… 15,980 6S,893 610,976 1,268

12,690,982 198 3,463,176 8,048,278 82,161,T99 14,752,087 T’ABILE 6.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE’ S.AVE STATES-1850. STATES. Hay, tons..

Horpn, l b,. Fltoa, lbs. Hb obcs, lbs. Mp ob, - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~lb,.

Alabama….. 32,685….. 276 8,921 643 164,990 Arkansas….. 3,976 15 157

12,291 9,380 218,936 Delaware….. 80,159…… 848 17,174…..

Florida….. 2,510…… 14 50…… 998,614 Georgia……. 23,449……

261 5,8S87 50 423,924 Kentucky…. 113,747 17,787 4,809 2,100,116 437,405

55,501,196 Louisiana….. 25,752….. 125…… 255 26,87-8 Maryland….

157,956 63 1,870 85.686 47,740 21,407,497 Mississippi…. 12,504 7 473

665…… 49,960 Missouri…… 116,925 16,028 4,180 627,160 178,910

17,113,784 North Carolina 145,65-39 9,246 593,796 27,932 11,984,786 Soth Carolina. 20,925…… 26 33888 200 4,2S5 Tennessee…. 74,091 1,032

368,181 158,557 20,14S,932 Texas……. 8,354…. 7 1,0l8…… 96,897

Virginia……. 869,098 189 11,506 1,000,450 1,227,665 56,503,227

1,13T,784 34,673 83,780 4,73S,198 2,088,687 185,023,906 35

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Co CoCoCo CoCo~~~~~~ Co CoCoCoCoCo Co Co Co Co CoCo 0 0 0 0 0~0o0Y; Co:0 0
o 0 0 Co 0H~ 00A0y0 0 0 C5 8 Co In :*C Co I i I I 11 I ,‘i t, I I I pq 11

El C) n,I L, E, 0. 9 PI .1 I

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. RECAPITULATION-FREE STATES.

Hflay………………….28,427,799,680 lbs. @ 1-2
c………..$142,138,998 Hemp………………………443,520 ” “

5…………… 22,176 Hops……………………..3463,176 “

15……………519,476 Flax……………………….3,048,278

10…………..30,827 Maple Sugar………………32,161,799

8………….2,572,943 Tobacco 14752,087 10………….. 14,75,2087

Wool…………………….9,647,211 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 REECAPITULATION-SLAVE

STATES. Hay………………….2,548,636,160 lbs. 1-2
c…………$12,743,180 Hemp…………………..77,667,20

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…………. 4479,065 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 !ice (rough)………….. 215,313,497

4…………..8,612,539 Total……… 4,338,370,661 lbs., valued as above, at $155,223,415 TOTAL DIFFERENCE-POUNI)-MEASURE PRODIUCOTS. 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 alse 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, ;n 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 pound, valued at fifty-nine million one hundred and ninety-nine thousand one hundred and eight dollars. And yet the North, as we are unblushingly told by the fire-eating politicians of the South, 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 naortlien soil, or bri’ng forward new evidences of the inefficient and 37

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COMPARISON BETWEEN TE 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 bo(ly 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 slavebreeders shall be convinced, confuited, 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 machin ery, in the firee States, are worth at least one thousand million of dol lars 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 thtat 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: TAB 13LE 8. ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE FREE

AND IN THE SLAVI STATES-1850. ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE ACTUAL CROPS

PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE FREE STATES-1850. AVERAGE IN THE SLAVE

STATES-1850. STATES. STATES. - 0.,. ~ 0; Connecticut 21.. 40 85

Alabama.. 5 12.. 15 60 Illinois… 11 29 14 83 115 Arkansas….. 18..

22… Indiana…. 12 20 18 83 100 Delaware.. 11 20 20.. 2.. Iowa…… 14

86.. 82 100 Florida…. 15.. 175 Maine..10… 10 27 120 Georgia… 5 1i8 7
i6 125 Mass……. 16 26 138 81 170 Kentucky.. 8 18 11 24 130 Michigan..

10 26.. 82 140 Louisiana……….. 16 New Hiamp. 11 80.. 80 220

Maryland.. 13 21 1 238 75 New Jersey 11 26.. 83… Mississippi. 9 12.. 18

105 New York.. 12 25 1I 27 100 Missouri… 11 26 4 110 Ohio……. 12 21

25 86… N. Carolina 7 10 15 17 65 Penn…… 15… 20 75 S. Carolina 8 12

11 70 Rhode Is… 80…. 100 Tennessee. 7 19 7 21 120 Vermont… 18. 20 82

178 Texas….. 15 20 250 Wisconsin 14 85.. 80… Virginia… 7 13 5 18 75

161 8 1 10T 436 1,503 121 199 63 275 1,360 38

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REE AND THE SLAVE STATES RECAPITULATION OF ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE

AYVERAGE-1850. FREE STATES. SLAVE STATES. Wheat………… 12 bushels per acre. Wheat…………. 9 bushels per acre. Oats……………27 ” “

Oats……………17 ” Rye………..18’ Rye………1… “11 ” Indian Corn……..31 ” ” Indian Corn……..20 Irish Potatoes…..125 ” ” Irish Potatoes…..113’ ” What an obvious contrast between the vigor of Liberty and the impotence of Slavery? What an unanswerable argument in favor of free labor! Add up the two columns of figures above, and what is the result? Two hundred and thirteen bushels as the products of five acres in the North, and only one hundred and seventy bushels as the products of five acres in the South. Look at each item separately, and you will find that the average crop per acre of every article enumerated is greater in the free States than it is in the slave States. Examine the table at large, and you will perceive that while Massachusetts produces sixteen bushels of wheat to the acre, Virginia produces only seven; that ensylvania 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 twentyfive 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 seventyfive; that Michign produces one hundred and forty, and Alabama only sixty. Now for other beauties of slavery in another table. 89

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OOMPARISONS BEIWEEN T-E TABL1 I 9. VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN

THE FREE AND I].,~ AV STATES-1850. VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANI MALS IN

THE FREE STATES-1850. VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMA.ESTIC ANI MALS IN THE SLAVE

ST,.,EiS-1850. Cash Value of Value of Value of Farms, Farm States. Live Stock. Animals i,,g Imp. and Slaughtered. Machiner’Y Ala… $21,690,112

$4,823,485 $69,448,887 Ark… 6,647,969 1,163,313 16,866,541 Del….

1,849,281 373,665 19,390,310 Florida 2,880,058 514,685 6,981,904 Ga…

25,728,416 6,339,762 101,647,595 iKy.. 29,661,436 6,462,598 160,190,299

La… 11,152,275 1,458,990 87,391,336 Md…. 7,997,634 1,954,800

89,641,988 Miss… 19,403,662 8,636,582 60,501,561 Mo…. 19,887,580

8,867,106 67,207,068 N. C… 17,717,647 5,767,866 71’ S.C… 15,060,015

3,502,637  6,568,038 Tenn.. 29,978,016 6,401,765 108,211,422 Texas.

10,412,927 1,116,137 18,701,712 Va… 83,656,659 7,502,986 223,423,815

$258,723,687 $54,388,377 $1,183,995,274 Value of Value of Live sto_k._

Animals Leo SIaughtered. $3,351,058 $:10,1783 7 46Tv490: 2,202,,266

24‘209‘258 4,972,286 22s4T8’,55 6,567,935 8,6S9,275 821,164 9‘70o,726

1,646,773 9,647,710D 2,500,924 8,008,784 1,828,327 8‘8T’,9011 1,52s,8s3

10,679,291! 2,638,552 78,5T70499! 18,573,888 44‘121‘741 ~ 7,439,243

41,5oo‘05o 8,219,848 1‘532,63Ti 667,486 12’,643,228i 1,861,336 4,897,385s 920,lTs $286,376,541 i$56,990,237 $2,23388,058,619 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

Total………………………………………..$2,576,425,397

RECAPITULATION-SLAVE 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

Total……………………………………….. $1,492,107,338

DIFFERENCE IN VALUE-FARMS AND DOMESTIG ANIMALS. Free States……………………………………………….$2,576,425,397

Slave

States……………………………………………1,492,107,338

Balance in favor of the Free States…………..$1,084,318,069 40 C.r,h V.I.e of F.-.E;, F.,. - i,,g I.p.,..d $3,9TT,524 T4,618,963 102.,538,s5l 143,0-89,61T IT,830,436 5T,146,30 112,285,931 54,763,81 57,5601 12

124,663,01 576,631,56 3Tl,509,18 422,598,64 17,568,00 66,106,50 80,lTO,13

States. Cal…. Conn.. Illinois Ind… Iowa.. Maine. Mass.. Mich.. N. H…

N. J… N. y…. Ohio.. Penn.. R. 1. 1. Vt….. Wis…

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FREE ID TIE SLAVE STATES. By adding to this last balance in favor cf the free States the diferences 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 thie 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. he value of bushel-measure products……………. $44,782,636 he value of pound-mneasure products……………. 59,199,108 Dhe value of farms and domestic animals………….. 1,084,318,059 Balance in favor of the Free States……………….$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 slaveholding 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-ve States-the value of those interests in the former being twentyfive 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 comnplete vindication of Free Labor. Would we not be correct in calling it a total eclipse of the Black Orb? 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 judgment of enlighitened 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 villainies” 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. 41

Difference in t Difference in t Difference in t

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE We shlaL 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 gallonmeasure products of the several States of the Union; but we have not been successful in our attempts 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 million of dollars grea’er 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 thle Southern States. Our efforts to obtain reliable information respecting another very important branch of profitable industry, the lumber business, hle 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, axe-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 or shoepegs,the knees for ship-building and the branches for fuel. At the South everything is either neglected or mrismanaged 42

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FREE &ND THE SLAYE STATES. Whole forests are felled by the ruthless hand of slavery, the trees are cut into leos, 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 free-stone 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 of 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 leb 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 system of human 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 throttled; 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 Stato in 1840-after which, we will apply a similar rule of comparison to twe or three other slaveholding States. 43

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COMPARISONS BE[IWEEN THE RKENTUCKY. Wheat, bus. Crop of 1840………………..4,803,1‘52 1850……………… 2,142,822

Decrease 2,660,330 bus. TENEbSEE. Wheat, bus. Crop of 1840………………..4,569,692 ” 1850……………….1,619,386

Decrease 2,950,306 bus. Tobacco, “. 29,550,432 20,148,932 Decrease 9,401,500 lbs. VIRGINIA. Tobacco, lbs. 75,347,106 56,803,227 Decrease 18,543,879 lbs. ryeb bus. Crop of 1840………………1,482,799 “

1850………………. 458,930 Decrease 1,023,869 bus. ALABAMA. Wheat, bus. Crop of 1840………………. 838,052 ” 1850………………..

294,044 Decrease 544,008 bus. Rye, bus. 51,00  17,261 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 Stat 44 Rye, bus. 1,321,373 415,073

Decrease 906,300 bui6

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. Tr A B L E 10. WEALTH, REVENUE, AND EXPENDITURE

OF THE FREE AND OF THE SLAVE STATES - 1850. WEALTH, REVENUE, AND

EXPENDITURE OF THE FREE STATES-1850. OF THE FREE STATES-iSso. OF THE SLAVE

5TATE5-1550. Real and Personal P 1ope51y. $22,161,872 155,707,980

156,26.5,006 202,650,264 23,714,638 122‘777,571 573,342,286 59,787,255

103,652,835 158,151,619 1,080,309,216 504,726,120 729,144,998 80,508,794

92,205,049 4?,056,59~ $4,102,172,106 Real and Personal Property.

$228,204,882 389,841,025, 18,855,868 28,198,784 835,425,714 801,628,456

2383,998,764 219,217,864 228,951,180 137,247 707 226,800,472 288,25T,694

207,454,704 55,862,340 891,646,438 $2,936,090,787 $41212181,15211,1 3

$2960011$,3815$,4,8 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 unequalled 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.

Buman 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, perhaps, almost as destitute of a perfect rule of action, secular or reli gious, as were the erratic contemporaries 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 ad discord will begin to wate, 6 1 1 2 8 0

4 2 0 6 9 45 EALTIT, REVENUE, AND EXPENDLTURE OF TEIE SLAVE STATES-1850.

E.pe.di t.,,e. $925,62 137,32 1929 1,061,60 131,63 624,10 6T4,62 431,91

149,89 180,61 2 1520,98 21786,0 6,876,48 115,8 183,0 136,09 $lT,076,73

F-tates. cal….. Conn…. Illinois. Indiana Iowa… Maine.. Mass…

Mich… N. R.. N. J…. N. Y… Ohio… Penn… -R Vt….. Wis….

Re,e..e. $366,825 150,189 736,030 1,283,064 139,681 744,879 598,170

548,326 141,686 139,166 2,698,310 3,016,403 7,716,552 124,944 185,880

135,155 $18,725,211 States. la…. Ark…. el…. Florida. Georgia Ky…..

l,a….. Md….. Miss…. MO….. N. C… S. C…. Tenn… Texas.. Va…..

Re,enue. E.di t.,e. $513,559 74,076 55,234 59T,882 674 169T 1,098,911

1,360,458 223,63T 207 1656 228,173 463,021 623,625 156,622 1,2T2,382

$7,549,933 $658,976 68,412 ……. 60,619 1,142,405 7T9,293 I‘146,568
l,2T9,953 221,200 826,5T9 219,000 539,152 502,126 140,688 1,265,T44

$8,W,T15

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN TtHE 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 thile 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 I “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 extr’ra as this difference is in favor of the North, it is much less tlian 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 mnore 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 men,” and we indorse, to the fullest extent, this opinion of the profound editor of the federalist. We shall not recognize property in men; 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 merchandise. Southern proslavery 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 lhave to do in order to ascertain the real value of all the property of the South, independent of 46

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FREE AND THiE SLAVE STATES. r egroes, 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 -y_ 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 oligarchy 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.

Slaveowners and 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 personalproperty 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 mnillion eighty-one thousand three hundred and seventy-one dollars more than all the slave States! Twenty-seven hundred 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 I Such is the enormous amount out of which slavery has defrauded us during the space of sixty-one yearsfrom 1789 to 1850 47

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE .-being an average of about forty-five million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum. During the last twentyfive 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 inidignation. 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 slaveholding pleasure-seekers of the South annually pour one hundred and twenty million of dollars into her coffers I Taking into account, then, the probable amount of money that has been drawn from the South and invested in the North within the last eight 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, 1859, thefree States are worth at least thirty-five ]undred million of dollars more than the slave States! Let him who dares, gainsay tliese 
remarks and calculations; no truthful tongue will deny them: ionorable 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 at 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 to 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 much 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. For the purpose of showing what Virginia, once the richest, most populous, and most powerful of the States, has become under the blight 4S

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. of slavery, we shall now introduce an extract from one of the speeches delivered by Governor Wise, during a late 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, min 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 tinme after an interval of twenty years, the R?ichmond Enguirer 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 in telligence and -patriotism of Virginia, to adopt an effectual measure for the speedy overthrow of the pernicious system 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, combiled, 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 3 49

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE 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 allwould 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 merchandise-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. Awe 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 nonslaveholding whites, so cruel to the negroes, and so disregardful of the rights of humanity at large, that it becomes the duty of every one whlo makes allusion to her history, to expose her follies, her crimes, and her poverty, and to publish every fact, of whatever natu e. that would be instrumental in determining others to eschew her bad example. She has willfully 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 hopefal anxiety, looked 50

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. forward to the time when it should be eradicated from the States themselves. With them, the rescue of our country from British domi nation, 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 capa cities, would soon abolish a system of wrong and despotism 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 Constitu tion 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 muen, 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 hed republican forms of government based upon thlie theories of Washingtoni, 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 inhu man 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 robbled pros 51

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COMPAIRISONS BETWEEN THE terity of its natural, inalienable rights. From the period of the foi ation of the government down to the present moment, her policy has been downright suicidal, and, as a matter of course, wholly indefensible. She had hugged a viper to her breast; her whole system has been paralyzed, her conscience is seared, and, still holding in her embrace the cause of her shame and suffering, she is-becoming callous to every principle of justice and magnanimity. Except among the nonslaveholders, who, beside being kept in the grossest ignorance, are under the restraint of all manner of iniquitous laws, patriotism has almost 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 scarcely a grain of pure patriotism in the South, except among the nonslaveholders. Subsequent pages shall testify to the truth of this assertion. Hiere 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 slave,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 tlihe 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 Yorktown, 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 hei, she is far inferior to New York, which, at the time Cornwallis surrendered his sword to WTashington, was less than half her equal. Hiad she obeyed the counsels of the good, the great and the wise men of our nation-especially of her own incomparable sons, the extensible element of slavery wonid have been promptly arrested, and the virgin soil of nine Southern States, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, MIissouri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, would have been saved friom its horrid pollutions. Confined to the original States in which it existed, the system 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 bhave rid ourselves not only of African slavery, which is an abomination and a curse, but also of the negroes themselves, who, in our judgment, 52

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FREE AN) THtE SLAVE STATES. 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 or system 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. Jiere follows extract from his speech; let Southern politicians read it attentively, and fihib 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’ 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 conditi on of the slaveholding p ortion of this commonwealth-barren, desolate and seared as it were by the avenging rand 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 orgatization 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 imnposed 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 shou,ld 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 advance ment. Separated by a river alone, they seem to have been purposely and providet, 53

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5 COt’APEISONS BETWEEN THE tially designed to exhibit in theirfuture histories the difference which necessarily results from a country free from, and a country aqlicted 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 feetlings. I shall advocate no scheme that does not respect the right of property, so jar 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 calmnest 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 come shuns, as being deleterious to his views and habits. See the wide-spreading rui which the avarice of our ancestral government has produced in the South, as wi nessed in a sparse population of freemen, deserted habitations, and fields withou culture! Strange to tell, even the wolf, driven back long since by the approach c man, now returns, after the lapse of a hundred years, to howl over the desolation of slavery.” Mr. Moore, also a member of the Legislature of Virginia, il-a king 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. Ihave not heard, nor do I expat to hear, a voice raised in this Hall to the contrary.” In the language of the -Yew York Times, “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. HIer commerce gone, her agriculture decaying, her land falling in value, her mining and manufactures nothing, her schools yting out,-she presents, according to the testimony of her own wns, 54

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FREE AND TIE SLAVE STATES. the saddest ot 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 Gov. Wise, “all have grown poor together.” The black god of slavery, w’ich the South has worshipped for two hundred and thirty-nine years, is but a devil in disguise; and if we would save ourselves from being ingulfed 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. We have been credibly informed by a gentleman from Powhattacounty in Virginia, that in the year 1836 or‘37, or about that time, the Ilon. Abbott Lawrence, of Boston, backed by his brother Amos and other millionaires of New England, went down to RIichmond with the sole view of reconnoitering the manufacturing facilities of that place fuv,-determined, if pleased with the water-power, to erect a large number of cotterm ills 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 concerted and laudable 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 practica] oisiness man, he engaged in nothing that did not swell the dimensions 55

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE of his own purse, he was yet always solicitous to invest his capital in a manner calculated to promote the interests of those around him. Nor was he satisfied with simply furnishing the means whereby his less for tunate 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. More over, as a member of society, he felt that the community had some rea sonable 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 twenty years since; 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 thie powerful element that is eternally gushing and foaming over ttls  of James River. Innocent man! He was utterly unconscious of the fact that lhe 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 papers. Few words will suffice to tell the sque]. Those negro-driving sheets, whose hireling policy, for the last five 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 slave-towns 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 -tccursed system of human slavery. Htow any rational man in this or any other country, with the astound irtg contrasts between Freedom and Slavery ever looming in his view, can offer an apology for the existing statism of the South, is to us s 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 t1ie fiuture, all so prominent and so 56

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FREE AND TIHE SLAVE STATES. 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 proslavery men 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 sup..ing their inmost sentiments. Whether we compare the old free States withr’he old slave States, or the new free States with thle 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 our selves from obstinacy and prejudice, and to unbar our minds to the con victions 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, in keep ing with 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 Lave been irrevocably dedicated to freedom, we beg leave to call the attention of the reader to a plain, faithful presentation of the philosophy of free and slave labor. Says the Yorth American and United States Gazette: ”’ We have but to compare the States, possessing equal natural advantages, wi which the two kinds of labor are employed, in crder to decide with entire confi 3* 57

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE dence as to which kind is the more profitable. At the origin of the governments Virginia, with a much larger extent of territory than New York, contained a population of seven hundred and fifty thqusand, 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 scil 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 b’oeau-ty; 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 anhumble confession to the world of the inferiority of slave labor.” 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 slavere any part of our domain where it does not now exist; bit-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 system 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 tc 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 tc stay the progress of that institution, which aims to drive free labor from its owL heritage. Kansas should be divided up into countless homes for the ownership of 58

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FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 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 contemporary, wa 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 csientious people of the North are virtually excluded from her soil, in consequence of slavery? It is a well-known and incontestable 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 halfway to the line of your duty; now, for your own sakes and for ours, and for the purpose of perpetuating this great 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. And here, perhaps, we may be pardoned for the digression necessary to show the exact definition of the terms abolish, abolition, 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 i,? there the least probati ity that one ever will be published wittin le:’ 59

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COMPARISONS BETWEEN TIHE borders, until slavery is abolished; but, thanks to Heaven, a portion of this continent is what our Revolutionary Fathers, and the Fathers of tie Constitution, fought and labored and prayed to make it-a land of tfreedom, 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 enterprlse, 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 ant 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, throughleut Great Britain and the United States, justly regarded as the standard vocabulary of the English language-and in it the terms abolish, abolition, and abolitionists, are defined as follows: “Abolish, v. t. To make void; to annul; to abrogate applied chiefly and appropriately to established laws, contracts, rites, customs and institutions; as; abolish laws by a repeal, actual or virtual. To destroy or put an end to;s 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, ordinances, rites, customs, etc. 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 abo7ition.ist; 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.

Nonslaveholders of the South! farmers, mechanics and workingmen, we take this occasion to assure you that the slaveholding politicians 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 molding 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 lovers of liberty, who are your best and only true friends. Now, as one of your 60

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FREE ND THE SLAVE STATES. own number, we appeal to you to join us in our earnest and timely efforts 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 dis posed of; a speedy and absolute abolishment of the whole system 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 proslavery; it is impossi ble 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 despo tic power which they have exercised in the affairs of Kansas; 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 or anyother vast and fertile field, the broad area of all the surrounding Statesa-id Territories-the whole nation, in fac-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 tlhe 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 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. Coinmerce, Manufactures, Literature, and other important subjects, shall be considered as we progress. 61

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CHAPTER ILI. HOW S.LAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. Oui age, marked by restless activity in almost all departments of knowledge, algd by struggles and aspirations before unknown, is stamped by no characteristic more deeply than by a desire to establish or extend freedom in the political societies of mankind…. There are many persons who pretend to admire liberty, but withhold it fkom the people on the plea that they are not prepared for it.

Unquestionably, all races are not prepared for the same amount of liberty.

But two things are certain, that all nations, and especially those belonging to our own civilized family, prove that they are prepared for the beginning of liberty, by desiring it and insisting upon it and that you cannot otherwise prepare nations for enjoying liberty than by beginning to establish it, as you best prepare nations for a high christianity by beginning to preach it.-LIEBER PRELIMMARY to our elucidation of what we conceive to be the most discreet, fair and feasible plan for the abolition of slavery, we propose to offer a few additional reasons why it should be abolished. -.- ong the thousand and one arguments that present themselves in support of our position-which, before we part with the reader, we shall endeavor to define so clearly, that it shall be regarded as ultra only by those who imperfectly understand it-is the influence which slavery invariably exercises in depressing the value of real estate; and as this is a matter in which the nonslaveholders of the South, of the West, and of the Southwest, are most deeply interested, we shall discuss it in a sort of preamble of some length. The slaveholding oligarchy say we cannot abolish slavery without infringing on the right of property. Again we tell them we do not recognize property in men; but even if we did, and if we were to inventory the negroes at quadruple the value of their last assessment, still, impelled by a sense of duty to others, and as a matter of simple justice, to ourselves, we, the nonslaveholders of the South, would be fully warranted in emancipating all the slaves at once, and that, too, without any compensation whatever to those who claim to be their absolute masters and owners. We will explain. In 1850, the average value per acre, of land in the Northern States was $28 07; in the Northwestern $1139; in the Southern $5 34; and in the Southwestern $6 26.

Now, in consequence of numerous natural advantages, among which may be enumerated the greater mil-Jness of climate, richness of soil, deposits of precious metals, abundance, and spaciousness of harbors, and superexcellence of water-power, we contend that, had it not been for slavery, the average value of land in all the Southern and 60

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HOW SLAYERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. Southwestern States, would have been at least equal to the average value of the same in the Northern States. We conclude, therefore, and we think the conclusion is founded on principles of equity, that you, the slaveholders, are indebted to us, the nonslaveholders, in the sum of $22 73, which is the difference between $28 07 and $5 34, on every acre of Southern soil in our possession. This claim we bring against you, because slavery, which has inured exclusively to your own benefit, if, indeed, it has been beneficial at all, has shed a blighting influ ence over our lands, thereby keeping them out of market, and damaging every acre to the amount specified. Sirs! are you ready to settle the account? Let us see how much it is. There are in the fifteen slave States, 346,048 slaveholders, and 544,926,720 acres of land. Now the object is to ascertain how many acres arc owned by slaveholders, and how many by nonslaveholders. Suppose we estimate five hundred acres as the average landed property of each slaveholder; will that be fair? We think it will, taking into consideration the fact that 174,503 of the whole number of slaveholders hold less than five slaves each 68,820 holding only one each. According to this hypothesis, the slavebolders own 173,024,000
acres, and the non-siaveholders the balance, with~te exception of about 40,000,000 of acres which belong to the General Government. The case may be stated thus: Area of the Slave States 544,926,720 acres. (Acres owned by slaveholders…………173,024,000 Estimates Acres owned by the government…….. 40,000,000=213,024,000 (Acres owned by nonslaveholders………………..331,902,720 Now, chevaliers of the lash, and conservators of slavery, the total value of three hundred and thirty-one million nine hundred and two thousand seven hundred and twenty acres, at twenty-two dollars and seventy-three cents per acre, is seven billion five hundred and forty-four million one hundred and fortyeight thousand eight hundred and twen’ty-five dollars; and this is our account against you on a single score. Considering how your pernicious institution has retarded the development of our commercial and manufacturing interests, how it has stifled the aspirations of inventive genius; and, above all, how it has barred from us the heaven-born sweets of literature and religion  concernments too sacred to be estimated in a pecuniary point of viewmight we not, with perfect justice and propriety, duplicate the amount, and still be accounted modest in our demands? Fully advised, however, of your indigent circumstances, we feel it would be utterly useless to call on you for the whole amount that is due us; we shall, therefore, in your behalf, make another draft on the fiund of nonslaveholding generosity, and let the account, meagre as it is, stand as above. Though we have given you all the offices, and you have given us none of the beno 63

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. fits of legislation; though we have fought the battles of the South, while you were either lolling in your piazzas, or in active fellowship with the enemy, and endeavoring to filch from us our birthright of free dom; though you have absorbed the wealth of our communities in send ing your own children to Northern seminaries and colleges, or in employing Yankee teachers to officiate exclusively in your own families, and have refused to us the limited privilege of common schools; though you have scorned to patronize our mechanics and industrial enterprises, and have passed to the North for every article of apparel, utility, and adornment; and though you have maltreated, outraged and defrauded us in every relation of life, civil, social, and political, yet we are willing to forgive and forget you, if you will but do us justice on a single count. Of you, the introducers, aiders and abettors of slavery, we demand indemnification for the damage our lands have sustained on account thereof; the amount of that damage is $7,544,148,825; and now, sirs, we are ready to receive the money, and if it is perfectly convenient to you, we would be glad to have you pay it in specie! It will not avail you, sirs, to parley or prevaricate. We must have a settlement. Our claim is just and overdue. We have already indulged you -9 iong. Your reckless extravagance has almost ruined us. We are determined that you shall no longer play the profligate, and fare sumptuously every day at our expense.

How do you propose to settle? Do you offer us your-negroes in part payment? We do not want your negroes. We would not have all of them, nor any number of them, even as a gift. We hold ourselves above the disreputable and iniquitous practices of buying, selling, and owning slaves. What we demand is damages in money, or other absolute property, as an equivalent for the pecuniary losses we nave suffered at your hands. You value your negroes at sixteen hundred millions of dollars, and propose to sell them to us for that sum; we should consider ourselves badly cheated, and disgraced for all time, here and hereafter, if we were to take them off your hands at sixteen farthings! We tell you emphatically, we are firmly resolved never to degrade ourselves by becoming the mercenary purchasers or proprietors of human beings. Except for the purpose of liberating them, we would not give a handkerchief or a tooth-pick for all the slaves in the world. But, in order to show how ridiculously absurd are the howls and groi.ns which you invariably set up for compensation, whenever we speak of the abolition of slavery, we will suppose your negroes are worth all you ask for them, and that we are bound to secure to you every cent of the sum before they can become free-in which case, our accounts would stand thus: Nonslaveholders’ account against Slaveholders……..$7,544,148,825 Slaveholders’ account against Nonslaveholders……. 1,600,000,000 Balance due Nonslaveholders……………$5,944.,148.825 61

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HOW SLAYERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. Now, Sirs, we ask you in all seriousness, Is it not apparent that you nave filched from us nearly five times the amount of the assessed value of your slaves? Why, then, do you still clamor for more? Is it your purpose to make the game perpetual? Think you that we will ever continue to bow at the wave of your wand, that we will bring humanity into everlasting disgrace by licking the hand that smites us, and that with us there is no point beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue? Sirs, if these be your thoughts, you are laboring under a most fatal delusion. You can goad us no further; you shall oppress us no longer; heretofore, earnestly but submissively, we have asked you to redress the more atrocious outrages which you have perpetrated against us; but what has been the invariable fate of our petitions? With scarcely a perusal, with a degree of contempt that added insult to injury, you have laid them on the table, and from thence they have been swept into the furnace of oblivion. Henceforth, Sirs, we are demandants, not suppliants.

We demand our rights, nothing more, nothing less. It is for you to decide whether we are to have justice peaceably or by violence, for whatever consequences may follow, we are determined to have it one - or the other.

Slavery has p-l1uted and impoverished your lands; freedom will restore them to their virgin purity, and add from twenty to thirty dollars to the value of every acre. Correctly speaking, emancipation will cost you nothing; the moment you abolish slavery, that very moment will the putative value of the slave become actual value in the soil. Though there are ten millions of people in the South, and though you the slaveholders are only three hundred and forty-seven thousand in number, you have within a fraction of one-third of all the territory belonging to the fifteen slave States. You have a landed estate of 173,024,000 acres, the present average market value of which is only $5 34 per acre; emancipate your slaves on Wednesday morning, and on the Thursday following the value of your lands, and ours too, will have increased to an average of at least $28 07 per acre. Let us see, therefore, even in this one particular, whether the abolition of slavery will not be a real pecuniary advantage to you. The present total market value of all your landed property, at $5 34
per acre, is only $923,248,160. With the beauty and sunlight of freedom beaming on the same estate, it would be worth at $28 07 per acre, $4,856,873,680! The former sum, deducted from the latter, leaves a balance of $3,933,535,520, and to the full extent of this amount will your lands be increased in value whenever you abolish slavery; that is, provided you abolish it before it completely “dries up all the organs of increase.”

HIere is a more manifest and distinct statemen of the case: 65

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. Estimated value of slaveholders’ lands after slavery shall $4,856,783,680 have been
abolished………………………… Present value of slaveholders’

lands………………… 923,248,160 Probable aggregate enhancement of value………….. $3,933,535,520 Now, Sirs, this last sum is considerably more than twice as great as the estimated value of all your negroes; and those of you, if any there be, who are yet heirs to sane minds and generous hearts, must, it seems to us, admit that the bright prospect which freedom presents for a wonderful increase in the value of real estate, ours as well as yours, to say nothing of the thousand other kindred considerations, ought to be quite sufficient to induce all the Southern States, in their sovereign capacities, to abolish slavery at the earliest practicable period. You yourselves, instead of losing anything by the emancipation of your negroes-even though we suppose them to be worth every dime of $1,600,000,000, would, in this one particular, the increased value of land, realize a net profit of over twentythree hundred million of dollars. Hiere are the exact figures: Net increment of value which itis estimated will accrue to) slaveholders’ lands in consequence of the abolition $3,9332 of slavery…………………………….. Putative value of the slaves……………………….. 1,600,000,000

Slaveholders’estimatednetlandedprpfits of emancipation $2,333,535,520 What is the import of these figures? They are full of meaning. They proclaim themselves the financial intercessors for freedom, and, with that open-hearted liberality which is so characteristic of the sacred cause in whose behalf they plead, they propose to pay you upward of three thousand nine hundred million of dollars for the very “property” which you, in all the extravagance of your unchastened avarice, could not find a heart to price at more than one thousand six hundred million. In other words, your own lands, groaning and languishing under the mnonstrous burden of slavery, announce their willingness to pay you all you ask for the negroes, and offer you, besides, a bonus of more than twentythree hundred million of dollars, if you will but convert those lands into free soil!

Our lands, also, cry aloud to be spared from the further pollutions and desolations of slavery; and now, sirs, we want to know explicitly whether, or not, it is your intention to heed these lamentations of the ground? We, the nonslaveholders of the South, have many very important interests at stake-interests which, heretofore, you have steadily despised and trampled under foot, but which, henceforth, we shall foster and defend in utter defiance of all the unhallowed influences which it is possible for you, or any other class of slaveholders or slavebreeders to bring against us. Not the least among these interests is our landed property, which, tc command a decent price, only needs to be disencumbered of slavery. 66

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. In his present condition, we believe, man exercises one of the noblest virtues with which heaven has endowed him, when without taking any undue advantage of his fellow-men, and with a firm, unwavering purpose to confine his expenditures to the legitimate pursuits and pleasures of life, he covets money and strives to accumulate it. Entertaining this view, and having no disposition to make an improper use of money, we are free to confess that we have a greater penchant for twenty-eight dollars than for five; for ninety than for fifteen; for a thousand than for one hundred. South of Mason and Dixon’s line we, the nonslaveholders, have 331,902,720 acres of land, the present average market value of which, as previously stated, is only $5 34 per acre; by abolishing slavery we expect to enhance the value to an average of at least $28 07 per acre, and thus realize an average net increase of wealth of more than seventyfive hundred million of dollars. The hope of realizing smaller sums has frequently induced men to perpetrate acts of injustice; we can see no reason why the certainty of becoming immensely rich in real estate, or other property, should make us falter in the performance of a sacred duty. -sE v’ ve of our theme, a bit of personal history may not be out of place in this connection. Only a few months have elapsed since we sold to an elder brother an interest we held in an old homestead which was willed to us many years ago by our deceased father. The tract of land, containing two hundred acres, or thereabouts, is situated two and a half miles west of Mocksville, the capital of Davie county, North Carolina, and is very nearly equally divided by Bear Creek, a small tributary of the South Yadkin. More than one-third of this tract-on which we have ploughed, and hoed, and harrowed, many a long summer without ever suffering from the effects of coup de soleit-is under cultivation; the remaining portion is a well-timbered forest, in which, without being very particular, we counted, while hunting through it not long since, sixty-three different kinds of indigenous trees-to say nothing of either coppice, shrubs or plants-among which the hickory, oak, ash, beech, birch, and black walnut, were most abundant. No turpentine or rosin, is produced in our part of the State; but there are, on the place of which we speak, several species of the genus Pinus, by the light of whose flammable knots, as radiated on the contents of some half-dozen old books which, by hook or by crook, had found their way into the neighborhood, we have been enabled to turn the long winter evenings to some advantage, and have thus partially escaped from the prison-grounds of those loathsome dungeons of illiteracy in which it has been the constant policy of the oligarchy to keep the masses, the nonslaveholding whites and the negroes, forever confined. The fertility of the soil may be inferred from the quality and variety of its natural productions; the meadow and the bottom. comprising, perhaps, an era of forty acres are hardly suipaqsed 67

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. by the best lands in the valley of the Yadkin. A thorough examination of the orchard will disclose the fact that considerable attention has been paid to the selection of fruits; the buildings are tolerable; the water is good. Altogether, to be frank, and nothing more, it is, for its size, one of the most desirable farms in the country, and will, at any time, com mand the maximum price of land in Western Carolina. Our brother, anxious to become the sole proprietor, readily agreed to give us the highest market price, which we shall publish by and byeo While read ing the Baltimore Sun, the morning after we had made the sale, our attention was allured to a paragraph headed “Sales of Real Estate,” from which, among other significant items, we learned that a tract of land containing exactly two hundred acres, and occupying a portion of one of the rural districts in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, near the Maryland line, had been sold the week before, at oze hundred and five dollars andftry cents per acre. Judging from the succinct account given in the Sun, we are of the opinion that, with regard to fertility of soil, the Pennsylvania tract always has been, is now, and perhaps always will be, rather inferior to the one under special consideration. One - of the same size as the other; both are used for agricult poes;e; 1it all probability the only essential difference between them is this: one is blessed with the pure air of freedom, the other is cursed with the malaria of slavery. For our interest in the old homestead we received a ntiminal sum, amounting to an average of preciselyfive dollars and sixty cents per acre. No one but our brother, who was keen for the purchase, swould have given us quite so much. And now, pray let us ask, what does this narrative teach? We shall use few words in explanation; there is an extensive void, but it can be better filled with reflection. The aggregate value of the one tract is $21,100; that of the other is only$1,120; the difference is $19,980. We contend, therefore, in view of all the circumstances detailed, that the advocates and retainers of slavery, have, to all intents and purposes, defrauded our family out of this last-mentioned sum. In like manner, and on the same basis of deduction, we contend that almost every nonslaveholder, who either is or has been the owner of real estate in the South, would in a court of strict justice, be entitled to damages-the amount in all cases to be determined with reference to the quality of the land in question. We say this, because in violation of every principle of expediency, justice, and humanity, and in direct opposition to our solemn protests, slavery was foisted upon us, and has been thus far perpetuated by and through the wily intrigues of the oligarchy, and by them alone; and furthermore, because the very best agricultural lands in the Northern States being worth from one hundred to one hundred and seventyfive dollars per acre, there is no possible reason, except slavery, why the more fertile and congenial soil of the South should not be worth at least 6s

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. as much. If, on this principle, we could ascertain, in the matter of real estate, the total indebtedness of the slaveholders to the nonslaveholders, we should doubtless find the sum quite equivalent to the amount esti mated on a preceding page-$7,544,148,825. We have recently conversed with two gentlemen who, to save them selves from the poverty and disgrace of slavery, left North Carolina six or seven years ago, and who are now residing in the territory of Minne sota, where they have accumulated handsome fortunes. One of them had travelled extensively in Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, and other adjoining States; and, according to his account, and we know him to be a man of veracity, it is almost impossible for persons at a distance, to form a proper conception of the magnitude of the difference between the current value of lands in the Free and the Slave States of the West. On one occasion, embarking at Wheeling, hlie sailed down the Ohio; Virginia and Kentucky on the one side, Ohio and Indiana on the other. Hle stopped at several places along the river, first on the right bank, then on the left, and so on, until he arrived at Evansville; continuing his trip, he sailed down to Cairo, thence up the Mississippi to the mouth he Des Moines; having tarried at different points along the route sometimes in Missouri, sometimes in Illinois. Wherever he landed OL free soil, he found it from one to two hundred per cent. more valuable than the slave soil on the opposite bank. If, for instance, the maximnurr price of land was eight dollars in Kentucky, the minimum price was sixteen in Ohio; if it was seven dollars in Missouri, it was fourteen in Illinois. Furthermore, he assured us, that, so far as he could learn, two years ago, when he travelled through the States of which we speak, the range of prices of agricultural lands, in Kentucky, was from three to eight dollars per acre; in Ohio, from sixteen to forty; in Missouri, from two to seven; in Illinois, from #irteen to thirty; in Arkansas, from one to four; in Iowa, from six to fifteen. In all the old slave States, as is well known, there are vast bodies of land that can be bought for the merest trifle. We know an enterprising capitalist in Philadelphia, who owns in his individual name, in the State of Virginia, one hundred and t,irty thousand acres, for which he paid only thirty-seven and a half cents per acre! Some years ago, in certain parts of North Carolina, several large tracts were purchased at the rate of twentyfive cents per acre? Hiram Berdan, the distinguished inventor, who has frequently seen freedom and slavery side by side, and who is, therefore, well qualified t; forn an opinion of their relative influence upon society, says: ” Many comparisons might be drawn between the free and the slave States. either of which should be sufficient to satisfy any man that slavery is not only ruin ous to free labor and enterprise, but injurious to morals, and blighting to the soij where it exists. The comparison between the States of Michigan and Arkansas, wb4h were admitted into the Union at the same time, will fairly iiluavtrate tlt 69

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. difference and value of free and slave labor, as well as the difference of moral and intellectual progress in a free and in a slave State. “In 1836, those young Stars were admitted into the constellation of the Union. Michigan, with one-half the extent of territory of Arkansas, challenged her sister State for a twenty years’

race, and named as her rider,‘Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tolerated in this State.’ Arkansas accepted the challenge, and named as her rider,‘The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners.’ Thus mounted, these two States, the one free and the other slave, started together twenty years ago, and now, having arrived at the end of the proposed race, let us review and mark the progress of each. Michigan comes out in 1856 with three times the population of slave Arkansas, with five times the assessed value of farms, farming implements and machinery, and with eight times the number of public schools.” In the foregoing part of our work, we have drawn comparisons be tween the old free States and the old slave States, and between the new free States and the new slave States; had we sufficient time and space, we might with the most significant results, change this method of com parison, by contrasting the new free States with the old slave States. Can the slavery-extensionists compare Ohio with Virginia, Illinois with Georgia, or Indiana with South Carolina, without experiencing the agony of inexpressible shame? If they can, then indeed has slavery debased them to a lower deep than we care to contemplate. We shall now introduce two tables of valuable, an interesting statistics, to which philosophic and discriminating readers will doubtless have frequent occasions to refer. Table 11 will show the area of the several States, in square miles and in acres, and the number of inhabitants to the square mile in each State; also the grand total, or the average, of every statistical column; table 12 will exhibit the total number of inhabitants residing in each State, according to the census of 1850, the number of whites, the number of free colored, and the number of slaves. The recapitulations of these tables will be followed by a complete list of the number of slavAolders in the United States, showing the exact number in each Southern State, and in the District of Columbia. Most warmly do we commend all these statistics to the studious attention of the reader.

Their language is more eloquent than any possible combination of Roman vowels and consonants. We have spared no pains in arranging them so as to express at a single glance the great truths of which they are composed; and we doubt not that the plan we have addpted will meet with general approbation. Numerically considered, it will be perceived that the slaveholders are, in reality, a very insignificant class. Of them, however we thall have more to sey hereafter. 70

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. TABILE 11. AREA OF THE FREE AND OF THE SLAVE

STATES. AREA OF THE FREE STATES. States. Siles. Acres. Inhabita.ts California 155,980 99,827,200.59 Conn….. 4,674 2,991,860 79.83

Illinois… 55,405 85,359 200 15.37 Indiana.. 83,809 21,687’,760 29.24 Ie wa….. 50,914 82,584,960 3.78 MaLe…. 381,766 20,380,240 18.86 Mass…..

7,800 4,992,000 127.50 Michigan. 56,243 85,995,520 7.07 N. Hamp. 9,280

5,939,200 84.26 N. Jersey 8,820 5,824,800 58.84 New York 47,000 80,080,000

65.90 Ohio….. 89,964 26,576,960 49.55 Penn….. 46,000 29,440,000 50.26

Rhode Is. 1,806 885,840 112.97 Vermnont. 10,212 6,585,680 80.76 Wisconsin 58,924 84,511,360 5.66 ‘ -- 612,597 892,062,080 21.91 i ~~~

2…1 AREA OF THE SLAVE ST’ATES. Square Inhabitan.t States. Mile.. Acres.

to sq. ile. Alabama 50,722 82,027,490 15.21 Arkansas 52,198 33,406,720

4.02 Delaware 2,120 1,856,800 43.18 Florida.. 59,268 87,981,520 1.48

Georgia.. 58,000 87,120,000 15.62 Kentucky 87,680 24,115,200 26.07

Louisiana 41,255 26,408,200 12.55 Maryland] 11,124 7,119,360 52.41

Miss….. 47,156 80,179,SAO 12.8 6 Missouri. 67,880 43,123,200 10.12 N.

C….. 50 704 82,450,560 17.14 S. C 29‘885 18,805,400 22.75 Tenn….

45,600 29,184,000 21.99 Texas…!237,504 152,002,560.89 Virginia. 61,852

39,165,280 23.17 851,448 544,926,720 11.29 TABLE E POPULATION OF THE FREE

AN] POPULATION OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. States. Whites. CoFred Slaves.

Total. Colore,d. Alabama 426,514 2,265 342,844 771,623 Arkansas 162,189

608 47,100 209,897 Delaware 71,169 18,078 2,290 91,582 Florida 47,208 982

89,810 87,445 Georgia. 521,572 2,981 881,622 906,185 Kentucky 761,418

10,011 210,981 982,405 Louisiana 255,491 17,462 244,809 517,7X.2 Maryland 417,948 74,728 90,868 588,034 Miss….. 295,718 980 809.878 606,825

Missouri. 592,004 2,618 87,422 682,044 N. C. 558,028 27,4683 288,548

869,089 S. C…. 274,568 8,960 384,984 668,507 Tenn…. 756,886 6,422

239,459 1,00,,717 Texas… 154,034 897 58,161 212,592 Virginia. 894,800

54,333 472,528 1,421,661 6,184,477 228,188 8,200,364 9,612,979

……….’,_ POPULATION OF THE FREE STATES 1850. States. Whites.

Colored| Total. _ ~~~ooe. ] California 91,685 962 92,597 Conn…..

363,099 7,693 870,792 Illinois…. 846,084 5,436 851,470 Indiana.. 977,154

11,262 988,416 Iowa….. 191,881 838 192,214 Maine… 581,813 1,856

588,169 Mass….. 985,450 9,064 994,514 Michigan. 895,071 2,588 897,654 N.

Hamp. 817,456 520 817,976 N. Jer-sey 465,509 28,810 489,555 New York 8,048,825 49,069 8,097,394 Ohio….. 1,955,050 25,279 1,980,829 Penn…..

2,258,160 58,626 2,811,786 Rhode Is. 148,875 3,670 147,545 Vermont..

813,402 718 814,120 Wisconsin 804,756 535 305,391 l18,233,670 196,116

13,484,922 71

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHIIED. RECAPITULATION-AREA. Square Miles. Acrers.

Area of the Slave States……………….. 851,448…………

544,926,720 Area of the Free States……………………

612,597………… 392,062,082 Balances in favor of Slave States………. 238,851…………152,864,638

RECAPITULATION-POPULATION-1850. Whites. Total. Population of the Free States…………… 13,233,670………… 13,434,922 Population of the Slave States………….. 6,184,477………… 9,612,976 Balances in favor of the Free States,…. 7,049,193………… 3,821,946 FREE COLORED

AND SLAVE-1850. Free Negroes in the Slave States…………………………….. 228,138 Free Negroes in the Free States………………………………….. 196,116 Excess of Free Negroes in the Slave States……………………….. 32,022 Slaves in the Slave States…………………………………….., Free Negroes in the Slave States…………………………….. 228,138 Aggregate Negro Population of the Slave States in 1850……….. 3,428,502 THE

TERRITORIES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMIBIA. Area in Square Miles.

Popuiation. Indian Territory………………………. 71,127

Kansas………………………… 114,798 Minnesota “……………………….. 166,025…………… 6,077 Nebraska “………………………… 335,882 N. Mexico “………………………… 207,007…………… 61,547 Oregon “………………………… 185,030…………… 13,294 Utah “………………………… 269,170…………… 11,380 Washington “………………………… 123,022 Columnbia, Dist. o f………………………… 60…………… 51,687 Aggregate of Area and Population……..1,472,121…………… 143,985 NUMBER OF

SLA.VEHOLDERS IN THE U’ITED STATES-1850. …………………………..

29,295 ……………………………. 5,999

…………………………….. 1,477

…………………………….. 8 09

F………………I………………………3,520

…………………………….. 38,456

…………………………….. 38,385

…………………………….. 20,670 Carried forward……………… 138,611 * Of the 51,687 inhabitants in the District of Columbia, in 1850, 10,057 were Free Colore, and 3,687 were slaves. 72 Alabama………………………

Arkansas……………………… Columbia, District of…………….

Delaware……………………… Florida………………………..

Georgia………………………. Kentucky…………………….

Louisiana………………………

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UOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABCLISHED. Brought
forward…………………………… 138.611

Maryland……………………………………………………..

16,040

Mississippi…………………………………………………….

23,116

Missouri………………………………………………………

19,185 North

Carolina………………………………………………… 28,303

South Carolina…………………………………………………

25,596

Tennessee…………………………………………………….

33,864

Texas……………………………………………………….

7,747 Virginia…………………………………………………..

55,063 Total Number of Slaveholders in the United States………………….347525 CLASSIFICATION OF SLAVEHOLDEPS-1850.

‘4olders of 1 slave…………………………………. 68,820 Holders of 1 and under 5…………………………………. 105,683 Holders of 5 and under 10………………………………… 80,765 Holders of 10 and under 20…………………………………. 54,595 [foders of 20 and under 50…………………………………. 29,733 Hoiders of 50 aad under 100…………………………………. 6,196 Holders of 100 and under 2 00…………………………………. 1,479 Holders of 200 and under 300…………………………………. 187 Holders of 300 and under 500…………………………………. 56 Holders of 500 and und er 1000…………………………………. 9 Holders of 1,000 and over…………………………………. 2 -Aggrea-.mber of Slaveholders in the United States…………….. 347,525 It thus appears that there are in the United States, three hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred and twentyfive slaveholders. But this appearance is deceptive. The actual number is certainly less than two hundred thousand.

Professor De Bow, the Superintendent of the Census, informs us that “the number includes slave-hirers,” and furthermore, that ” where the party owns slaves in different counties, or in different States, he will be entered more than once.” Now every Southerner, who has any practical knowledge of affairs, must know, and does know, that every New Year’s d’y, like almost every other day, is desecrated in the South, by publicly hiring out slaves to large numbers of nonslaveholders. The slaveowners, who are the exclusive manufacturers of public sentiment, have popularized the dictum that white servants are unfashionable; and there are, we are sorry to say, nearly one hundred and sixty thousand nonslaveholding sycophants, who have subsceribed to this false philosophy, and who are giving constant encourageient to the infamous practices of slaveholding and slavebreeding, I)by hiring at least one slave every year. WV ith the statistics at our command, it is impossible for us to ascertain the exact numbers of slaveholders and nonslaveholding slave-hirers in the slave States; but we have data wl-hich will enable us to approach very near to the facts. The town from which we hail, Salisbury, the capital of Rowan county, North Carolina, contains about twentythree hundred inhabitants, including three hundred and seventy-two slaves, 4 T3

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. fifty-one slaveholders, and forty-three nonslaveholding slave-hirers Taking it for granted that this town furnishes a fiir relative proportion of all the slaveholding, and nonslaveholding slave-hirers in the slave States, the whole number of the former, including those who have b(en “entered more than once,” is one hundred and eighty-eighit thousand five hundred and fifty-one; of the latter, one hundred and fifty-eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-four; and, now, estimating that there are in Maryland, Virginia, and other grain-growing States, an aggregate of two thousand slaveowners, who have cotton plantations stocked with negroes in the far South, and who have been “entered more than once,” we find, as the result of our calculations, that the total number of actual slaveholders in the Union, is precisely one hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and fifty-one-as follows: Number of actual slaveholders in the United States………….. 186,551 Number ” entered more than once”………………………. 2,000 Number of nonslaveholding slave-hirers…………………… 158,974 Aggregate number, according to De Bow………… 347,525 The greater number of nonslaveholding slave-hirers, are a-kind of third-rate aristocrats-persons who formely owned slaves, but whom slavery, as is its custom, has dragged down to poverty, leaving themn, in their false and shiftless pride, to eke out a miserable existence over the hapless chattels personal of other men. Thus far in giving expression to our sincere and settled opinions, we have endeavored to show, in the first place, that slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and political evil-a dire enemy to true wealth and national greatness, and an atrocious crime against both God and man; and, in the second place, that it is a paramount duty which we owe to heaven, to the earth, to America, to humanity, to our posterity, to our consciences, and to our pockets, to adopt effectual and judicious measures for its immediate suppression. The questions now arise, How can the evil be averted? What are the most prudent and practicable means that can be devised for the abolition of slavery? In the solution of these problems it becomes necessary to deal with a multiplicity of stubborn realities. And yet, we can see no reason why North Carolina, in her sovereign capacity, may not with equal ease and success, do what forty-five other States of the world have done within the last forty-five years. Nor do we believe any good reason exists why Virginia should not perform as great a deed in 1869 as did New York in 1799. Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1780; would it not be a masterly stroke of policy in Tennessee, and every other slave State, to abolish it in or before 1870? To tlhe nonslaveholding whites of the South, ts a deeply-wronged 4

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HIOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. and vitally distinct political party, we must look for that change of law, or reorganization of society, which, at an early da?, we hope, is to result in the substitution of liberty for slavery; and, under all the circumstances, it now becomes their duty to mark out an independent course for themselves, and to utterly contemn and ignore the many base instruments of power, animate and inanimate, which have been so freely and so effectually used for their enslavement.

Steering entirely clear of the oligarchy, now is the time for the nonslaveholders to assert their rights and liberties; never before was thlere such an appropriate period to strike for Freedom in the South. Had it not been for the better sense, the purer patriotism, and the more practical justice of the nonslaveholders, the Middle States and New England would still be groaning and grovelling under the ponderous burden of slavery; New York would never have risen above the dishonorable level of Virginia; Pennsylvania, trampled beneath the iron-heel of the black code, would have remained the unprogressive parallel of Georgia; Massachusetts would have continued till the present time, and Heaven only knows how much longer, the contemptible coequal of South Carolina.

Succeeded by the happiest moral effects and the grandest physical results, we have seen slavery crushed beneath the wisdom of the nonslaveholding statesmen of the North; followed by corresponding influences and achievements, many of us who have not yet passed the meridian of life, are destined to see it equally crushed beneath the wisdom of the nonslaveholding statesmen of the South. With righteous indignation, we enter our protest against the base yet baseless admission that Louisiana and Texas are incapable of producing as great statesmen as Rhode Island and Connecticut. What has been done for New Jersey by the statesmen of New Jersey, can be done for Kentucky by the statesmen of Kentucky; the wisdom of the former State has abolished slavery; as sure as the earth revolves on its axis, the wisdom of the latter will not do less. That our plan for the abolition of slavery is the best that can be devised, we have not the vanity to contend; but that it is a good one, and will do to act upon until a better shall have been suggested, we do firmly and conscientiously believe. Though but little skilled in the delicate art of surgery, we have pretty thoroughly probed slavery, the frightful tumor on the body politic, and have, we think, ascertained the precise remedies requisite for a speedy and perfect cure. Possibly the less ardent friends of freedom may object to our prescription, on the ground that some of its ingredients are too griping, and that it will cost the patient a deal of most excruciating pain. But let them remember that the patient is exceedingly refractory, that the case is a desperate one, and that drastic reid/s we indispensably neessary. When thy 75

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HIOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHIED. shall have discovered milder yet equally efficacious ones, it will be time enough to discontinue the use of ours-then no one will be readier than we to discard the infallible strong recipe for the infallible mild. Not at the persecution of a few thousand slaveholders, but at the restitution of natural rights and prerogatives to several million of nonslaveholders, do we aim. Inscribed on the banner, which we herewith unfurl to the world, with the full and fixed determination to stand by it or die by it, unless one of more virtuous efficacy shall be presented, are the mottoes which, in substance, embody the principles, as we conceive, that should govern us in our patriotic warfare against the most subtle and insidious foe that ever menaced the inalienable rights and liberties and dearest interests of America: 1st.

Thorough Organization and Independent Political Action on the part of the NonSlaveholding Whites of the South. 2d. Ineligibility of Proslavery Slaveholders-Never another vote to any one who advocates the Retention and Perpetuation of Human Slavery. 3rd. No Cooperation with Proslavery Politicians-No Fellowship with them in Religion-No Affiliation with them in Society. 4th. No Patronage to Proslavery Merchants-No Guestship in Slave waiting Hotels-No Fees to Proslavery Lawyers-No Employment of Proslavery Physicians-No audience to Proslavery Parsons. 5th. No more Hiring of Slaves by NonSlaveholders. 6th. Abrupt Discontinuance of Subscription to Proslavery Newspapers. 7th. The Greatest Possible Encouragement to Free White Labor. This, then, is the outline of our scheme for the abolition of slavery ia the Southern States. Let it be acted upon with due promptitude, and, as certain as truth is mightier than error, fifteen years will not elapse before every foot of territory, from the mouth of the Delaware to the emrboguing of the Rio Grande, will glitter with the jewels of freedom. Some time during this year, next, or the year following, let there be a general convention of nonslaveholders from every slave State in the Union, to deliberate on the momentous issues now pending. First, let them adopt measures for holding in restraint the mischievous excesses of the oligarchy; secondly, in order to cast off the thralldom which the despotic slave-power has fastened upon them, and, as the first step necessary to be taken to regain the inalienable rights and liberties with which they were invested by nature, but of which they have been divested by the Vandalic dealers in human flesh, let them devise ways and means for the complete annihilation of slavery; thirdly, let them put forth an equitable and comprehensive platform, fully defining their position, and inviting the active sympathy and cooperation of the millions of downtrodden nonslaveholders throughout the Southern and Southwestern States. Let all these things be done, not too hastily, but with calmnes4

76

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. deliberation, prudence and circumspection; if need be, let the delegates to the convention continue in session one or two weeks; only let their labors be wisely and thoroughly performed; let them, on Wednesday morning, present to the poor whites of the South, a well-digested scheme for the reclamation of their ancient rights and prerogatives, and, on the Thursday following, slavery in the United States will be worth absolutely less than nothing; for then, besides being so despicable and precarious that nobody will want it, it will be a lasting reproach to those in whose hands it is lodged. Were it not that other phases of the subject admonish us to be economical of space, we could suggest more than a dozen different plans, either of which, if scrupulously carried out, would lead to a wholesome, speedy, and perfect termination of slavery. Under all the circumstances, however, it might be difficult for us-perhaps it would not be the easiest thing in the world for anybody else-to suggest a better plan than the one above. Let it, or one embodying its principal features, be adopted forthwith, and the last wail of slavery will soon be heard, growing fainter and fainter, till it dies utterly away, to be succeeded by the jubilant shouts of emancipated millions. At the very moment we write, as has been the case ever since the IUnited States have had a distinct national existence, and as will always continue to be the case, unless right triumphs over wrong, all the civil, political, and other offices, within the gift of the South, are filled with negro-nursed incumbents from the ranks of that artful band of misanthropes-three hundred and forty-seven thousand in number-who, for the most part, obtain their living by breeding, buying and selling slaves. The magistrates in the villages, the constables in the districts, the com missioners of the towns, the mayors of the cities, the sheriffs of the counties, the judges of the various courts, the members of the legis latures, the governors of the States, the representatives and senators in Congress-are all slaveholders. Nor does the catalogue of their usurp ations end here. By means of much barefaced arrogance and corrup tion, they have obtained control of the General Government, and all the consuls, ambassadors, envoys extraordinary, and ministers plenipoten tiary, who are chosen from the South, and commissioned to foreigr countries, are selected with especial reference to the purity of their pro slavery antecedents. If credentials have ever been issued to a singhle nonslaveholder of the South, we are ignorant of both the fact and the hearsay; indeed, it would be very strange if this much abused class ot persons were permitted to hold important offices abroad, when tiley art not allowed to hold unimportant ones at home. And, then, there is the Presidency of the United States, which offieo has been heldforty-eight years by slaveholders from the South, and only twenty years by nonslaveholders from the North. Nor is this the full re 77

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. cord of oligarchical obtrusion. On an average, the offices of Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of War, Postmaster-General and Attorney-General, have been under the control of slave-d(rivers nearly two-thirds of the time. The Chief Justices and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Presidents pro tem. of the Senate, and the Speakers of the House of Representatives, have, in a large majority of instances, been slavebreeders from the Southern side of the Potomac. Five slave holding Presidents have been reelected to the chief magistracy of the Republic, while no nonslaveholder has ever held the office more than a single term.

Thus we see plainly that even the nonslaveholders of the North, to whose freedom, energy, enterprise, intelligence, wealth, popu lation, power, progress, and prosperity, our country is almost exclusively indebted for its high position among the nations of the earth, have been arrogantly denied a due participation in the honors of federal office. When “the sum of all villainies” shall have ceased to exist, then the rights of the nonslaveholders of the North, of the South, of the East, and of the West, will be duly recognized and respected; not before. For the last sixty-eight years, slaveholders have been the sole and constant representatives of the South, and what have they accomplished? It requires but little time and few words, to tell the story of their indiscreet and unhallowed performances. In fact, with what we have already said, gestures alone would suffice to answer the inquiry. We can make neither a more truthful nor emphatic reply than to point to our thinly inhabited States, to our fields despoiled of their virgin soil, to the despicable price of lands, to our unvisited cities and towns, to our vacant harbors and idle water-power, to the dreary absence oi shipping and manufactories, to our unpensioned soldiers of the Revolution, to the millions of living monuments of ignorance, to the squalid poverty of the whites, and to the utter wretchedness of the blacks. Either directly or indirectly, are proslavery politicians, who have ostentatiously set up pretensions to statesmanship, responsible for every dishonorable weakness and inequality that exists between the North and the South. Let them shirk the responsibility if they can; but it is morally impossible for them to do so. We know how ready they have always been to cite the numerical strength of the North, as a valid excuse for their inability to procure appropriations from the General Government, for purposes of internal improvement, for the establishment of lines of ocean steamers to South American and European ports, and for the accomplishment of other objects.

Before that apology ever escapes from their lips again, let them remember that the numerical weakness of the South is3 wholly attributable to their own imbecile statism. Had the Southern States, in accordance with the principles er-mciated in the Declaration of Independence, abolished slavery at the 78

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HIOW SLIVER CAN BE ABOLISHED. ,me time the Northern States abolished it, there would have been, long since, and most assuredly at this moment, a larger, wealtlhier, wiser, and more powerful population, south of M4ason and Dixon’s line, thaii there now is north of it. This fact being so well established that no reasonable man denies it. it is evident that the oligarchy will have to devise another subterfuge for even temporary relief. ULntil slavery and slavehlolders cease to be the only favored objects of legislation in the South, the North will continue to maintain the asceadency in every important particular. With those mischievous objects out of the way, it would not require the nonslaveholders of the South more than a quarter of a century to bring her up, in all respects, to a glorious equality with the North; nor would it take them muchl longer to surpass the latter, which is the most vigorous and honorable rival that they have in the world. Three-quarters of a century hence, if slavery is abolished within the next ten years, as it ought to be, the South will, we believe, be as much greater than the North, as the North is now greater than the South. Thlree-quarters of a century hence, if the South retains slavery, which God forbid! she will be to the North much the same that Poland is to Russia, that Cuba is to Spain, or that Ireland is to England.

What we want and must have, as the only sure means of attaining to a position worthy of Sovereign States in this eminently progressive and utilitarian age, is an energetic, intelligent, enterprising, virtuous, and unshackled population; an untraininelled press, and the Freedom of Speech.

For ourselves, as white people, and for the negroes and other persons of whatever color or condition, we demand all the rights, inrter ests and prerogatives, that are guaranteed to corresponding classes of mankind in the North, in England, in France, in Germany, or in any other civilized and enlightened country. Any proposition that may be offered conceding less than this demand, will be promptly and disdaini fully rejected.

Speaking of the nonslaveholders of the South, George M. Weston, a zealous co-laborer in the cause of F’reedom, says: The nonslaveholding whites of the South, being not less than seven-tenths of the whole ntumiber of whites, would seem to be entitled to some inquiry into their actual condition; and especially, as they have no real political weight or considerationi in the country, and little opportunity to speak for themselves. I have been for twenty years a reader of Southern newspapers, and a reader and hearer of Congressionai debates; but, in all that time, I do not recollect ever to have seen or heard these nonslaveholding whites referred to by Southern’ gentlemen,’ as constituting any part of what they call’ the South.’ When the rights of the South, or its wrongs, or its policy or its interests, or its institutions, are spoken of, reference is always intended to the iights, wrongs, policy, interests, and institutiols of the three hundred and forty-seven thousand slavehlioldeis. Nobody gets into Congress fronm the Sol th but by the.ir direction; nobody speaks at Washlington for any Scotliern interest except theirs. Yet there is, at the South, quite anotllei interest tLan thirs; embracing from two to three times as many white people; and. as we shall presenatiy see, entitled to the deepest sympathy and commniseration, in view 79

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tHOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. of the material, intellectual, and moral privations to which it has been snijected, the degradation to which it has already been reduced, and the still more fearful degradation with which it is threatened by the inevitable operation of existing causes an(ti influences.” The following extract, from a paper on “Domestic Manufactures in the South and West,” published by M. Tarver, of Missouri, may be appropriately introduced in this connection: ” The nonslaveholders possess, generally, but very small means, and the land which they possess is almost universally poor, and so sterile that a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived from its cultivation; and the more fertile soil, being in the possession of the slaveholders, must ever remain out of the power of those who have none. This state of things is a great drawback, and bears heavily upon and depresses the moral energies of the poorer classes. The acquisition of a respectable position in the scale of wealth appears so difficult, that they decline the hopeless pursuit, and many of them settle down into habits of idleness, and become the almost passive subjects of all its consequences. And I lament to say that I have observed,- of late years, that an evident deterioration is taking place in this part of the population, the younger portion of it being less educated, less industrious, and in every point of view less respectable than their ancestors.” Equally worthy of attention is the testimony of Gov. Hammond, of South Carolina, who says: “According to the best calculation, which, in the absence of statistic facts, can be made, it is believed, that of the three hundred thousand white inhabitants of South Carolina, there are not less than fifty thousand whose industry, such as it is, and compensated as it is, is not, in the present condition of things, and does not promise to be hereafter, adequate to procure them, honestly, such a support as every white person is, and feels himself entitled to. And this, next to emigration, is, perhaps, the heaviest of the weights that press upon the springs of our prosperity. Most of those now follow agricultural pursuits, in feeble, yet injurious coinpetition with slave labor. Some, perhaps, not more from inclination than fronm the want of due encouragement, can scarcely be said to work at all. Thiey obtain a precarious subsistence, by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, sometimes by plundering fields or folds, and too often by what is, in its effects, far worse-trading with slaves, and seducing them to plunder for their benefit.” Conjoined with the sundry plain, straightforward facts Which have issued from our own pen, these extracts show conclusively that immediate and independent political action on the part of the nonslaveholding whites of the South, is, with them, a matter, not only of positive duty, but also of the utmost importance. As yet, it is in their power to rescue the South from the gulf of shame and guilt, into which slavery has plunged her; but if they do not soon arouse themselves from their apathy, this power will be wrenchled from them, and then, unable to resist the strong arm of the oppressor, they will be completely degraded to a social and political level with the negroes, whose condition of servitude will, in the meantime, become far more abject and forlorn than it is.I now. In addition to the reasons which we have already assigned why n(o slavocratl should, in the future, be elected to any office whatever, therte are others that deserve to be carefully considered. Among these, to speak plainly, nay be mentioned the ill-breeding and the ruffianism-of so

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1iOW SLAVERY CAy BE ABOLISHED. slaveholding officials. Tedious, indeed, would be the task to enumerate all the homicides, duels, assaults and batteries, and other crimes, of -which they are the authors in the course of a single year. To the general reader their career at the seat of government is well knowin; thire, on frequent occasions, choking with rage at seeing their wretched sophistries scattered to the winds by the sound, logical reasoning of the champions of Freedom, they have overstepped the bounds of common decency, vacated the chair of honorable controversy, and, in the most brutal and cowardly manner, assailed their unarmed opponents with bludgeons, bowie knives and pistols. Compared with some of their barbarisms at home, however, their frenzied onslaughts at the national Capital have been but the simplest breaches of civil deportment; and it is only for the purpose of avoiding personalities that we now refrain from divulging a few instances of the unparalleled atrocities which they have perpetrated in legislative halls south of the Potomac. Nor is it alone in the national and State legislatures that they substitute brute force for genteel behavior and acuteness of intellect. Neither court houses nor public streets, hotels nor private dwellings, rum-holes nor law-offices, are held sacred from their murderous conflicts. About cer tain silly abstractions that no practical business man ever allows to occupy his time or attention, they are eternally wrangling; and thus it is that rencounters, duels, homicides, and other demonstrations of per sonal violence, have become so popular in all slaveholding communities. A few years of entire freedom from the cares and perplexities of public life would, we have no doubt, greatly improve both their manners and their morals; and we suggest that it is a Christian duty, which devolves on the nonslaveholders of the South, to disrobe them of the mantle of office, which they have so long worn with disgrace to themselves, injus tice to their constituents, and ruin to their country. But what shall we say of such men as Botts, Stuart, and Macfarland of Virginia; of Raynor, Morelhead, Stanley, Graves, and Graham of North Carolina; of Davis and Hoffman of Maryland; of Blair and Brown of Missouri; of the Mlarshalls of Kentucky; and of Etheridge of Tennessee? All these gentlemen, and many others of the same school, entertain, we believe, sentiments similar to those that were entertained by the immortal Fathers of the Republic-that slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and political evil, to be got rid of at the earliest practicable period-and if they do, in order to secure our votes, it is only necessary for them to ” have the courage of their opinions,” to renounce slavery, and to come out frankly, fairly and squarely in favor of freedom. To neither of these patriotic sons of the South, nor to any one of the class to which they belong, would we give any ofience whatever. In our strictures on the criminality of proslavery demagogues we have had heretofore) and shall have hereafter, no sort of reference to any res,pect 4* 81

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IIOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. able slaveholder-by which we mean, any slaveholder who admits the injustice and inhumanity of slavery, and who is not averse to the discussion of measures for its speedy and total extinction. Such slaveholders are virtually on our side-that is, on the side of the non-slaveholdling whites, with whom they may very properly be classified. On this point, once for all, we desire to be distinctly understood; for it would be manifestly unjust not to discriminate between the antislavery proprietor who owns slaves by the law of entailment, and the proslavery proprietor who engages in the traffic and becomes an aider an abettor of the system from sheer turpitude of heart; hence the propriety of this special disclaimer. If we have a correct understanding of the positions which they assumed, some of the gentlemen whose names are written above, gave, during the last presidential campaign, ample evidence of their unswerving devotion to the interests of the great majority of the people, the nonslaveholding whites; and it is our unbiased opinion that a more positive truth is nowhere recorded in Holy Writ, than Kenneth Raynor uttered, when he said, in substance, that the greatest good that could happen to this country would be the complete overthrow of Black Democracy, alias the proslavery party, which has for its head and front the Ritchies and Wises of Virginia, and for its caudal termination the Keitts and Quattlebums of South Carolina. Peculiarly illustrative of the material of which sham democracy is composed was the vote polled at thle Five Points precinct, in the city of New York, on the 4th of November, 1856, when James Buchanan was chosen President by a minority of the people. We will produce the figures: Five Points Precinct, New York City, 1856. Votes cast for James Buchanan……………………………… 574 ” ” 11John C.

Fremont…………………………….. 16 ” ” c4Millard Fillmore…………………………… 9 It will be recollected that Col. Fremont’s majority over Buchanan, in the State of New York, was between seventy-eight and seventy-nine thousand, and that he ran ahead of the Fillmore ticket to the number of nearly one hundred and fifty one thousand. We have not the shadow of a doubt that he is perfectly satisfied with Mr. Buchanan’s triumph at the Five Points, which, with the exception of the slave-pens in Southern cities, is, perhaps, the most vile and heart-sickening locality in the United States. One of the most noticeable and commendable features of the last general election is this: almost every State, whose inhabitants have enjoyed the advantages of free soil, free labor, free speech, free presses, arid free schools, and who have, in consequence, become great in numbers, in virtue, in wealth, and in wisdom, voted for Fremont, the Republican candidate. who was pledged to use his influence for the extension 82

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HOW SLAERY CAN BE ABOLISHFED. of tike advantages to other parts of the country. On the other hand, with a single honorable exception, all the States whichl i have got to latirn.g everything with the prefix Free, from free negroes down an’l up through the whole catalogue-fi’ee faiins, free labor, free society, free will, free thinking, flee children, and firee schools,” and which have exposed their citizens to all the perils of numerical weakness, absolute ignorance, and hopeless poverty, voted for Buchanan, the Democratic cand(idate, who, in reply to the overtures of his proslavery partisans, had signified his willingness to pursue a policy that would perpetuate and disseminate, without limit, the multitudinous evils of human bondage. That less than ttreeper cent. of those who voted for Col. Fremont, that only about five per cent. of those who gave their suffrages to Mr. Fillmore, and that more than eightee, per cent. of those who supported Mr. Buchanan, were persons over one-and-twenty years of age who could not read and write, are estimates which we have no doubt are not far from the truth, and which, in the absence of reliable statistics, we venture to give, hoping, by their publicity, to draw closer attention to the fact, that the illiterate foreigners of the North, and the unlettered natives of the South, were cordially united in their suicidal adherence to the proslavery party. With few exceptions, all the intelligent nonslaveholders of the South, in concert with the more respectable slaveholders, voted for Mr. Fillmore; certain rigidly patriotic persons of the former class, whose hearts were so entirely with the gallant Fremont that they refused to vote at all-simply because they did not dare to express their preference for him-form the exceptions to which we allude.

Though the Whig, Democratic, and KnowNothing newspapers, in all the States, fiee and slave, denounced Col. Fremont as anil intolerant Catholic, it is now generally conceded that he was nowhere supported by the peculiar friends of Pope Pius IX. The votes polled at the Five Points precinct, which is almost exclusively inhabited by low Irish Catholics, show how powerfully the Jesuitical influence was brought to bear against him. At that delectable locality, as we have already shown, the timid Sage of Wheatland received five hundred and seventy-four votes -whereas the dauntless Finder of Empire received only sixteen. True to their instincts for Freedom, the Germans, generally, voted the right ticket, and they will do it again, and continue to do it. With the ntielligent Protestant element of the Fatherland on our side, we can well alobrd(l to dispense with the ignorant Cathlolic element of the Enmeirald Isle. Iii the influences which they exert on society, there is so little difference between Slavery, Popery, and Negro-driving DeinocJa xy, that we are not at all surprised to see them going hand in hand ii.t’c~“4iabolieal wvork of inhiumanity and desolation. There is, indeed, no lack of evidence to show that the Demtoc..ti: -arty of to-day is simply and unreservedly a sectional slavery party. On 83

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HOW SL A VERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. the 15th of December, 1856, but a few weeks subsequent to the appearan(.e o(f a scandalouis message from an infamous governor of South Carol:iCn recommending the reopening of the African slave trade, Emerson Litecridge of Tennessee honor to his name!-subnmitted, in the House of il-epresentatives, the following timely resolution: ‘Resolved-TlThat this House regard all suggestions or prepositions of every kindi by whomsoever made, for a revival of the slave trade, as shocking to the moral sentiments of the enlightened portion of mankind, and that any act on the part of Congress, legislating for, conniving at, or legalizing that horrid and inhuman traffic, would justly subject the United States to the reproach and execration of all civilized and Christian people throughout the world.” Who voted for this resolution?

and who voted against it? Let the yeas and nays answer; they are on record, and he who takes the trouble to examine them will find that the resolution encountered no opposition worth mentioning, except from members of the Democratic party. Scrutinize the yeas and nays on any other motion or resolution affecting the question of slavery, and the fact that a majority of the members of this party have uniformly voted for the retention and extension of the “sum of all villainies,” will at once be apparent. For many years the slave-driving Democrats of the South have labored most strenuously, both by day and by night-we regret to say how unsuccessfully-to point out abolition proclivities in the Whig and KnowNotliing parties, the latter of which is now buried, and deservedly, so sleep in the depths of the dead, that it is quite preposterous to suppose it will ever see the light of resurrection. For its truckling concessions to the slave power, the Whig party merited defeat, and defeated it was, and that, too, in the most decisive and overwhelming manner. But there is yet in this party much vitality and if its friends will reorganize, detach themselves from the burden of slavery, and hoist the fair flag of freedom, the time may come, at a day l)y no means remote, when their hearts will exult in triumph over the ruins of miscalled Democracy. It is not too late, however, for the Democratic party to secure to itself a pure renown and an almost certain perpetuation of its power.

Let it at once discard the worship of slavery, and do earnest battle for the principles of freedom, and it will live victoriously to a period far ill the feture. ()in the otl-er hand, if it does not soon repudiate the fatal heresles wliih it has incorporated into its creed, its doom will be inevitable. Until the black flag entirely disappears from its array, we warn the nonslavell)lders of the South to repulse and keep it at a distance, as they w-ic tl,e’ eniblazoned skull and cross-bones thatfloutthemfromtheflag of thie pirate. With regard to the sophistical reasoning which teaches that abolitionists, before abolishing slavery, shtuld compensate the slaveholders fox N1

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. or any number of the negroes in their possession, we shall endeavor not to be wearisome; but wishing to brace our arguments, in every important particular, with unequivocal testimony from men whom we are aceustomed to regard as models of political sagacity and integrity-fromn Southern men as far as possible we herewith present an extract from a sueech delivered in the Virginia House of Delegates, January 20, 1832, by Charles James Faulkner, whose sentiments, as then and there expressed, can hardly fail to find a response in the heart of every intelligent, upright man: ” But, sir, it is said that society having conferred this property on the slaveholder, it cannot now take it from him without an adequate compensation, by which is meant full value. I may be singular in the opinion, but I defy the legal research of the House to point me to a principle recognized by the law, even in the ordinary course of its adjudications, where the community pays for property which is removed or destroyed because it is a nuisance, and found injurious to that society. There is, I humbly apprehend. no such principle. There is no obligation upon society to continue your right one moment after it becomes injurious to the best interests of society; nor to compensate you for the loss of that, the deprivation of which is demanded by the safety of the State, and in which general benefit you participate as a member of the community. Sir, there is to my mind a manifest distinction between condemning private property to be applied to some beneficial public purpose, and condemning or removing private property which is ascertained to be a positive wrong to society. It is a distinction which pervades the whole genius of the law; and is founded upon the idea, that any man who holds property injurious to the peace of that society of which he is a member, thereby violates the condition upon the observance of which his right to the property is alone guaranteed. For property of the first class condemned there ought to be compensation; but for the property of the latter class, none can be demanded upon principle, none accorded as a matter of right. ‘ It is conceded that, at this precise moment of our legislation, slaves are injurious to the interests and threaten the subversion and ruin of this Commonwealth. Their present number, their increasing number, all admonish us of this. In different terms, and in more measured language, the same fact has been conceded by all who have yet addressed this House.’ Something niust be done,’ emphatically exclaimed the gentleman from Dinwiddie; and IthouLght I could perceive a response to that declaration. in the countenance of a large majority of this body. And why must something be done? Because if not, says the gentleman from Campbell, the throats of all the white people of Virginia will be cut. No, says the gentlemanfrom Dinwiddie-‘ The whites cannot be conquered-the throats of the blacks will be cut.’ It is a trifling difference, to be sure, sir, and matters not to the argument. For the fact is conceded, that one race or the other must be exterminated. ” Sir, such being the actual condition of this Commonwealth, I ask if we would not be justified now, supposing all considerations of policy and humanity concurred, without even a moment’s delay, in staving off this appalling and overwhelning calamity? Sir, if this immense negro population were now in arms, gathering into black and formidable masses of attack, would that man be listened to, who spoke about property, who prayed you not to direct your artillery to such or such a point, for you would destroy some of his property? Sir, to the eye of the StatesrmaL, as to the eye of Omniscience, dangers pressing, and dangers that must necessarilypress, are alike present. With a single glance he embraces Virginia now, with the elements of destruction reposing quietly upon her bosom, and Virginia is lightel from one extremity to the other with the torch of servile insurrection and r rlasacre. It is not sufficient for him that the match is not yet applied. It is enough that the i.agazine is open, and the match will shortly be applied. Sir, it is true in national as it is in private contracts, that loss and injury to onle party may constitute as fair a consideration as gain to the other. Does the slavehliolder, while he is enjoving his slaves, reflect upon the deep injury and incalculable loss which the possession of that property inflicts upon the true interests of the country? Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil-it is an institution which presses heavily against the best interests of the State. It banishes free white labor, it exterminates the mechanic, the artisan, the manufacturer. It de prives them of occupation. It deprives them of bread.

It converts the ene’gv ot 85

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. a community into indolence, its power into imbecility, its efficiency into weakness Sir, being thus injurious, have we not a right to demand its extermination? shall society sutffier, that the slaveholder maty continue to gather his crop of human flesh? What is his mere p.cuniary claim compared with the great interests of the common weal? Must the country lanuisi, droop, die, that the slaveholder may flourish? Shall all the interests be subservie nt to one-all rights subordinate to those of the slavehlolder? Has not the meclanic, have not the middle classes their rightsrights incompatible with the existence of slavery? Siri so great and overshadowing are the evils of slavery-so sensibly are they felt by those who have traced the causes of our national decline-so perceptible is the poisonous operation of its principles in the varied and diversified interests in this Commonwealth, that all, whose minds are not warped by prejudice or interest, must admit that the disease has now assumed that mortal tendency, as to justify the application of any remedy which, under the great law of State necessity. we might consider advisable.” At once let the good and true men of this country, the patriot sons of the patriot fathers, determine that the sun which rises to celebrate the centennial anniversary of our national independence, shall not set on the head of any slave within the limits of this Republic. Will not the nonslaveholders of the North, of the South, of the East, and of the West, heartily, unanimously sanction this proposition? Will it not be cheerfully indorsed by many of the slaveholders themselves? Will any respectable man enter a protest against it? On the 4th of July, 1876sooner, if we can let us make good, at least so far as we are concerned, the Declaration of Independence, which was proclaimed in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, 1776-that “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to nstitute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, aud organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” In purging our land of’ the iniquity of negro slavery, we shall only be carrying on the great work that was so successfully commenced by our noble sires of the Revolution; some future generation may possibly complete the work by annulling the last and least form of oppression. To turn the slaves away from their present homes-away from all the pi )perty and means of support which their labor has mainly produced, -ould be unpardonably cruel-exceedingly unjust. Still more cruel and unjust would it be, however, to the nonslaveholding whites no less than to the negroes, to grant further toleration to the existence of slavery. In any event, come what will, transpire what may, the system must be abolished. The evils, if any, which are to result from abolition, cannot, by any manner of means, be half as great as the evils which are certain to overtake us in case of its continuance. The perpetuation of slavery is the climax of iniquity 86

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHEDS Two hundred and thirty-nine years have the negroes in America been held in inhunman bondage. During the whole of this long period they have toiled unceasingly, from the grey of dawn till the dusk of eve, for their cruel taskmasters, who have rewarded them with scanty allowances of the most inferior qualities of victuals and clothes, with heartless separations of the tenderest ties of kindred, with epithets, with scoldings, with execrations, and with the lash-and, not unfrequently, with +~J e fatal bludgeon or the more deadly weapon. From the labor of their I)ands, and from the fruit of their loins, the human-mongers of the South have become wea_thy, insolent, corrupt and tyrannical. In reason and in conscience, it must be admitted, the slaves might claim for themselves a liberal allowance of the proceeds of their labor. If they were to demand an equal share of all the property, real and personal, which has been accumulated or produced through their efforts, Hieaven, we believe, would recognize them as honest claimants. Elsewhere we have shown, by just and liberal estimates, that, on the single score of damages to lands, the slaveholders are, at this moment, indebted to the nonvslaveholding whites in the.extraordinary sum of $7,544,148,825.

Considered in connection with the righteous claim of wages for services which the negroes might bring against their mnasters, these figures are the heralds of the significant fact that, if strict justice could be meted out to all parties in the South, the slaveholders would not only be stripped of every dollar, but they would become in law as they are in reality, the hopeless debtors of the myriads of unfortunate slaves, white and black, who are now cringing, and fawning, and festering around them.

For the services of the blacks from the 20th of August, 1620, up to the 4th of July, 1869-an interval of precisely two hundred and fortyeight years ten months and fourteen days-their masters, if unwilling, ought, in our judgment, to be compelled to grant them their freedom, and to pay each and every one of them at least sixty dollars cash in land. The aggregate sum thus raised would amount to about two hundred and fifty million of dollars, which is less than the total market value of two entire crops of cotton-one-half of which sum would be amrnply sufficient to land every negro in this country on the coast of Liberia, whither, if we had the power, we would ship them all within the next six months. As a means of protection against the exigencies which might arise from a sudden transition from their present homes in America to their future homes in Africa, and for the purpose of enabling them there to take the iniatory step in the walks of civilized life, the remainder of the sum-say about one hui)(-ed and twentyfive million of dollars-fiight, very properly, be equally distributed amongst them after their arrival in the land of their fathers. Dr. James Hall, the Secretary of the Maryland Colonization Society, 87

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. informs us that the average cost of sending negroes to Liberia does not exceed thirty dollars each; and it is his opinion that arrangements might be made on an extensive plan for conveying them thither at an average expense of not more than twentyfive dollars each. The American colonization movement, as now systematized and conducted, is, in our opinion, simply an American humane farce. At pre sent the slaves are increasing in this country at the rate of nearly one hundred thousand per annum; within the last twelve years, as will appear below, the American Colonization Society has sent to Liberia less than five thousand negroes. Emigrants sent to Liberia by the American Colonization Society, during the twelve years ending January 1st, 1859. In 1847………………….. 39 In 1848…………………… 213 In 1849…………………… 474 In 1850……..;…………… 590 In 1851…………………… 279 In 1852…………………… 568 In 1853…………………… 583 In 1854…………………… 783 In 1855…………………… 207 In 1856…………………… 544 In 1857…………………… 370 In 1858…………………… 163

Total…………………….. 4,813 lihe average of this total is a fraction over four hundred and onle, which may be said to be the number of negroes annually colonized by the society; while the yearly increase of slaves, as previously stated, is little less than one hundred thousand?

Fiddlesticks for such colonization! Once for all, within a reasonably short period, let us, by an equitable system of legislation, and by such other measures as may be right and proper, compel the slaveholders to do something like justice to their negroes by giving each and every one of them his freedom, and sixty dollars in current money; then let us charter all the ocean steamers, packets and clipper ships that can be had on liberal terms, and keep them constantly plying between the ports of America and Africa, until all the slaves who are here held in bondage shall enjoy freedom in the land of their fathers. Under a well-devised and properly conducted system of operations, but a few years would be required to redeem the United States from the monstrous curse of negro slavery.

Some few years ago, when certain ethnographical oligarchs proved to their own satisfaction that the negro was an inferior “type of mankind,” they chuckled wonderfully, and avowed, in substance, that it was right for the stronger race to kidnap and enslave the weaker-that because Nature had been pleased to do a trifle more for the Caucasian race than for the African, the former, by virtue of its superiority, was perfectly 88

Emigrants to Liberia.

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. justifiable in holding the latter in absolute and perpetual bondage! No system of logic could be more antagonistic to the spirit of true democracy. It is probable that the world does not contain two persons who are exactly alike in all respects; yet “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the purIsuit of happiness.” All mankind may or may not be the descendants of Adam and Eve. In our own humble way of thinking, we are frank to confess, we do not believe in the unity of the races. This is a matter, however, which has little or nothing to do with the great question at issue. Aside from any theory concerning the original parentage of the different races of men, facts, material and immaterial, palpable and impalpable-facts of the eyes and facts of the conscience-crowd around us on every hand, heaping proof upon proof, that slavery is a shame, a crime, and a curse-a great moral, social, civil, and political evil-an oppressive burden to the blacks, and an incalculable injury to the whites-a stumbling-block to the nation, an impediment to progress, a damper on all the nobler instincts, principles, aspirations and enterprises of man, and a dire enemy to every true interest. Waiving all other counts, we have, we think, shown, to the satisfaction of every impartial reader, that, as elsewhere stated, on the single score of damages to lands, the slaveholders are, at this moment, indebted to us, the nonslaveholding whites, in the enormous sum of nearly seventy-six hundred million of dollars. What shall be done with this amount? It is just; shall payment be demanded? No; all the slaveholders in the country could not pay it; nor shall we ever ask them for even a moiety of the amount-no, not even for a dime, nor yet for a cent; we are willing to forfeit every farthing for the sake of freedom; for ourselves we ask no indemnification for the past: we only demand justice for the future. But sirs, slaveholders, chevaliers and lords of the lash, we are unwilling to allow you to cheat the negroes out of all the rights and claims to which, as human beings, they are most sacredly entitled. Not alone for ourself as an individual,_but for others also-particularly for five or six million of Southern nonslaveholding whites, whom your iniquitous statism has debarred from almost all the mental and material comforts of life-do we speak, when we say, you must, sooner or later, emancipate your slaves, and pay each and every one of them at least sixty dollars cash in hand. By doing this, you will be restoring to them their natural rights, and remunerating them at the rate of less than twenty-six cents per annum for the long and cheerless period of their servitude, from the 20th of August, 1620, when, on James River, in Virginia, they became the unhappy slaves of heartless tyrants. Moreover, by doing this you will be performing but a simple act of justice to the nonslaveholding whites, upon whom the system of slavery has 89

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HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. weighed scarcely less heavily than upon the negroes themselves. You will also be applying a saving balmn to your own outraged hearts and consciences, and your children-yourselves in fact-freed fromn the accursed stain of slavery, will become respectable, useful, and honora ble members of society. And now, sirs, we have thus laid down our ultimatum. What are you going to do about it? Something dreadful, of course! Perhaps you will dissolve the Union again. Do it, if you dare 1 Our motto, and we would have you to understand it, is The Abolition of Slavery, and the Perpetuation of the Asnerican Union. If, by any means, you do succeed in your treasonable attempts, to take the South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her back to-morrow-if she goes away with you, she will return without you. Do not mistake the meaning of the last clause of the last sentence; we could elucidate it so thoroughly that no intelligent person could fail to comprehend it; but, for reasons which may hereafter appear, we forego the task. Henceforth there are other interests to be consulted in the South, aside from the interests of negroes and slaveholders. A profound sense of duty incites us to make the greatest possible efforts for the abolition of slavery; an equally profound sense of duty calls for a continuation of those efforts until the very last foe to freedom shall have been utterly vanquished. To the summons of the righteous monitor within, we shall endeavor to prove faithful; no opportunity for inflicting a mortal wound in the side of slavery shall be permitted to pass us unimproved. Thus, terror-engenderers of the South, have we fully and frankly defined our position; we have no modifications to propose, no compromises to offer, nothing to retract.

Frown, sirs, fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threat, strike, shoot, stab, bring on civil war, dissolve the UInion, nay annihilate the solar system if you will-do all this, more, less, better, worse, anything-do what you will, sirs, you can neither foil nor intimidate us; our purpose is as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of Heaven; we have determined to abolish slavery, and, so help us God, abolisli it we will! Take this to bed with you to-night, sirs, and think about it! d,ream over it, Ea let us know how you feel to-morrow morning. 90

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CHAPTER m. SOUTHEiERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. “Slavery is detested-we feel its fatal effects-we udeplore it with all the earnestness *I humanity. “-PATRICK HENRY. IF it please the reader, let him forget all that we have written on the subject of slavery; if it accord with his inclination, let him ignore all that we may write hereafter. We seek not to give special currency to our own peculiar opinions; our greatest ambition, in these pages, is to popularize the sayings and admonitions of wiser and better men. Mira cles, we believe, are no longer wrought in this bedeviled worldl; but if, by any conceivable or possible supernatural event, the great Founders of the Republic, Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, could be reinvested with corporeal life, and returned to the South, there is scarcely a slaveholder between the Potomac and the mouth of the Mississippi, that would not burn to pounce upon them with bludgeons, bowie-knives and pistols! Yes, without adding another word, Washington would be mobbed for what he has already said. Were Jefferson now employed as a professor in a Southern college, he would be dismissed and driven from the State, perhaps murdered before he reached the border.

If Patrick Henry were a bookseller in Alabama, though it might be demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had never bought, sold, received, or presented, any kind of literature except Bibles and Testaments, he would first be subjected to the ignominy of a coat of tar and feathers, and then limited to the option of unceremonious expatriation or death. How seemingly impossible are these statements, and yet how true!

Where do we stand? What is our faith? Are we a flock without a shepherd? a people without a prophet? a nation without a government? Has the past, with all its glittering monuments of genius and patriot ism, furnished no beacon by which we may direct our footsteps in the’ future? If we but prove true to ourselves, and worthy of our ancestry, we have nothing to fear; our Revolutionary sires have devised and bequeathed to us an almost perfect national policy. Let us cherish, and defend, and build upon, the fundamental principles of that polity, and we shall most assuredly reap the golden fruits of unparalleled power, virtue and prosperity. Heaven forbid that a desperate faction of proslavery mountebanks should succeed in their infamous efforts to quench the 91 la

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92 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. spirit of liberty, which our forefathers infused into those two sacred charts of our political faith, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States. Oligarchal politicians are alone responsible for the continuance of African slavery in the South. For purposes of self-aggrandizement, they have kept learning and civilization from the people; they have willfully misinterpreted the national compacts and have outraget their own consciences by declaring to their illiterate constituents, that the Founders of the Republic were not abolitionists. When the dark clouds of slavery, error and ignorance shall have passed away,-and we believe the time is near at hand when they are to be dissipated,-the freemen of the South, like those of other sections, will learn the glorious truth, that inflexible opposition to Human Bondage has formed one of the distinguishing characteristics of every really good or great man that our country has produced. Nonslaveholders of the South! up to the present period, neither as a body, nor as individuals, have you ever had an independent existence; but, if true to yourselves and to the memory of your fathers, you, in equal copartnership with the nonslaveholders of the North, will soon become the honored rulers and proprietors of the most powerful, prosperous, virtuous, free, and peaceful nation, on which the sun has ever shone. Already has the time arrived for you to decide upon what basis you will erect your political superstructure. Upon whom will you depend for an equitable and judicious form of constitutional government? Whom will you designate as models for your future statesmen?

Your choice lies between the dead and the living-between the Washingtons, the Jeffersons and the Madisons of the past, and the Quattlebums, the Iversons and the Slidells of the present. We have chosen; choose ye, remembering that freedom or slavery is to be the issue of your option. As the result of much reading and research, and at the expenditure of no inconsiderable amount of time, labor and money, we now proceed to make known the antislavery sentiments of those noble abolitionists, the Fathers of the Republic, whose liberal measures of public policy have been so criminally perverted by the treacherous advocates of slavery. Let us listen, in the first place, to the voice of him who was “first in war, first in peace, and first inu the hearts of his countrymen,” to T-HE vOICE

OF WAsuIIGToN. In a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 9th, 1786, General Washington says: ” I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among myfirst wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery, in this country, may be abolished by law.”

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. In a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12, 1786, he says: “I hope it will not be conceived from these observations that it is my wish to hold the unhappy people who are the subject of this letter in Slavery. I can only say, that there is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.” He says, in a letter “6 To the MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE: April 5th, 1783. “The scheme, my dear Marquis, which you propose as a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people in this country from the state of bondage in which they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work; but will defer going into a detail of the business till I have the pleasure of seeing you.” In another letter to Lafayette, he says: ” The benevolence of your heart, rmy dear Marquis, is so conspicuous on all occasions, that I never wonder at any fresh proofs of it; but your late purchase of an estate in the Colony of Cayenne, with the view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country.” In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he further said: “There are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Virginia nor Maryland have at present, but which nothing is more certain than they must have, and at a period not remote.” In a letter to Charles Pinckney, Governor of South Carolina, on the 17th of March, 1792, he says: “-I must say that I lament the decision of your Legislature upon the question of importing slaves after March, 1793. I was in hopes that motives of policy, as well as other good reasons, supported by the direful effects of Slavery, which at this moment are presented, would have operated to produce a total prohibition of the importation of slaves, whenever the question came to be agitated in any State that might be interested in the measure.” From his last wfill and testament we make the following extract: ” Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their intermixture by marriage with the dower negroes, as to excite the most painful sensation, if not disagreeable consequences, from the latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor, it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the dower negroes are held, to manuminit them.” It is said that, “when Mrs. Washington learned, from the will of her deceased husband, that the only obstacle to the immediate perfection of this provision was her right of dower, she at once gave it up, and tho slaves were made free.” A man might possibly concentrate within him self more real virtue and influence than ever Washington possessed, and yt he would not be too good for such a wife. 93

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94 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. From the Father of his Country, we now turn to the author of the Declaration of Independence. We will listen to THE VOICE OF JEFFERSON. On the 39th and 40th pages of his “Notes on Virginia,’” Jefferson says: “There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people, produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive, either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion to wards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions, and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permit ting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patrie of the other; for if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must look up the faculties of his nature, contribute, as far as depends on his individual endeavors, to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry is also destroyed; for, in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion, indeed, are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis-a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? that they are not to be violated but by his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference!

The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.” While Virginia was yet a Colony, in 1774, she held a Convention to appoint delegates to attend the first general Congress, which was to assemble, and did assemble, in Philadelphia, in September of the same year. Before that convention, Mr. Jefferson made an exposition of the rights of British America, in which he said: “The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant State. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves, it is necessary to exclude further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty’s negative; thus preferring the immediate advantage of a few African corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice.” In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, of which it is well known he was the author, we find this charge against the King of Great Britain:

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. He., has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incurt’ miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the oppro-

/ brium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain Determined to keep a market where men should be bought and sold, he has,t length prostituted his negative for suppressing any legislative attempt to prohibit and restrain this execrable commerce.” Hear him further; he says: ” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Under date of August 7th, 1785, in a letter to Dr. Price, of London, he says: “

Northward of the Chesapeake you may find, here and there, an opponent of your doctrine, as you may find, here and there, a robber and murderer; but in no great number. Emancipation is put into such a train, that in a few years there will be no slaves northward of Maryland. In Maryland I do not find such a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity, as in Virginia. This is the next State to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression; a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily recruits from the influx into office of young men grown up, and growing up. These have sucked in the principles of liberty, as it were, with their mother’s milk; and it is to them I look with anxiety to turn the fate of the question.”

In another letter, written to a friend in 1814, he made use of the following language: “Your favor of July 31st was duly received, and read with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments do honor to the head and heart of the writer. Mine on the subject of the slavery of negroes have long since been in the possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.” Again, he says: “What an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment. and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty; and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow man a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.” Throughout the South, at the present day, especially among slaveholders, negroes are almost invariably spoken of as “goods and chattels,” “property,” “human cattle.” In our first quotation from Jefferson’s works, we have seen that he spoke of the blacks as citizens.

We shall now hear him speak of them as brethren. He says: ” We must wait with patience the workings of an overruling Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of these our brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full, when their groans shall have involved Heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress. Nothig is more certainly written in the Book 6f Fate, than that this peolfe shall be t. 95 t

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96 SOUTIHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. In a letter to James Heaton, on this same subject, dated May 20, 1826, only six weeks before his death, he says: I”My sentiments have been forty years before the public. Had I repeated them forty times, they would have only become the more stale and threadbare. Although I shall not live to see them consummated, they will not die with rae.” From the Father of the Declaration of Independence, we now turn to th6 Father of the Constitution. We will listen to THE VOICE OF

MADISON. In the Convention that drafted the Constitution, Mr. Madison ‘

Thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.” Advocating the abolition of the slave-trade, as we find in the 42d No. of the Federalist, he said: “It were, doubtless, to be wished, that the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves, had not been postponed until the year 1808, or rather, that it had been sutfferedc to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to account, either for this restriction on the general government, or for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever within these States, a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that period it will receive a considerable discouragement from the Federal Government, and may be totally abolished by a concurrence of the few States which continue the unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example which has been given by so great a majority of the Union.” In the 39th No. of the Federalist, he says: ” The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the governwent be strictly Republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America, and with the fundamental principles of the Revolution, or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.” Again, he contends that: ” Where slavery exists, the Republican theory becomes still more fallacious.” On another occasion, he says: “We have seen the mere distinction of color made, in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” THE VOICE OF MONROE. In a speech in the Virginia Convention, Mr. Monroe said: “We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States in which it has existed.” THE VOICE OF HENRY. Tho eloquent Patrick Henry, in a letter dated January 18, 1778, asks

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SOUTHERN TESTIMOlY AGAINXST SLAVERY. ” Is it not a little surprising that the professors of Christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong? What adds to the wonder is, that this abominabhie practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times that seem to ave pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences,’ and refined morality, have brought into general nse, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested. Is it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country above all otheri fond of liberty-that in such an age and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the most mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopting such a principle, as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to liberty? Every thinking, honest man rejects it in speculation. How free in practice from conscientious motives! Would any one believe that I am master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable mn conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them. I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.

Everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished-for reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is the furthest advance we can make toward justice. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religioin. to show that it is at variance with that law which warrants slavery.” Again, this great orator says “It would rejoice my very soul, that every one of my fellow-beings was eman cipated. We oughht to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow-. men in bondage. Believe me; I shall honor thie Quakers for their noble efforts to abolish slavery.” THE VOICE OF RHATDOLPH. That very eccentric genius, John Randolphl, of Roanoke, in a letter to William Gibbons, in 1820, says: “With unfeigned respect and regard, and as sincere a deprecation on the extension of slavery and its horrors, as any other man, be him whom he may, I am your friend, in the literal sense of that much abused word. I say much abused, because it is applied to the leagues of vice and avarice and ambition, instead of good will toward man from love of him who is the Prince of Peace.” While in Congress, he said: “

Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from the North who rises here to defend slavery on principle.” It is well known that he emancipated all his negroes. The following lines from his will are well worth perusing and preserving: :’ I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the deepest regret to ine that the circumstances under which I inherited them, siad the ob.atacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land, have prevented yllv emancip)ating them in my lifetime, which it is my full intention to do in case I can accomplish it.” THOMAS M.

RANDOLPH. In an address to the Virginia Legislature, in 1820, Gov.

Randolph said: “We have been far oatstripped by States to whom nature has been fOr less 5 97

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SO UTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. oountiful. It is painful to consider what might have been, under other ciicunm stances, the amount of general wealth in Virginia.” THIOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPt. In 1832, Mr. Randolph, of Albemarle, in the Legislature of Virginia, used the following most graphic and emphatic language: “I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of arming the State for internal defince. I will unite with them in any effort to restore confidence to the public mnind, and to conduce to the sense of the safety of our wives and our children. Yet, sir, I must ask upon whom is to fall the burden of this defence? Not upon the lordly masters of their hundred slaves, who will never turn out except to retire with their families when danger threatens. No, sir; it is to fall upon the less wealthy class of our citizens, chiefly upon the nonslaveholder. I have known patrols turned out when there was not a slaveholder among them; and this is the practice of the country. I have slept in times of alarm quiet in bed, without having a thought of care, while these individuals, owning none of this propertythemselves, were patrolling under a compulsory process, for a pittance of seventyfive cents for twelve hours, the very curtilage of my house, and guarding that property which was alike dangerous to them and myself. After all, this is but an expedient. As this population becomes more numerous, it becomes less productive. Your guard must be increased, until finally its profits will not pay for the expense of its subjection. Slavery has the effect of lessening the free population of a country. “The gentleman has spoken of the increase of the female slaves being a part of the profit. It is admitted; but no great evil can be averted, no good attained, without some iiconvenience. It may be questioned how far it is desirable to foster and encourage this branch of profit. It is a practice, and an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this Ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles? Is it better, is it not worse, than the slave trade-that trade wlhich enlisted the labor of the good and wise of every creed, and every clime, to abolish it? The trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect, and rnainers, from the merchant who has brought him from the interior. The ties of father, mother, husband, and child, have all been rent in twain; before he receives him, his soul has become callous. But here, sir, individuals whom the master has known firom infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of childhood, who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from the mother’s arms and sells into a strange country among strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters. “i He has attempted to justify slavery here, because it exists in Africa, and has stated that it exists all over the world. Upon the same principle he could justify Mlahometanism, with its plurality of wives, petty wars for plunder, robbery, and murder, or any other of the abominations and enormities of savage tribes. Does slavery exist in any part of civilized Europe? No, sir, in no part of it.” PEYTON RANDOLPIH. On the 20th of October, 1774-, while Congress was in session in Philadelphia, Peytori RaPndolph, President, the following resolution, among others, was unanimously adopted: ‘ That we will neithler import nor purchase any slaves imported after the first day of December next; aftie which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be coucernel in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or mainufctures, to those who are concerned in it.” EDMUND RANDOLPIR. The Constitution of the United States contains the following proviion: I No person held to service or labor in another State, under the laws thereof.

escaping to another, shall, in consequence, of any law or regulation therein, be dim

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. charged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” To the studious attention of those Vandals who contend that the above provision requires the rendition of fugitive slaves, we respectfully commend the following resolution, which, it will be observed, was unaaii mously adopted: “On motion of Mr. Randolph, the word’

servitude’ was struck out, and’ service’ unanimously inserted-the former being thought to express the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligation of free persons.”-Madison Papers, vol. iii. p. 1569. Well done for the Randolphs! THE VOICE OF CLAY. Henry Clay, whom nearly everybody loved, and at the mention of whose name the American heart always throbs with emotions of grateful remembrance, said, in an address before the Kentucky Colonization Society, in 1829: “It is believed that nowhere in the farming portion of the United States would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprietor were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern market, which keeps it up in his own.” In the United States Senate, in 1850, he used the following memo rable words: “I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Mississippi say that he requires, first the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific and also that he is not satisfied with that, but requires, if I understand him correctly, a positive provision for the admission of slavery south of that line. And now, sir, coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Coming as I do fiom a slave State, it is my solenmn, deliberate and wellmatured determination that no power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly, too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and of New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If the citizens of those territories choose to establish slavery, and if they come here with constitutions establishing slavery, I am for admitting them with such provisions in theie constitutions; but then it will be their own work, and not ours, and their posterity will have to reproach them, and not us, for forming constitutions allowing the institution of slavery to exist among them. These are my views, sir, and I choose to express them; and I care not how extensively or universally they are known.” Hear him further; he says: ” So long as God allows the vital current to flow through my veins, I will never, never, never, by word or thought, by mind or will, aid in admitting one rood of free territory to the everlasting curse of human bondage.” Blest is the memory of noble Harry of the West! THE VOICE OF

BENTON. In his “Thirty Years’ View,” Thomas H. Benton says: 1MAy opposition to the extension of saiverv dates furlther back than 1844- -
forty years further back; and as this is a suitahile tamn for a general declaration. and 99 I I

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SOUTHEEN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. a sort of general conscience delivery, I will say that my opposition to it dates from 1804, when I was a student at law in the State of Tennessee, and studied the subject of African slavery in an American book-a Virginian book-Tucker’s edition ofBlackstone’s Commentaries.” Again, in a speech delivered in St. Louis, on the 3dof November, 1856, he says: “I look at white people, and not at black ones; I look to the peace and reputation of the race to which I belong. I look to the peace of this land-the world’s last hope for a free government on the earth. One of the occasions on which I saw Henry Clay rise higher than I thought I ever saw him before, was when in the debate on the admission of California, a dissolution was apprehended if slavery was not carried into this Territory, where it never was. Then Mr. Clay rising, loomed colossally in the Senate of the United States, as he rose declaring that for no earthly purpose, no earthly object, could he carry slavery into places where it did not exist before. It was a great and proud day for Mr. Clay, toward the latter days of his life, and if an artist could have been there to catch his expression as he uttered that sentiment, with its reflex on his face, and his countenance beaming with firmness of purpose, it would have been a glorious moment in which to transmit him to posterity his countenance all alive and luiminous with the ideas that beat in his bosom. That was a proud day. I could have wished that I had spoken the same words. I speak them now, telling you they were his, and adopting them as my own.” TIlE vOICE OF MASON. Colonel Mason, a leading and distinguished member of the Convention that formed the Constitution, from Virginia, when the provision for prohibiting the importation of slaves was under consideration, baia: “The present question concerns not the importing States alone, but the whole Union. Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor dlbpise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on nianners.

Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities. He lamented that some of our Eastern brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefarious traffic. As to the States being in possession of the right to import, this was the case with many other rights now to be properly given up. He held it essential, in every point of view, that the General Government should have power to prevent the increase of slavery.” THE

VOICE OF MCDOWELL. In 1832, Gov. McDowell used this language in the Virginia Legislature: “Who that looks to this unhappy bondage of an unhappy people, in the midst of our society, and thinks of its incidents or issues, but weeps over it as a curse as great upon him who inflicts it as upon him who suffers it? Sir, you may place the slave where you please-you may dry up, to your uttermost, the fountains of his feelings, the springs of his thought-you may close upon his mind every avenue of knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial night-you may yoke him to your labors, as the ox, which liveth only to work and worketh only to live-you may put him under any process which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational being-you may do this, and the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality-it is the ethereal part of his nature which oppression cannot rend. It is a torch lit up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of man.” THIIE VOICE

OF IREDELL. In the debates of the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredel], afterwards a Judge of the UJnited States Supreme Court, said: 100

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVEIT Y. ” When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind, and every friend of human nature.” THE VOICE OF PIINKEY.

William Pinkney, of Maryland, in the House of Delegates in that State, in 1789, made several powerful arguments in favor of the abolitioin of slavery. Here follows a brief extract from one of his speeches: “Iniquitous and most dishonorable to Maryland, is that dreary system of partia. bondage which her laws have hitherto supported with a solicitude worthy of a better object, and her citizens, by their practice countenanced. Founded in a disgraceful traffic, to which the parent country lent its fostering aid, from motives of interest, but which even she would have disdained to encourage, had England been the destined mart of such inhuman merchandise, its continuance is as shameful as its origin.

I have no hope that the stream of general liberty will forever flow unpolluted through the mire of partial bondage, or that they who have been habituated to lord it over others, will not, in time, become base enough to let others lord it over them. If they resist, it will be the struggle of pride and selfishness, not of principle.” THE VOICE OF LEIGII. In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Leigh said: “I thought till very lately that it was known to everybody that, during the Re volution, and for many years after, the abolition of slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen, who entertained with respect all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity could suggest for its accomplishment.” THE VOICE

OF MARSUALL. Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier, said, in the Virginia Legislature, in 1832: “Wherefore, then, object to slavery? Because it is ruinous to the whitesretards improvements, roots out an industrious population, banishes the yeomanry of the country-deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and support.” THE VOICE OF BOLLING. Philip A. Bolling, of Buckingham, a member of the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, said: “The time will come-and it may be sooner than many are willing to believewhen this oppressed and degraded race cannot be held as they now are-when a change will be effected, abhorrent, Mr. Speaker, to you, and to the feelings of every good man. “The wounded adder will recoil, and sting the foot that tramples upon it. The day is fast approaching, when those who oppose all action upon this subject, and, instead of aiding in devising some feasible plan for freeing their country from an acknowledged curse, cry’ impossible,’ to every plan suggested, will curse their perverseness, and lament their folly.” THE VOICE OF CHANDLER. Mr. Chandler, of Norfolk, member of the Virginia Legislature, in 1832, took occasion to say: “It is admitted, by all who have addressed this House, that slavery is a curse, and an increasing one. That it has been destructive to the lives of our citizens, history, with unerring truth, will record. That its future increase will crealv com motion, cannot be doubted,’ 101

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102 SOUTHERN TESTIOIqON Y AGAINST SLAVERY. THE VOICE OF SUMMERS. Mr.

Summers, of Kanawha, member of the Legislature of VLrginia, in 1832, said: “The evils of this system cannot be enumerated. It were unnecessary to attempt it. They glare upon us at every step. When the owner looks to his wasted estate, he knows and feels them.” THE VOICE OF PRESTON. In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Preston said: ” Sir, Mr. Jefferson, whose hand drew the preamble to the Bill of Rights, has eloquently remarked that we had invoked for ourselves the benefit of a principle which we had denied to others. He saw and felt that slaves, as men, were embraced within this principle.” THE VOICE OF BIRNEY. James G. Birney, of Kentucky, under whom the Abolitionists first became a Nationial Party, and for whom they voted for President in 1844, giving him 66,304 votes, says: ” I allow not to human laws, be they primary or secondary, no matter by what numbers, or with what solemnities ordaiued, the least semblance of right to establish slavery, to make property of my fellow, created, equally with myself, in the image of God. Individually, or as political communities, men have no more right to enact slavery, than they have to enact murder or blasphemy, or incest or adultery. To establish slavery is to dethrone right, to trample on justice, the only true foundation of government. Governments exist not for the destruction of liberty, but for its defence; not for the annihilation of men’s rights, but their preservation. Do they incorporate in their organic law the element of injustice?-_do they live by adlmitting it in practice? Then do they destroy their own foundation, and absolve all men from the duty of allegiance. Is any man so besotted as, for a moment, to suppose that the slaveholder has an atom of right to his slave; as that the slave has resting on him an atom of obligation to obey the laws that enslave him, that rob him of everything-of himself? No one; else why do all just men of all countries rejoice when they hear that the oppressed of any country have achieved their liberty, at whatever cost to their tyrants?” THE VOICE

OF DELAWARE Strong antislavery sentiments had become popular in D)elaware as early as 1785. With Maryland and Missouri, it may now be ranked as merely a semi-slave State. Mr. McLane, a member of Congress from this State, in:1825, said: ” I shall not imitate the example of other gentlemen by making professions of my love of liberty and abhorrence of slavery, not, however, because I do not entertain them. I am an enemy to slavery.”

THE VOICE OF MARYLAND. Slavery has little vitality in Maryland. Baltimore, the greatest clty of the South-greatest because freest-has a population of more than two hundred thousand souls, and yet less than three thousand of these are slaves. In spite of all the unjust and oppressive statutes enacted by the oligarchy, the nonslaveholders, who with the exception of a small number of slaveholding emancipationists, may in truth be said to be the

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SOUTIHERN TESTIMONY AGAILNST SLAVL”RY. on-y class of really respectable and patriotic citizens in the South, have wisely determined that their noble State shall be freed from the sin and the shame, the crime and the curse of slavery; and in accordance with this determination, long since formed, they are giving every possible encouragement to free white labor, thereby, very properly, rendering the labor of slaves both unprofitable and disgraceful. The formation of an Abolition Society in this State, in 1789, was the result of the influence of the masterly speeches delivered in the Ho-ase of Delegates, by the Ilon. William Pinkney, whose undying testimony we have already placed on record. Nearly seventy years ago, this eminent lawyer and statesman declared to the people of America, that if they did not mark out the bounds of slavery, and adopt measures for its total extinction, it would finally ” work a decay of the spirit of liberty in the free States.” Further, he said that, “by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage a single hour.” In 1787, Luther Martin, of this State, said: “

Slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates us to tyranny and oppression.” THIE VOICE OF VIRGINIA. After introducing the unreserved and immortal testimony of Wash ington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and the other great men of the Old Dominion, against the institution of slavery, it may, to some, seem quite superfluous to back the cause of Freedom by arguments from other Virginia abolitionists; but this State, notwithstanding all her more modern manners and inhumanity, has been so prolific of just views and noble sentiments, that we deem it eminently fit and proper to blazon many of them to the world as the redeeming features of her history. An Abolition Society was formed in this State in 1791. In a memorial which the members of this Society presented to Congress, they pronounced slavery “not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the Gospel.” A Bill of Rights, unanimously agreed upon by the Virginia Convention of June 12, 1776, holds ” That all men are, by nature, equally free and independent; “That Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, proteonion, and security, of the People, Nation, or Community; “That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people in assembly ought to be free; “That all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property, for public uses, without their own consent or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not in like manner assented, for the public good; ” That the freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of Liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments; “That no free Government or the blessing of Liberty can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” 1.03

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SO ()UTHi /L TlESITIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. The “‘Virginia Socicty for the Abolition of Slavery,’” organized in 1791 addressed Conrgcc; in these words: ” Your memoriatists, filly aware that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the Gospel, which breathes’ peace on earth and good will to men,’ lament that a practice so inconsistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men, should sulbsist in so enlightened an a’e, and amonog a people professing that all mankind are, by nature, equally entitled to freedom.” TzE VOICE OF NOnTs CAROLINA. If the question, Slavery or No Slavery, could be fairly presented for the decision of the legal voters of North Carolina at the next popular election, we believe that at least two-thirds of them would deposit the No Slavery ticket. Perhaps one-fourth of the slaveholders themselves would vote it, for the slaveholders in this State are more moderate, decent, sensible, and honorable, than the slaveholders in either of the adjoining States, or the States further South; and we know that miany of them are heartily ashamed of the disreputable occupations of slaveholding and slavebreeding in which they are engaged, for we have had the assurance from many of their own lips. As a matter of course, all the nonslaveholders, who are so greatly in the majority, would vote to suppress the degrading system, which has kept them so long in poverty and ignorance, with the exception of those who are complete automatons to the beck and call of their imperious lords and masters, the major-generals of the oligarchy. How long shall it be before the citizens of North Carolina shall have the privilege of expressing, at the ballot-box, their true sentiments with regard to this vexed question? Why not decide it at the next general election? Sooner or later, it must and will be decided-decided correctly, too-and the sooner the better. The first Southern State that abolishes slavery will do herself an immortal honor.

God grant that North Carolina may be that State, and soon! There is at least one plausible reason whl-y this good old State should be the first to move in this important matter, and we will state it. On the 20th of May, 1775, just one year, one month and fourteen days prior to the adoption of the Jeffersonian Declaration of Independence, by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, July 4, 17T76, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the authorship of which is generally attributed to Ephraim Breyard, was proclaimed in Charlotte, Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, and fully ratified in a second Convention of the people of said county, held on the 31st of the same month. And here, by the way, we may remark, that it is supposed that Mr. Jefferson made use of this last-mentioned document as the basis of his draft of the indestructible title-deed of our liberties. There is certainly an identicalness of language between the two papers that is well calculated to strengthen this hypothesis 104

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SOUTHERN TESTIMIONY AGAINST SLAVERY. This, however, is a controversy about which we are but little concerned. For present purposes, it is, perhaps, enough for us to know, that on the 20th of May, 1776, when transatlantic tyranny and oppression could no longer be endured, North Carolina set her sister colonies a most valorous and praiseworthy example, and that they followed it. To her infamous slaveholding sisters of the South, it is now meet that she should set another noble example of decency, virtue, and independence. Let her at once inaugurate a policy of common justice and humanityenact a system of equitable laws, having due regard to the rights and interests of all classes of persons, poor whites, negroes, and nabobs, and the surrounding States will ere long applaud her measures, and adopt similar ones for the governance of themselves. Another reason, and a cogent one, why North Carolina should aspire to become the first free State of the South is this: The first slave State that makes herself respectable by casting out the “mother of harlots,” and by rendering enterprise and industry honorable, will immediately receive a large accession of most worthy citizens from other States in the Union, and thus lay a broad foundation of permanent political powel and prosperity.

Intelligent white farmers from the Middle and New England States will flock to our more congenial clime, eager to give thirty dollars per acre for the very lands that are now a drug in the market because nobody wants them at the rate of five dollars per acro an immediate and powerful impetus will be given to commerce, manim factures, and all the industrial arts; science and literature will be revived, and every part of the State will reverberate with the triumphs of manual and intellectual labor. In a pecuniary point of view, we of North Carolina are, at this present time, worth less than either of the four adjoining States; let us abolishi slavery at the beginning of the next regular decade of years, and if our example is not speedily followed, we shall, on or before the 4th of July, 1876, be enabled to purchase the whole of Virginia and South Caroiria, including, perhaps, the greater part of Georgia. An exclusive lease of liberty for ten years would unquestionably make us the Empire State of the South. But we have no disposition to debar others from the enjoyment of liberty or any other inalienable right; we ask no special favor; what we demand for ourselves we are willing to concede to our neighbors. Hereby we make application for a lease of freedom for ten years; shall we have it?

May God enable us to secure it, as we believe Hie will. We give fair notice, however, that if we get it for ten years, we shall, with the approbation of Heaven, keep it twentyforty-a thousand-forever! We transcribe the Mecklenburg Resolutions, which, it will be ob. served, acknowledge the {‘ inherent and inalienable rights of man,” and “d(ecl,are ourselves a free and independent people, are, and of ight 105 r) *

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SOUTIIHERN TESTIUONY AGAINST SLAVERY. ought to be, a sovereign and seli governing association, under the con trol of no poster other than that of our God, and the general govern ment of the Congress.” MECKLENBURR

DECLAtATIO.N OF INDEPENDENCE, As proclaimed in the town of Charlotte, North Carolina, May 20th, 1775, and ratified by the County of Mecklenburg, in Convention, May 31st, 1775. “1 I. Resolved-That whosoever, dlii ectly or indirectly, abetted, or in any way, form or manner, countenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights as claimed by Great Britaii, is an enemy to this country, to America, and to the inherent and inalienab’e rights of man. “II. Resolved-That we the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connection, contract or association with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on oar rights and liberties, anid inhumanly shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington. ” IIL. Resolved-That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing association, under the control of no power other than that of our God, and the general govern meit of the Congress; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor. “

IV. Resolved-That as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this county, we do hereby ordain an(I adopt, as a rule of life, all, each, and every of our former laws-wherein, nevertheless, the crown of Great Britai-a never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities or authority therein.” Had it not been for slavery, which, with all its other blighting and degrading influences, stifles and subdues every noble impulse of the heart, this consecrated spot would long since have been marked by an enduring monument, whose grand proportions should bear witness that the virtues of a noble ancestry are gratefully remembered by an emulous anid appreciative posterity. Yet, even as things are, we are not without genuine consolation. The star of hope and promise is beginning to beam brightly over the long-obscured horizon of the South; and we are firm in the belief, that freedom, wealth, and magnanimity, will soon do justice to the memory of those fearless patriots, whose fair fame has been suffered to molder amidst the multifarious abominations of slavery, poverty, ignorance and grovelling selfishness. In the Provincial Convention held in North Carolina, in Aug,iis’, 1774, in which there were sixty-nine delegates, representing’;“a’ily every county in the province, it was “

Resolved-That we wll not import any slave or slaves, or purchase any slave or slaves imported or brought into the Province by others, from any part of the world, after the first day of November next.” In Iredell’s Statutes, revised by Martin, it is stated that, “In North Carolina, no general law at all was passed, prior to the Revolution declaring who might he slaves.” I.(“),u

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SOUTIIERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. That there is no legal slavery in the Southern States, and that slavery nowhere can be legalized, any more than theft, arson or murder can be legalized, has been virtually admitted by some of the most profound Southern jurists themselves; and we will here digress so far as to fur nish the testimony of one or two eminent lawyers, not of North Caroina, upon this point. In the debate in the United States Senate, in 1850, on the Fugitive Slave Bill, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, objected to Mr. Dayton’s amendment, providing for a trial by jury, because, said he ” A trial by jury necessarily carries with it a trial of the whole right, and a trial of the right to service will be gone into, according to all the forms of the Court, in determining upon any other fact. Then, again, it is proposed, as a part of the proof to be adduced at the hearing, after the fugitive has been recaptured, that evi deuce shall be brought by the clainiant to show that slavery is established in the State from which the fugitive has absconded. Now this very thing, in a recent case in the city of New York, was required by one of the judges of that State, which case attracted the attention of the authorities of Maryland, and against which they protested. In that case the State judge went so far as to say that the only mode of proving it was by reference to the Statute book. Such proof is required in tise Senator’s amendment; and if he means by tiis that proof shall be brought that slavery is established by existing laws, it is impossible to comply with the requisition, for no such law can be produced, I apprehend, in any of the slave States. I am not aware that there is a single State in which the institution is established by positive law.’ Judge Clarke, of Mississippi says: ” In this State the legislature have considered slaves as reasonable and accountable beings; and it should be a stigma upon the character of the State, and a reproach to the administration of justice, if the life of a slave could be taken with impunity, or if he could be murdered in cold blood, without subjecting the offender to the highest penalty known to the criminal jurisprudence of the country. Has the slave no rights, because he is deprived of his freedom? He is still a human being, and possesses all those rights of which he is not deprived by the positive provisions of the law. The right of the master exists not by force of the law of nature or nations, but by virtue only of the positive law of the State.” The Hon.

Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, says: ” Arguments drawn from the well-established principles, which confer and restrain the authority of the parent over the child, the tutor over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have been pressed on us. The Court does not recognize their application; there is no likeness between the cases; they are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them.

The difference is that which exists between freedom and slavery, and a greater cannot be imaginmd In the one, the end in view is the happiness of the youth, born to equal rights wi th that governor on whom the duty devolves of training the young to usefulness iii t station which he is afterward to assume among freemen. To such an end, e jd f with such a subject, moral and intellectual instruction seem the natural means, and, for the most part, they are found to suffice. Moderate force is superadded only to make the others effectual. If that fail, it is better to leave the party to his own headstrong passions, and the ultimate correction of the law, than to allow it to be immoderately inflicted by a private person.

With slavery it is far otherwise. The en I is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety; the subject, one do med, in his own person and his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make anything his own and to toil that another may reap the frlits. What mnoral considerations shall be addressed to such a being to convince him, what it is impossible but that the most stupid must feel and know can never be true, that he is thus to labor upon a principle of natural duty, or for the sake of his own personal happiness? Such sewvices can only be expected from one who has no will of his own; who surrenders his will in implicit obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over ths body. There is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect. The power 107

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SOUTiHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect. most freely confess my sense of the harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man can; and as a principle of moral right, every person in hts retirement must repudiate it.” An esteemed friend, a physician, who was born and bred in Rowan country, North Carolina, and who now resides there, informs us that Judge Gaston, who was one of the half dozen statesmen whom the South has produced since the days of the venerable fathers of the Republic, was an avowed abolitionist, and that he published an address to the p)eople of North Carolina, delineating, in a masterly manner, the material, moral and social disadvantages of slavery. Where is that address? Has it been suppressed by the oligarchy? The fact that slaveholders have, from time to time, made strenuous efforts to expunge the sentiments of freedom which now adorn the works of nobler men than the noble Gaston, may, perhaps, fully account for the oblivious state into which his patriotic effort seems to have fallen. NOTE.-Three or four months after the above was published-up to which timne this work in its first form had passed through several editions-Prof. Hedrick had the kindness to hand us the address, delivered, many years ago, before the Literary Societies of the University of North Carolina, by Judge Gaston, who, with much force, says: “Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement. It stifles industry and represses enterprise-it is fatal to economy and providenceit discourages skill-impairs our strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountain head. How this evil is to be encountered, how subdued, is indeed a difficult and delicate inquiry, which this is not the time to examine, nor the occasion to discuss. I felt, however, that I could not discharge my duty, without referring to this subject, as one which ought to engage the prudence, moderation, and firmness of those who sooner or later, must act decisively upon it.” In the course of an oration which he delivered in 1830, Benjamin Swaim, a,n eminent lawyer of North Carolina, asks  “Is it nothing to us, that seventeen hundred thousand of the people of our country are doomed illegally to the most abject and vile slavery that was ever toler-t-ed on the face of the earth? Are Carolinians deaf to the piercing cries of hi inanity? Are they insensible to the demands of justice? Let any man of spirit at;4 feeling for a moment cast his thoughts over the land of slavery-think of the e aedness of some, the hungry yearnings of others, the flowing tears and heaving sighs of parting relations, the wailings of lamentation and woe, the bloody cut of tile kleen lash, and the frightful scream that rends the very skies-and all this to gratify ambition, lust, pride, avarice, vanity. and other depraved feelings of the human heart.

Indeed the worst is not generally known. Were all the miseries, the horrors of slavery, to burst at once into view, a peal of sevenfold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm.” THE VOICE OF SOuTr CAROLINA.

Poor South Carolina! Folly is her nightcap; fanaticism is her daydream; fire-eating is her pastime. She has lost her better judgment; the dictates of reason and philosophy have no influence upon her 1108

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. actions. Like the wife who is pitiably infatuated with a drunken, worthless husband, she still clings, with unabated love, to the cause of her shame, her misery, and her degradation.

A Kentucl-ian has recently expressed his opinion of this State in the following language: ” South Carolina is bringing herself irrecoverably into public contempt. It is impossible for any’impartial lover of his country, for any just, thinking man, to witness her senseless and quenchless malignancy against the Union without the most immeasurable disgust and scorn. She is one vast hot-bed of disunion. Her people think and talk of nothing else. She is a festering mass of treason.” In 1854, there were assessed for taxation in South Carolina, Acres of Land………………………………….. 17,289,359 Valued at………………………………………..$22,836,374 Average value per acre……………………………. $1 32 At the same time there were in New Jersey, Acres of Land…………………………………..

5,324,800 Valued
at……………………………………….$153,161,619 Average value per acre……………………………. $28 76 We hope the slaveholders will look, first on that picture, and then on this; from one or the other, or both, they may glean a ray or two of wisdom, which, if duily applied, will be of incalculable advantage to them and their posterity. We trust, also, that the nonslaveholding whites will view, with discriminating minds, the different lights audt shades of these two pictures; they are the parties most deeply interested; and it is to them we look for the glorious revolution that is to result in the permanent establishment of Freedom over the last lingering ruins of Slavery. They have the power to retrieve the fallen fortunes of South Carolina, to raise her up from the loathsome sink of iniquity into which slavery has plunged her, and to make her one of the most brilliant stars in the great constellation of States.

While their minds are occupied with other considerations, let them not forget the difference between twenty-eight dollars and seventy-six cents, the value of land per acre in New Jersey, which is a second-rate free State, and one dollar and thirtytwo cents, the value of land per acre in South Carolina, which is, par excellence, the mraodel slave State. The difference between the two sums ‘s twenty-seven dollars and forty-four cents, which would amount to precisely two thousand seven hundred and forty-four dollars on every one hundred acres. To present the subject in another form, the South Carolina tract of land, containing t,wo hundred acres, is worth now only two hundred and sixty-four dollars, and is depreciating every day. Let slavery be abolished, and in the course of a few years, the same tract will be worth five thousand seven hundred and fifty-two dollars, with an upward tendency. At this rate, the increment of voue on the total area of the State will amount to more than three times as much as the estimated value of the slaves! 109

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. South Carolina has not always been, nor will she always continae to be, on the wrong side. From Ramsay’s History of the State, we learn that, in 1774, she “Resolved-That his majesty’s subjects in North America (without respect to -olor or other accidents) are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the Kingdom of Great Britain; that it is their funda mental right, that no man should suffer in his person or property without a fair trial, and judgment given by his peers, or by the law of the land.” During the Revolution, when Baron de Kalb met General Francis Marion, the former expressed amazement that so many “South Caro linians were running to take British protection.” Marion replied: “The people of Carolina form two classes, the rich and the poor. The poor are very poor; the rich, who have slaves to do all their work, give them no employ ment. Unsupported by the rich, they continue poor and low-spirited.

The little they get is laid out in brandy, not in books and newspapers; hence they know no thing of the comparative blessings of our country, or of the dangers which threaten it; therefore they care nothing about it.

The rich are generally very rich; afraid to stir lest the British should burn their houses, and carry off their negroes.” After the war, he estimated that “poor Carolina lost, through her ignorance, $15,000,000; for ignorance begat toryism, and toryism begat losses.” In regard to the importance of educating the people, he said: “Look at the people of New England. Religion has taught them that God created men to be happy; to be happy they muist have virtue; that virtue is not to be attained without knowledge; nor knowledge without instruction: nor public instruction without free schools; nor free schools without legislative order.” One of her early writers, under the nou de plume of Philodemus, in a political pamphlet published in Charleston in 1784, declares that ” Such is the fatal influence of slavery on the human mind, that it almost wholly effaces from it even the boasted characteristic of rationality.” This same writer, speaking of the particular interests of South Carolina, says: “It has been too common with us to search the records of other nations, to find precedents that may give sanction to our own errors, and lead us unwarily into confusion and ruin. It is our business to consult their histories, not with a view to tread right or wrong in their steps, but in order to investigate the real sources of the mischiefs that have befallen them, and to endeavor to escape the rocks which they have all unfortunately split upon. It is paying ourselves but a poor compliment, to say that we are incapable of profiting by others, and that, with all the information which is to be derived from their fatal experience, it is in vain for us to attempt to excel them. I, with all the peculiar advantages of our present situation, we are incapable of surpassing our predecessors, we must be a degenerate race indeed, and quite unworthy of those singular bounties of Heaven, which we are so unskilled or undesirous to turn to our benefit.” A recent number of Frazer’s Magazine contains a well-timed and well-written article from the pen of William Henry Hurlbut of this State; and from it we make the following extract: ” As all sagacious observers of the operation of the system of slavery have demonstrated, the profitable empioyment of slave-labor is inconsistent with the development of agricultural science, and demands a continual supply of new and unexhausted soil The slaveholder, investing his capital in the purchase of the laborers themselves, and not merely in soil and machines, paying his free laborers out of the profit, must depend for his continued and progressive prosperity upon the cheapn(.ss and facility with which he can transfer his slaves to fresh and fertile lands. An enormous ad ditonal item, namely the price of slaves, being added to tio

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. the coo of production, all other elements of that cost require to be proportionably smaller, or profits fail.” In an address delivered before the South Carolina Institute, in Charleston, November 20th, 1856, Mr. B. F. Perry, of Greenville, truthfully says: “It has been South Carolina’s misfortune, in this utilitarian age, to have her greatest talents and most powerful energies directed to pursuits, which avail her nothing, in the way of wealth and prosperity. In the first settlement of a new country, agricultural industry necessarily absorbs all the time and occupation of its inhabitants. They must clear the forests and cultivate the earth, in order to make their bread. This is their first consideration. Then the mechanical arts and manufactures, and commerce, must follow in the footsteps of agriculture, to insure either individual or national prosperity. No people can be highly prosperous without them. No people ever have been. Agriculture, alone, will not make or sustain a great people. The true policy of every people is to cultivate the earth, manufacture its products, and send them abroad, in exchange for those comforts and luxuries, and necessaries, which their own country and their own industry cannot give or make. The dependence of South Carolina on Europe and the Northern States for all the necessaries, comforts and luxuries, which the mechanic arts afford, has, in fact, drained her of her wealth, and made her positively poor, when compared with her sister States of the Confederacy. It is at once mortifying and alarming, to see and reflect on our own dependence in the mechanic arts and manufactures, on strangers and foreigners. In the Northern States their highest talents and energy have been diversified, and more profitably employed in developing the resources of the country, in making new inventions in the mechanic arts, and enriching the community with science and literature, commerce and manufactures.” THE VOICE OF GEORGIA. Of the States strictly Southern, Georgia is, perhaps, the most thrifty. This prosperous condition of the State is mainly ascribable to her hundred thousand free white laborers-more than eighty-three thousand of whom are engaged in agricultural pursuits. In few other slave States are the nonslaveholders so little under the domination of the oligarchy. At best, however, even in the most liberal slave States, the social posi tion of the nonslaveholding whites is but one short step in advance of that of the negroes; and as there is, on the part of the oligarchy, a constantly increasing desire and effort to usurp greater power, the more we investigate the subject the more fully are we convinced that nothing but the speedy and utter annihilation of slavery from the entire nation, can save the masses of white people in the Southern States from ultimately falling to a political level with the blacks-both occupying the most abject and galling condition of servitude of which it is possible for the human mind to conceive. Gen. Oglethorpe, under whose management the Colony of Georgia was settled, in 1733. was bitterly opposed to the institution of slavery. fn a lettelr to Granville Sharp, dated Oct. 13th, 1776, he says: ” My friends and I settled the Colony of Georgia, and by charter were established trustees, to make laws, etc. We determined not to suffer slavery there. But the slave merchants and their adherents occasioned us not only much trouble, but at last got the then government to favor them.

We would not suffer slavery (which is against the Gospel, as well as the fundamental law of England) to be authorized under our authority; we refused, as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime. The government, finding the trustees resolved firmly not to concur with what they believed unjust, took away the charter by which no law could be unaed without our consent.” ill

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. On the 12th of January, 1775, in indorsing the proceedings of the first American Congress, among other resolutions, “the Representatives ot the extensive District of Darien, in the Colony of Georgia,” adopted the following: “5. To show the world that we are not influenced by any contracted or interested motives, but a general philanthropy for all mankind, of whatever climate, language or complexion, we hereby declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of-the unnratural practice of slavery in America (however the uncultivated state of our country or other specious arguments may plead for it), a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our liberties (as well as lives), debasing part of our fellow creatures below men, and corrupting the virtue and morals of the rest; and is laying the basis of that liberty we contended for (and which we pray the Almnighty to continue to the latest posterity), upon a very wrong foundation. We therefore resolve, at all times, to use our utmost endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in this Colony, upon the most safe and equitable footing for the masters and themselves.” The Hon. Mr. Reid, of this State, in a speech delivered in Congress, Feb. 1, 1820, says: “I am not the panegyrist of slavery. It is an unnatural state, a dark cloud, which obscures half the lustre of our free institutions. For my own part, though Surrounded by slavery from mycradle to the present moment, yet ”’ I hate the touch of servile hands, I loathe the slaves who cringe around.’” As an accompaniment to those lines, he might have uttered these: ” I would not have a slave to till my ground; To carry me, to fan me while I sleep And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.” Thus have we presented a comprehensive summary of the most unequivocal and irrefragable testimony of the South against the iniquitous institution of human slavery. What more can we say? What more can we do?

We might fill a folio voluine with similar extracts; but we must forego the task; the remainder of our space must be occupied with other arguments. In the foregoing excerpts is revealed to us, in language too plain to be misunderstood, the important fact that every truly great and good man the South has ever produced, has, with hopeful confidence, looked forward to the time when this entire Continent shall be redeemed from the crime and the curse of slavery. Our noble self-sacrificing forefathlers have performed their part, and performed it well. They have laid us a foundation as enduring as the earth itself; in their dying moments they admonished us to carry out their designs in the upbuilding and completion of the superstructure. Let us obey their patriotic injunctions. From each of the six original Southern States we have introduced the most ardent aspirations for liberty-the most positive condemnations of slavery. From each of the nine slave States which have been admitted into the Union since the organization of the General Government, we could introduce, fi’om several of their wisest and best citizens, anti 112

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SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. slaverysentiments equally as strong and convincing as those that emanated from the great founders of our movement-Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Patrick Henry and the Randolphs.

As we have already remarked, however, the limits of this chapter will not admit of the introduction of additional testimony from either of the old or new slave States. The reader will not fail to observe that, iiL
presenting these solid abolition doctrines of the South, we have been careful to make such quotations as triumphantly refute, in every particular, the more specious sophistries of the oligarchy. The mention of the illustrious names abov-e reminds us of the fact, that many of the party newspapers, whose venal columns are eternally teeming with vituperation and slander, have long assured us that the Whig ship was to be steered by the Washington rudder, that the Democratic bark was to sail with the Jefferson compass, and that the KnowNothing brig was to carry the Madison chart. Imposed upon by these monstrous falsehoods, we have, from time to time, been induced to engage passage on each of these corrupt and rickety old hulks; but, in every instance, we have been basely swamped in the sea of slavery, and are alone indebted for our lives to the kindness of Heaven and the art of swimming. Washington the founder of the Whig party! Jefferson the founder of the Democratic party! Voltaire the founder of ChristianityI How absurd I God forbid that man’s heart should always continue to be the citadel of deception-that he should ever be to others the antipode of what he is to himself. There is now in this country but one well-organized party that pro mises, in good faith, to put in practice the principles of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the other venerable Fathers of the Republic the Republican party. To this party we pledge unswerving allegiance, so long as it shall continue to pursue the statism advocated by the great political prototypes above-mentioned, but no longer. We believe it is, as it ought to be, the desire, the determination, and the destiny of this party, to give the death-blow to slavery; should future developments prove the party at variance with this belief-a belief, by the by, which it has recently inspired in the breasts of little less than one and a half million of the most intelligent and patriotic voters in America we shall shake off the dust of our feet against it, and join one that will, in a summary manner, extirpate the intolerable grievance. 113

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CHAPTER IV. NORTHERN TESTIMONY Slavery must fall, because it stands in direct hostility to all the grand movements, princl-. pies, and reforms of our age, because it stands in the way of an advancing world. One great idea stands out amidst the discoveries and improvements of modern times.

It is, that man is not to exercise arbitrary, irresponsible power over man. To restrain power, to divide and balance it, to create responsibility for its just use, to secure the individual against its abuse, to substitute law for private will, to shield the weak from the strong, to give to the injured the means of redress, to set a fence round every man’s property and rights, in a word, to secure liberty,-such, under various expressions, is the great object on which philosophers, patriots, philanthropists, have long fixed their thoughts and hopes.-CHANsNea. THE
best evidence that can be given of the enlightened patriotism and love of liberty in the free States, is the fact that, at the Presidential election in 1856, they polled thirteen hundred thousand votes for the Republican candidate, JoEN C. FiEMONT. This fact of itself seems to preclude the necessity of strengthening our cause with the individual testimony of even their greatest men. Having, however, adduced the most cogent and conclusive antislavery arguments from the Washingtons, the Jeffersons, the Madisons, the Randolphs, and the Clays of the South, we shall now proceed to enrich our pages with gems of Liberty from the Franklins, the Hiamiltons, the Jays, the Adamses, and the Websters of the North. Too close attention cannot be paid to the words of wisdom which we have extracted from the works of these truly eminent and philosophic statesmen.

We will first listen to THE VOICE OF FRANKLIN. Dr. Franklin was the first president of “The Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery;” and it is now generally conceded that this was the first regularly organized American abolition Society-it having been formed as early as 1774, while we were yet subjects of the British government. In 1790, in the name and on behalf of this Society, Dr. Franklin, who was then within a few months of the close of his life, drafted a memorial “to the Senate and House of Repr.sentatives of the United States,” in which he said: “Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the distresses arising from slavery, believe it to be their indispensable duty to present this subject to your notice. They have observed, with real satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are vested in you, for’promoting the welfare and securing the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States;’ and as they conceive that l14

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NORTHERN TESTIMONY. these blessings ought rightfully to be administered, without distinction of color, to all descriptions of people, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing expectation that nothing which can be done for the relief of the unhappy objects of their care, will be either omitted or delayed. From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bonds of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration to liberty of those unhappy men, who, alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency of character from the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men.” On another occasion, he says: “Slavery is an atrocious debasement of human nature.” THE VOICE OF HAMILTON.

Alexander Hamilton, the brilliant statesman and financier, tells us that “

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” Again, in 1774, addressing himself to an American Tory, he says: “The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to equal privileges. You would be convinced that natural liberty is the gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race; and that ,ivil liberty is founded on that.” TaE YOICE OF JAY. John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States under the Constitution of 1789, in a letter to the Hlon. Elias Boudinot, dated November 17, 1819, says: “Little can be added to what has been said and written on the subject of slavery. I concur in the opinion that i’ ocught not to be introduced nor permitted in any of the new States, and that it ought’ to be gradually diminished and finally abolished in all of them. “To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohibit the migration and importation of slaves into any of the States, does not appear questionable. The first article of the Constitution specifies the legislative powers committed to the Congress.

The 9th section of that article has these words:’ The migration or importation of such persons as any of the now-existing States shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. “I understand the sense and meaning of this clause to be, that the power of the Congress, although competent to prohibit such migration and importation, was to be exercised with respect to the then existing States, and them only, until the year 1808, but the Congress were at liberty to make such prohibitions as to any new State, which might in the mean time be established. And further, that from and after that period, they were authorized to make such prohibitions as to all the States, whether new or old. “It will, I presume, be admitted, that slaves were the persons intended. The word slaves was avoided, probably cn account of the existing toleration of slavery. 115

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NORTHERN TESTIMONY. and its discordancy with the principles of the Revolution, and from a consciousness of its being repugnant to the following positions in the Declaration of Independence: ‘ We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In a previous letter, written from Spain, whither he had been appointed as minister plenipotentiary, he says, speaking of the abolition of slavery: “Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to Heaven will be impious.

This is a strong expression, but it is just. I believe that God governs the world, and I believe it to be a maxim in His, as inl our courts, that those who ask for equity ought to do it.” WILLIAM JAY. The Hon. Wm. Jay, a noble son of Chief Justice John Jay, says: “A crisis has arrived in which we must maintain our rights, or surrender them forever. I speak not to abolitionists alone, but to all who value the liberty our fathers achieved. Do you ask what we have to do with slavery? Let our muzzled presses answerlet the mobs excited against us by the merchants and politicians answerlet the gag laws threatened by our governors and legislatures answerlet the conduct of the National Government answer.” THE

VOICE OF ADAMS. From the Diary of John Quincy Adams, “the old man eloquent,” we make the following extract: ” It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very sources of moral princi. ple. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and more heartless than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and induces men endowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion; that slaves are happy and contented in their condition; that between master and slave there are ties of mutual ajtachment’ and affection; that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degradation of the slave, while at the same time they vent execrations upon the slave trade, curse Britain for having given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes for the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the verv mention of human rights as applicable to men of color.” THE VOICE OF WEBSTER. In a speech which he delivered at Niblo’s Garden, in the city of New York, on the 15th of March, 1837, Daniel Webster, the Great Expounder of the Constitution, said: “On the general question of slavery, a great part of the community is already strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted attention as a question of pelitics, but it has struck a far deeper one ahead. It has arrested the religious feeling of the country, it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man, indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and especially has he an erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be respected. But to endeavor to coin it into silver, or retain its free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and mere heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it-should this be attempted, I know nothing, even in the Constitution or Union itself, which might not be endangered by the explosion which might follow.” When discussing the Oregon Bill in 1848, he said: “I have made up my mind, for one, that under no circumstances will I consent to the further extension of the area of slavery in the United States, or to the further increase of slave representation in the House of RIepresentatives.” 116

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NORTIIERN TESTIMONY. IUnder date of February 15th, 1850, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Furness, he says: “From my earliest youth I have regarded slavery as a great moral and political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural equality of mankind, founded only in superior power; a standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the weaker. All pretence of defending it on the ground of diffbrent races, I have ever condemned. I have even said that if the black race is weaker, that is a reason against, not for, its subjection and oppression. In a religious point of view I have ever regarded it, and even spoken of it, not as subject to any express denunciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospel and to the teachings of Jesus Christ. The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness, justice and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly affectionate; it does not seek anothers, and not its own; it does not let the oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a continual act of oppression, But then, such is the influence of a habit of thinking among men, and such is the influence of what has been long established, that even minds, religious and tenderly conscientious, such as would be shocked by any single act of oppression, in any single exercise of violence and unjust power, are not always moved by the reflection that slavery is a continual and permanent violation of human rights.” While delivering a speech at Buffalo, in the State of New York, in the summer of 1851, only about twelve months prior to his decease, he made use of the following emphatic words: ; I never would consent, and never have consented, that there should be one foot of slave territory beyond what the old thirteen States had at the formation of of the Union. Never, never.” NOAH WEBSTER. Noah Webster, the great American vocabulist, says: ” That freedom is the sacred right of every man, whatever be his color, who has not forfeited it by some violation of municipal law, is a truth established by God himself, in the very creation of human beings. No time, no circumstance, no human power or policy can change the nature of this truth, nor repeal the funldamental laws of society, by which every man’s right to liberty is guarantied. The act of enslaving men is always a violation of those great primary laws of society, by which alone, the master himself holds every particle of his own freedom., THlE VOICE OF CLINTON. De Witt Clinton, the father of the great system of internal improvoments in the State of New York, speaking of despotism in Europe, and of slavery in America, asks: ” Have not prescription and precedent-patriarchal dominion-divine right of kings and masters, been alternately called in to sanction the slavery of nations?

And would not all the despotisms of the ancient and modern world have van ished into air, if the natural equality of mankind had been properly understood and practised?… This declares that the same measure of justice ought to be measured out to all men, without regard to adventitious inequalities, and the intellectual and physical disparities which proceed from inexplicable auses.” THE VOICE OF WARREN. Major General Joseph Warren, one of the truest patriots of the Revolution, and!he first American officer of rank that fell in our contest with Great Britaim says: “That personal freedom is the natural right of every man, and that property. or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly acquired by his own labor. necessarily arises therefrom, are truths that common sense has placed beyond the 117

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NORTHERN TESTIMONY. reach ot contradiction. And no man, or body of men, can, without being guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons or acquisitions of any other man or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a right has arisen from some compact between the parties, in which it has been explicitly and freely granted.” Otis, Hancock, Ames, and others, should be heard, but for lack ot space. Volumes upon volumes might be filled with extracts similar to the above, from the works of the deceased statesmen and sages of the North, who, while living, proved themselves equal to the task of exter minating from their own States the matchless curse of human slavery. Such are the men who, though no longer with us in the flesh, “still live.” A living principle-an immortal interest-have they, invested in every great and good work that distinguishes the free States. The rail roads, the canals, the telegraphs, the factories, the fleets of merchant vessels, the magnificent cities, the scientific modes of agriculture, the unrivalled institutions of learning, and other striking evidences of pro gress and improvement at the North, are, either directly or indirectly, the offspring of their gigantic intellects. When, if ever, commerce, and manufactures, and agriculture, and great enterprises, and truth, and liberty, and justice, and magnanimity, shall have become obsolete terms, then their names may possibly be forgotton, but not till then. An army of brave and worthy successors-champions of Freedom now living, have the illustrious forefathers of the North, in the persons of Garrison, Greeley, Giddings, Goodell, Grow, and Gerrit Smith; in Seward, Sumner, Stowe, Raymond, Parker, and Phillips; in Beecher, Banks, Burlingame, Bryant, Hale, and Iiildrethi; in Emerson, Dayton, Thompson, Tappan, King and Cheever; in Whittier, Wilson, Wade, Wayland, Weed, and Burleigh. These are the men whom, in connection with their learned and eloquent compatriots, the Everetts, the Bancrofts, the Prescotts, the Chapins, the Longfellows, and the Danas, future historians, if faithful to their calling, will place on record as America’s true statesmen, literati, preachers, philosophers, and philanthropists, of the present age. In this connection, however, it may not be amiss to remark that the Homers, the Platos, the Bacons, the Newtons, the Shakspeares, the Miltons, the Blackstones, the Cuviers, the HIumboldts, and the Macaulays of America, have not yet been produced; nor, in our humble judgment, will they be, until slavery shall have been overthrown, and free dom established in the States of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Upon the soil of those States, when free, or on other free soil crossed by about the same degrees of latitude, and not distant from the Appalachian chain of mountains, will, we believe, be nurtured into manhood, in the course of one or two centuries, perhaps, as great men as those mentioned above-greater, possibly, than any that have ever yet lived. Wlhenice the. ancestors may come, whether from Europe, from Asia, from Africa I i 8

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NORTIIERN TESTIMONY. from Oceanica, from North or South America, or from the islands of the sea, or whatever honorable vocation they may now be engaged in, matters nothing at all. For aught we know, their great-grandfathers are now humble artisans in Maine, or moneyed merchants in Massachusetts illiterate poor whites in Mississippi, or slave-driving lordlings in South Carolina; frugal farmers in Michigan, or millionaires in Illinois; daring hunters in the Rocky Mountains, or metal-diggers in California; peasants in France, or princes in Germany-no matter where, or what, the scotie of country above mentioned is, in our opinion, destined to be the birthplace of their illustrious offspring-the great savans of the New World, concerning whom let us console ourselves with the hope that they are not buried deeply in the matrix of the future. 119

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OCHAPTER V. TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. Here’s Freedom to them that would read, Here’s Freedom to them that would write, There’s none ever feared that the truth shouldbe But they whom the truth would indict. May Liberty meet with success, May Prudence protect it from evil, May tyrants and tyranny tine in their mist, And wander their way to the devil! BURNS. To the true friends of freedom throughout the world, it is a pleasin6
thought, and one which, by being communicated to others, is well calculated to universalize the principles of liberty, that the great heroes, statesmen, and sages, of all ages and nations, ancient and modern, who have ever had occasion to speak of the institution of human slavery, have entered their most unequivocal aud positive protests against it. To say that they disapproved of the system would not be sufficiently expressive of the utter detestation with which they uniformly regarded it.

That they abhorred it as the vilest invention that the Evil One has ever assisted bad men to concoct, is quite evident from the very tone and construction of their language. Having with much pleasure and profit, heard the testimony of America, through her representative men, we will now hear that of other nations, through their representative men-doubting not that we shall be more than remunerated for our time and trouble. We will first listen to THE VOICE OF ENGLAND. In the case of James Somerset, a negro who had been kidnapped in Africa, transported to Virginia, there sold into slavery, thence carried to England, as a waiting,-boy, and there induced to institute proceedings against his master for the recovery of his freedom, MANSFIELD says: ” The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion. and time itself whence it was created, are erased from the memory. It is so odious that nothing can be sufficient to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say that this case is allowed or approved by the law of England, and, therefore, the black must be discharged.” 120

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TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. LOCKE says: “Slavery is so vile, so miserable a state of man; and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that it is hard to be convinced that an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should plead for it.” Again, he says: “Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has a right to but himself.” In her speech at the opening of Parliament, on the 3d of February, 1859, QrEEN VICTORIA said: I have great satisfaction in announcing to you that the Emperor of the French has abolished a system of negro emigration from the coast of Africa, against which, as unavoidably tending, however guarded, to the encouragement of the slave trade, my government has never ceased to address to his Imperial Majesty its most earnest but friendly representations. This wise act on the part of his Imperial Majesty induces me to hope that the negotiations now in progress at Paris may tend to the total abandonment of the system, and to the substitution of a duly regulated supply of free labor.” PiTTr says: “It is injustice to permit slavery to remain for a single hour.” FOX says: ” With regard to a regulation of slavery, my detestation of its existence induces me to know no such thing as a regulation of robbery, and a restriction of murder.

Personal freedom is a right of which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal in so depriving him, and he who withholds is no less criminal in withholding.” Speaking in Parliament against the slave trade, HUDDLESTONE
remarked: “That a curse attended this trade even in the mode of defending it. By a certain fatality, none but the vilest arguments were brought forward, which corrupted the very persons who used them. Every one of these was built on the narrow ground of interest, of pecuniary profit, of sordid gain, in opposition to every motive that had reference to humanity, justice and religion, or to that great principle which comprehended them all.” SHARSPEARE says: “A man is master of his liberty.” Again, he says: “It is the curse of kings to be attended By slaves, that take their humors for a warrant To break within the bloody house of life, And, on the winking of authority, To understand a law; to know the meaning Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns More upon humor than advised respect.” Again: “Heaven will one day free us from this slavery.” Again: Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead! Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets; Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement.” 6 121

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122 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. COWPER says: “Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free. They touch our country and their shackles fall. That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through every vein Of all your empire, that where Britain’s power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.” MILTON asks: “Where is the beauty to see, Like the sun-brilliant brow of a nation when free?” Again, he exclaims: “0 execrable son, so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurp’d, from God not given: He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.” Again, he says: “If our fathers promised for themselves, to make themselves slaves, they could make no such promise for us.” Again: “Since, therefore, the law is chiefly right reason, if we are bound to obey a magistrate as a minister of God, by the very same reason and the very same law, we ought to resist a tyrant, and minister of the devil.” DR. JOHNSON says: “No man is by nature the property of another.

The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can justly be taken away.” DR. PRICE says: “If you have a right to make another man a slave, he has a right to make you a slave.’ HARRIET MARTINEAU says: “Where a man is allowed the possession of himself, the purchaser of his labor is benefited by the vigor of his mind through the service of his limbs: where man is made the possession of another, the possessor loses at once and forever all that is most valuable in that for which he has paid the price of crime.” BLACKSTONE says: If neither captivity nor contract can, by the plain law of nature and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much less can they reduce the offspring.” Again, he says; “The primary aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature. Hence it follows that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain those absolute rights of individuals.” Again: “If any human law shall allow or require us to commit crime, we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the natural and divine.”

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NEW MEXICO GENERALLY. ago, when the natives drove out or killed all the inhabitants. In the south-west corner, on the San Juan River, Colorado (then in Mexico) is found some remarkable ruins. One of these deserted human bee-hives was five hundred feet long, enclosed with a wall a foot thick, and thirty feet high, of solid stone, and six stories high. Nearly three hundred years ago Spanish Missionaries found in New Mexico Indianis who raised cotton, manufactured cloth, and lived in towns with streets, having dwellings like the present Pueblos Indians. The founders of these towns were of that remarkable order, whose unflagging energyandlqerfect organization achieved such conquests over all that country. Remains of old Jesuit Missions are scattered through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Old Mexico, and Cential America. This vast region of country was converted to the old Roman faith, by life-long labor of this society, and not by the over-enthusiasm of Cortez and his robbers, who hurled the native idols to the ground, to replace them with the cross. The Santa Fe Cathedral is a high adobe edifice with effigies of the Saviour and the Virgin, with life-size paintings of these scenes hanging on the walls. In Taos there is a building of Indian origin, which 0 123

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TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. TIE VOICE OF SCOTLAND. BEATTIE says: Slavery is inconsistent with the dearest and most essential lights of man’s nas ture; it is detrimental to virtue and industry; it hardens the heart to those tender sympathies which form the most lovely part of human chara. ter; it involves the innocent in hopeless misery, in order to procure wealth and pleasure for the authors of that misery; it seeks to degrade into brutes beings whom the Lord of Heaven and Earth endowed with rational souls, and created for immortality; in short, it is utterly repugnant to every principle of reason, religion, humanity, and conscience. It is impossible for a considerate and unprejudiced mind, to think of slavery without horror.” MILLER says: “The human mind revolts at a serious discussion of the subject of slavery. Every individual, whatever be his country or complexion, is entitled to freedom.” MACKNIGHT says: “Men-stealers are inserted among the daring criminals against whom the law of God directed its awful curses. These were persons who kidnapped men to sell them for slaves; and this practice seems inseparable from the other iniquities and oppressions of slavery; nor can a slave dealer easily keep free from this criminality, if indeed the receiver is as bad as the thief.” THE VOICE OF

FRANCE. LAFAYETTE says: “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.” Again, while in the prison of Magdeburg, he says: ” I know not what disposition has been made of my plantation at Cayenne; but I hope Madame de Lafayette will take care that the negroes who cultivate it shall preserve their liberty.” O. LAFAYETTE, grandson of General Lafayette, in a letter under date of April 26th, 1851, says: “This great question of the abolition of Negro Slavery, which has my entire sympathy, appears to me to have established its importance throughout the world. At the present time, the States of the Peninsula, if I do not deceive myself, are the only European powers who still continue to possess slaves; and America, while continuing to uphold slavery, feels daily, more and more, how heavily it weighs upon her destinies.” MONTESQUIEU asks: “What civil law can restrain a slave from running away, since he is not a member of society?” Again, he says: ” Slavery is contrary to the fundamental principles of all societies.” Ag,in: ” In democracies, where they are all upon an equality, slavery is contrary to the principles of the Constitution.” Again: “Nothing puts one nearer the condition of a brute than always to see freemen and not be free.” Again: ” Even the earth itself, which teems with profusion under the cultivating hand of the free born laborer, shrinks in barrenness from the contaminating sweat of a slave.” 124

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TESTIMONY OF THtE NATIONS. LOIUIS X, issued the following edict: “As all men are by nature free born, and as this Kingdom is called the Kingdom of Franks (freemen), it shall be so in reality. It is therefore decreed that enfranchisement shall be granted throughout the whole Kingdom upon just and reasonable terms.” BUIFFON says: “It is apparent that the unfortunate negroes are endowed with excellent hearts, and possess the seeds of every human virtue. I cannot write their history without lamenting their miserable condition.” ROUSSEAUT says: “The terms slavery and right, contradict and exclude each other.” BRISSOT says: “Slavery, in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a violation of divine law, and a degradation of human nature.” TILE VOICE OF GERMANY. GROTIUS says: ” Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell or buy slaves or freemen. To steal a man is the highest kind of theft.” GOETHE ays’Y: “Such busy multitudes I fain would see Stand upon free soil with a people free.” LUTHER says: “Unjust violence is, by no means, the ordinance of God, and therefore can bind no one in conscience and right, to obey, whether the command comes from pope, emperor, king or master.” Carl Schurz, a distinguished German orator, patriot and statesman, now a citizen of Wisconsin-a man who was born to reflect honor on whatever state or nation in which he may reside-in a most eloquent and forcible speech which he delivered in Faneuil IHall, Boston, April 18, 1859, says: “Look at the slave States.

There is a class of men who are deprived of their natural rights. But this is not the only deplorable feature of that peculiar organization of society. Equally deplorable is it, that there is another class of men who keep the former in subjection. That there are slaves is bad; but almost worse is it, that there are masters. Are not the masters freemen? No, sir!

Where is their liberty of the press? Where is their liberty of speech?

Where is the man among them who dares to advocate openly principles not in strict accordance with the ruling system? They speak of a Republican form of government, they speak of Democracy, but the despotic spirit of slavery and mastership combined pervades their whole political life like a liquid poison. I am an antislavery man, and I have a right to my opinion in South Carolina just as well as in Massachusetts. My neighbor is a Democrat; I may be sorry for it, but I solemnly acknowledge his right to his opinion in Massachusetts as well as in South Carolina. You tell me, that for my opinion they will mob me in South Carolina. Sir, there is the difference between South Carolina and Massachusetts. There is the difference between an antislavery man, who is a freeman, and a slaveholder, who is himself a slave.” Frederick Kapp, an accomplished German author and orator, who, since his arrival in America-many years ago-llhas paid much atten tion to our social and political institutions, says: 125

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TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. “The whites who reside in the South, and are nonslaveholders, add very little weight to the scale, because they are entirely dependent upon the slaveholders. even though these latter constitute no more than perhaps the one-ninth of the whole population of the slave States. The nonslaveholders are characterized by their poverty and ignorance; and we think it a safe calculation to say that not more than one-fourth of the whole white population can read and write. It is the interest of the slaveholder to perpetuate ignorance. For this reason the free-school system of the North has no existence in the South; the greater the rawness and poverty on the part of the whites, the greater is their subordination to, and dependence on, the slave aristocracy. “As a natural consequence growing out of these relations, it is the slaveholder only who can obtain public office, or who is elected to Congress; in fact, many of the Southern constitutions prescribe such qualifications as being requisite. The slaveholders, by these means, transmit from family to family a hereditary influence, so that they are no longer merely natural politicians, but have a political education, a general political spirit, a very decided political tradition.” To Dr. Max Langenschwarz, who, in 1833, in connection with his friend Ludwig Storch, formed an AntiSlavery Society in Leipsic, Germany, we are indebted for the following brief but interesting annals: “The first historical documents in regard to the abolition of slavery are to be found in Germany, whose people and governments at a very early period declared themselves against Leibeigenschafi (involuntary bondage), and against every right to buy or sell human beings, or to keep them as slaves. In a document of the fifth century, we find that the Catti united with the Franks in a war against the Gauls, under the express condition’That the prisoners should be exchanged, that no prisoner should be held or brought into bondage as Leibeigen (a slave,) and that capital punishment should avenge such a crime against God and men.’ ” The same feelings are to be found in many other documents of the old Germans. In 1372, Henry the Iron, one of the first Landgraves of Hessia, published an edict: ‘Abolishing for all eternity the state of Leibeigenschaft (slavery), and threatening with death all those who should be discovered keeping a man, woman or child, in involuntary servitude.’ “In a bishop’s edict in 1411 (Muenster), we find the following:’ If a man is kept in involuntary bondage and as a slave against his will, he shall ask for his immediate deliverance; and if he is kept a slave in spite of his demand, and defends himself against his master, and kills him, the killing (Todtsehlag) shall not be considered as murder.’” THE voICE OF RUSSIA. Those of our readers who keep themselves informed of the grand movements and enterprises of the age, need scarcely be reminded that the present Czar of Russia, Alexander II., who is not merely an emperor but also a man, and who, by the profound wisdom and magnanimity of his measures, bids fair to become a greater Alexander than Alexander the Great, has recently issued an elaborate ukase for the purpose of bringing about, in due time, the complete abolition of serfdom throughout his vast empire. In M.oscow, at a banquet held on the 9th of January, 1858, in eclat of the emperor’s ukase, and in furtherance of the plans proposed for the emancipation of the serfs, M. Bapst, the eminent Russian professor of political economy, said: “We have met here to celebrate an event which will be an epoch in the annals of our history, and upon which future historians will dwell with pleasure. At the very commencement of this century, one of our first manufacturers said to Storch, that trade could never flourish under our system of compulsory labor or, in other words, of serfage; already, in 1849, the Free Economical Society proved by facts the inconveniences of serfage as regards agriculture. The development of national wealth has ever gone hand-in-hand with the regular organization of popular labor. 126

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TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. which, as it gradually emancipates itself from stringent conditions, becomes more active, more progressive, and consequently more productive. In proportion as national labor gradually issues furth free from such disadvantageous conditions, the love of work increases among the people. Emulation and competition arouse the sleeping energies of the nation; they will not allow them to rust, and excite them to healthy activity and continual progress. The day of the primitive forms of the economical condition of the people has now left us forever. The wants of a great nation increase daily, and cannot be satisfied with the coarse conditions con trary to all progress of primitive economy founded on compulsory labor-a labor the limits of which are as restricted as its nature is unproductive. Our task is not to double, but to increase tenfold our productive power, our labor, our wealth, unless we wish to see taken away from us by nations more advanced than ourselves the markets which are ours by tradition and by our geographical position.” On the same occasion, M. Pauloff, one of Professor Bapst’s most worthy compatriots, said: “

Heaven has allowed us to live long enough to witness the second regeneration of Russia. We may congratulate ourselves, for this movement is one of great importance. We breathe more like Christians, our hearts beat more nobly, and we may look at the light of heaven with a clearer eye. We have met to-day to express our deep and sincere sympathy for a holy and praiseworthy work, and we meet without any nervousness to mar our rejoicing. A new spirit animates us, a new era has commenced. One of our social conditions is on the eve of a change. If we consider it in a past light, we may perhaps admit that it was neessary that it should have been allowed to be as it was from the want of a better administrative organization, and of the concentration in the hands of a government of the means which have since given so great a development to the power of Russia. But what was momentarily gained to the State was lost to mankind.

The advantage cost an enormous price. Order without-anarchy within-and the condition of the individual cast its shadow over society at large. The emperor has struck at the roots of this evil. The glory and prosperity of Russia cannot rest upon institutions based on injustice and falsehood. No!

these blessings are hen,eforth to be found in the path thrown open by him whose name Russia pronounces with respect and pride. The emperor has ceded this great reform, which he might have accomplished by his own powerful will, by asking the nobles to take the initiative. Let us then hail this noble idea, inspired by the sole wish for the welfare of his people, with that enlightened heartiness which may now be expected from Russia. Let us not, however, suppose that the path traced by history is an avenue of roses without thorns. This would be sheer ignorance. When a new, a more moral and Christian state of things is about to be established, the obstacles that will have to be encountered must not be taken into consideration, except with the hope that the torrent of the new life will sweep them away. The change in the economical condition of our national existence will arouse our individual ener gies, the want of which is one of our greatest evils. Let us wish, then, gentle men, from our innermost heart, a long life to him who has marshalled his faithful Russia to the conquest of truth and justice.” THE VOICE OF ITALY. cIcERo says: ” By the grand laws of nature, all men are born free, and this law is universally binding upon all men.” Again he says: ” Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws.” Again: ” Law is not something wrought out by man’s ingenuity, nor is it a decree of the people, but it is something eternal, governing the world by the wisdom of its commands and prohibitions.”

Again: ” Whatever is just is also the true law, nor can this true law be abrogated by any written enactments.” 127

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‘IESrIMONY OF THE NATIONS. Again: “If there be such a power in the decrees and commands of fools, that the nature of things is changed by their votes, why do they not decree that what is bad and pernicious shall be regarded as good and wholesome; or why, if the law can make wrong right, can it not make bad good?” Again: “Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, have made anything rather than laws.” Again: “The law ol all nations forbids one man to pursue his advantage at the expense of another.” LACTANTIUS says: “Justice teaches men to know God and to love men” to love and assist one another, being all equally the children of God.” LEO X. says: ” Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry out against the state of slavery.” THE VOICE OF GREECE.

SOCRATES Says’ “Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery.” ARISTOTLE
says: “It is neither for the good, nor is it just, seeing all men are by nature alike, and equal, that one should be lord and master over others.”

POLYBIUS says: “None but unprincipled and beastly men in society assume the mastery over their fellows, as it is among bulls, bears, and cocks.”

PLATO says: “Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice.” From each of the above, and from other nations, additional testimony is at hand; but, for reasons already assigned, we forbear to introduce it.

Corroborative of the correctness of the position which we have assumed, even Persia has a voice, which may be easily recognized in the tones of her immortal Cyrus, who says: “To fight, in order not to be made a slave, is noble.” Than Great Britain no nation has more heartily or honorably repented of the crime of slavery-no nation, on the perception of its error, has ever acted with more prompt magnanimity to its outraged and unhappy bondsmen. Entered to her credit, many precious jewels of liberty remain in our possession, ready to be delivered when called for; of their value some idea may be formed, when we state that they are filigreed with such names as Wilberforce, Buxton, Granville, Grattan, Camden, Clarklson, Sharp, Sheridan, Sidney, Martin, and Macaulay. Virginia, the Carolinas, and other Southern States, which are pro 128

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~ESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. vided, not with republican, but with anti-republican forms of government, and which have abolished freedom, should learn, from the history of the monarchical governments of the Old World, if not from the example of the more liberal and enlightened portions of the New, how to abolish slavery. The lesson is before them in a variety of exceedingly interesting forms, and, sooner or later, they must learn it, either voluntarily or by compulsion. Virginia, in particular, is a spoilt child, having been the pet of the General Government for the last seventy years; and like many other other spoilt children, she has become froward, peevish, perverse, sulky and irreverent-not caring to know her duties, and failing to perform even those which she does know. Her superiors perceive that the abolition of slavery would be a blessing to her; she is, however, either too ignorant to understand the truth, or else, as is the more probable, her false pride and obstinacy restrain her from acknowledging it. What is to be done?

Shall ignorance, or prejudice, or obduracy, or willful meanness, triumph over knowledge, and liberality, and guilelessness, and laudable enterprise? No, never! Assured that Virginia and all the other slaveholding States are doing wrong every day, it is our duty to make them do right, if we have the power; and we believe we have the power now resident within their own borders. What are the opinions, generally, of the nonslaveholding whites? Let them speak. 1 2 S go

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CHAPTER VtI. TESTIMONY OF THE CIIURICE Who blushed alike to be, or have a slaveUnchristian thought! on what pretence soe’er, Of right inherited, or else acquired; Of loss, or profit, or what plea you name, To buy or sell, to barter, whip, and hold In chains a being of celestial makeOf kindred form, of kindred faculties, Of kindred feelings, passions, thoughts, desires; Born free, and heir of an immortal hope! Thought villainous, absurd, detestable I Unworthy to be harbored in a fiend I POLLOK. Lo! the nation is arousing, From its slumber, long and deep; And the Church of God is waking, Never, never more to sleep, While a bondman, In his chains remains to weep. OLIVER JOHNSOTN. Is quest of arguments against slavery, we have perused the works of several eminent Christian writers of different denominations, and we now proceed to lay before the reader the result of a portion of our labor. As it is the special object of this chapter to operate on, to correct and cleanse the consciences of slaveholding professors of religion, we shall adduce testimony only from the five churches to which they, in their satanic piety, mostly belong-the Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the Baptist, the Methodist, and the Roman Catholic-all of which, we hope, are destined, at no distant day, to become thoroughly imbued with the spirit of HIeaven-ordained Love and Freedom.

With few exceptions, all the other Christian sects are, as they should be, avowedly and inflexibly opposed to the inhuman institution of slavery. The Congregational, the Quaker, the Lutheran, the Dutch and German Reformed, the Unitarian and the Universalist, especially, are all honorable, able, and eloquent defenders of the natural rights of man. We will begin by introducing a mass of PRESBYTERIAN TESTIMONY. The Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, one of the most!earned Presbyterian preachers and commentators of the day, says: 130

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TESTIMONY Ol THE CHURCHES. ” there is a deep and growing conviction in the minds of the mass of mankind, that slavery violates the great laws of our nature; that it is contrary to the dictates of humanity; that it is essentially unjust, oppressive and cruel; that it invades the rights of liberty with which the Author of our being has endowed all human beings; and that, in all the forms in which it has ever existed, it has been impossible to guard it from what its friends and advocates would call’

abuses of the system.’ It is a violation of the first sentiments expressed in our Declaration of Independence, and on which our fathers founded the vindication of their own conduct in an appeal to arms. It is at war with all that a man claims for himself and for his own children; and it is opposed to all the struggles of mankind, in all ages, for freedom. The claims of humanity plead against it. The struggles for freedom everywhere in our world condemn it. The instinctive feeling in every man’s own bosom in regard to himself is a condemnation of it. The noblest deeds of valor, and of patriotism in our own land, and in all lands where men have struggled for freedom, are a condemnation of the system. All that is noble in man is opposed to it; all that is base oppressive, and cruel, pleads for it. ” The spirit of the New Testament is against slavery, and the principles of the New Testament, if fairly applied, would abolish it. In the New Testament no man is commanded to purchase and own a slave; no man is commended as adding anything to the evidences of his Christian character, or as performing the appropriate duty of a Christian, for owning one. Nowhere in the New Testament is the institution referred to as a good one, or as a desirable one. It is commonly-indeed, it is almost universally-conceded that the proper application of the principles of the New Testament would abolish slavery everywhere, or that, the state of things which will exist when the Gospel shall be fairly applied to all the relations of life, slavery will not be found among those relations. “Let slavery be removed from the church, and let the voice of the church, with one accord, be lifted up in favor of freedom; let the church be wholly detached from the institution, and let there be adopted by all its ministers and members an interpretation of the Bible-as I believe there may be and ought to be-that shall be in accordance with the deep-seated principles of our nature in favor of freedom, and with our own aspirations for liberty, and with the sentiments of the world in its onward progress in regard to human rights, and not only would a very material objection against the Bible be taken away-and one which would be fatal if it were well founded-but the establishment of a very strong argument in favor of the Bible, as a revelation from God, would be the direct result of such a position.” Writing ” To a certain elder of a certain Presbyterian Church,”

of which church he himself is a member, PROF. 0. D. CLEVELAND says: “

What, let me ask, can tend more to shake the belief of men in the divine inspiration of the sacred Scriptures, than to endeavor to prove to them, that these same Scripturesthe foundation rock of our faith-sanction such a man-brutalizing crime as American Slavery? The natural conscience of man, all the world over, revolts with loathing at this monstrous crime; and the law of nations has pronounced the slave trade to be piracy, condemning to the gallows those found guilty of it; and a sad day will it be for Christianity, if men shall be brought to believe that their natural conscience and the laws of nations are higher, in their moral standard, than what claims to be the revealed will of God.” From a resolution denunciatory of slavery, unanimously adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1818, we make the following extract: We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature, as ut. terly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the Gospel of Christ, which enjoins that’ all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’… We rejoice that the church to which we belong commenced, as early as any other in this country, the good work of endeavoring to put an end to slavery, and that in the same work many of its members have ever since been, and now are, among the most active, vigorous, and efficient laborers.. We earnestly exhort them to continue, and, if possible, to in crease. their exertions to effect a total abolition of slavery.” 131

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TESTIMONY OF TIIE Cxt,RClHES. A Committee of the Synod of Kentucky, in an address to the Presbyterians of that State, says “That our negroes will be worse off, if emancipated, is, we feel, but a specious pretext for lulling our own pangs of conscience, and answering the argument of the philanthropist. None of us believes that God has so created a whole race that it is better for them to remain in perpetual bondage.” EPISCOPAL

TESTIMONY. BISHOP HORSLEY says: “Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can extenuate.” BISHOP BUTLER says: “Despicable as the negroes may appear in our eyes, they are the creatures of God, and of the race of mankind, for whom Christ died, and it is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end for which they were made, and of the means -
whereby they may become partakers of the general redemption.” BISHOP

PORTEUS says: “The Bible classes men-stealers or slave-traders among the murderers of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals on earth.” Thomas Scott, the celebrated Commentator, says: ” To number the persons of men with beasts, sheep and horses, as the stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a ship, is, no doubt, a most detestable and anti-Christian practice.” John Jay, Esq., of the City of New York-a most exemplary Episcopalian-in a pamphlet entitled, “Thoughts on the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in-‘Relation to Slavery,” says: “

Alas! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit of her ancient mother! She has not merely remained a mute and careless spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with hypocrisy and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be seen ministering at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and infliieiice at its unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of American slavery. Her Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may feel on the subject, rebuke it neither in public nor in private, and her periodicals, far from advancing the progress of abolition, at times oppose our societies, impliedly defending slavery, as not incompatible with Christianity, and occasionally withholding information useful to the cause of freedom.” A writer in a late number of “The AntiSlavery Churchman,” puiblihbed in Geneva, Wisconsin, speaking of a certain portion of the NNow Testament, says: ‘

This passage of Paul places necessary work in the hands of Gospel ministers. If they preach the whole Gospel, they must preach what this passage enjoins-and if they do this, they must preach against American slavery. Its being connected with politics does not shield them. Political connections cannot place sin under protection. They cannot throw around it guards that the public teachers of morals may not pass. Sin is a violation of Gocl’s law-and God’s law must be proclaimed and enforced at all hazards. This is the business of the messenger of God, and if anything stands in its way, it is his right, rather it his solemn commission, to go forward-straightway to overpass the lines that would shut him out, and utter his warnings. Manv sins there are, that in like manner, might be shielded. Fashion, and rank, and business, are doing their part to keep much sin in respectability, and excuse it from the attacks of God’s ministers But what are these, that they should seal a minister’s lips-what more are the wishes of politicians?” 132

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TESTIMONY OF THIIE CHURCHES. For further testimony from this branch of the Christian system, if desired, we refer the reader to the Rev. Dr. Tyng, the Rev. Evan M. Johnson, and the Rev. J. McNamara,-all Broad Church Episcopalians, whose magic eloquence and irresistible arguments bid fair, at an early day, to win over to the paths of progressive freedom, truth, justice and humanity, the greater number of their High and Low Church brethren. BAPTIST TESTIMONY. Concerning a certain text, the Rev. Wm. IH.

Brisbane, once a slaveholding Baptist in South Carolina, says: “Paul was speaking of the law having been made for men-stealers. Where is the record of that law? It is in Exodus xxi. 16, and in these words:‘He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his possession, he shall surely be put to death.’ Here it will be perceived that it was a crime to sell the man, for which the seller must suffer death. But it was no less a crime to hold him as a slave, for this also was punishable with death. A man may be kidnapped out of slavery into freedom. There was no law against that. And why? Because kidnapping a slave and placing him in a condition of freedom, was only to restore him to his lost rights. But if a man who takes him becomes a slaveholder, or a slave seller, then he is a criminal, liable to the penalty of death, because he robs the man of liberty.

Perhaps some will say this law was only applicable to the first holder of the slave, that is, the original kidnapper, but not to his successors who might have purchased or inherited him. But what is kidnapping? Suppose I propose to a neighbor to give him a certain sum of money if he will steal a white child in Carolina and deliver him to me. He steals him; I pay him the money upon his delivering the child to me. Is it not my act as fully as his? Am I not also the thief? But does it alter the case whether I agree beforehand or not to pay him. for the child? He steals him, and then sells him to me. He is found by his parents in my hands. Will it avail me to say I purchased him and paid my money for him? Will it not be asked, Do you not know that a white person is not merchantable? And shall I not have to pay the damage for detaining that child in my service as a slave?

Assuredly, not only in the eyes of the law, but in the judgment of the whole community, I would be regarded a criminal. So when one man steals another and offers him for sale, no one, in view of the Divine law, can buy him, for the reason that the Divine law forbids that man shall in the first place be made a merchantable article. The inquiry must be, if I buy, I buy in violation of the Divine law, and it will not do for me to plead that I bought him. I have him in possession, and th’at is enough, God condemns me for it as a man-stealer. My having him in possession is evidence against me, and the Mosaic law says, if he be found in my hands, I must die. Now, when Paul said the law was made for men-stealers, was it not also saying tlie law was made for slaveholders? I am not intending to apply this term in a harsh spirit. But I am bound. as I fear God, to speak what I am satisfied is the true meaning of the apostle.” In his “Elements of Moral Science,” the Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., one of the most erudite and distinguished Baptists now living, says: The moral precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to slavery. They are, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and all things whatsoever ye would thai men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them. ” The application of these precepts is universal. Our neighbor is every one whom we may benefit. The obligation respects all things whatsoever. The precept, then, manifestly, extends to men as men, or men ofeverycondition; and if to all things whatsoever, certainly to a thing so important as the right to personal liberty.

“Again. By this precept, it is made our duty to cherish as tender and delicate a respect for the right which the meanest individual possesses over the means of happifiess bestowed upon him by God, as we cherish for our own right over our own means of happiness, or as we desire any other individual to cherish for it. Now, were this precept obeyed, it is manifest that slavery could not in fact exist for a single instant. The principle of the precept is absolutely subversive of the princi ple of slavery. That of the one is the entire equality of right; that of the other, t1 entire absorption of the rights of one inthe rights of the other. 133

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TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. “If any one doubts respecting the bearing of the Scripture precept upon this ase, afew plain questions may throw additional light upon the subject. For instance: “Do the precepts and the spirit of the Gospel allow me to derive my support rom a system which extorts laborfrom my fellow-men, without allowing them any voice in the equivalent which they shall receive; and which can only be sustained by keeping them in a state of mental degradation, and by shutting them out, in a great degree, from the means of salvation: “Would the master be willing that another person should subject him to slavery for the same reasons, and on the same grounds that he holds his slaves in bondage?

“Would the Gospel allow us, if it were in our power, to reduce our fellow-citizens of our own color to slavery? If the Gospel be diametrically opposed to the principle of slavery, it must be opposed to the practice of slavery; and therefore, were the principles of the Gospel fully adopted, slavery could not exist. “The very course which the Gospel takes on this subject, seems to have been the only one that could have been taken, in order to effect the universal abolition of slavery. The Gospel was designed, not for one race or for one time, but for all races and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence, the important object of its Author was, to gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world; so that, by its universal diffusion among all classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and subdue the evil passions of men; and thus without violence, work a revolution in the whole mass of mankind. “If the system be wrong, as we have endeavored to show, if it be at variance with our duty both to God and to man, it must be abandoned. If it be asked when, I ask again when shall a man begin to cease doing wrong?

Is not the answer, immediately? If a man is injuring us, do we ever doubt as to the time when he ought to cease? There is, then, no doubt in respect to the time when we ought to cease inflicting injury upon others.” Abraham Booth, an eminent theological writer of the Baptist persuasion, says: “I have not a stronger conviction of scarcely anything, than that slaveholding (except where the slave has forfeited his liberty by crimes against society), is wicked and inconsistent with Christian character. To me it is evident, that whoever would purchase an innocent black man to make him a slave, would with equai readiness purchase a white one for the same purpose, could he do it with equal im punity and no more disgrace.”

At a meeting of the General Committee of the Baptists of Virginia, in 1789, the following resolution was offered by Eld. John Leland, and adopted: ” Resolved, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of nature, and incon. sistent with Republican government, and therefore we recommend it to our brethren to make use of every measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the great jubilee, consistent with the principles of good policy.’ METHODIST TESTIMONY. John Wesley, the celebrated founder of Methodism, says: ” Men buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers” Again, he says: “American slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun; it constitutes the sum of all villainies.” The learned Dr. Adam Clarke, author of a voluminous commentary on the Scriptures, says: ” Slave-dealers, whether those who carry on the traffic in human flesh and blood. or those who steal a person in order to sell him into bondage, or those who buy such stolen men or women, no matter of what color or what country; or the nations who legalize or connive at such trafihc; all these are men-stealers, and God classes them with the most ftagitious of mortals.” 134

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TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. One of the present members of the 13Black River (New York) Conference, a gentleman of fine ability, who is zealous in every good word and work, PROF. HIRAM MATTISON, says: ” The attitude of the American churches in regard to slavery-that parent of every other abomination,is not only strengthening the hands of infidelity againstChristianity in France and England, but in every other nominally Christian country; and especially in these United States. It is sapping the very foundations of all confidence in the Christian religion, in the minds of tens of thousands. Not distinguishing between the loathsome cancer and the rest of the body-between the counterfeit and the genuine-they condemn the whole, and are thenceforth regarded as infidels.

Instead of a slaveholding religion they accept no religion. And infidelity has no more faithful allies in America, than the D.D.‘s and other ministers who defend, or at least apologize for American slavery. They are making more infidels than all the infidel books, and periodicals, and lecturers in the land. Let us, then, on this account also-its tendency to infidelity-rise up and put away all slaveholding from the Church of Christ.” Again, laying before us a list of the churches which are righteously active in condemning and opposing slavery, and also of those which are wickedly passive in excusing and upholding it, he says to his brother Methodists: “Look at our position as a Church in the light of these facts. See in what company we place ourselves. Let us range the antislavery and proslavery Northern Churches in parallel columns, that our shame may be the more apparent: AntiSlavery Churches. Slaveholding Churches. 1. FRIENDS, or QUAKERS. 1. OLD SCHOOL PRESBYTERIAN. 2. FREE-WILL

BAPTISTS. 2. PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL. 3. UNITED BRETHREN. 3. ROMAN CATHOLIC.

4. ASSOCIATE PRESBYTERIAN. 4. METHODIST EPIS. CHUROIw HI” 5. WESLEYAN

METHODISTS. 6. ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONAL. 7. GENERAL BAPTISTS. 8. REF’D

PROT. DUTCH CRURCH. 9. NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIAN. 10. UNITARIAN. 11.

UNIVERSALISTS! One of the rules laid down in the Methodist Discipline as amended in 1784, was as follows: ” Every member of our Society who has slaves in his possession, shall, within twelve months after notice given to him by the assistant, legally execute and record an instrument, whereby he emancipates and sets free every slave in his possession.” Another rule was in these words: “No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into Society, or to the Lord’s Supper, till he previously complies with these rules concerning slavery.” The answer to the question-” What shall be done with those who buy or sell slaves, or give them away “-is couched in the following language: “They are immediately to be expelled, unless they buy them on purpose to free them.” In 1785, the voice of this church was heard as follows: “We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of slavery, and shall not cease to seek its destruction, by all wise and prudent means.” ITn 17.97, the Discipline contained the following wholesome paragraph 135

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TESTIMONY OF)’ TitiE CIIURCHES. “The preachers and other members of our Society are requested to consider the subject of Negro slavery, with deep attention, and that they impart to the General Conference, through the medium of the Yearly Conferences, or otherwise any important thoughts on the subject, that the Conference may have full light, in order to take further steps toward eradicating this enormous evil from thatpart of the Church of God with which they are connected. The annual Conferences are directed to draw up addresses for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, to the legislatures of those States in which no general laws have been passed for that purpose. These addresses shall urge, in the most respectful but pointed manner, the necessity of a law for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Proper committees shall be appointed by the Annual Conferences, out of the most respectable of our friends, for conducting the business; and presiding elders, elders, deacons, and travelling preachers, shall procure as many proper signatures as possible to the addresses, and give all the assistance in their power, in every respect, to aid the committees, and to forward the blessed undertaking. Let this be continued from year to year, till the desired end be accomplished.”

CATHOLIC TESTIMONY. It has been only about twenty-two years since Pope Gregory XVI. immortalized himself by issuing the famous Bull against slavery, from which the following is an extract: “Placed as we are on the Supreme seat of the apostles, and acting, though by no merits of our own, as the vicegerent of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who, through his great mercy, condescended to make himself man, and to die for the redemption of the world, we regard as a duty devolving on our pastoral functions, that we endeavor to turn aside our faithful flocks entirely from the inhuman traffic in negroes, or any other human beings whatever…. In progress of time, as the clouds of heathen superstition became gradually dispersed, circumstances reached that point, that during several centuries there were no slaves allowed amongst the great majority of the Christian nations; but with grief we are compelled to add, that there afterwards arose, even among the faithful, a race of men, who, basely blinded by the appetite and desire of sordid lucre, did not hesitate to reduce, in remote regions of the earth, Indians, negroes, and other wretched beings, to the misery of slavery; or, finding the trade established and augmented, to assist the shameful crime of others. Nor did many of the most glorious of the Roman Pontiffs omit severely to reprove their conduct, as injurious to their soul’s health, and disgraceful to the Christian name. Among these may be especially quoted the bull of Paul II4., which bears the date of the 29th of May, 1537, addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, and another still more comprehensive, by Urban VIIl., dated the 22d of April, 1636, to the collector Jurius of the Apostolic chamber in Portugal, most severely castigating by name those who presumed to subject either East or West Indians to slavery, to sell, buy, exchange, or give them away, to separate them from their wives and children, despoil them of their goods and property, to bring or transmit them to other places, or by any means to deprive them of liberty, or retain them in slavery; also most severely castigating those who should presume or dare to afford counsel, aid, favor or assistance, under any pretence, or borrowed color, to those doing the aforesaid; or should preach or teach thltt it is lawful, or should otherwise presume or dare to cooperate, by any possible nieans, with the aforesaid…. Wherefore, we, desiring to divert this disgrace firom the whole confines of Christianity, having summoned several of our venerable brothlers, their Eminences the Cardinals, of the H. R. Church, to our council, and, ha.;ving maturely deliberated on the whole matter, pursuing the footsteps of our pred(ccessors, admonished by our apostolical authority, and urgently invoke in the Lord, all Christians, of whatever condition, that none henceforth dare to subject to slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods, Indians, negroes, or other classes of me(n, or be accessories to others, or furnish them aid or assistance in so doing; and on no account henceforth to exercise that inhuman traffic by which negro:is are reduced to slavery, as if they were not men, but automata or chattels, and are sold i defiance of all the laws of justice and humanity, and devoted to severe and intolerable labors. We further reprobate, by our apostolical authority, all the above-described offences as utterly unworthy of the Christian name; and by the s.me authority we rigidly prohibit and interdict all and every individual, whether eccles,iastical or laical, from presuming to defend that commerce in negro dlaves under pretence or borrowed color, or to teach or publish in any manner, p’ blicly or privately. things contrary to the admonitions which we have given il t.hit letters 136

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TESTIMONY OF THIE CHIURCIIES. ” And, finally, that these, our letters, may be rendered more apparent to all, and that no person may allege any ignorance thereof, we decree and order that it shall be published according to custom, and copies thereof be properly affixed to the gates of St. Peter and of the Apostolic Chancel, every and in like manner to thie General Court of Mount Citatorio, and in the field of the Campus Flora and also through the city, by one of our heralds, according to aforesaid custom. “Given at Rome, at the Palace of Santa Maria Major, under the seal of the fisherman, on the 3d day of December, 1837, and in the ninth year of our pontificate. “Countersigned by Cardinal A.

Lambruschini.” We have already quoted the language of Pope Leo X., who says: “Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself, cry out against the state of slavery.” The Abbe6 Raynal says: ” He who supports slavery is the enemy of the human rate. He divides it into two societies of legal assassins, the oppressors and the oppressed. I shall not be afraid to cite to the tribunal of reason and justice those governments which tolerate this cruelty, or which even are not ashamed to make it the basis of their power.” From the proceedings of a Massachusetts Antislavery Convention in 1855, we make the following extract: ”’ Henry Kemp, a Roman Catholic, came forward to defend the Romish Church in reply to Mr. Foster. He claimed that the Catholic Church is thoroughly anti slavery-as thoroughly as even his friend Foster.” Thus manfully do men of pure hearts and noble minds, whether in Church or State, and without regard to sect or party, lift up their voices against the wicked and pernicious system of human slavery. Thus they speak, and thus they are obliged to speak, if they speak at all; it is only the voice of Nature, Justice, Truth, and Love, that issues from them. The divine principle in man prompts him to speak and strike for Freedomn; the diabolical principle within him prompts him to speak and strike for slavery. From those churches which are now-as all churches ought to be, and will be, ere the world becomes Christianized-thoroughly indoctrinated in the principles of freedom, we do not, as already intimated, deem it particularly necessary to bring forward new arguments in opposition to slavery. If, however, the reader would be pleased to hear from the churches to which we chiefly allude-and, by the by, he might hear from them with much profit to himself-we respectfully refer him to H-enry Ward Beecher, George B.

Cheever, Joseph P. Thompson, Theodore Parker, E. II. Chapin, and II. W.

Bellows, of the North, and to MAh D. Conway, John G. Fee, James S. Davis, Daniel Worth, and W. E. Lincoln, of the South. All these reverend gentlemen, ministers of different denominations, feel it their duty to preach against slavery, and, to their honor be it said, they do preach against it with unabated zeal and success. Our earnest prayer is, that ieaven may enable them, their contemporaries and successors, to preach against it with such energy and effect, as will cause it in due time, to disappear forevet from the soil of our Republic. 1 3,’

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ClAPTER VII. BIBLE TESTIMONY. Quench, righteous God, the thir~ That Congo’s sons hath curs’d The thirst for gold! Shall not thy thunders speak, Where Mammon’s altars reek, Where maids and matrons shriek, Bound, bleeding, sold? PIERPONT. EVERY person who has read the Bible, and who has a proper understanding of its leading moral precepts, feels in his own conscience, that it is an original and complete antislavery book. In a crude state of society-in a barbarous age-when men were in a manner destitute of wholesome la7s, either human or divine, it is possible that a mild form of slavery may have been tolerated, and even regulated, as an institution clothed with the importance of temporary recognition; but the Deity never approved it, and for the very reason that it is impossible for him to do wrong, he never will, never can approve it. The worst system of servitude of which we have any account in the Bible-and, by the way, it furnishes no account of anything so bad as slavery (the evilone and his hot home alone excepted)-was far less rigorous and atrocious than that now established in the Southern States of this Confederacy. Even that system, however, the worst, which seems to have been practised to a considerable extent by those venerable old fogies, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was one of the monstrous inventions of Satan that God “winked” at; and, to the mind of the biblical scholar, nothing can be more evident than that He determined of old, that it should, in due time, be abolished. To say that the Bible sanctions slavery is equivalent to saying that the sun loves darkness; to say that one man was created to domineer over another is to call in question the justice, mercy and goodness of God. We will now listen to a limited number of the PREOEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE OLD

TESTAMENT. “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.”’ ” He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.” in8

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BIBLE TESTIMONY. “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry, but shall not be heard.” ” He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker.” “Relieve the oppressed.” ” Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.” “Let the oppressed go free.” “

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” ” Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.” ” The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.” ” Do justice to the afflicted and needy; rid them out of the hand of the wicked.”

“Execute judgment and justice; take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord God.” “Therefore thus saith the Lord; ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.” ” I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts.” “As the partridge setteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.” And now let us listen to a few selected PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS

OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. “Call no man master, neither be ye called masters.”

” Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” ” If thou mayest be made free, use it rather.” ” Do good to all men, as ye have opportunity.”

“The laborer is worthy of his hire.” ” All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” “Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.” “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Some years ago a clerical sycophant of the slave power had the temerity to publish a book or pamphlet entitled “Bible defence of Slavery,” which the Baltimore Sun, in the course of a caustic criticism, handled in tbe following manner: 139

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BIBLE TESTIMONY. “Bible defence of slavery! There is no such thing as a Blble defence of slavery at the present day. Slavery in the Jnited States is a social institution, originating in the convenience and cupidity of our ancestors, existing by State laws, and recognized to a certain extent-for the recovery of slave property-by the Constitution. And nobody would pretend that, if it were inexpedient and unprofitable for any man or any State to continue to hold slaves, they would be bound to do so on the ground of a’Bible defence’ of it. Slavery is reborded in the Bible, and approved, with many degrading characteristics. War is recorded in the Bible, and approved, under what seems to us the extreme of cruelty. But are slavery and war to endure for ever because we find them in the Bible?

or are they to cease at once and for ever because the Bible inculcates peace and brotherhood?” The Haleys, Legrees and Peterkins of the South-boors of Vandalic hearts and minds-are, ever and anon, manifesting some of the most palpable and ridiculous idiosyncrasies of human nature.

Ignorant of even the first lessons of a hornbook, they bandy among themselves, in traditionary order, certain garbled passages of Scripture, such, for instance, as that concerning poor old besotted Noah’s intemperate curse of Ham,‘which, in shame and pity be it said, they regard, or pretend to regard, as investing them with full and perfect license to praetise and perpetuate their most unhallowed system of iniquity. Such are the hardened, crafty creatures in human form, who, following the example of their subtle sire, when he perched himself on a pinnacle of the temple at Jerusalem, quote Scripture, without even the semblance of a blush, in the prosecution of their treasons, strategems and spoils. Such are the veritable actors, who, with “Southside Doctors of Divinity,” Bible in hand, as prompters, are unceasingly performing the horrible tragedy of Human Slavery. From all such gross and irreverent distorters of Biblical truth, good Lord deliver us! 140

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CHAPTER VIII. TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. It was the intention of the fathers of the Constitution that liberty should be national ant slavery sectional. James Madison, himself a slaveholder, one of the framers of the Constitution, afterward Governor of Virginia, and then President of the United States, tells us why slavery was not mentioned in that instrument.

He said that, when the institution of slavery had ceased to exist in this land, they did not wish the memory of it to remain on record. … Shadows of the days that are past gather around me. I am standing as I have stood, as a reed shaken by the wind, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. What argument have I not exhausted, to what sentiment have I not appealed? And I have called upon every living thing in vain; yet when I remember that all the experience of the ages is concentrated in our Constitution, I return once more to the charge, and I would that my voice could extend to every palace, and to every cabin throughout this wide Republic, that I might say to you, Arouse from your fatal delusion; liberty and slavery cannot coexist; one or the other must die!-CAsSIUS M.

CLAY. TnE conflict between Freedom and Slavery is not simply a conflict between two diverse systems of labor, the one of which recognizes, while the other ignores, the manhood of the laborer; nor merely between two diverse policies, the one of which tends to enrich, and the other to impoverish society; but it is, preeminently, a conflict between civilization with all its elevating and ameliorating influences, on the one side, and barbarism with all its rudeness and savagery, its ignorance and contempt of humanity, on the other. The very existence of slavery is incompatible with the highest order of social life. Fetich-worship does not more certainly indicate the degradation of the religious ideas of a people than does the chattelization of humanity mark an incomplete civilization. This element of barbarism, lingering in society wherever slavery lingers, makes itself particularly manifest in the present insane efforts of the oligarchy to reopen the foreign slave trade, not only at the expense of humanity and religion, but at the sacrifice of the national honor, and our position among the moral forces of the world. How strikingly contrasts with this savagery of barbarism the present attitude of the great Russian Empire, as represented in the policy of the reigning emperor, Alexander the Second! With a far-seeing wisdom, which takes him out of the mob of vulgar potentates, and vindicates the kingship that belongs to a right royal nature, he has magnanimously resolved on the abolition of serfdom throughout his vast empire. The mag nitude of the work proposed, considered simply in itself, and its sti 141

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. greater magnitude, considered in its far-reaching consequences, are beyond the grasp of any ordinary capacity, and must command for the young emperor, who has determinedly given himself to it, the sympathy and admiration of all true statesmen, philanthropists, and friends of freedom throughout the world. His enterprise is a mightier one than that which tasked the energies of his renowned ancestor, Peter the Great; and its successful accomplishment will give him a far more legitimate and lasting claim on the love and reverence of mankind. The one consolidated a great empire, the other will add millions of loyal subjects to it, by taking them out of the category of chattels, and giving them their proper status in the ranks of humanity. That this grand project will be crowned with success, the wisdom and energy,.with which the young emperor has set himself to the task, forbid us to doubt. And how it shames the despots of our own land, intent not only on the perpetuation of their pet barbarism, but on plunging the country into a still deeper slough of infamy and peril, by a reopening of the African slave trade, with all the bloody and sickening atrocities which it involves I Verily, the boasted enlightenment of our slavery propagandists is about on a par with that of New Zealand, and may well challenge the admiration of “Southside Doctors of Divinity,” who devoutly regard the kidnapper as God’s divinest messenger of salvation to the heathen world I! But a truce to these thoughts of men and measures abroad, and now to the contemporaneous Alexanders and others of our own country, beginning with WiLLIAM H.

SEWARD. In his masterly speech at Rochester, on Monday, Oct. 25, 1858, Senator Seward said: ” Free labor and slave labor-these antagonistic systems are continually comin into close contact, and collision results.

Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men.” At Buffalo, Friday, Oct. 19, 1855, he said: ” I have seen slavery in the slave States, and freedom in the free States. I have seen both slavery and freedom in this State. I know too well the evils of the former to be willing to spare any effort to prevent their return. The experience of New York tells the whole argument against slavery extension, the whole argument for universal freedom. Suppose that, fifty years ago, New York, like Virginia and Maryland, had clung to slavery, where now would have been these three composite millions of freemen, the choice and flower of Europe and America? In that case, would superstition and false national pride have needed to organize a secret cabal, affiliated by unlawful oaths, to proscribe the exile and his children for their nativity or their conscience’ sake? Where would then have been the Erie Canal, the Genesee Valley Canal. the Oswego Canal, the Seneca and Cayuga Canal, the 142

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. Crooked Lake Canal, the Chemung Canal, the Chenango Canal, the Black River Canal, the Champlain Canal-where the imperial New York Central Railroad, the Erie Railroad, and the Ogdensburgh Railroad, with their branches penetrating not only every inhabited district in this State, but every inhabited region also in adjacent States and in British America? Where would have been the colleges and academies, and, above all, the free common schools, yielding instruction to children of all sects and in all languages? Where the asylums and other public charities, and, above all, that noble emigrant charity which crowns the State with such distinguished honor? Where these ten thousand churches and cathedrals, renewing on every recurring Sabbath day the marvel of Pentecost, when the sojourner from every land hears the Gospel of Christ preached to him in his own tongue? Where would have been the steamers, the barges, brigs, and schooners, which crowd this harbor of Buffalo, bringing hither the productions of the Mississippi Valley and of the Gulf coast, in exchange for the fabrics of the Atlantic coast and of Europe, and of the teas and spices of Asia? Where the coasting vessels, the merchant ships, the clippers, the whale ships, and the ocean mail steamers, which are rapidly concentrating in our great seaport the commerce of the world?

Where the American Navy, at once the representative and champion of the cause of universal Republicanism? Where your inventors of steamboats, of electric telegraphs, and of planing machines-where your ingenious artisans-where your artistswhere your mighty Press, the Courier and Enquirer, the Tribune, the Times, and even the Herald itself, defender of slavery as it is? Where your twenty citiesand where, above all, the merry, laughing agricultural industry of native-born and exotic laborers, enlivening the whole broad landscape, from the Lake coast to the Ocean’s side? Go, ask Virginia-go, ask even noble Maryland, expending as she is a giant’s strength in the serpent’s coils, to show you her people, canals, rail roads, universities, schools, charities, commerce, cities, and cultivated acres. Her silence is your expressive answer.” At Albany, Friday, Oct. 12, 1855, he said: “So long as the Republican party shall be firm and faithful to the Constitution, the Union, and the Rights of Man, I shall serve it, with the reservation of that personal independence which is my birthright, but at the same time with the zeal and devotion that patriotism allows and enjoins. I do not know, and personally I do not greatly care, that it shall work out its great ends this year, or the next, or in my lifetime; because I know that those ends are ultimately sure, and that time and trial are the elements which make all great reformations sure and lasting. I have not thus far lived for personal ends or temporary fame, and I shall not begin so late to live or labor for them. I have hoped that I might leave my country somewhat worthier of a lofty destiny, and the rights of human nature somewhat safer. A reasonable ambition must always be satisfied with sincere and practical endeavors.

If, among those who shall come after us, there shall be any curious inquirer who shall fall upon a name so obscure as mine, he shall be obliged to confess that, however unsuccessfully I labored for generous ends, yet that I nevertheless was ever faithful, ever hopeful.” SALON P.

CEASE. Addressing the Southern and Western Liberty Convention, at Cincinnati, June 11, 1845, Mr. Chase used the following unreserved, appropriate language: “It is our duty, and our purpose, to rescue the government from the control of the slaveholders; to harmonize its practical administration with the provisions of the Constitution, and to secure to all, without exception, and without partiality, the rights which the Constitution guarantees. We believe that slaveholding, in the United States, is the source of numberless evils, moral, social and political; that it hinders social progress; that it embitters public and private intercourse; that it degrades us as individuals, as States and as a nation; that it holds back our country xom a splendid career of greatness and glory. We are, therefore, resolutely, inflexibly, at all times, and under all circumstances, hostile to its longer continuance in our land. We believe that its removal can be effected peacefully, constitutionally, without real injury to any, with the greatest benefit to all. “We propose to effect this by repealing all legislation, and discontinuing all action, infavor of slavery at home and abroad; by prohibiting the practice of slaveholding in all places of exclusive national jurisdiction, in the District of Columbia, in kmericar. 143

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. vessels upon the seas, in forts, arsenals, navy yards; by forbidding the employment of slaves upon any public work; by adopting resolutions in Congress, declaring that slaveholding, in all States created out of national territories, is unconstitutional, and recommending to the others the immediate adoption of measures for its extinction within their respective limits; and by electing and appointing to public station such men, and only such men, as openly avow our principles, and will honestly carry out our measures.” CASSIUS M. CLAY. Of the great number of good speeches made by members of the Republican party during the:sidential campaign of 1856, it is, we believe, pretty generally adl(:ed that the best one was made by Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, who, at the Tabernacle, in New York city, October 24th, said: “If there are no manufactures, there is no commerce. In vain do the slaveholders go to Knoxville, to Nashville, to Memphis and to Charleston, and resolve that they will have nothing to do with these Abolition eighteen millions of Northern people; that they will build their own vessels, manufacture their own goods, ship their own products to foreign countries and break down New York, Philadelphia and Boston! Again, they resolve and reresolve, and yet there is not a single ton more shipped, and not a single article added, to the wealth of the South. But, gentlemen, they never invite such men as I am to attend their conventions. They know that I would tell them that slavery is the cause of their poverty, and that I will tell them that whatthey are aiming at is the dissolution of the TUnion-that they may be prepared to strike for that whenever the nation rises. They well know that by slave labor the very propositions which they make can never be realized; yet, when we show these things, they cry out,’ Oh, Cotton is King!’ But when we look at the statistics, we find that so far from Cotton being King, Grass is King. There are nine articles of staple productions which are larger than that of cotton in this country. ” I suppose it does not follow, because slavery is endeavoring to modify the great dicta of our fathers, that cotton and free labor are incompatible. In the extreme South, at New Orleans, the laboring men-the stevedores and hackmen on the levee, where the heat is intensified by the proximity of the red brick buildings-are all white men, and they are in the full enjoyment of health.

But how about cotton? I am informed by a friend of mine-himself a slaveholder, and therefore good authority-that in Northwestern Texas, among the German settlements, who, true to their national instincts, will not employ the labor of a slave, they produce more cotton to the acre, and of a better quality, and selling at prices from a cent to a cent and a half a pound higher than that produced by slave labor. This is an experiment that illustrates what I have always held, that whatever is right is expedient.” JOHIN CHARLES FREMONT. Accepting his nomination for the Presidency, in 1856, Mr. FremonL, one of the noblest sons of the South, said: “II heartily concur in all movements which have for their object the repair of the mischiefs arising from the violation of good faith in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. I am opposed to slavery in the abstract, and upon principles sustained and made habitual by long-settled convictions. I am inflexibly opposed to its extension on this continent beyond its present limits. ” The great body of nonslaveholding freemen, including those of the South, upon whose welfare slavery is an oppression, will discover that the power of the general government over the public lands may be beneficially exerted to advance their interests and secure their independence; knowing this, their suffrages will not be wanting to maintain that authority in the Union, which is absolutely essential to the maintenance of their own liberties, and which has more than once indicated the purpose of disposing of the public lands in such a way as would make every settler upon them a freeholder.’ 144

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. CHARLES SUMNER. Speaking of the Crime against Kansas, in the United States Senate, on the 19th and 20th of May, 1856, Mr. Sumner, the scholarly and eloquent statesman-a gentleman and patriot, of whom it is not to( much to say, there is not an ungenerous hair upon his head, nor an iota of discount in his composition-a prudent, fearless advocate of free labor, whom, ever since Brooks’ dastardly assault upon him, on the 22d of May, 1856, we, as a Carolinian, have been eager (but have not yet had the opportunity) to grasp by ti rand, and give from the South assurances of at least one hearty, unqualified condemnation of the outrage-said: The wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the national government. Yes, sir, when the whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, and to make it a hissing to the nations, here in our republic, force-aye, sir, force-has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution, and all for the sake of political power. There is the simple fact, which you will vainly attempt to deny, but which in itself presents an essential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem like public virtues… In just regard for free labor in that Territory, which it is sought to blast by unwelcome association with slave labor; in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom it is proposed to task and to sell there; in stern condemnation of the crime which has been consummated on that beautiful soil; in rescue of fellow-citizens, now subjugated to a tyrannical usurpation; in dutiful respect for the early Fathers, whose aspirations are now ignobly thwarted; in the name of the Constitution, which has been outraged-of the laws, trampled down-or Justice banished-of Humanity degraded-of Peace destroyed-of Freedom crushed to earth; and, in the name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect freedom, I make this last appeal.” HENRY WILSON. Replying to Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, in the United States Senate, March 20th, 1858, Gen. Wilson of Massachusetts, said: ” Fealty to the Administration, to the Democratic party, is now fealty to human slavery, to violence, to trickery, and to fraud. By perversions of the Constitution and the laws, by the red hand of violence, by unveiled trickeries and transparent frauds, by the indecent proscription of men of inflexible integrity, by the shameless prostitution of the honors of the government, and by the’rank corruption, mining all within,’ which’infects unseen,’ the administration is converting the American Democracy into a mere organization for the perpetuity, expansion, and domination of human slavery on the North American continent. There is not today, in all Christendom, a political organization so hostile to the rights of human nature, to the development of republican ideas, to the general progress of the human race, as the Democratic party of the United States. There is not a political organization even in Spain, Russia, or Austria, that dares, in the face of the ci,ilized world, blazon its banners with doctrines so hostile to the rights of mankind, io abhorrent to humanity, as are avowed in these halls, and upheld by the American Democracy, under the lead of this administration. The great powers of Europe, England, France and Russia, have fixed their hungry eyes upon the c 3veted prizes of the Eastern World; and we are invoked to forget the lessons of Washington, to close our ears to the appeals of the people of Kansas, whose right have been outraged, and turn our lustful eyes to the glittering prizes of dominion 7 145

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. in Mexico, Central America, Cuba, and the valleys of the distant Amazon. No party in those three European monarchies dares avow, in the face of Christendom, ,he sentiment we have heard proclaimed in these halls, that territorial expansion, md territorial dominion must be made, not for the advancement of the sacred and uablime principle of equal and impartial liberty to all men, but for the subjugation Lnd personal servitude of other and inferior races….. I tell the vauntng senator from South Carolina that thousands of merchants, manufacturers and mechanics of the North are this day, and have been for months, pressed with the burden of bearing the unpaid debts owed them by the slave States. I remember that during the terrible pressure of last year, while our business men were staggerqg under the pressure, thirteen out of fourteen wholesale merchants in one depart lent of business in one Southern city, imposed upon their Eastern creditors the ourden of renewing their matured notes. The merchants and manufacturers of he North have lost hundreds of millions of dollars during the last thirty years in he slave States. I have personally lost, in the senator’s own State, in Louisiana, ‘irginia, and Kentucky, thousands of dollars more than I am now able to comnand.” JOH1N. P. HALE. In his speech on Kansas and the Supreme Court, delivered in the ! nited States Senate, January 21st, 1858, Mr. Hale said: “Peace came in 1783; and in 1784 Thomas Jefferson, the immortal author of the mmortal Declaration of Independence, began his labors in the Continental Con,ress, moving that all the territory we then owned, and all the territory that we fight thereafter acquire, should be forever free from what he considered the con mLninating and blighting influences of human slavery. Those who are laboring vith me in this great contest may take courage fronm the perseverance with which efferson adhered to his policy. In 1783-‘84-‘85, and‘86, the measure failed, but neally, in 1.87, it partially succeeded, and the ordinance was passed prohibiting lavery fronm all the territory which we then owned. Yet, sir, in view of all this fistory, written as with a sunbeam upon the very walls of the room in which this Tribunal now assemble, they stand up in 1857, to declare to the world that the slave trade and slavery were so universally recognized and acknowledged, that aobody questioned the rightfulness of the traffic, and nobody supposed it capable of being questioned. Not content with overturning the whole line of judicial authority to be found in every nation of Europe, and in every State of this Union, and of their own solemn recorded decision, they go on to make the avowal; and then go further, and undertake to tear from that chaplet which adorns the brows of the men of the Revolution the proudest and fairest of their ornaments; and that was the sincerity of the professions which they made in regard to the rights of human nature. It is true, the court in their charity undertake to throw the mantle of ignorance over these men, and say they did not understand what they meant. Sir, they did understand it, and the country understood it. There was a jealousy on the subject of liberty and slavery at that time, of which we are little prepared to judge at the present day.

It is found beaming out on the pages of the writings of all these men. “If the opinions of the Supreme Court are true, they put these men in the worst position of any men who are to be found on the pages of our history.

If’the opinion of the Supreme Court be true, it makes the immortal authors of the Declaration of Independence liars before God and hypocrites before the world; for they lay down their sentiments broad, full, and explicit, and then they say that hey appeal to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rectitude of their intentions; but if you believe the Supreme Court, they were merely quibbling on words. they went into the courts of the Most tligh and pledged fidelity to their principles as the price they would pay for success; and now it is attempted to cheat them out of the poor boon of integrity; and it is said that they did not mean so; and that when they said all men, they meant all white men; and when they said that the contest they waged was for the right of mankind, the Supreme Court of the United States would have you believe they meant it was to establish slavery. Against that I protest, here, now, and everywhere; and I tell the Supreme Court that these things are so impregnably fixed in the hearts of the people, on the page of history, in the recollections and traditions of men, that it will require mightier efforts than they have made or can make to overturn or to shake these settled convictions of tho popular understanding and of the popular heart.” 116

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WI’rNESSES. NATHANIEL P. BANKS. In the course of his great speech in Wall street, New York. on the 25th of Sept., 1856, Mr.

Banks said: ” For seventyfive years past the government of this country has been ill the hands of southern statesmen, who have directed its policy. The North has been busy in the mechanical arts, in agriculture, and in mining, and has given less attention to the affairs of the government than it otherwise might have done-certainly less than it ought to have done. On the contrary, the South having no literature of its own, having no science of its own, having no mechanical and manufacturing industry of its own, having but little or no inventive power or genius of its own, having, in short, none of the elements of power that distinguish our civilization, has turned its attention chiefly, so far as its leading men are concerned, to the government of the country. Now, we of the North propose to divide this little matter with them…… I should do wrong to our cause-the cause of the Northern States-if I failed to say that there are other influences we desire to exert by the elevation to the Presidency of the man of our choice. We ask that the dead weight of human wrong shall be lifted up from the continent again, that. it may rise as it was rising before these acts of wrong were done.” EDWIN D. MORGAN. After calling to order the Convention which, in Philadelphia, in June, 1856, nominated Mr.

Fremont for President, and Mr. Dayton for VicePresident, Mr. Morgan, as Chairman of the Republican National Cornmittee-now Governor of New York-said: “You are assembled for patriotic purposes. High expectations are cherished by the people. You are here to-day to give direction to a movement which is to decide whether the people of the United States are to be hereafter and forever chained to the present national policy of the extension of Human Slavery. Not whether the South is to rule, or the North; but whether the broad, national policy which our fathers established, cherished and maintained, is to be permittcd to descend to their sons, to be the guiding star of all our people. Such is the magnitude of the question submitted. In its consideration let us avoid all extremesplant ourselves firmly on the platform of the Constitution and the Union, taking no position which does not commend itself to the judgment of our consciences, our country, and of mankind. Of the wisdom of such a policy there need be no loubt: against it, there can be no successful resistance” EDWARD WADE. In his speech on the Slavery question, in the House of Representatives, August 2, 1856, Mr. Wade said: ” Inherent and fundamental right of freedom of speech and the press, does not and cannot exist in slaveholding communities. This is a necessity of despotic governments, it is more than a necessity of despotism, it is in itself, the essence of despotism. There is not a more morbidly suspicious, cruel, revengeful, or lawless despotism on the face of the earth, than the nightmare of slavery, which has settled down upon the people of the slaveholding States, with the exception of perhaps two or three of these States. There is more freedom of speech and of the press to-day, and more personal safety in the exercise of such freedom, at Vienna, St.

Petersburg, Paris, or Rome, in an attack and exposure of the despotism which reigns supreme over those cities, than there is at Richmond, Charleston, Milledgeville, or Mobile, to attack and expose the slaveholding despotisms which rule over these cities with a rod of iron.

There are probably more citizens, born and nurtured in the slave States, now in exile froin their native States for the exer’ise of freedom of speech and the press, against the despotism of slaveholding, than there are from Austria, Russia, France, or the Two Sicilies, for the exercise of the same rights against the despotisms which crush those nations.” 147

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TESTIMIONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, SEN. In the course of an address to the Republicans of Maryland-hi4 own State-in 1856, M-Ir. Blair said: ” In every aspect in which slavery among us can be considered, it is pregnant with difficulty. Its continuance in the States in which it has taken root has resulted in the monopoly of the soil, to a great extent, in the hands of the slaveholders, and the entire control of all departments of the State Government; and yet a majority of people in the slave States are not slaveowners. This produces an anomaly in the principle of our free institutions, which threatens in time to bring into subjugation to slaveowniers the great body of the free white population.” FRANK P. BLAIR, JR. In his speech at Coacord, New IHampshire, February 2, 1859, Mr.

Bhlai-, of Alissouri, of whom the nonslaveholders of the South have high hopes in the future, said: “There is no other question before the country than that of slavery. It is the ali-absorbing topic in every political circle. Upon this issue Ihave long since taken my ground against its extension and perpetuation. I believe that slavery should be restricted to its present limits, and that Congress should do all which lies in its power to prevent the perpetuation of this evil. I know that Congress has no power to interfere with it wher e it at present exists within the States; and yet I doubt not that when the Republicani party takes possession of the general government, and the corrupting patronage of the administration is diverted from its present channels, we shall be able to show the little oligarchy of slaveholders some things of which they little dream even within the States…. Although the institution of slavery is to be condeminned, because it deprives the slave of everything except his bread and butter, and clothing, and shelter in winter, it merits more decided condemnation on another ground. It deprives the poor whites of the South of every aspiration which appertis to anything nobler than their bodies. It deprives them of the exercise of their intellects, of schools, education and culture, no less than of the bread of themselves and their children. I am more opposed to the institution on this ground than on any other, because it is our own race, the white race, which is here trampled upon -a race of working men and mechanics like yourselves.

Slavery is the most odious institution ever known. It is essentially and vitally aristocratie. How dare these nen stand up here and call themselves Democrats, while they have a race of whites pressed down under a twofold stratum of slaves and slave owners. I appeal to the people of New Hampshire to lend a helping hand to this oppressed race. Toward them the friends of slavery intrench themselves in exclusive rights of a twofold nature. The negro slave is instructed in all the mechanical arts for the benefit of his master, and the white nonslaveholder is thus excluded from all opportunities for elevating his family or providing for their wants.”

GERRITT SMITH. In his speech on the Nebraska bill, delivered in the House of Representatives, April 6, 1854, Mr. Smith said: ” The slavery qu,estion is up again-up again even in Congress! It will not be kept down. At no bidding, however authoritative, will it keep down The President of the United States commands it to keep down. Indeed he has, hitherto, seemed to make the keeping down of this question the great end of his great office.

Members of Congress have so far humbled themselves, as to pledge themselves oni this floor to keep it down. National political conventions promise to discountenance, and even to resist the agitation of slavery, both in and out of Congress. Commerce and politics are as afraid of this’agitation, as Macbeth was of the ghost of Banquo; and many titled divines, taking their cue from commerce and politics, and being no less servile than merchants and demagogues, do what they can to keep the slavery question out of sight. But all is of no avail. The saucy slavery question will not mind them. To repress it in one quarter, is only to have it burst forth more prominently in another quarter. If you hold it back here, it will break loos there, and rush forward with an accumulated force, that shall amply revenge 148

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T’ESTIMOCNY OF LIVING WITNESSES. for all its detention. And this is not strange, when we consider how great is the power of truth. It were madness for man to bid the grass not to grow, tile waters not to run, the winds not to blow. it were madness for him to assume the mastery of the elements of the physical world. But more emnphatically were it madness for him to attempt to hold in his puny fist the forces of the moral world. Canute’s folly, in setting bounds to the sea, was wisdom itself, compared with the so murch greater folly of attempting to subjugate the moral forces. Now, the power which is, ever and anon, throwing up the slavery question into our unwilling and aftrighted faces, is Truth. The passion-blinded and the infatuated may not discern this mighty agent. Nevertheless, Truth lives and reigns forever; and she will be, continually, tossing up unsettled questions. We must hear in nind, too, that every question, which has not been disposed of in conformity with her requirements, and which has not been laid to repose on her own blessed bosom, is an unsettled question.

Hence, slavery is an unsettled question, and must continue such, until it shall have fled forever from the presence of libertv.” JOSIIHUA R.

GIDDINGS. In his speech on American Piracy, in Committee of the whole House, on the state of the Union, June 7, 1858, Mr. Gd’dings said: “Every man who sells a slave thereby encourages the slave trade; and no reflecting mind can regard the coastwise slave trade less criminal than that which is carried on upon the shores of Africa. In truth it was born of tihe African trade, and in its effects it is more atrocious, as its victims are more intelliueurt. It is tihus that the African slave trade, the coastwise slave trade, the inter-StaIte slave trade, the holding of slaves, the breeding of slaves, the selling and buying of slaves, are all connected and interwoven in one general network of moral turpitude, constituting an excrescence, a cancer upon the body politic of our nation.

The African slave trade constitutes the germ, the root, from which our American slave trade, and all the various relations of that institution in this country, have spiriung. If the tree AIe piracy, it is clear that its fruit can be nothing else than piracy; and when the nation stamped that commerce as piratical, it proclaimed tile guilt of every man who voluntarily connects himself with lavery.” ANSON BURLiINGAlE. In his defence of Massachusetts, in the IlHouse of RPepresentativef, June 21, 1856, Mr. Burlingame said: ” Freedom and slavery started together in the great race on this continent. In thie very year the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, slaeves landed in Virginia. Freedom has gone on trampling down barbarier, and planting Statesbuilding the symbols of its faith by every lake. and every river, until now the sons ofthe pilgrims stand by the shores of the Pacific. Slavery has also made its way toward the setting sun. It has reached the Rio Grande oi: the South; and the groans of its victims, and the clank of its chains, rmay be heal( as it slowly ascends the western tributaries of the Mississippi River. Freesoinl has left the land bespangled with free schools, and filled the whole heavens with the shining towers of religion and civilization. Slavery has left desolation, ignorance and death, in its path. When we look at these things; when we see what the cun,try would have been had freedom been given to the territories; when we think lwhat it woiiuld have been but for this blight in the bosom of the country; that thie w-hole South-that fair land God has blessed so much-would have been covered Nwit cities. and vil’lages. and railroads, and that in the country, in the place of twentyfive millions of people thirty-five millions would have hailed the rising i-morn, exOltin in republican liberty -when we think of these things, how must everyv honest man-ihow must every man with brains in his head, or heart in his bosom n re’ret that the policy of old Virginia, in her better days, did not become the animating policy of this exnandiug Republic!” GALUSIEA A. GROW. In his speech against the Lecompton Constittution, delivered in the House of Representatives, March 25, 1858, M!r. Grow said: “Peace among a brave people is not the fruit of injustice, nor does agitati,,u siase by ihe perpetration of wrong. For a third of a century, the alvocates rl 149

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. slavery while exei ising unrestricted speech in its defence, have struggled to pre vent all discussion against it-in the South, by penal statutes, mob law, and brute force; in the North, by dispersing assemblages of peaceable citizens, pelting their lecturers, burning their halls, and destroying their presses; in this forum of the people, by finality resolves on all laws for the benefit of slavery, not, however, to affect those in behalf of freedom, and by attempts to stifle the great constitutional right of the people at all times to petition their government. Yet, despite threats, mob law, and finality resolves, the discussion goes on, and will conftinue to, so long as right and wrong, justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, shall struggle for supremacy in the affairs of men.” RALPH WALDO EMERSON. In his speech at Concord, Massachusetts, Aug. 1, 1844, celebrating the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, Mr. Emerson, the most practical and profound metaphysician in America, said: “The crude element of good in human affairs must work andripen, spite of whips, and plantation laws, and West Indian interests. Conscience rolled on its pillow, and could not sleep. We sympathize very tenderly here with the poor aggrieved planter, of whom so many unpleasant things are said; but if we saw the whip applied to old men, to tender women; and, undeniably, though I shrink to say so,-pregnant women set in the treadmill for refusing to work, when, not they, but the eternal law of animal nature refused to work;-if we saw men’s backs flayed with cowhides, and’ hot rum poured on, superinduced with brine or pickle, rubbed in with a cornhusk in the scorching heat of the sun;’-if we saw the runaways hunted with blood-hounds into swamps and hills, and, in cases of passion, a planter throwing his negro into a copper of boiling cane juice,-if we saw these things with eyes, we too should wince. They are not pleasant sights. The blood is moral: the blood is antislavery: it runs cold in the veins: the stomach rises with disgust, and curses slavery….. Unhappily, most unhappily, gentlemen, man is born with intellect, as well as with a love of sugar, and with a sense of justice, as well as a taste for strong drink. These ripened, as well as those. You could not educate him, you could not get any poetry, any wisdom, any beauty in woman, any strong and commanding character in man, but these absurdities would still come flashing out,-these absurdities of a demand for justice, a generosity for the weak and oppressed. Unhappily, too, for the planter, the laws of nature are in harmony with each other: that which the head and the heart demand, is found to be, in the long run, for what the grossest calculator calls his advantage. The moralsense is always supportedbythe permanent interest of the parties. Else, I know not how, in our world, any good would ever get done. It was shown to the planters that they, as well as the negroes, were slaves; that though they paid no wages, they got very poor work; that their estates were ruining them under the finest climate; and that they needed the severest monopoly laws at home to keep them from bankruptcy. The oppression of the slave recoiled on them. They were full of vices; their children were lumps of pride, sloth, sensuality and rottenness. The position of woman was nearly as bad as it could be, and, like other robbers, they could not sleep in security. Many planters have said, since the emancipation, that, before that day, they were the greatest slaves on the estate. Slavery is no scholar, no improver; it does notlove the whistle of the railroad; it does not love the newspaper, the mail bag, a college, abook, ora preacherwliwho has the absurd whim ofsaying whatl he thinks; it does not increase the white population; it does not improve the soil; everything goes to decay.” T[F1OMAS COI[WIN. In his speech against the Compromiise Bill, delivered in the United States Senate, July 24, 1848, Mr. Corwin, once a Kentucky boy, now an Olio man, said: i I am the more confirmed in the course which I am determined to pursue, by some historical facts elicited in this very discussion. I remember what was said by the senator from Virginia the other day. It is a truth, that when the Constitution of the United States was made, South Carolina and Georgia refused to come into the Union unless the slave trade should be continued for twenty years; and the North agreed that they wo.tld vote to continue the slave trade fir twenty years; yes. 150

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. voted tiat this new Republic should engage in piracy and murder at the will of twc States! So the history reads; and the condition of the agreement was, that those two States should agree to some arrangement’about navigation laws I I do not blame South Carolina and Georgia for this transaction any more than I do those Northern States who shared in it. Butsuppose the question were now presented here by any one, whether we should adopt the foreign slave trade and continue it for twenty years, would not the whole land turn pale with horror, that, in the middle of the nineteenth century, a citizen of a free community, a senator of the United States, should dare to propose the adoption of a system that has been denominated piracy and murder, and is by law punished by death all over Christendom? What did they do then? They had the power to prohibit it; but, at the comniand of these two States, they allowed that to be introduced into the Constitution, to which much of slavery now existing in our land is clearly to be traced. For who can doubt that, but for that woeful bargain, slavery would by this time have disappeared from all the States then in the Union, with one or two exceptions? The numbelr of slaves in the United States at this period was about six hundred thousand; it is now three millions. And just as you extend the area of slavery, so vou multiply the difficulties which lie in the way of its extermination.

}t had been infinitely better that day that South Carolina and Georgia had remained out of the Union for a while, rather than that the Constitution should have been made to sanction the slave trade for twenty years. The dissolution of the old Confederation would have been nothing in comparison with that recognition of piracy and murder. I can conceive of nothing in the dark record of man’s enormities, from the death of Abel down to this hour, so horrible as that of stealing people from their own homes and making them and their posterity slaves forever. It is a crime which we know has been visited with such signal punishment in the history of nations as to warrant the belief that heaven itself had interfered to avenge the wrongs of earth.” B. GRATZ BROWN. In the Mlissouri legislature, in January, 1857, Mr. Brown, of St. Louis, proved himself a hero, a patriot and a statesman, in the following words: ” I am a FreeSoiler, and I don’t deny it. No word or vote of mine shall ever inure to the benefit of such a monstrous doctrinie as the extension of slavery over the patrimony of the free white laborers of the country. I am for the greatest good of the greatest number, and against the system which monopolizes the free and fertile territory of our country for a few slaveholders, to the exclusion of thousands upon thousands of the sinewy sons of toil. The time will come, and perhaps very soon, when the people will rule for their own benefit, and not for that of a class which, numerically speaking, is insignificant. I stand here in the midst of the assembled legislature of Missouri to avow myself a FreeSoiler. Let those who are scared at names shrink from the position if they will. I shall take my stand in favor of the white man. Here, in Missouri, I shall support the rights, the dignity and the welfare of the eight hundred thousand nonslaveholders in preference to upholding anll perpetuating the dominancy of the thirty thousand slaveholders who inhabit our State.” HENRY a. CAREY. In his statesman-like Letters to the President, which Mr. Buchanan, to whom they are mnost respectfully addressed, has not answered, ifor the reason, we suppose, that it is absolutely impossible for him to answer them with any credit to himself or to his party, Mr. Carey says, assuring us that ten years ago conservative, patriotic men everywhere, would have regarded as a false prophet the man who had predicted: “That, at the close of a single decade, the regular expenditures of the federal government in a time of peace, would reach seventy millions of dollars-being five times more than they had been but thirty years before. ” That the Executive would dictate to niembers of Congress what should be their course, and publicly advertise the offices that were to be given, to those whose votes should be in accordance with his desires. “That the growing mental slavery thus indicated, would be attended by { r 151

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TESTIMOINY ) F LIVING WITNESSES. responding growth in the belief, that’

one of the chief bulwarks of our institutioins was to be found in the physical enslavement of the laborer. ” That the extension of the area of human slavery would have become the pri mary object of the government, and that, with that view, the great Ordinance of 1787, as carried out in the Missouri Compromise, would be repealed. That the reopening of the slave trade would be publicly advocated, and that the first step toward its accomplishment would be taken by a citizen of the United States-in rescinding all the prohibitions of the Central American governments. s That the prohibition of slavery in a Central American State would be considiered sufficient reason for the rejection of a treaty. “That the substitution, throughout all the minor employments of society, of slave la oor for that of the freeman, would be publicly recommended by the Executive of a leaditg State. ” That, while always seeking territory in the South, the rights and interests of the people would be bartered away, for the sole and exclusive purpose of preventing annexation in the North.

1 That Lv nch-law would have found its way into the Senate chamber: that it would have superseded the provisions of the Constitution throughout the Southern States: Ithat i t would have superseded the civil authority, in one of the States of the Union: that the right of the States to prohibit slavery within their limits, would be so seriously questioned as to warrant the belief, that the day was near at harold when it would be totally denied: that all the decisions of the Supreme Court for sixty years, favorable to freedom, would by this time have been reversed: that the doctrine of constructive treason would be adopted in federal courts: and that the rights of the citizen would be thus in equal peril, from the extension of legal authority on one hand, and the substitution of the law of force on the other. “That polygamy and slavery would go hand in hand with each other, and that the doctrine of a plurality of wives would be publicly p)roclaimed by men holding highly important ofices under the Federal government.” WENDELL PIIILLIPS. In his speech at the City Hall, in Worcester, Mass., Jan. 15, 1857, 5ir. Phillips, the Demosthenes of New England, whom certain ProSlavery fanatics of the South, in an insane effort to abuse, have highly coimpi)imenl,ed by describing him as “an infernal machine set to music,” said: Slavery is so momentous an evil, that in its presence all others pale away. No tlioughtifui man can deem any sacrifice too great to secure its abolition. The safety uf the people is the highest law. In this battle we demand a clear field and the use of every honorable weapon. Even the monuments of our fathers are no longer sacreed if the enemy are concealed behind them. This is miy first claim upon every man who has an AntiSlavery purpose. One of the greatest if not the greatest question of the age, is that of Free Labor. I dlo not know no man can prophecy-what sacrifices it will demand, no human sagacity divine what shape it will acquire in the kaleidoscope of the future.

Nobody can foresee the combinations that will be necessary in order to secure liberty and turn law into justice.‘The pledge we make to each other, as Abolitionists, is, that to) this slave question, embodying as it does the highest justice and the most per t liberty, synonyniouiis as it is with right, manhood, justice, with pure religion, ree piess. an imipartial judiciary and a true civilization, we will sacrifice every. i ug. If any man dissents, he is not, in any just sense, an Abolitionist. If he has nc,t studied the question enough to know that it binds up in itself all considerations lof govfriinuent, then he is not worthy of being called an Abolitionist.” Again, on the 17th of February, 1859, addressing a Committee of the Massachusetts legislature, in support of numerous petitions, asking for a law to prevent the recapture of fugitive slaves, he said: ” It is no answer to myrequest to say, that you will granta jury trial-that you will hedge the citizen with such safeguards that none but a real fugitive can ever be de livered up. That is not the Massachusetts we want, and notthe Massachusetts we have a right to claim. If the South has violated the Constitution repeatedly, palpal”.y, 1.52

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TESTIMONY OF I IVING WITNESSES. avowedly, defiantly, atrociously, for her own purposes-to get power in the government, to perpetuate her system, to control the nation-we claim of you that you should exercise the privilege which that violation has given you. We claim of you that you should give us a Alassachusetts worthy of its ancioent name. Give us a State that is not disgraced by the trial, in the nineteenth century, in the midst of soc.Ued Christian churches, of the issue,’ Is this nian a chattel?’ We will not rest antil it is decided as the law of Massachusetts, that a human being, immortal, created by the hand of God, shall not be put upon trial in the Commonwealth, and required to prove that he is not property.

It shall not be competent for the courts of Massachusetts to insult the civilization of the nineteenth century by asking that question, or making it the subject of evidence and proof.” THEODORE PARKER. In his discourse at the Music Hall, in Boston, on Monday, February 12, 1854, Mr. Parker, who, bountifully supplied with brain, wvas born thinking, and whose abhorrence of slavery of the body is more than equalled by his abhorrence of slavery of the minrd, said: “Slavery hinders the education and the industry of the people; it is fatal to their piety. Think of a religious kidnapper a Christian Slavebreeder! a Slavetrader loving his neighbor as himself, receiving the’ sacraments’ in some Protestant Church from the hand of a Christian apostle, then the next day selling babies by the dozen, and tearing young women from the arms of their husbands, to feed the lust of lecherous NewOrleans! hnagine a religious nail selling his own children into eternal bondage! Think of a Christian defending slavely out of the Bible and declaring there is no higher law, but Atheism is the first principle of Republican government…… As soon as the North awakes to its ideas, and uses its vast strength of money, its vast strength of numbers, and ifs still more gigantic strength of educated intellect, we shall tread this monster under neath our feet. See how Spain has fallen-how poor and miserable is Spanish America. She stands there a perpetual warning to us. One day the North will rise in her majesty, and put Slavery under our feet, and then we shall extend l,he area of freedom.

The blessing of Almighty God will come down upon the noblest people the world ever saw-who have triumphed over Theocracy, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Despotocracy, and have got a Democracy-a government of all, for all, and by all-a church without a bishop, a state without a king, a community without a lord, and a family without a slave.” WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. In a recently published volume of his Writings and Speeches, Mlr. Garrison, under whose most able counsel and convincling arguments organized opposition to slavery first becamine an important, and is dlestined soon to become a controlling, power in the goveriiment,’ says: “It is the strength and glory of the AntiSlavery cause, that its principles are so simple and elementary, and yet so vital to freedom, morality and religion, as to commend themselves to the understandings and conseciences of men of every sect and party, every creed and persuasion, every caste and color.

They are selIfevident truths-fixed stars in the moral firmament-blazirg suns in the great universe of mind, dispensing light and heat over the whole surlace of huranitv, and around which all social and moral affinities revolve in hlarimonv. Thev are to be denliel, only as the existence of a God, or the immnnortality ofi the soul, is denied(l. Unlike human theories, they can never lead astraey uliilike human devices they can never be made subservient to ambition or selishie,s…… I will say, finally, that I tremble for the republic while s.avery exists therein. 1

II look up to God for success, no smile of mercy or forgiveness dispels the gloom of futurity; if to our resources, they are daily dimi’ishi,- if to all history, our destruction is not only possible, but almost certain.

Wvhy should we slumber at this momentous crisis? If our hearts were dead to every throb ofi humanit * if if were lawful to oppress, where power is ample; still, if we had any r-etard ifor olir safety and happiness, we should strive to crush tle vampire whibli is feeding poon our life blood.

All the selfishness of our natr-e eries aloud fir a b etter secetrity Our own vices are too strong for us, and keep us in perpetual aJ:frm hos’w -t 7* 1 5.3

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T}ESTIMONY OF’ LIVING WrrNESSES. addition to these, shall we be able to contend successfully with millions of armed and desperate men, as we must eventually, if slavery do not cease?” HIENRY WARD BEECHER. In his address before the American Tract Society of Boston, in the Church of the Puritans, New York, May 12, 1859, Mr. Beecher said: ” For more than thirty years the diapason of this country has not been the swell of the ocean. It has not been the sighing of the wind through our Western forests; the deep thunder-toned diapason that has rolled through this land, has been the sighing of the slave. Throughout all this time the Church has heard the voice, and scarcely knew what it was. But God has been rolling it upon her more and more. In my day a conflict has taken place. I remember the days of mobs. I remember when Birney’s press was broken in pieces at Cincinnati and dragged into the Ohio River. I remember when Theodore Weld was driven by unvitalized eggs from place to place in the West. I remember the day when storehouses were sacked and houses pillaged in New York. I remember the day when a venerable man escaped from being murdered for a good cause, and because he escaped has never been engaged in it since. I remember when it was as much as a man’s name was worth to be called an Abolitionist. I have within twenty years seen those parties which were the most tyrannic ground out of existence, and those churches which refused to discuss this question have been overrun by it and taken complete possession of. Synods, which have acted as dykes, have been overwhelmed and submerged. General Assemblies have been carried away captive by this good cause, and the public sentiment of the whole continent has been changed in this mighty work.” GEORGE B. cnEEVEr.. In an address delivered in the Church of the Puritans, on Thursday, May 13, 1858, Dr. Cheever, speaking of the sin of slavery, said: ”’ We practise the iniquity upon children, innocent children, the natives of our own land, unbought, unsold, unpaid for, without consultation or consent of father or mother, or the shadow of a permission from the Almighty; and they, the newborn babes of this system, are the compound interest year by year added to the sin and its capital, which thus doubles upon us in the next generation, and must treble in another. We make use of the most sacred domestic affections, of maternal, filial, and I was going to say, connubial love-but the system forbids, and I have to say contubernal-for such rapid and accumulating production of the iniquity, as shall be in some measure adequate to the demand. The whole family relation, the whole domestic state, is prostituted, poisoned, turned into a misery-making machine for the agent of all evil. What God meant should be the source and iispiration of happiness, becomes the fountain of sin and woe. The sacred names of husband, wife, father, mother, son, babe, become the exponents of various forces and values in the slavebreeding institute. And the whole perfection, completeness and concentration of this creative power in this manufacturing interest de,cends like a trip-hammer on the children, beating them from birth into marketable articles, and stamping and sealing them as chattels, foredoomed and fatalized to run till they wear out, as living spindles, wheels, activities of labor and productiveness, in the same horrible system. ” And each generation of immortal marketable stuff is as exactly fashioned in these grooves, molds, channels, wefted, netted and drawn through, to come out the invariable produc’v, as the yards of carpeting are cut from the loom to be trodden oi or as the coins drop from the die for the circulation of society. This is the penuliarity of the sin of slavery in the foremost Christian country on the face of the earth. In this branch of native industry and manufacture we are self-reliant. Disavowing a protective policy in alnost everything else, we are proudly patriotic for the security, superiority and abundance of this most sacred native product of domestic manufacture, and for neither the raw material nor the bleaching of it will depend on any other country in the world.” JOSEPH P.

THOMPSON. Trying the Fugitive Slave Law by the Old and New Testaments, Dr.

Thompson. pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, says: 154

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. “Whatever may be thought of the lawftilness or the expediency of introducing the general subject of slavery into the pulpit, there can be no question that the treatment due to fugitives from slavery is a legitimate topic for discussion there. That is a subject of which the Bible treats, and in making it a subject of discourse 1 am not preaching politics but am preaching the Gospel; applying the principles of the Bible to an important public interest. The subject legitimately belongs to the pulpit, and politicians should be careful how they tamper with it, lest they betray an ignorance of the principles of Biblical interpretation and of the spirit of Christianity, as gross as that ignorance of political affairs which they are prone to charge upon ministers of the Gospel. The treatment of fugitive slaves has indeed been made a political question; but it was a Biblical question and a question of mnioraityv long before it was dragged into the arena of politics, and it was legislated upon by the King of heaven and earth ages before the Congress of the United States had aii existence…… The laws of Moses were given in the wilderness, to a people just escaped from bondage, and who therefore had no slaves; they were given inll anticipation of the introduction of slavery among that people when they should come to be settled as conquerors in Canaan; they were given to restrain the lust of conquest and oppression, and to hedge in as much as possible the natural tendency of the emancipated to retaliate upon others the cruelties of their own bondage-to prevent the Israelites from becoming to each other and to the Canaanites what the Egyptians had been to the Israelites; they were given in order, by a qualified and an onerous permission, to secure the overthrow of a system which, as the times and the people were, could not have been shut out by an absolute prohibition. And as the crowning act of legislation for the ultimate overthrow of an evil tolerated from necessity, it was decreed that no fugitive from slavery should ever be delivered up to his master. The slave was at liberty to escape from his master whenever he desired to better his condition, and in whatever part of Israel he should choose an asylum, there was he to be allowed to remain without molestation.” E. H. CHAPIN. From two of Mr. Chapin’s published works, one entitled ” True Manliness,” the other “City Life,” we make the following extracts: “I pass into the antislavery meeting. Here, I discover, is agitated a great truth -the natural equality of all mena-the right of the poorest and lowest to be free, to breathe God’s air upon what hill-top he will, to follow his sunshine around the earth if he list-the wrong of holding him in bondage, of putting hin by force to do another’s work……… Intemperance, slavery, war, what are these but the flowering plants of interior sin?…… Activity and intelligence indicate a condition of material and individual freedom. A community which really thrives in all the departments of its industry, must be, essentially, a free community. Despotism prevails more where men do not feel that they have much at stake in the country, and where their faculties have not been aroused. But the toil of enterprise and the sense of possession, develop a consciousness of personality which resists encroachment and chafes under oppression.” HENRY W. BELLOWS. Writing to his friend, the Rev. Thos. W.

Higginson, under date of Jan. 6, 1857, Dr. Bellows says: The last election has shown that the North is waking ulp in conscience, courage, ,ond sensibilty to her duty, not to herself alone, but to the Nation, the Union, and IHumanity. The astonishing effect of the free press in arousing the people, indicates what w,ii be the triumph of another election. The South sees for the first time that the North is in earnest, feels its power, tndis determining to exercise it. Andthis is hlaving an admii able effect upon the discussion of the subject. What I desire now ani always to maintain is this: That our conscientious opposition to the extension of slaverv is not to be abated or colored by fears for the Union; and that, so far as it depends on the North, we are to stop its extension, let the consequences coi the Union-to the North or the South-be what they will.

This ground I believe to be the safe ground-the Christian, humane, patriotic, constitutional, unsectional, Union-saving ground. I take it as a lover of the North and,a lover of the South; as. believer in the future of the United States. I take it as a hater of slavery, an undying foe to its extension, and a laborer for its overthrow and extinction in the speediest manuer and time consistent with our whole duty as American citizens ” 155

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TESTIMONY ()F LIVING WITNESSES. LEWIS TAPPAN. In his thirteenth annual Report to the American and Foreign Anti, Slavery Society, Mr. Tappai says: “Nature cries aloud against the inhumanities of slavery; Free Democracy abjures the hateful systemn; and free Christianity recoils from its leprous touch. That it should exist, extend, and flourish in a nation planted bythe excellent of the earth, and in opposition to the principles of republicanism and Christianity, excites the marvel and arouses the grief and indignation of good men throughout the world. American slavery is at war with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, natural justice, and Christianity. Agitation on the subject will not, therefore, cease while free discussion is allowed, while a free press exists, while Protestantism and Free Democracy are prized, while love to God and man prevail, until the curse is removed from the Church and Government of this country, and all its citizens are equal before the law…… It is obvious to every intelligent and candid looker-on, that the antislavery cause, in spite of the sneers of opponents, the denunciations of men in power, and the designs of the crafty, is steadily pursuing its march to a glorious consummation.”

JOSHIUA LEAVITT. In the course of an elaborate article on national politics, Dr. Leavitt, one of the able editors of the Independent-a New York weekly religious newspaper-says: “The ascendency of thie slave power in the councils of the nation, obtained through the ill-advised concessions of the federal constitution, and strengthened by a long series of usurpations on the one hand, and of surrenders on the other, is unjust, dangerous to the Union, and incompatible with the preservation of free governenlt; and is the principal cause of the political and financial evils under which we groan; and thus the only hope of relief is in a united determination of the friends ,f freedom, to employ all wise and lawful means for the extinction of slavery itself.” WILLIAM GOODELL. In his careful and comprehensive “View of the Slavery Question,” Mr. Goodell says: ” The inherent criminality of slavery and of slave holding, their utter repugnance to natural justice, to Christianity, to the law of nature, to the law of God, to the princi)les of democracy, to the liberties of the country-no longer present questions for serious discussion among the great body of intelligent citizens in the nonslaveholding States. Here and there a superanuated ecclesiastic (who has, perhaps, a .on at the South, or in a college seeking Southern patronage) may thumb over his Polyglot and pretend to find a justification of slavery. But nobody believes him. His disclaimers and self-contradictions prove that he does not, even in his dotage, believe it himself……. Under the good providence of God, the dissensioii among abolitionists, however humiliating to them, and however mischievous in Siome respects, have been overruled in other respects for good.

Abolitionism, before the division, was a powerful elixir, in the phial of one antislavery organizatioii, corked up tight, and carried about for exhibition. By the division, the phial was broken and the contents spilled over the whole surface of society, where it has been working as a leaven, ever since, till the mass is beginning to upheave,” SAMUEL J. MAY. In his speech at Syracuse, New York, Oct. 14, 1851, Mr. May said: “To urge that our Pcnubiic cannot be maintained, but upon principles diametri. cally ol)osite to those upon which it was so solemnly based, is as much as to proclaim to the world that our Declarationof Independence is found to be untrue; and thus rejoice the hearts of tyrants throughout the world, and cast down forever the hopes of the oppressed everywher…… Never have the principles on which the civil institutions of our country were founded been put to so severe 156

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. a test, as at this day. The encroachments of the despotic power ot a slavehold. ihg oligarchy upon that liberty which our fathers thought they had bequeathed us, have been made to such an extent, that the champions of that oligarchy have, on the floor of our national Congress, pronounced the glorious declarationof‘76, that all men have an inalienable right to liberty-a mere rhetorical flourish-and have dared to intimate that the poor and laboring people of the Northern States, ought not to be allowed to exercise the prerogatives of freemen, any more than the Southern slaves. And by the machinery of partyism, the leaders of the northern wings of the two political hosts, have been brought to acquiesce in the supremacy of the slavehlolding power in our country, and to unite in requiring of us all, implicit obedience to its demands, though they violate, utterly, our highest sense of right, and outrage every feeling of humanity.” WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. In his paper of Oct. 27th, 1858, Mr. Bryant, the venerable bard and unbending patriot, who has so long and so ably presided over the editorial columns of the New York Evening Post, says: ” By instigations to violence and threats of mob-law, the free expression of opinion in regard to slavery is put down in the Southern States. Freedom of speech in a community seems to depend on the recognition of personal freedom in all classes. Wherever slavery is introduced, a despotic oligarchy is created, which allows of no more liberty of speech than is permitted in Austria…… The slaveholding aristocracy is the most cowardly of all aristocracies. It lives in constant fear of overthrow; it knows that it has a bad name; that the opinion of the world is against it, and, as those are apt to do who are conscious of standing in general discredit, it puts on a bold face and plays the bully where it has the opportunity, and the ruffian where it has the power.” ItORACE GREELEY. For the purpose of showing that Mr. Greeley is not, as he is generally represented by the oligarchy, an inveterate hater of the South, we introduce the following extracts from one of his editorial articles in a late number of the New York Tribtne-a most faithful and efficient advocate of Free Labor, the circulation of which we are happy to be able to state, is greater than the aggregate circulation of a score or more of the principal proslavery sheets published south of the Potoi~ac. “Is it in vain that we pile fact upon fact, proof on proof, showing that slavery is a blight and a curse to the States which cherish it? These facts are multitudin ous as the leaves of the forest; conclusive as the demonstrations of geometry. Nobody attempts to refute them, but the champions of slavery extension seem determined to persist in ignoring them. Let it be understood, then, once for all, that we do not hate the South, war on the South, nor seek to ruin the South-, in resisting the extension of slavery. We most earnestly believe human bondage a curse to the South, and to all whom it affects; but we do not labor for its overthrow otherwise than through the conviction of the South of its injustice and mischief. Its extension into new territories we determinedly resist, not by any means from ill will to the South, but under the impulse of good will to all mankind. “6 Whenever we draw a parallel between Northern and Southern production, industry, thrift, wealth, the few who seek to parry the facts at all complain that the instances are unfairly selected-that the commercial ascendency of the North. with the profits and facilities thence accruing, accounts for the striking preponderanice of the North. In vain we insist that slavery is the cause of this very commercial ascendency-that Norfolk and Riihmond and Charleston might have been to this country what Boston, New York and Philadelphia now are, had not slavery spread its pall over and paralyzed the energies of the South.”

HENRY J. RAYMOND. In his paper of Sept. 3, 1856, Mr. Raymond, the enterprising ard ae,omplished editor of the New York Daily Times, says 1517

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING M ITNESSES. ” Here at the North everything is so freemen think and speak, and write and print, and teach so freely what they believe to be true, that it is hard to realize the actual tyranny which slavery has established over our Southern brethren. How thoroughly it rules all political action, we know from incidents of daily occurrence.

But without careful study we cannot credit the absolutism of its sway over literature, the education, the social life, the religion even, of the Southerr, States. No man there dares to write, or print, or speak a word in reprobation of slavery. The editor in his chair, the writer at his desk, the clergyman in his pulpit, receive their orders from slavery, and must do its bidding. Whatever logic and reason may say, whatever lessons history may teach, whatever the principles of Christian brotherhood may require, all must be subordinate and secondary to the hig}her law of slavery.” THURLOW WEED. In his paper of Dec. 8, 1858, Mr. Weed, who, with rare ablty and success, has long conducted the Albany Evening Journal, says: “It has always been the practice of doughface politicians to argue as if the prosperity of the North depended upon the degradation of the South, and to urge us to connive at the spread of slavery in order to drive a profitable trade with it. These arguments are as unphilosophical as they are unmanly. The States are so linked by commerce that whatever benefits one, benefits all, and whatever clogs the energies of one is a drag upon the prosperity of the united whole. The trade between the North and South is brisk, but it would be threefold as great, had no slave ever been imported from the Guinea Coast, and if each section now had the products of its own intelligent labor to exchange for those of the other.

Let the New England or New York merchant or mechanic, who has been deceived by this doughface plea, ask himself whether his branch of business is the better or the worse for having in the Union such young, vigorous and Free States as Ohio, Indiana, Mi(,higan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and whether it would be worse or better for him, if they had come in slaveholding communities like Arkansas, Texas and Florida?” J. WATSON WEBB. In his paper of Oct. 1, 1856, Gen. Webb, the veteran editor of the New York Courier and Engiuirer, says: ” It is idle, it is worse than idle, for Southern men or for ourselves, to blind the eyes to the fact that it is the sense of the civilized world that African slavery is a dishonor and a reproach to the American Republic. The fact that the principal nations of Europe have abolished it at a sacrifice, and set it down in the catalogue of crimes, is, in itself, irrefragable proof of the fact. And this sense weighs most heavily upon those Europeans who have the most adequate appreciation of the grandeur of our Republic, and the glorious principles upon which it is framed. The venerable Humboldt speaks as the representative of all that is most liberal andl enlightened in the mind of Europe, when he says: ”’ But there is one thing, sir, which grieves me more than I can describe, and that is the policy you have lately adopted in regard to slavery. I am not so unreasonable as to expect that you should instantly emancipate your slaves. I know well thle formidable difficulties that you have to contend with in solving the problem of slavery. But what occasions deep serrow _ and pain, believe me, to all lovers of your gleat country, is to find that, instead of adopt:rg any means, however slow and gradual, to relieve yourselves of it, you are constantly trying to extend and consolidate a system which is not only opposed to all the principles of morality, but, as it appears to me, is pregnant with appalling and inevitable dangers to the future of the Republic itself. Tell your countrymen this from me.’ “Every man in the civilized world, who has a life to live in this nineteenth century, has an interest in this struggle. Whether they are on the immediate field or not, they all must more or less participate in its fortunes Human hearts have their affinities and mutual influences, which distance cannot dissipate, or difference in outward circumstances neutralize. Ideas, too, in these times, are winged; and whether good or evil, they find, fly where they may, principles and aims german to, if not identical with, those they serve in the land of their origin. or at least the conditions out of which such principles and aims may spring. They are as fire pverywhere of the same himanl nature as of thie same ambient atmosphere 158

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. GAMALIEL BAILEY. As editor and proprietor of the National Era, Dr. Bailey, of Wash. ington, D. C., whose very able and consistent management of the papei has ent.-+.ed him to the high regard of every true lover of liberty, says: “The tendency of slavery to diffuse itself, and to crowd out free labor, was early observed by American patriots, North and South; and Mr. Jefferson, the great apostle of Republicanism, made an effort in 1784 to cut short the encroaching tide of barbaric despotism, by prohibiting slavery in all the Territories of the Union, down to thirty-one degrees of latitude, which was then our Southern boundary. His beneficent purpose failed, not for want of a decisive majority of votes present in the Congress of the Confederation, but in consequence of the absence of the delegates from one or two States, which were necessary to the constitutional majority. When the subject again came up, in 1787, Mr. Jefferson was minister to France, and the famous ordinance of that year was adopted, prohibiting slavery North and West of the Ohio River. Between 1784 and 1787, the strides of slavery westward into Tennessee and Kentucky, had become too considerable to admit of the policy of exclusion; and besides those regions were then integral parts of Virginia and North Carolina, and of course they could not be touched without thie consent of those States. In 1820, another effort was made to arrest the progress of slavery, which threatened to monopolize the whole Territory west of the Mississippi. In the meantime the South had apostatized from the faith of Jefferson. It had ceased to love universal liberty, and the growing importance of the cotton culture had caused the people to look with indifference upon the moral deformity of slavery; and, as a matter of course, the politicians became its apologists and defenders. After a severe struggle a compromise was agreed upon, by which Missouri was to be admitted with slavery, which was the immediate point in controversy; and slavery was to be excluded from all the territory north and west of that State. ” We have shown, from the most incontestable evidence, that there is in slave society a much greater tendency to diffuse itself into new regions, than belongs to freedom, for the reason that it has no internal vitality. It cannot live if circum scribed, and must, like a consumptive, be continually roving for a change of air to recuperate its wasting energies.” HARRIET BEEFIER STOWE. In her “Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Mrs. Stowe, whose name is everywhere wreathed and immortalized on the scrolls of liberty says: ” Slavery is a simple retrogression of society to the worst abuses of the middle ages. We must not, therefore, be surprised to find the opinions and practices of the middle ages. as to civil and religious toleration, prevailing….. It is no child’s play to attack an institution which has absorbed into itself so much of the political power and wealth of this nation. The very heart shrinks to think what the faithful Christian must endure who assails this institution on its own ground; but it must be done. How was it at the North? There was a universal effort to put down the discussion of it here by mob-law. Printing-presses were broken, houses torn down, property destroyed. Brave men, however, stood firm: martyr blood was shed for the right of free opinion in speech; and so the right of discussion was established. Nobody tries that sort of argument now-its day is past. In Kentucky, also, they tried to stop the discussion by similar means. Mob violence destroyed a printing press, and threatened the lives of individuals. But there were brave men there, who feared not violence or threats of death; and emancipation is now open for discussion in Kentucky.

The fact is the South must dis cuss the matter of slavery. She cannot shut it out, unless she lays an embargo on the literature of the whole civilized world; if it be, indeed, divine aid God-anpointed, why does she so tremble to have it touched? If it be of God, all the free nq-uiry in the world cannot overthrow li. Discussion must anid will come. It only requires colurageous men to lead the way 159 0

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T’ESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. MATTIE GRIFFITH. In her very able and interesting ” Autobiography of a Female Slave,” a work of fiction which is fuller of fact than any book of the kind that we have ever read-a work which, for vivid, accurate delineation of indoor life in the South, and for terse, graphic portrayal of slaveholding manners and morals, has no equal-Miss Griffith, one of Kentucky’s truest and noblest daughters, who, by the emancipation of her own slaves, has set a lofty example of pure patriotism and benevolence, says, writing pointedly to the people of her native St&~e: “By the oppression to which we were subjected under the yoke of Britain, and against which we wrestled so long, so patiently, so vigorously, in so many ways, and at last so triumphantly, I adjure you to put an end, at once, and forever, to the disreputable and despotic business of holding slaves. African slavery, as practised in America, is oppression indeed, in comparison with which, that which drew forth our angry and bitter complaints against England, was very freedom. Let us, instead of perpetuating the infamous system of slavery, be true to ourselves: let us vindicate the pretensions we set up when we characterize ours as the’land of liberty, the asylum of the oppressed,’ by proclaiming to the nations of the earth that, so soon as a slave touches the soil of the United States, his manacles shall fall from him: let us verify the words engraven in enduring brass on the old bell which, from the tower of Independence Hall, rang out our glorious Declaration, and in deed and in truth proclaim’Liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound.’ As you value truth, honor, justice, consistencyaye, humanity even, wipe out the black blot which defiles the border of our escutcheon, and the country will then be in reality what it is now only in name, a free country, loving liberty disinterestedly for its own sake, and for that of all peoples, and nations, and tribes, and tongues.” SARAH M. GP.IMKL. In her “Reasons for Action at the North,” Miss Grimk6, an estimable, righit-minded lady, from South Carolina, says: ” Let Northerners respectfully ask for an alteration in that part of the Constitu. tion by which they are bound to assist the South in quelling servile insurrections. Let them see to it that they send no man to Congress who would give his vote to the admission of another slave State into the national Union. Let them protest against the injustice and cruelty of delivering the fugitive slave back to his master -b being a direct infringement of the Divine command, Let them petition their different Legislatures to grant a jury trial to the friendless, helpless runaway, and for the repeal of those laws which secure to the slaveholder his unjust claim to his slave, after he has voluntarily brought him within the verge of their jurisdiction, an( for the enactment of such laws as will protect the colored man, woman, and child from the fangs of the kidnapper, who is constantly skulking about in the N)rthierIl States, seeking whom he may devour. Let the Northern churches refuse t! eeeive slavehold(lers at their communion tables, or to permit slaveholding ministeis to officiate in their pulpits.” ANGELI,INA E. WELD. In hler eloquent ” Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States, Mrs. Weld, of New Jersey, formerly Miss Grimk6, of South Carolina, says: “It is not the character alone of the mistress that is deeply injured by the possession and exercise of despotic power, nor is it the degradation and suffering to which the slave is continually subject; but another important consideration is, that in conis equence of the dreadful state of morals at the South. the wife and the daughteil sometimes find their homies a, scene of the most mortifying, heart-rending prefer, 160

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. once of the negraded domestic, or the colored daughter of the head of the family. There are, alas, too many families, of which the contentions of Abraham’s household is a fair example. But we forbear to lift the veil of private life any higher; let these few hints suffice to give you some idea of what is daily passing behind thai curtain which has been so carefully drawn before the scenes of domestic life in slaveholding America.” JOHN C. UNDERWOOD. Remonstrating against the consummate system of despotism which exiled him from his home and family in Virginia, in 1856, Mr. Underwood says: ” The history of the world, and especially of the States of this Union, shows most conclusively that public prosperity bears an almost mathematical proportion to the degree of freedom enjoyed by all the inhabitants of the State. Men will always work better for the cash than for the lash. The free laborer will produce and save as much, and consume and waste as little as he can. The slave, on the contrary, will produce and save as little, and consume and waste as much as possible. Hence States and countries filled with the former class must necessarily flourish and increase in population, arts, manufactures, wealth and education, because they are animated and incited by all the vigor of the will, while States and countries filled with the latter class, must exhibit comparative stagnation, because it is a universal law of nature that force and fear end in ruin and decay. We have an instructive example of the one class in the activity, enterprise, prosperity and intelligence of New England, and of the other in the pitiable condition of poor South Carolina, a State which, by neglecting the teachings of her Marions, and following her Butlers, her Brookses, her Keitts, and her Quattlebums, in the race of aristocracy anal Africanization, is rapidly sinking into agricultural sterility, bloated egotism, and brutal barbarism, until she has most significantly adopted a cane for her emblem, which equally and strikingly typifies her military resources, and that imbecility and decrepitude which, without something to lean upon, must inevitably fall into sieedy death and dissolution.” DANIEL

R. GOODLOE. As assistant editor of the National Era, the best centrally located Republican paper in the country, Mr. Goodloe, formerly of North Carolina, 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 comnmerce, 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 transportatri l of the raw materials of the farmer, give rise to an indefinite increase of wealth gnd population. The confinement of a free people within narrow limits seems onily 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.” BENJAMIN S. HEDRICK.

For daring to have political opinions of his own, and because he did not deem it his duty to conceal the fact that he loved liberty better than slavery, Prof. Iledrick, whose testimony we now offer, was peremptorily dismissed from his post as Analytical and Agricultural Chemist in the 161

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. University of North Carolina, ignominiously subjected to the indignities of a mob, and then savagely driven beyond the borders of his native State. His tyrannical persecutors, if not called to settle their accounts in another world within the next ten years, will probably survive to repent of the enormity of their proslavery folly. In a letter vindicating his course at Chapil Hill-his only offence having been a mild expression of opinion in favor of RepublicanismProf. H. says: “Of my neighbors, friends and kindred, nearly one-half have left the State since I was old enough to remember. Many is the time I have stood by the loaded emigrant wagon, and given the parting hand to those whose faces I was never to look upon again. They were going to seek homes in the free West, knowing, as they did, that free and slave labor could not both exist and prosper in the same community. If any one thinks that I speak without knowledge, let him refer to the last census. He will there find that in 1850 there were fifty-eight thousand native North Carolinians living in the free States of the West-thirty-three thousand in Indiana alone. There were, at the same time, one hundred and eighty thousand Virginians living in the free States. Now, if these people were so much in love with the’

institution,’ why did they notremain where they could enjoy its blessings?

“From my knowledge of the people of North Carolina, I believe that the majority of them who will go to Kansas during the next five years, would prefer that it should be a free State. I am sure that if I were to go there I should vote to exclude slavery.’,’ MONCORE D. CONwAY. In his volume entitled “Tracts for To-day,” Mr. Conway, of Cincinnati, Ohlio, formerly of Virginia, says: ” As a Virginian, with no ties of relationship northward of the remotest kind, past or present, I feel how easily I might slide into a justification of my dear mother, the South. But the soul knows no prejudices or sections, and must see all under the pure light of reason and conscience….. I fear that, with the majority of us, the binding of a slave is not so horrible as the doubting of a miracle…..

The first error of the South has been an impatience in the discussion of the slavery question reminding calm men of those unfortunate persons met with in lunatic asylumns, who speak rationally on all topics until you touch that on which they are deranged, when their insanity bursts wildly forth. This has caused them to put themselves in an attitude before the world which has brought down its severest censure; and, feeling that this was not just what they deservedsince they were at least sincere-it has led them on to a still greater rage against a judgment which, however unfair, was the result of their own mistaken heat. It has precluded freedom of discussion even among themseIves, a policy which no human brain or heart ever respected yet. The native sons of the South have again and again sought to discuss it in their own vicinities, and have as often been threatened and visited with angry processes, though the privilege is secured to them in the Bill of Rights of nearly every Southern State. The South has thus lost the confidence of many of her own children, who find that a freedom exercised by their lordly ancestors, Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and by them transmitted as an eternal inheritance, is now denied them by men who, beside those, are lilliputian.” J. E. SNODGRASS.

Vindicating his course, as editor of the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, against an unsuccessful attempt of certain members of the Maryland Legislature, in 1846, to suppress his paper and procure his imprisonment, Dr. Snodgrass, of Virginia, more recently of Maryland, now of New York, said: “There need be no fear a f m y arrayibg the slave agains t his master (‘as I have been charged with doing), however anxious I may be to array the sympathies of 162

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TESTIMIONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. the master in favor of his slave; in other words, to bring about the abolition of slavery in Maryland by lawful as well as peaceful means, and with results which shall convince my accusers that I have been the best friend of both master and slave, and that the adoption of such views as I have been wont to promulge on all suitable occasions, both in the Visitor and in my private intercourse with my fellow-citizens, would be the surest guaranty of the glorious redemption of Mary. land from the thralldom of an institution which has been her ever-present curse, hanging, as it does, like an incubus upon the prosperity of the State, and utterly crushing her every hope of future progress.” JOHN G. FEE. In his “AntiSlavery Manual,” Mr. Fee, a noble, self-sacrificing preacher of a free Gospel in Kentucky, says: “Slavery causes the slaves to disregard the relation of marriage and practise the consequent vice, concubinage. In our land, marriage, as a civil ordinance, they dc not enjoy. Our laws do not recognize this relation among them, nor defend it, nor enforce its duties. This would interfere with the claims and interest of the master. Hence, to use the language of the slaves themselves, they’take up with one another.’ And this continues as long as their own convenience, and that of the master, requires. “Marriage is the great preservative against the abhorrent vices of concubinage and adultery. It is the origin of those strong ties which cement and bind together society. It is the fountain of the dearest earthly pleasures that man enjoysdomestic bliss. Without it, the endearing relations of husband and wife, parent and child, would be unknown. Without it, man and woman would wander forth, selfish, shameless, and unrestrained, like one vast herd of brutes. And yet the very tendency of our system of slavery is to abolish it. Christians! yea, all lovers of virtue and order! what would you think, and how would you act, did these evils exist to the same extent among the whites? And are they any the less ruinous to society, and any the less criminal in the sight of God, in the black man than in the white man? How many there are among us who are parents, and yet know no one whom they can call husband or wife! And how many, even of those in whose veins courses much of the blood of the white man, who know not their parents!

Oh! is it true that there is a single woman in the whole South who is opposed to the abolition of slavery, when she remembers how many bosoms have been wrung with anguish at the reflection that the husbands of their choice have been unfaith ful, in cases that never would have occurred had it not been for slavery? And I will ask one more question. Is there in our State, even among Christians, as much regard for the purity of the marriage relation of their slaves, and the proper descent of slave children, as there is to have the best stock of sheep, hogs, cattle, to say nothing of horses? May God pardon our shameful neglect 4 a relation which he has so greatly honored.” JAMES D. PRETTYMAN. As editor of the Pepinsular Xews and Advertiger, published in Milford, Del., Dr. Prettyman, who is there laboring manfully Ior the right, says: “The great question to be settled by the people of this country in this the nineteenth century is, whether this boasted land of freedom shall become a nation of masters and slaves, or whether it shall be made a land, the atmosphere of which no slave can breathe and live a slave…. We were born in a land of slavery, have lived in a land of slavery, and are now writing in a land which is deeply injured by slavery, and have had an opportunity~to see and know something of its inhumanity and wrong. We often wonder by what process of reasoning men justify themselves in advocating the base, blighting institution. Slavery is bad policy, it is an obstacle to the prosperity of the State, it has a demoralizing effect on both master and slave, it is the origin of inhumanity, injustice and crime; but far above all other arguments, objections, and sentiments of policy stands the unconcealed truth, that it is wrong. It originated in wrong; it is the greatest wrong of our age.” JOHN DIXON LONG. In his “Pictures of Slavery,” the painting of which aroused the mob ocratic ire of his slaveholding neighbors, who forced him to leave tli 163

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. State, Mr. Long, of Maryland, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, says: “It is contended that if the general conference should make slaveholding a test of membership, the preachers will not attempt to carry it out in slaveholding territory. Very well.

Then the responsibility will rest on the preachers and mnembers of that particular locality. The church at large and the discipline would be free from slaveholding taint; and brethren at the North and West would no longer have their cheeks mantled with shame, when infidels point to the discipline as it is, and prove that it allows men to hold human beings in ignorance and slavery, and will them at death to ungodiy relatives, who may sell them as oxen. Let no man in the ministry or the laity of the M.

E. Church leave her communion because her discipline is not yet perfect; but let him pray and labor, and lift up his voice against the abominations of chattel slavery, till a sound public opinion shall blow it away like chaf’ before the whirlwind.’ WILLIAM S. BAILEY. In his paper of May 13, 1859, in an article on the gubernatorial campaign, then progressing in his State, Mr. Bailey, the intrepid, mob-defying, persevering editor of the Free South, published in Newport, Kentucky, says: “It must strike the mind of every reflecting man in Kentucky, as something strange and abnormal, to see the rank and file of the two political parties in the State engaged in a rivalry for extending over the domain of the Union the system of human chattelism which has been a blight and a curse to their own commonwealth.

Such mad-cap zeal and transparent folly cannot long sway the minds of intelligent andionest men. There must be a reaction speedily, unless the propagandists succeed in carrying their measures, and in binding the white freemen of the country in fetters, before they become aroused to the impending danger. “The present discussion, though of little moment in itself considered, may have some beneficial results. It may open the eyes of some men who have heretofore seemed half asleep, to the humiliating and disgraceful fact that our governments, State and National, are fast becoming mere engines for the perpetuation and propagation of slavery. In this direction, they are impelled by the slaveholding oli. garchy, which aims at nothing short of the entire subjection of the whole country to the iron will of its despotism.” PRICHARD HIILDRETH. In his “Despotism in America,” Mr. Hildreth, the eminent historian, says: “Slavery is a continuation of the state of war. It is true that one of the combatants is subdued and bound; but the war is not terminated. If I do not put liie captive to death, this apparent clemency does not arise from any good will toward him, or any extinction on my part of hostile feelings and intentions. I spare his life merely because I expect to be able to put him to a use more advantageous to myself. And if the captive, on the other hand, feigns submission, still he is only watching for an opportunity to escape my grasp, and if possible to inflict upon me evils as great as those to which I have subjected him. “War is justly regarded, and with the progress of civilization it comes every day more and more to be regarded, as the very greatest of social calamities. The introduction of slavery into a community, amounts to an eternal protraction of that calamity, and a universal diffusion of it through the whole mass of society, and that too, in its most ferocious form.” 0. B. rRoTHINGHAM. In his speech before the American AntiSlavery Society, in New York, May 8, 1856, Mr.

Frothiingham inquired: ” When shall we learn to speak plainly and sincerely against slavery, and to fob low up our speech by our deeds? When shall we learn to throw our whole action unreservedly on the side of God?

When will we believe that he who seeks first 164

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. the kingdom of heaven shall have everything else added to him? They threaten us with war if we take this position.

Useless threat! The war is already declared! The war has already begun!

The war has been raging for half a century! Slavery itself is a condition of war It had its origin in war, its first victims being captives of the spear. It lives by war-its agents being perpetually engaged in fomenting feuds between the native princes of Africa to gain material for their traffic. It protects itself by war-it hides behind walls and gates-it rings alarm bells; its barracks are guarded by armed patrols-it never walks abroad without bowieknife and pistol-it appears in Boston, and the streets bristle with files of soldiery -the hall of justice is stunned by the din of arms-outcast ruffians and murderers stalk about insulting the citizens. It extends itself by war. riding into Kansas with rifle and halter, to conquer a territory it has stolen; substituting martial for civil law, and proclaiming the warrior’s axiom that might is right. The very virtues incident to a state of slavery, the virtues of the dominant class, are warlike virtues such as belong to the soldier alone. The dashing recklessness, the hot-blooded chivalry, the lavish generosity, the fiery sense of honor, the careless gaiety, the frank, easy, good nature, the impetuous passion, whether of love or hate, the swaggering grace, the luxury, all mark the soldier. Such qualities are peculiar to feudal, which is military, society. Slavery is ever breathing menaces of war. On the least provocation it offers battle. For fifty years it has kept the country on the brink of civil broils. Only the greatest moderation on our part has saved us from bloodshed. It has submitted Boston to martial rule; it is waging war in Kansas. The North stands on the defensive with a pistol pointed at her breast. What is to be done? We must fightin behalf of peace and order we must fight.” PARKE GODWIN. In his volume entitled “Political Essays,” Mr. Godwin, who always treats his subjects with remarkable elucidation and thoroughness, says: “When the Constitution of the United States was formed, slavery existed in nearly all the States; but it existed as an acknowledged evil, which, it was hoped, the progress of events would, in the course of a few years, extinguish. With the exception of South Carolina, there was not a State in which some decided efforts had not been made toward its alleviation and ultimate removal. It was this feeling, that it was an evil, and that it would soon be abated, which excluded all mention of slavery by name from the Constitution, and which led to the adoption of such phraseology, in the parts referring to the subject, that they do not necessarily imply its existence. The Constitution was made for all time, while the makers of it supposed slavery to be but a transient fact, and the terms of it consequently were adapted to the larger purpose, and not to the temporary existence. A jurist from the interior of China, who knew nothing from the actual condition of our country, or Justinian, could he arise from the dead, would never learn, from the mere reading of that instrument, of the existence of slavery. He would read of’ persons held to service,’ and of certain’ other persons,’ who were to be counted only as threefifths in the distribution of representative population; but he would never imagine them, unless expressly told, a species of property. The general sentiment was averse to slavery, and the men of the Revoluition were unwilling to recognize it, except in an indirect and roundabout way, and then only, as they expected, for a limited period.” CHARLES W. ELLIOTT. In the second volume of his excellent History of New England, Mr. Elliott says: “A State is good or bad exactly in the degree in which it secures to each and all liberty to act out their individual natures according to the true principles of humanity and justice. Perfect society is complete individuality, acting in harmony with true law. The love of society is one of the strongest instincts of man’s nature; it is a necessity. A hermit, therefore, is a monster, and anarchy impossible. It is also true that change and reformation are a law of nature, opposed by stupidity, timidity, and selfish inaction. It is clear, too, that governments have, heretofore, been organized and upheld by the few for their own benefit, and the world has had only aristocracies and class legislation. The Republics of Greece and Romo were not republics, for they rested on a Writhing people held in slavery. No suce governments can or ought to continue long in peace, for revolt is the only remedy for the oppressed….. New England has done much to colonize auJ 165

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. civilize the wide Western prairies, and wherever her men and women go, order, decency, industry, and education prevail over barbarism and violence. But she has more work to do; we may hope that she will shake off that old man of the sea who hangs upon her-may more fully learn that principle is above profit, and a sound heart is better than a silver dollar-that she will lay her hand to the building up of galleries, and museums, and libraries, as well as of mills and workshops; and that she will not fear to meet and drive back the black brood of slavery to its own place, and assert, and maintain, and extend the rule of Right over Might; so that min the future, Democracy-the rights of all-may everywhere prevail over Aristocracy, which secures the privileges of the few, but perpetuates the wrongs of the many.” WILLIAM

HENPRY BURLEIGH. In a volume of his fugitive poems, the reading of which has afforded us a high degree of pleasure, Mr. Burleigh says: ” Now, tyrants! look well to your path! A cloud shall come over your fame, And the terrible storm of a free people’s wrath, Overwhelm you with anguish and shame! To years and to ages unborn, Throughout every kindred and clime, Ye shall be as a by-word, a hissing and scorn, To the pure and the good of all time! The curse of the slave and the taunt of the free Henceforth and forever your portion shall be! f * “Thank God! that a limit is set To the reach of the tyrant’s control! That the downtrodden serf may not wholly forget The right and the might of his soul! That though years of oppression may dim The fire on the heart’s altar laid, ‘Yet, lit by the breath of Jehovah, like Him It lives, and shall live, undecayed! Will the fires of the mountain grow feeble and die? Beware!-for the tread of the Earthquake is nigh!” CHARLES 0. BURLEIGH. On the subject of ” Slavery and the North,” Mr. Burleigh says: ” The question of slavery is undeniably, for this country at least, the great question of the age.

On the right decision of it depend interests too vast to be fitly set forth in words. Here are three millions of slaves in a land calling itself free; three millions of human beings robbed of every right, and, by statute and custom, among a people self-styled Christian, held as brutes.

Knowledge is forbidden, and religious worship, if allowed, is clogged with fetters; the sanctity of marriage is denied; and home and family and all the sacred names of kindred, which form the dialect of domestic love, are made unmeaning words. The soul is crushed, that the body may be safely coined into dollars. And not occasionally, by here and there a hardened villain, reckless alike of justice, law, and public sentiment; fearing not God nor regarding man; but on system, and by the combined strength of thi whole nation. Most men at the North, and many even at the South, admit that this is wrong, all wrong-in morals, in policy every way wrong-that it is a gross injustice to the slave, a serious evil to the master, a great calamity to the country; that it belies the nation’s high professions, brings deep disgrace upon its character, and exposes it to unknown perils and disasters in the time to come.” J. MILLER MFXlM. In his speech in the City Assembly Rooms, New York, May 11, 1859 Mr. McKim said: 166

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l’r!TI~( )NY OF LIVING WITNESSES. “What the antislave trade agitation did incidentally for England,the anti-slaveholdng agitation is doing collaterally for this country. It is rectifying public sentiment on all great questions of prerogative and duty. It is improving our politics, meliorating our religion, and raising the standard of public and social morals. The evidence of this is so palpable, that no one with eyes can fail to see it…… In religion, the change, though less easily measured, is none the less striking. Ecclesiastically, as well as politically, antislavery has been a benefactor. It has stripped hypocrisy of its disguise, and divested priestcraft of much of its power for evil. Let me not be misunderstood; I use this language in no sectarian sense. In what I say I allude to mere professional clergymen; men who live by religion as demagogues do by politics; Protestant as well as Catholic Tetzels, who peddle Christianity as a trade, and subsist on its profits….. The literature of the country has been revolutionized by our movement.

Antislavery publications used to be burned in Charleston, and drowned in Philadelphia. Paulding and Park Benjamin, and the like, held sway in the republic of letters. Carey and Hart expurgated Longfellow’s poeias to increase their profits, and Hildreth and Whittier were only read by such as found their way into the antislavery office. How changed is everything now. The entire literature of the country-everything that is worthy of the name-is against slavery. Proslavery booksellers grow rich on antislavery novels, and pandering theatrical managers put money in their purses from abolition dramas. All the best daily and weekly journals, and monthly and quarterly magazines are antislavery.” WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS. In his “Derby Lecture,” Dr. Furness, of Philadelphia, says: ” If we possessed the good that God hath showed us, were we obedient to his requisitions, were we to do justly, the fetters of the slave would disappear as if consumed by fire before the majestic and all-commanding sense of justice expressed in the action of the free Northern heart. Does any one ask at this late day, when the giant wrong which our country legalizes and fights for, threatens to strip us of the dearest attributes of freedom and humanity-does any one ask, what have we to do with the injustice that exists not here but in another part of the land? I answer freely, distinctly emphatically, nothing. In simple justice we have no right to have anything to do with it. We have no right to stand guard over it as we do, with our unjust prejudices, more fatal than muskets or artillery. We have no right to surrender to it the sacred principle of freedom of speech, as we have done. We have no right to afford it the broad protection of our silence, as we do. We have no right to allow it to flourish in the capital of the nation as we do. We have no right to aid in extending and perpetuating and fighting for it, as, may God have mercy on us! we have done, and are doing. As we are doing all these unjust things, we are guilty of interfering most impertinently with things with which we have no right to interfere. We must turn over a new leaf, and learn, hard as the lesson may be, to mind every one his own business. And what is our business? Why, to do justly. It is what God specially requires of us, to cease from doing evil; to maintain freedom of speech, that precious thing without which our civil security is but stubble, which the outbursting fires of violent passions may at any moment consume; to guard the public liberties in the person of the meanest of the land; to destroy injustice of allkinds, and let the voice of humanity, the swelling key-note of the world, be heard, pleading for the right.” A. D. MAYO. In his new miscellaneous work, “Symbols of the Capital,” a volume full of vigorous essays and fascinating delineations of life in the Empire State, Mr. Mayo says: “The question of free labor is not to be argued so much from its economical results, though here the argument is triumphant, as from its spiritual aspects. Ever) true son of Adam will maintain that the happiest word that ever greeted his ears was his command to leave the Eden of childish innocence for a wilderness of manly toil. Free industry is for the elevation and education of the race. Allhuman experience aas demonstrated that the only way to greatness of any kind is the straight and nar row way of labor. And when man toils, in the exercise of his great attribute of freedom, he is in the way to gain his chief distinction. Creation is the granlest attribute of man, the point in which he approaches nearest his Maker. To create:~ 167

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNEfSES, combinations from the material universe; by the discipline of free industryto Jiscover the creative laws of Omnipotence, and by obedience to them to express his best conceptions of existence; to impress himself on the whole earth, and even fill the invisible elements with the finer energy of his victorious mind; especially to create in the realm of spirit; molding humani nature into higher forms of individual and social life, and by a far-reaching insight, peopling the realms of imagination with new and glorious beings, which bear thle sell of reality, and become the ideals of tihe generations. This is God-like, and only through Free Labor can man approach this throne of his power, and rise into the companionship of the creative love of the Father of all.” TUOMAS DAVIS. In the course of one of the best speeches ever made on the Kansas t,estiona speech replete with irrefutable facts and arguments-the delivery of which, in the House of Representatives, lay 9, 1854, at once distinguished him in Congress and throughout the country, Mr. Davis, of Rhode Island, said: “Thie despotism of slavery is not standing on its own basis, or defended by its own power, force, or ingenuity. It calls to its aid, and insists upon the obligation enforced by the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States requires of the general government to protect, mai.tain, and extend slavery. It is no longer an evil to be tolerated or endured, but, ile the estimation of its fanatical advocates, it is to be extended and perpetuated. ” It is maintained by the combined power of monarchy, as represented in the Executive, wielding all the patronage of government by directly rewarding those who are subservient to its dictates, andt proscribing all who dare to exercise with open manliness the right of American freemen, in condemnation of its rank injustice. “Next, we have the slaveowners, who are an aristocracy not elected by or subject to any higher power, but firmly united by ties of common interest, ownership, and absolute control, amounting to a state of perpetual warfare where the weapons are all in the hands of one party. These combinations of power, monarchy, and oligarchy, might be deemed ample for the maintenance of their unholy ascendency; but, sir, it seems it is not enough, fo,r we have now a new proclamation in its defence. It finds itself incapable, with the weapons it has heretofore wielded, of accomplishing its purposes, and it now demands that the great and vital doctrine of the sovereignty of the people is peculiarly its own.

Thus we have the combination of monarchy, or the powers of one man-oligarchy, or the favored few; and democracy, or the powers of the -*o’ people. Seizing upon this last principle, it profanes its holy novae, using it for the purpose of sustaining a system destructive of ll human rights; for just in proportion as men feelthe force and grandeur of tneir own nature and being, will they regard with sacred reverence the rights of others, which, in a republic, must be their highest security. Chattel slavery strikes at the root of this individual conviction, and is, to an alarming extent, destructive of the principles of self-government.”

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED. In his “Seaboard Slave States,” Mr-. Olmsted, the eminently clever and competent superintendent of the great Central Park, in New York city a traveller and author of exquisite discernment and indubitable veracity, writing from Norfolk, in Virginia, says: “Incidents, trifling in themselves, constantly betray to a stranger the bad economy of using enslaved servants. IThe catastrophe of one such occurred since I Legan to write this letter. 1 ordered a fire to be made in my room, as I was going out this morning. On my return, I found a grand fire-the room door having been closed and locked upon it, and, by the way, I had to obtain assistance to open it, the lock being’out of order.’ Just now, while I was writing, down tumbled upon the floor, and rolled away close to the valance of the bed, half a hod-full of ignited coal, which had been so piled up on the diminutive grate, and eft without a fender or any guard, that this risllt was almost inevitable. If I had 168

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TESi’IMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. not returned at the time 1 did, the house would have been fired, and probably an incendiary charged with it, while some Northern Insurance Company made good the loss to the owner…. Such carelessness on the part of these enslaved servants you have momentarily to notice. The constantly-occurring delays, and the waste of time and labor that you encounter everywhere, are most annoying and provoking. The utter want of system and order, almost essential, as it would appear, where slaves are your instruments, is amazing. At a hotel, for instance, you go to your room and find no conveniences for washing; ring and ring again, and hear the office-keeper ring and ring again. At length two servants appear together at at your door, get orders, and go away. A quarter of an hour afterward, perhaps, one returns with a pitcher of water, but no towels; and so on….. It is impossible that the habits of the whole community should not be influenced by, and be made to accommodate to these habits of its laborers. It irresistibly affects the whole industrial character of the people. You may see it in the habits and manners of the free white mechanics and tradespeople. All of these must have dealings or be in competition with slaves, and so have their standard of excellence made low, and become accustomed to, until they are content with, slight, false, unsound workmanship.” THEODORE D. WELD. Wielding a vigorous pen in behalf of a noble cause, the Pestalozzi of our country, Air. Weld, founder and present principal of the famous eclectic school at Eagleswood, New Jersey, says: “There is not a man on earth who does not believe that slavery is a curse. Human beings may be inconsistent, but human nature is true to herself. She has uttered her testimony against slavery with a shriek ever since the mnonster was begotten; and till it perishes amidst the execrations of the universe, she will traverse the world on its track, dealing her bolts upon its head, and dashing against it her condemning brand. We repeat it, every man knows that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart. Try him; clank the chains in his ears, and tell him they are for him; give him an hour to prepare his wife and children for a life of slavery; bid him make haste and get ready their necks for the yoke, and their wrists for the coffie-chains, then look at his pale lips and trembling knees, and you have Nature’s testimony against slavery.” Thus, in the six last chapters inclusive, have we introduced a mass of antislavery argumlents, human and divine, that will stand, irrefutable and convincing, as long as tile ear’-ti:‘i(‘%q s}all continue to revolve in its orbit. Aside from unaffected truthlfulness a-nd,:candor, no merit is claimned for anything we have said on our own account. With the best of motives, and in the language of nature nmore than that of art, we have given utterance to the honest convictions of our heart being impelled to it by a long-harbored and unmistakable sense of duty which grew stronger and deeper as the days passed away. If half the time which has been spent in collecting and arranging these testimonies had been occupied in the composition of original matter, the weight of paper and binding and the number of pages would have been much greater; but the value and effect of the contents would have been far less. From the first, our leading motive has been to conviuce our fellow-citizens of the South, nonslaveholders and slaveholdei-s, that slavery, whether considered in all its bearings, or, setting aside the moral aspect of the question, and looking at it only in a pecuniary point of view, is impolitic, unprofitable: and degrading; how well, thus far, we have succeeded in our undertakinig, time will, perhliaps, ihuly discl,se. S 169

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TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. In the words of a contemporaneous German writer, whose language we readily and heartily indorse, “It is the shame of our age that argument is needed against slavery.” Taking things as they are, however, argument being needed, we have offered it; and we have offered it from such sources as will, in our honest opinion, confound the devil and his incarnate confederates. These testimonies, culled from the accumulated wisdom of nearly sixty centuries, beginning with the great and good men of our own time, and running back through distant ages to Saint Paul, Saint John, and Saint Luke; to Cicero, Plato, and Socrates, to Solomon, David, and MIoses, and even to the Deity himself, are the pillars of strength and beauty upon which the popularity of our work will, in all probability, be principally based. If the ablest writers of the Old Testament; if the eloquent prophets of old; if the renowned philosophers of Greece and Rome; if the heavenly minded authors and compilers of the New Testament; if the illustrious poets and prose-writers, heroes, statesmen, sages of all nations, ancient and modern; if God himself and the hosts of learned ministers whom he has commissioned to proclaim his word-if all these are wrong, then we are wrong; on the other hand, however, if they are right, we are right; for, in effect, we only repeat and endeavor to enforce their precepts. If we are in error, we desire to be corrected; and, if it is not asking too much, we respectfully request the advocates of slavery to favor us with an expose of what they, in their onesided view of things, conceive to be the advantages of their favorite and peculiar institution. Such an expose, if skillfully executed, would doubtless be regarded as the funniest novel of the t mes-a fit production, if not too immoral in its tendencies, to be incorporated into the next edition of D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature 170

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CHAPTER IX. FREE FIGURES AND SLA. VI. God fix’d it certain, that, whatever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away. PoPB’S HOMER. UNDERP
this heading we propose to introduce the remainder of tli# more important statistics of the Free and of the Slave States;-especially those that relate to Commerce, Manufactures, Internal Improvements, Education and Religion. Originally it was our intention to devote a separate chapter to each of the industrial and moral interests above named; but other considerations have so greatly encroached on ouI space, that we are compelled to modify our design. To the thoughtful and discriminating reader, however, the chief statistics which follow will be none the less interesting for not being the subjects of annotation. At present, all we ask of the proslavery men, no matter in what part of the world they may reside, is to look these figures fairly in the face. We wish them to do it, in the first instance, not on the platforms of public debate, where the exercise of eloquence is too often characterized by violent passion and subterfuge, but in their own private apartments, where no eye save that of the All-seeing One will rest upon them, and where, in considering the relations which they sustain to the past, the present, and the future, an opportunity will be afforded them of securing that most valuable of all possessions attainable on earth, a conscience void of offence toward God and man. Each separate table or particular compilation of statistics will afford food for at least an hour’s profitable reflection; indeed, the more these figures are studied, and the better they are understood, the sooner will the author’s object be accomplished-the sooner will tile genius of Universal Liberty dispel the dark clouds of slavery. ill

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I…. I. 1 1: l 8,6823 536,387 Texas.. 8,812 916,961 262,568 Vt. 6,915

2,895,468 591,593 Va…. 92,788 4,879,928 855,405 Wis…. 15,624 17,05

48,159___ 4,252,615 $167,520,693 $236,847,810 855,517 $107,480,688

$24,586,528 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I TA.ELE 14. PRODUCT

OF MANUFACTURES IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES-1850. Value of An-Capital .nual products. invested. $12,862,522 $1,006,197 45,110,102 28,890

348 17,236,073 6,885,3871 18,922,651 7,941,602 8,551,783 1,292,875

24,664,1385 14,700,452 151,187,145 83,857,642 10,976,894 6,534,250

28,164,503 18,242,114 39,713,586 22,184,730 237,597,249 99,904,405

62,647,259 29,019,538 155,044,910 94,4738,810 he 22,093,258 12,923,176

8,570,920 5,001,3877 9,298,068 3,382,148 $842,586,058 $430,240,051 I Free States. California Conn….. Illinois… Indiana.. Iowa….. Maine….

Mass….. Michigan. N. Hamp. N. Jersey New York Ohio…. Penn….. Rhode Is. Vermont. Wisconsin Hands empl’ed. 8,964 47,770 12,065 14,842 1,707

28,078 165,938 9,290 27,092 87,311 199,349 51,489 146,766 20,881 8,445

6,089 780,576 Slave Value of An States. nual products. Alabama $4,538,878

Arkansas 607,486 Delaware 4,649,296 Florida.. 668,838 Georgia.. 7,086,525

Kentucky 24,588,483 Louisiana 7,320,948 Maryland 32,477,702 Miss…..

2,972,088 Missouri. 23,749,265 N. a….. 9,111,245 S. C… 7,063,518

Tenn…. 9,.728,438 Texas… 1,165,538 Virginia. 29,705,887 $165,413,027

Capital invested. $8,450,606 824,065 2,978,945 547,060 5,460,483

12,350,734 5.818,074 14,753,148 1,833,420 9,079,695 7,252,225 6,056,865

6,975,279 539,290 18,109,993 $95,029,879 Hands empl’ed. 4,986 908 8,888

991 8,378 24,885 6,43T 30 124 8,173 16,850 12,444 7,009 12,082 1,066

29,109 161,788

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FREE FIGURES AD SLAVE. Tr A.B L 15. MILES OF CANALS AND RAILROADS IN THE

FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES, 1854-1857. Free Canals, Railroads, Cost of Rail-glae States Canals, Railroads, Cost of Rail States. miles, 1854.

miles, 1857. roads, 1855. ae. miles, 1854. miles, 1857, roads, 1855.

California…… 22 Alabama. 51 484 $3,986,208 Conn…. 61 600 $25,224,191

Arkansas.. Illinois… 100 2,524 55,663,656 Delaware. 14 120 600,000

Indiana.. 867 1,806 29,585,923 Florida……….. 86 250,000

Iowa………….. 253 2,300,000 Georgia.. 28 1,062 17,084,802 Maine… 50

442 18,749,021 Kentucky.. 486 806 6,179,072 Mass…. 100 1,285 59,167,781

Louisiana 101 263 1,731,000 Michigan……… 600 22,3870,897 Maryland 184

597 12,654,88833 N. Hamp. 11 645 15,860,949 Mississippi……… 410

4,520,000 N. Jersey 147 472 13,840,080 Missouri……………189

1,000,000 New York 989 2,700 111,882,503 N.Carolina 13 612 6,847,213

Ohio….. 921 2,869 67,798,202 S. Carolina 50 706 18,547,093 Penn….. 986

2,407 94,657,675 Tennessee………. 508 10,486,610 Rhode Is…………

85 2,614,484 Texas…………. 57 16,466,250 Vermont………. 515

17,998,835 Virginia… 189 1,479 Wisconsin…….. 629 5,600,000 8,682

17,855 $538,818,647 1,116 6,859 $95,252,581 T AB IC LE 16. BANK CAPITAL IN

THE IBREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES-1855. Free States. Bank capital. Slave States. ] California……………… Alabama………………$,9a Connecticut……………. $15,597,891 Arkansas……………..

Illinois………………… 2,513,790 Delaware……………..

Indiana……………….. 7,281,934 Florida……………..

Iowa………………….. Georgia……………….14Go Maine…………………. 7,801,252 Ken tucky……………..

Massachusetts………….. 54,492,660 Louisiana…………….

Michigan…………………. 980,416 Maryland…………… New Hampshire……………. 8,626,000 Mississippi…………… New Jersey………………. 5,314,885 Missouri……………… New York……………… 88,7783,288 North Carolina………..

Ohio………………….. 7,166,581 South Carolina…………

Pennsylvania…………… 19,864,825 Tennessee…………… Rhode Island…………… 17,511,162 Texas………………..

Vermont………………. 8,275,656 Virginia………………

Wisconsin……………… 1,400,000 Total…………….. $250,100,840

Total…………… 173

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. TA B I LE 1 7 MILIIIA FORCE OF THE FREE AND OF THE

SLAVE STATES 1852, Slave States. California………………

Connecticut…………… Illinois…………………

Indiana………………. Iowa…………………..

Maine…………………. Massachusetts…………..

Michigan………………. New IHampshire……….. New Jersey……………. New York……………… Ohio………………..

Pennsylvania…………… Rhode Island……………

Vermont………………. Wisconsin………………

Total…………….. r TA B L E 18. POST-OFFICE OPERATIONS IN THE FREE

AND IN THE SLAVE STATES-1855. Total Cost of Total Cost of Free States.

Stamps sold. Postage Transport’g Slave States. Stamps sold. Postage Transport’g collected. the mails. collected. the mails. California..

$81,437 $234,591 $185,886 Alabama $44,514 $104,514 $226,816 Connecticut 79,284 179,230 81,462 Arkansas 8,941 30,664 117,659 Illinois… 105,252

279,887 280,038 Delaware 7,298 19,644 9,248 Indiana…. 60,578 180,405

190,480 Florida. 8,764 19,275 77,558 Iowa…… 28,198 82,420 84,428

Georgia.. 783,880 149,063 216,003 Maine….. 60,165 151,358 82,218

Kentucky 55,694 180,067 144,161 Mass……. 259,062 532,184 153,091

Louisiana 50,778 133,753 183,810 Michigan.. 49,763 142,188 148,204

Maryland 77,743 191,485 192,748 New Ham). 38,887 95,609 46,631 Miss…..

81,182 78,789 170,785 New Jersey 81,495 109,697 80,084 Missouri. 53,742

189,652 185,096 New York.. 542,498 1,883,157 481,410 N. C….. 34,235

72,759 148,249 Ohio……. 167,958 452,643 421,870 S. C… 47,868 91,600

192,216 Penn…… 217,293 583,013 251,83 Tenn… 48,377 108,686 116,091

Rhode Is… 80,291 58,624 13,891 Texas… 24,580 70,436 209,936 Vermont…

86,814 92,816 64,437 Virginia. 96,799 217,861 245,592 Wisconsin. 83,538

112,903 92,842 $1,719,513 $4,670,725 $2,608,295 $666,845 $1,553,198

$2,885,958 174 Fee States. Militia to,ce. 51,649 170,359 53,918 62,588

119,690 63,938 82,151 89,171 265,293 176,45,5 2T6,OTO 14,443 23,915 82,203

1,381,843 Militia fo,,ce. 76,662 17,13T 9,229 12,122 5T,312 81,840 43,823

46,864 86,084 61,000 79,448 55,209 71,252 19,766 125,128 792,876

Alabama.,……………. Arkansas……………..

Delaware…………….. Florida……………….

Georgia…………….. Kentucky……………..

Louisiana……………. Maryland…………….

Mississippi……………. Missouri……………… North Carolina……….. South Carolina……….. Tennessee…………….

Texas……………….. Virginia……………… Total…………..

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. T A:B IL EI 19. PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF THE FREE AND OF

THE SLAVE STATES-1850. Fartee Number. Teachers. Pupils. Slave States.

Number. Teachers. Pupils. California 2 2 49 Alabama 1,152 1,195 28,880

Conn….. 1,656 1,787 71,269 Arkansas 853 855 8,493 Illinois… 4,052

4,248 125,725 Delaware 194 214 8,970 Indiana.. 4,822 4,860 161,500

Florida.. 69 73 1,838 Iowa…. 740 828 29.556 Georgia.. 1,251 1,265 32,705

Maine…. 4,042 5,540 192,815 Kentucky 2,234 2,306 71,429 Mass….. 8,679

4,443 176,4T5 Louisiana 664 S22 2.5,046 Michigan. 2,714 8,231 110.455

Maryland 898 986 33,111 N. Hamp.. 2,381 3,018 75,648.3 Mississippi 782 826

18,746 N. Jersey. 1,473 1,574 77T,980 Missouri.. 1,570 1,620 51,754 New York 11,530 13,965 675,221 N C…. 2,657 2,780 104,095 Ohio….. 11,661

12,886 484,153 S. C…… 724 789 17,888 Penn….. 9,061 10,024 413,T706

Tennessee 2,680 2,819 104,117 Rhode Is.. 416 518 23,130 Texas…. 849 360

7,946 Vermont. 2,731 4,173 93,457 Virginia.. 2,930 2,997 67,3,-I Wisconsin 1,423 1,529 58,817 62,483 72,621 2,769,901 18,507 19,307 581,861 T ALB I.

IE 20. LIBRARIES OTHER THAN PRIVATE IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE

STATES-1850. Free States. Number. Volumes…. CaUtfornia Alabama 56 20,628

California…….. Connecticut…… Illinois………. Indiana……….

Iowa………… Maine……….. Massachusetts…. Michigan……. N.

Hampshire….. New Jersey…… New York…….. Ohio………….

Pennsylvania…. Rhode Island….. Vermiont……… Wisconsin……..

Alabama……. Arkansas……. Delaware……. Florida -…….

Georgia……… Kentucky…… Louisiana……. Maryland…….

Mississippi…… Missouri…….. North Carolina.. South Carolina..

Tennessee…… Texas………. Virginia…….. -~_ _ 14 3 3 69’ 175

N,,.be,. 7ol.mes. Sla-,e st.le.. 56 3 11 T 88 so 10 124 11T 9T 38 26 34 12

54 695 20,623 420 17,950 2,660 31,-,SS 79,466 26,800 125,042 21,73T 75,056

29,.592 1 OT,472 22,S96 4, 2 0 SS,4C-2 .9,577 164 152 151 32 236 1,462 417

129 128 11,013 352 393 96 96 72 14,911 165,318 62,486 68,403 5,T90

121-,969 684,015 IOT,943 85,T59 so, l,T60,820. 186,826 863,400 104,342

64,641 21,02C 8,888,234

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umno………. 261 80,473,407 South Carolina 46 7,14 5,930

Pennsylvania….. 0 84,898,672 Tennessee 50……. 6,940,750 Rhode Island 19….. 2,756,950 Texas……….. 84 1,296,924 Ve-mont………5

2,567,662 Vi-ginia 7……… 9,228,068 Wisconsin..4……6 2,665,487

1,790 1 834,146,281 1 704 81,038,698 T A 13 L IEF 2 2. ILLITERATE WHITE

ADULTS IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES-1850. Native. Foreign. 2,201

2,917 826 4,013 84,107 5,947 67,275 8,265 7,043 1,077 1,999 4,148 1,055

26,484 4,908 8,009 893 2,064 8,870 5,878 28,241 68,052 51,968 9,062 41,944

24,989 981 2,3859 565 5,624 1,459 4,902 248,725 1 73,790 248,725 178,790

422,515 498,026 19S56 512,882 I Total. 88,757 16,819 4,,536 8,859 41,2)00

66,687 21,221 20,815 13,405 86,281 73,r566 15,6S4 77,522 10,525 77,005

512,882 Native. 83,618 16,792 4,132 8,564 40,794 64,340 14,950 17,364

13,324 84,420 73,226 15 580 77,017 8,087 75,868 493,026 Foreign. 189 27

404 295 406 2,847 6,271. 8,451 81 1,861 840 104 505 2,488 1,187 19,856

Free States. California Cohn…. Illinois… Indiana.. Iowa….. Maine…

Mass….. Michigan. N. Hamp. N. Jersey. New York Ohio….. Penn…..

Rh-ode Is.. Vermont.. Wisconsin Total. 5,118 4,739 40,054 70,540 8,120

6,14T 27,539 7,912 2,957 14,248 91,293 61,030 66,928 8,840 67189 6,361

422,515 Slave States Alabama Arkansas Delaware Florida.. Georgia..

Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi Missouri.. N.C…… S. c……

Tennessee ITexas…. !Virginia..

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FREE FIGURES NSD SLAVEL TAB LE 23. NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER OF THE FREE

AND OF THE SLAVE STATES 1859. Reps. in Reps. in ReElectoral “Electoral Free States. Senators. lower H. Elotal Slave States. Senators. lower H. Ee of Cong. votes. of Cong. California…… 2 2 4 Alabama….. 2 7 9

Connecticut…. 2 4 6 Arkansas…. 2 2 4 Illinois………. 2 9 11

Delaware….. 2 1 3 Indiana……. 2 11 18 Florida……… 2 1 3

Iowa………. 2 2 4 Georgia…… 2 8 10 Maine…………2 6 8

Kentucky…. 2 10 12 Massachusetts.. 2 11 13 Louisiana…. 2 4 6

Michigan…… 2 4 6 Maryland….. 2 6 8 Minnesota….. 2 2 4

Mississippi…. 2 5 7 New Hampshire 2 8 5 Missouri…… 2 7 9 New Jersey…. 2 5 7 N. Carolina… 2 8 10 New York…… 2 83 85 S.

Carolina… 2 6 8 Ohio……….. 2 21 23 Tennessee…. 2 10 12

Pennsylvania. 2 25 27 Texas………. 2 2 4 Rhode Island… 2 2 4

Virginia…… 2 13 15 Vermont……. 2 3 1 5 Wisconsin….. 2 38 5 84 146

180 30 90 120 TAB 3 LE I 2 I. POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY THE FREE AND

BY THE SLAVE STATES_ 1856. Free Rep. Amer. Dem. Slave Rep. Amer. Dem.

Total. Dem. Buchanan. 51,925 84,995 10b,848 118,670 86,170 89,080 39,240

52,136 82,789 46,943 195,878 170,874 230,710 6,580 10,569 52,843 1,224,750

1,340,618 393,590 1,224750 2,958,958 t1~194 49,465 609,587 1,090,24 No popular vote 8* I I 177 Sla,e States. I Ii Ala…. , Ark.., i Del…. i I Florid Ga…. i Ky…. ” La…. i Md…. Miss… MO…. N. C… i S. C.*.

Tenn.. Texas. I Va…. B,,p. Fe.. Ame,. Fill.o,,e. 28,552 10,78T 6,lT5

4,833 42,228 6T,416 20,TO9 4T,460 24,195 48,524 36,886 66,lT8 15,244

60,2T8 479,465 D,.. B.ch’.. 46,739 21,910 8,004 6,358 r)6,5T8 T4,642

22,164 39,115 35,446 58,164 48,246 73,638 28,T5T 89,826 609,.587 F,ee State. CaL… Conn.. Illinois Ind… Iowa.. Maine. Mass.. Mich.. N. H…

N. J… N. Y…. Ohio.. Penn.. R. I… Vt….. Wis… RIP. F,e.o.t. 20,889

42,715 96,189 94,3T5 431954 6T,8T9 ios,igo Tl,T62 88,345 28,338 2T6,90T

187,49T 147,510 11,46T 39,561 66,090 ,840,618 A.,,, Fill.o,e. 35,113 2,615

3T,444 . 22,386 9 1ISO 31325 19,626 1,660 422 24,115 124,604 28‘126 82,lT5

1,6T5 m 5T9 393,590 Tot-1. loT,3TT 80,325 238,981 235,431 89,304 109,784

161,056 125,558 TI,556 99,396 .59T’ 3s9 386,49T 460,395 19,T22 I 50,6T5

119,512 2,958,958 Total. 75,291 82,697 14,48T 11,191 98,806 142,372 42,873

86,856 59,641 106,688 85,132 139,816 44,001 150,395 1,090,246 808 314 281

291 11,194

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FEE F IGRES AND SLAVE. TA 1B L E 25. VALUE OF CHURCHES IN THE FREE AND IN

THE SLAVE STATES-1850. Free States. Value. Slave States. Value.

California……………….. $288,400 Alabama………………

$1,241,741 Connecticut……………. 8…,599,330

Arkansas…………………. 149,686 Illinois……………….

1,532,805 Delaware…………………. 840,345

Indiana……………….. 1,568,906 Florida…………………..

192,600 Iowa…………………. 235,412 Georgia………………….

1,327,112 Maine………………….. 1,794,209

Kentucky……………….. 2,295,858 Massachusetts…………..

10,504,888 Louisiana……………….. 1,940,495

Michigan………………. 793,180 Maryland…………….. 8,974,116

New Hampshire……………. 1,433,266 Mississippi………………..

832,622 New Jersey………………. 8,712,863

Missouri………………. 1,730,185 New York…………….. 21,539,561

North Carolina………… 907,785 Ohio…………………. 5,860,059

South Carolina…………. 2,181,476 Pennsylvania……………

11’,853,291 Tennessee……………….. 1,246,951 Rhode Island…………… 1,293,600 Texas………………… 408,944

Vermont………………… 1,251,655 Virginia……………….

2,902,220 Wisconsin………………… 512,552 Total…………….

$67,773,477 Total……………. $21,674,581 TAB 3LI 26. PATENTS ISSUED

ON NEW INVENTIONS IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVB STATES-1856. Free States.

Patents. Slave States. Patents. California……………. 13

Alabama………………… 11 Connecticut……………….. 142

Arkansas. Illinois………………… 93 Delaware………………….

8 Indiana……………… 67 Florida…………………. 8

Iowa…………………. 14 Georgia…………………. 13

Maine…………………. 42 Kentucky………………… 26

Massachusetts………………. 831 Louisiana………………… 80

Michigan…………………. 22 Maryland…………….. 49 New Hampshire………… 48 Mississippi…………….. 8 New Jersey…………………. 78 Missouri…………………. 82 New York……………… 592 North Carolina………… 9

Ohio………………….. 189 South Carolina…………. 10

Pennsylvania………………. 267 Tennessee……………….. 23 Rhode Island……………….. 18 Texas………………… 4

Vermont………………. 3…85 Virginia…………………. 42

Wisconsin……………… 83 Total…………….. 1,929

Total……………. 268 178

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. CC’AB L E 27. BIBLE CAUSE AND TRACT CAUSE IN THE

FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES-1855. Contributions Contributions Contributions Contributions Free States. for the for the Slave States. for thle for tihe Bible Cause. Tract Cause. Bible Cause. Tract Cause.

California…….. $1,900 $ 5 Alabama……. $3,851 $477

Connecticut…………. 24,528 15,872 Arkansas……. 2,950 110

Illinois……….. 28,408 3,786 Delaware……. 1,037 168

Indiana……………6,755 1,491 Florida 1,9……… 1,957 5

Iowa………….4,216 2,005 Georgia…….. 4,532 1,468 Maine…………

5,449 2,981 Kentucky…… 5,956 1,366 Massachusetts…. 43,444 11,492

Louisiana…… 1,810 1,099 Michigan…….. 5,554 1,114 Maryland…….

8,909 5,865 New Hampshire.. 6,271 1,288 Mississippi…… 1,067 267 New Jersey…… 15,475 8,546 Missour i…….. 4,711 986 New York…………

1283,886 61,283 N. Carolina….. 6,197 1,419 Ohio…………. 25,758

9,576 S. Carolina….. 8,984 8,222 Pennsylvania…….. 25,860 12,121

Tennessee……8,888 1,807 Rhode Island….. 2,669 2,12 1 Texa s……….

8,985 127 Vermont……… 5,709 2,867 Virginia…….. 9,296 6,894

Wisconsin…….. 4,790 474 $319,667 $131,972 $68,125 $24,725 T A B, ML 2

8. MISSIONARY CAUSE AND COLONIZATION * CAUSE IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE

STATES-1855-1856. Contributions Slave States. for Missionary purposes, 1855. Alabama…. $5,968 Arkansas… 4551 Delaware….. 1,0083

Florida….. 340 Georgia……. 9,846 Kentucky…. 6,953 Louisiana 84….

4 Maryland…. 20,677T Mississippi 1 4,957 Missouri 2,712 No-rth Cat olinai 6,010 South Carolina 15,248 Tennessee…. 4,971 Texas…….. 849

Virginia…… 22,106 $101,984 California…… Connecticut….

Illinois…….. Indiana……. Iowa………. Maine………

Massachusetts.. Michigan….. New HIampshire New Jersey…. New York……

Ohio………. Pennsylvania.. Rhode Island… Vermont…….

Wisconsin….. * For colonizing free blacks in Liberia 179 C.t,ib.tio.s C..t,ib.tio.s fo, Mf3io..,y f. C.I”.iv,.ti.. p.rpose., 1855. p.,p.,;es, 1856. C..t,ib.tio.s fo, Col..itio. p.,poses, 1856. F:,ee States. $ 192

48,044 10,040 4,TO5 1,T50 13,929 128,,50,5 4,9.35 11,9t,‘3 19,946 172,11, 19.s9o 43,412 9,4AO 11,094 2,216 $502,lT4 $ 1 9,233 m 34 3 l,Tl9 1,422 4

1,130 8,26i 24,3Tl 2,68T 4,28T 2,125 304 806 $51,930 $1,113 1 250 i 13

5,823 4,436 8Tl 406 2,17T 3t3 969 129 1,611 6 10,000 ‘-i 2 iTI 6

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. T.A B L E 29. DEATHS IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE

STATES-1850.* N,umber-of Ratio to aber of t atio to Free States. the Number Slave States. te Nt.ber d_at. living. dth_. living.

California…….. Alabama…….. 9,084 84.94 Connecticut…… 5,781

64.13 Arkansas…….. 2,987 70.18 Illinois………… 11,619 73.28

Delaware…….. 1,209 75.71 Indiana………. 12,728 77.65

Florida………. 933 93.67 Iowa………… 2,044 94.08 Georgia………

9,920 91.93 Maine……….. 7,545 77.29 Kentiucky…… 15,206 64.60

Massachusetts…. 19,414 51.23 Iouisiana….. 11,948 42.85 Michigan…….

4,520 88.19 Marylan d…….. 9,594 60.77 N. Hampshire….. 4,268 74.49

Mississippi……. 8,711 69.93 New Jersey…… 6,467 75.70

Missouri……… 12,211 55.81 New York……….. 44,339 69.85 North Carolina.. 10,207 85. 2 Ohio…………. 28,949 68.41 South Carolina…

7,997 88.59 Pennsylvania…. 28,318 81.63 Tennessee……. 11,759 85.84

Rhode Island….. 2,241 65.83 Texas………. 8,046 69.79 Vermont………

3,132 100.13 Virginia………….19,053 74.61 Wisconsin…….. 2,884

105.82 184,249 72.91 1833,865 71.82 T A BLE 30. FREE WHITE MALE PERSONS

OVER FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER OUTDOOR LABOR

IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. Nmee eNumber engaged Numberi enga~ged-d. tates.

_in other outdoor Total. StiAgricuhote. labor.

Alabama…………………………. 67,742 7,229 74,971

Arkansas……………………….. 28,436 5,596 84,082

Delaware………………………. 6,225 4,184 10,409

Florida……………………….. 5,472 2,598 8,070

Georgia…………………………. 82,107 11,054 98,161

Kentucky……………………….. 110,119 26,308 136,427

Louisiana………………………. 11,524 13,827 25,8351

Marylarnd………………………. 24.672 17,146 41,818

Mississippi,……………………….. 50,028 5,828 55,851

Mtissouri…………………………. 64,292 19,900 84,192 North Carolina…………………… 76,338 21,876 98,214 S )uth Caroiina……………………. 87,612 6,991 44,603

Tennessee………………………… 115,844 16,795 132,639

Texas…………………………… 24,987 22,718 47,700

Virginia……………….. 97,654 83,928 181,582 803,052 215,968

1,01.9,020 * For ae oxplanation of this Table see the next three page 181)

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. Too hot in the South, and too unhealthy there-white men “can’t stand it”-negroes only can endure the heat of Southern climes! How often are our ears insulted with such wickedly false assertions as these! In what degree of latitude-pray tell us-in what degree of latitude do the rays of the sun become too calorific for white men? Certainly in no part of the United States, for in the extreme South we find a very large number of nonslaveholding whites over the age of fifteen, who derive their entire support from manual labor in the open fields. The sun, that brilliant bugbear of proslavery politicians, shone on more than one million of free white laborers-mostly agriculturists-in the slave States in 1850, exclusive of those engaged in commerce, trade, manufactures, the mechanic arts, and mining. Yet, notwithstanding all these instances of exposure to his wrath, we have had no intelligence whatever of a single case of coup de soleil. Alabama is not too hot; sixtyseven thousand white sons of toil till her soil. Mississippi is not too hot; fifty-five thousand free white laborers are hopeful devotees of her outdoor pursuits. Texas is not too hot; forty-seven thousand free white persons, males, over the age of fifteen, daily perform their rural vocations amidst her unsheltered air. It is stated on good authority that, in January, 1856, native ice, three inches thick, was found in Galveston Bay; we have seen it ten inches thick in North Carolina, with the mercury in the thermometer at two degrees below zero. In January, 1857, while the snow was from three to five feet deep in many parts of North Carolina, the thermometer indicated a degree of coldness seldom exceeded in any State in the Unionthirteen degrees below zero. The truth is, instead of its being too hot in the South for white men, it is too cold for negroes; and we long to see the day arrive when the latter shall have entirely receded from their uncongenial homes in America, and given full and undivided place to the former. Too hot in the South for white men! It is not too hot for white women. Time and again, in different counties in North Carolina, have we seen the poor white wife of the poor white husband, following him in the harvest-field from morning till night, binding up the grain as it fell from his cradle. In the immediate neighborhood from which we hail, there are not less than thirty young women, nonslaveholding whites, between the ages of fifteen and twentyfive-some of whom are so well known to us that we could call them by name-who labor in the fields every summer; often hiring themselves out during harvesttime, the very hottest season of the year, to bind wheat and oats-each of them keeping up with the reaper; and this for the paltry considera., tion of twentyfive cents per day. That any respectable man-any man with a heart or a soul in his coniposition can look upon these poor toiling white women without in

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. feeling indignant at that accursed system of slavery which has entailed on them the miseries of poverty, ignorance, and degradation, we shall not do ourself the violence to believe. If they and their husbands, and their sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters, are not righted in some of the more important particulars in which they have been wronged, the fault shall lie at other doors than our own. In their be half, chiefly, have we written and compiled this work; and until our object shall have been accomplished, or until life shall have been ex tinguished, there shall be no abatement in our efforts to aid them in regaining the natural and inalienable prerogatives out of which they have been so craftily swindled. We want to see no more plowing, or hoeing, or raking, or grain-binding, by white women in the Southern States; employment in cotton-mills and other factories would be far more profitable and congenial to them, and this they will have within a short period after slavery shall have been abolished. Too hot in the South for white men! What is the testimony of reliable Southrons themselves? Says Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky: “In the extreme South, at New Orleans, the laboring men-the stevedores and hackmen on the levee, where the heat is intensified by the proximity of the red brick buildings, are all white men, and they are in the full enjoyment of health. But how about cotton? I am informed by a friend of mine-himself a slaveholder, and therefore good authority-that in northwestern Texas, among the German settlements, who, true to their national instincts, will not employ the labor of a slave-they produce more cotton to the acre, and of a better quality, and selling at prices from a cent to a cent and a half a pound higher than that produced by slave labor.” Says Gov. Hammond, of South Carolina: ” The steady heat of our summers is not so prostrating as the short, but frequent and sudden, bursts of Northern summers.” In an extract, which may be found in our second chapter, and to which we respectfully refer the reader, it will be seen that this same South Carolinian, speaking of ” not less than fifty thousand” nonslaveholding whites, says-” Most of these now follow agricultural pursuits.” Says Dr. Cartwright, of New Orleans: “Here in New Orleans, the larger part of the drudgery-work requiring expo.

sure to the sun, as railroad-making, street-paving, dray-driving, ditching, and building, is performed by white people.” To the statistical tables which show the number of deaths in the free and in the slave States in 1850, we would direct special attention. Those persons, particularly the propagandists of negro slavery, who, heretofore, have been so dreadfully exercised on account of what they have been pleased to term “
the insalubrity of Southern climes,” will there find something to allay their fearful apprehensions. A critical examination of said tables will disclose the fact that, in proportion to population, deaths occur more frequently in Massachusetts than in any Southern State except Louisiana; more frequently in New York than 182

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. in any of the Southern States, except Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas; more frequently in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and in Ohio, than in either Georgia, Florida, or Alabama.

Leaving Wisconsin and Louisiana out of the account, and then comparing the bills of mortality in the remaining Northern States, with those in the remaining Southern States, we find the difference decidedly in favor of the latter: for, according to this calculation, while the ratio of deaths is as only one to 74.60 of the living population in the Southern States, it is as one to 72.39 in the Northern. Says Dr. J. C. Nott, of Mobile: ‘Heat, moisture, animal and vegetable matter, are said to be the elements which produce the diseases of the South, and yet tie testimony in proof of the health of the banks of the lower portion of the Mississippi River is too strong to be doubted,-not only’the river itself, but also the numerous bayous which meander through Louisiana. Here is a perfectly fiat alluvial country, covering several hundred miles, interspersed with interminable lakes, lagunes and jungles, and still we are informed by Dr. Cartwright, one of the most acute observers of the day, that this country is exempt from miasmatic disorders, and is extremely healthy. His assertion has been confirmed to me by hundreds of witnesses, and we know from our own observation, that the population present a robust and healthy appearance.”

But the best part is yet to come. In spite of all the blatant assertions of the oligarchy, that the climate of the South was arranged expressly for the negroes, and that the negroes were created expressly to inhabit it as the healthful servitors of other men, a carefully kept register of all the deaths that occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, for the space of six years, shows that, even in that locality which is generally regarded as so unhealthy, the annual mortality was much greater among the blacks, in proportion to population, than among the whites. Dr. Nott himself shall state the facts. He says: ” The average mortality for the last six years in Charleston for all ages is 1 in 51, including all classes. Blacks alone 1 in 44; whites alone, 1 in 58-a very remarkable result, certainly. This mortality is perhaps not an unfair test, as the population during the last six years has been undisturbed by emigration and acclimated in a greater proportion than at any former period.” Numerous other authorities might be cited in proof of the general healthiness of the climate south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Of 127 remarkable cases of American longevity, published in a recent edition of Blake’s Biographical Dictionary, 68 deceased centenarians are credited to the Southern States, and 59 to the Northern-the list being headed with Betsey Trantham, of Tennessee-a white woman, who died in t834, at the extraordinarily advanced age of 154 years.

183

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. TABI’LE 31. NATIVES OF THE SLAVE STATES IN THE

FREE STATES, AND NATIVYS ()F THR FREE STATES IN THE SLAVE STATES.-1850.

Nat ives of the SNat ives of the Free States. slof the Slave States. Freo the Slave States. Ffree Statem., Alabama……………….

Arkansas………………. Delaware……………..

Florida………………… Georgia………………..

Kentucky……………… Louisiana……………….

Maryland……………… Mississippi……………..

Missouri………………. North Carolina…………. South Carolina…………. Tennessen e………………

Texas…………………. Virginia………………..

California……………… Connecticut…………….

Illinois………………… Indiana………………..

Iowa………………… Maine………………… Massac husetts………….. Michigan…………….. New-Hampshire…………

New-Jersey……………. New-York………………

Ohio…………………… Pennsylvania………….. Rhode Island…………… Vermont………………..

Wisconsin………………. Total…………….609,223

Total…………….205,924 This last table, compiled from the 116th page of the Compendium of the Seventh Census, shows, in a most lucid and startling manner, how negroes, slavery and slaveholders are driving the native nonslaveholding whites away from their homes, and keeping at a distance other decent people. From the South the tide of emigration still flows in a westerly and northwesterly direction, and so it will continue to do until slavery is abolished. TABL:E 32. VALUE OF THE SLAVES AT $400

PER HEAD.-1850.* States. Value of the Slaves at $400 Value of esal and Psrsooal St~~~~~~~~prhade. Estate, less the value of per head. slaves at $400 per head. Alabama………………………… $187,187,600

$81,066,782 Arkansas………………………… 18,840,000 21,001,025

Delawar.e…………………………. 916,000 17,939,863

Florida………………………….. 15,724,)000 7,474,784

Georgia…………………………… 152,672,800 182,752,914

Kentucky………………………… 84,892,400 217,236,056

Louisiana………………………… 97,928,600 186,075,164

Maryland……………………….. 86,147,200 183,070,164

Mississippi………………………. 123,951,200 105,000,000

Missouri………………………….. 84,968,800 102,278,907 North Carolina……………………….. 115,419,200 111,881,272 South Carolina……………………….. 153,998,600 184,264,094

Tennessee…………………………. 95,788,600 111,671,104

Texas……………………………. 28,264,400 32,097,940

Virginia………… 189,011,200 202,684,638 $1,280,145,600 $1.655,945.187

* It is intended that this table shall be considered in connection with table No., 10. 184 24,055 1,390 144,809 176,581 31,892 458 2,980 8,634 215

4,110 12,625 152,319 47,180 982 140 6,353 609,223 4‘947 7,965 61996 11718

4,249 81,340 14,567 23,815 4,517 55,664 2,167 2,42T 6,571 9,982 28,999

205,924 Total………… Total………..

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FREE FIGURITES AND SLAVE. To Dr. G. Bailey, editor of the National Era, Washington City, D.C., we are indebted for the following useful and interesting statistics, to which some of our readers will doubtless have frequent occasion to refer: PRESIDENTS OF THIE UNITED STATES. March 4’

1789’ac,13 March 787 George Washington, Virginia. March 4, 1887 Martin Van Buren, New York. ” “79 3, 1841 Marc 4,11797 t Maich 4, 1780 John Adams, Massachusetts. March 3, {,441 William H. Harrison, Ohio. March 4, 1801M
ac4185 March 8’ 18019 Thomas Jefferson, Virginia. March, 445 James K.

Polk, Tennessee. 3, isog 3 “8,1849JaeK.Pl,Tnese March 4, 109 JameS

Madison,Virginia. March 4, 1849 Zachary Taylor, Louisiana. “3, 181T (,Jam M aio, irii.“8, 1853 March 4, 18 M a c 4,185 March 4 1, {5 } James Monroe, Virginia. March 4, 18S53 Franklin Pierce, N. H. 3, 182~5 “3, 185T March 4, I1S25 M r h 415 March 4, John Q. Adams, Mass. March 4, 1857 James Buchanan, Penn. 3, 1829 ” 8, 1861 March 4, 1829 8, 1837!Andrew Jackson, Tennessee. At the close of the term for which Mr. Buchanan is elected, it will have been seventy-two years since the organization of the present government. In that period, there have been eighteen elections for President, the candidates chosen in twelve of them being Southern men and slaveholders, in six of them Northern men and nonslaveholders. No Northern man has ever been reelected, but five Southern men have been thus honored. Gen. Harrison, of Ohio, died one month after his inauguration.

Gen. Taylor, of Louisiana, about four months after his inauguration. In the former case, John Tyler, of Virginia, became acting President, in the latter, Millard F’illmore of New York. Of the seventy-two years, closing with Mr. Buchanan’s term, should he live it out, Southern men and slaveholders have occupied the Presidential chair forty eight years and three months, or a little more than two-thirds of the time. THE SUPREME

COURT. The judicial districts are organized so as to give five judges to the slave States. and four to the free, although the population, wealth and business of the latter are far in advance of those of the former. The arrangement affords, however, an ex cuse for constituting the Supreme Court, with a majority of judges from the slave holding States. MEMBERS.

Chief JusticeR. B. Taney, Maryland. Associate Justice-S. Nelson, New York. Associate Justice-J. M. Wayne, Georgia. ” ” R. C. Grier, Pennsylvanias ” John Catron, Tennessee. a ” Nathan Clifford, Maine, ”’; P.

V. Daniel, Virginia: Reporter, B. C. Howard, Maryland. 1” ” John A.

Campbell, Ala. Clerk, W. T. Carroll, D.C. ‘4 ” John McLean, Ohio.

SECRETARIES OF STATE. The highest office in the Cabinet is that of Secretary of State, who has under his charge the foreign relations of the country. Since the year 1789, there have been twentythree appointments to the office-fourteen from slave States, nine from free. Or, counting by years, the post has been filled by Southern men and slaveholders very nearly forty years out of sixty-nine as follows: Appointed. i Appointed.

Sept. 26, 1789, Thomas Jefferson, Virginia. May 29,183388, Louis McLane, Delaware. Jan. 2, 794, E. Randolph, Virginia. June 27, 1834, J. Forsyth, Georgia. Dec. 10, 1795, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. March 5, 1841, Daniel Webster, Mass. May 18, 1800, J. Marshall, Virginia. July 24, 1848, A. P.

Upshmu, Virginia. March 5,1801, James Madison, Virginia. March 6,1844, J.

C. Calhoun, South Carolinl March 6, 1809, R. Smith, Maryland. March 5, 1845, James Buchanan, Penn. April 2, 1811, James Monroe, Virginia. March 7,1849, J. M. Claytoa, Delaware. Feb. 28,1815, ” ” July 20,1850, Daniel Webster, Mass. March 5, 1815, J. Q. Adams, Massachusetts. Dec. 9, 1851, E.

Everett, Massachusetts March 7 1825, IHenry Clay, Kentucky. March 5, 1853, W. L. Marcy, New York. March 6 1829 Martin Van Buren, New York. Mlarch 6,185T7, Lewis Cass, Michigan May 24, 18q91, E. Livingston, Louisiana. 185

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FREP: FIGURES AND SLAVE. PRESIDENTS PRO TEM. OF THE SENATE. Since the year 1809, every President pro tern. of the Senate of the United States has been a Southern man and slaveholder, with the exception of Samuel L.

Southard, of New Jersey, who held the office for a very short time, and Mr. Bright, of Indiana, who has held it for one or two sessions, we believe, having been elected, however, as a known adherent of the slave interest, believed to be interested in slave “property.” SPEAKERS OF THE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. April, 1789 F A Dec, 5 1825’ March 3, 1791 F

Muhlenberg, Penn. March 3,1827 J W. Taylor, New York Oct. c2421,793 tJ.

Trumbull, Connecticut. Dec. 182 A. Stevenson, Virginia. June 2, 118834

Dech 2, 1793 June 21 1834 De,c.2,17935 F. A. Muhlenberg, Penn. nMarch 2,1835 John Bell, Tennessee. Mar:ch‘3, IT95 1.Marhlener, 1enn. Dec. 7 1795

Jonathan Daytonec., c 1835 James K. Polk, Tennessee. March’ 3 1797
tJonathan Dayton, N.J. Mrl‘318 March 3,~~~~~~~ lT97 Marh3 1839 May 15, 1797. Dec. 16,1839 R. M. T. Hunter V irginia. March 3, 1799 March 3, 1841

* un, gma Dec. 2, 1~99 Theodore Sedgwick, Mass. May 31, 1841 t John White, Tennessee. March‘3 1801 I March 3, 1843 DMarch, 180 Nathaniel Macon, N. 0

Dec. 4, 1845 J. W. Jones, Virginia. 07 M3, 1845 OCtrc2h6S, 1807l J B.

Varnum, Massachusetts. Dec. 1,1845 J. W. Davis, Indiana. March 3,1 811 n r March 3, 1847 March 4,H1811 HEenry Clay, Kentucky Dec. 6, 1847 tR. C.

Winthrop, Mass. J~aan.c11192,,l181415 ~ Langdon March 3, 1849. March 2, 1815 Langdon Cheves, S. C. c, 184 Howell Cobb, Georgia. Doecv 4H318150

Henry Clay, Kentucky. Mach 85 Linn Boyd, Kentucky Nov’ 13’ 18 20 )….

DeMarc h 3 18531 Nov.arch 8 1 1.. Taylor, New York. Dec. 1, 1853 Mec. 3, 1‘21….. eb8March 3, 1855 DMearch,1828 P. B. Barbour, Virginia.

Feb.28,arch 18567 Nathaniel P. Banks, Mass. ~~~~~~~~~~~March. 83Mac, 1857

Dec. 1, 1‘823 ~…Dec. T. 1857 March 3, 1825 Henry Clay, Kentucky. DeMarch 3, 7.18597 James L. Orr, S. 0. POSTMASTERS-GENERAL. ApntdAppointed-Appointed Sept. 26,1789, S. Osgood, Massachusetts. March 6,1841, F.

Granger, New York. Aug. 12, 1791, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. Sept.

13,1841, C. A. Wickliffe, Kentucky. Feb. 25,1795, J. Habersham, Georgia.

March 5, 1845, C. Johnson, Tennessee. Nov. 28, 1801, G. Granger, Connecticut. March 7, 1849, J. Collamer, Vermont. Marchl 17, 1814, R. J.

Meigs, Ohio. July 20, 1850, N. K. Hall, New York. June 25, 1823, John McLean, Ohio. Aug. 31,1852, S. D. Hubbard, Connecticut. March 9 1829, W.

T. Barry, Kentucky. March 5,1853, J. Campbell, Pennsylvania. May 1, 183 A.

Kendall, Kentucky. March 6, 1857, Aaron V. Brown, Tennessee. May 18, 1840, J. M. Niles, Connecticut. Sectionalism does not seem to have had much to do with this department or with that of the interior, created in 1848-‘49.

SECRETARIES OF THE INTERIOR. Appointed-AppointedMarch 7,1849, T. Ewing, Ohio. Sept. 12, 150, A. H. H. Stuart, Virginia. July 20, 1850, J. A.

Pearce, Maryland. March 5, 1858, R. McClelland, Michigan. Aug. 15, 1850, T. M. T. McKennon, Pa. March 6, 1857, Jacob Thompson, Mississippi ATTORNEYS-GENERAL. Appointed-AppointedSept. 26, 1789, E. Randolph, Virginia. Nov. 15, 1833, B. F. Butler, New York. June 27, 1794, W

Bradford, Pennsylvania. July 7, 1838, F. Grundy, Tennessee. Dec. 10, 1795, C. Lee Virginia. Jan. 10, 1840, H. D. Gilnin, Pennsylvania. Feb. 20, 1800, T. Parsons, Massachusetts. March 5 1841, J JJ. Cittenden Kentucky March 5, 1801, L. Lincoln, Massachusetts. Sept. 18,’ 1841, 14. S. Legare, Soutlh CarolinM, March 2, 1805, Pi. Smith, Maryland. July 1, 1848, John Nelson, Maa yland. Dec. 23, 1805, J. Breckinridge, Kentucky. March 5, 1845, J. Y.

Mason, Virginia Jan. 20, 1807, C. A. Rodney, Pennsylvania. Oct. 17. 1846, N. Clifford, Maine. Dec. 11, 1811, W. Pinkney, Maryland. June 21 1848, Isaac Toucey, Connecticut. Feb. 10, 1814, R. Rush, Pennsylvania. March 7

1849, R. Johnson, Maryland. Nov. 13, 1817, W. Wirt, Virginia. July 20, 1850, J. J. Crittenden Kentucky. March 9, 1829, J. McPherson Berrien, Georgia. March 5, 1853, C. Cushing, Massachusetts. July 20,1831, Roger B.

Taney, Maryland. Marck 6,1857, Jeremiah S. Black, Pa. 186

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY. The post of Secretary of the Treasury, although one of greatimportance, requires financial abilities of a high order, which are more frequently found in the North than in the South, and affords little opportunity for influencing general politics, or the questions springing out of slavery. We need not, therefore, be surprised to learn that Northern men have been allowed to discharge its duties some fortyeight years out of sixty-nine, as follows: Appointed-AppointedSept. 11, 1789, A. Hamilton, New York. Sept. 23, 1833, Roger B. Taney, Maryland. Feb. 3, 1795, O. Wolcott, Connecticut. June 27, 1834, L. Woodbury, New Hampshire. Dec. 31, 1800, S. Dexter, Massachusetts.

March 5,1841, Thomas Ewing, Ohio. May 14, 1801, A. Gallatin, Pennsylvania.

Sept. 13,1841, W. Forward, Pennsylvania. Feb. 9,1814, G. W. Campbell, Tennessee. March 3,1843, J. C. Spencer, New York. Oct. 6,1814, A. J.

Dallas, Pennsylvania. Jdne 15,1844, G. M. Bibb, Kentucky. Oct. 22,1816, W.

H. Crawford, Georgia. March 5, 1845, R. J. Walker. Mississippi. March 7, 1825, R. Rush, Pennsylvania. March 7, 1849, W. M. Meredith, Pennsylvania.

March 6, 1829, S. D. Ingham, Pennsylvania. June 20,1850, Thomas Corwin, Ohio. Aug. 8, 1831, L. McLane, Delaware. March 5, 1853, James Guthrie, Kentucky. May 29,1833, W. J. Duane, Pennsylvania. March 6, 1857, Howell Cobb, Georgia. SECRETARIES OF WAR AND THE NAVY. The slaveholders, since March 8th, 1841, a period of nearly eighteen years, have taken almost exclusive supervision of the navy, Northern men having occupied the Secretaryship only six years. Nor has any Northern man been Secretary of War since 1849. Considering that nearly all the shipping belongs to the free States, which also supply the seamen, it does seem remarkable that slaveholders should have monopolized for the last eighteen years the control of the navy. SECRETARIES OF WAR. AppointedSept. 12,1789, Henry Knox, Massachusetts. Jan. 2, 1795, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. Jan. 27, 1796, J. McHenry, Maryland. May 7, 1800, J. Marshall, Virginia. May 13,1800, S. Dexter, Massa chusetts. Feb. 3, 1801, R. Griswold, Connecticut. March 5, 1801, H. Dearborn, Massachusetts. March 7,1802, W.

Eustis, Massachusetts. Jan. 13, 1813, J. Armstrong, New York. Sept. 27, 1814, James Monroe, Virginia. March 3,1815, W. H. Crawford, Georgia. March 5, 1817, J. Shelby, Kentucky. April 7,1817, G. Graham, Virginia. Oct. 8

1817, J. C. Calhoun, South Carolina. March 7, 1825, J. Barbour, Virginia.

May 26, 1828, P. B. Porter, Pennsylvania. SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY.

Appointed-AppointedMay 3, 1798, G. Cabot, Massachusetts. June 20, 1838, J. K. Paulding, New York. May 21, 1798, B. Stoddart, Massachusetts. March 5, 1841, G. F. Badger, North Carolin& July 15,1801, R. Smith, Maryland.

Sept. 13, 1841, A. P. Lpshur, Virginia. May 3, 1805, J. Crowninshield, Mass. July 24,1843, D. Henshaw, Massachusetts. March 7,1809, P. Hamilton, South Carolina. Feb. 12,1844, T. W. Gilmer, Virginla. Jan, 12, 1813, W.

Jones, Pennsylvania. March 14, 1844, James Y. Mason, Virginia. Dec. 17, 1814, B. W. Crowninshield, Mass. March 10, 1845, G. Bancroft, Massachusetts. Nov. 9, 1818, Smith Thompson, New York. Sept. 9, 1846, James Y. Mason, Virginia. Sept. 1, 1823, John Rogers, Massachusetts. March 7,1849, W. B. Preston, Virginia. Sept. 16, 1823, S. L. Southard, New Jersey. July 20, 1850, W. A. Graham, N. Carolina. March 9, 1829, John Branch, North Carolina. July 22,1852, J. P. Kennedy, Maryland. May 23, 1831, L. Woodbury, New Hampshire. March 3, 1853, J. C. Dobbin, N.

Carolina. June 80, 1834, M. Dickerson, New Jersey. March 6, 1857, Isaac Toucey, Connecticut. RECAPITULATION. Presidency.-Southern men and slaveholders, 48 years 3 months; Northern mete 23 years 9 months. Pro Tem.

Presidency of the Senate.-Since 1809, held by Southern men a.D
slaveholders, except for three or four sessions by Northern men. I 187

AppointedMarch 9, 1829, J. H. Eaton, Tennessee. Aug. l’ 1831’, Lewis Cass, Ohio. March 3, 1837, B. F. Butler, New York. March T, 188T, J. R.

Poinsett, South Carolina. March 5,1841, James Bell, Tennessee. Sept. 13, lS41, John McLean, Ohio. Oct. 12,1841, J. C. Spencer, New York. March 8, 1843, J. W. Porter, Pennsylvania. Feb. 15,1844, W. Wilkins, Pennsylvania.

March 5,1845, William L. Marcy, New York. March 7, 1849, G’W. Crawford, Georgia. July 20,1850, E. Bates, Missouri. Aug 15 1850 C. M. Conra., Louisiana. March ti: 1853,’ Jefferson Davis, Mississippi. March 6, 185T, John B. Floyd, Virginia.

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. Speakership of the House.-Filled by Southern men and slaveholers forty-live years, Northern men, twentyfive. Supreme Court.-A majority of the Judges, including Chief-Justice, southern men and slaveholders. Secretaryship of State.-Filled by southern men and slaveholders forty years; northern, twenty-nine. .Attorney Generalship.-Filled by southern men and slaveholders forty-two years; northern men, twenty-seven. War and Navy.-Secretaryship of the Navy, southern men and slaveholders, the last eighteen years, with an interval of six years. WILLIAM HENRY HURLBUT, Of South Carolina, a gentleman of enviable literary attainments, and one from whom we may expect q continuation of good service in the eminently holy crusade now going on against slavery and the devil, furnished not long since, to the Edinburgh Review, in the course of a long and highly interesting article, the following summary of oligarchal usurpations-showing that slaveholders have occupied the principal posts of the government nearly two-thirds of the time: Presidents…………………………………….. 11 out of 16

Judges of the Supreme Court…………………….. 17 out of 28

Attorneys-General……………………………… 14 out of 19

Presidents of the Senate………………………… 61 out of 77

Speakers of the House………………………….. 21 out of 33 Foreign Ministers………………………………. 80 out of 134 As a matter of general interest, and as showing that, while there have been but eleven nonslaveholders directly before the people as candidates for the Presidency, there have been at least sixteen slaveholders who were willing to serve their country in the capacity of chief magistrate the following table may be here introduced: RESULT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE

UNITED STATES FROM 1796 TO 1856. Name of Candidate. Elect’l vote. Andrew Jackson………. 219 Henry Clay…………… 49 John Floyd…………… 11 William Wirt………….. 7 Martin Van Buren…….. 170 William H. Harrison…… 73 Hugh L. White……….. 26

Willie P. Mangum…….. 11 Daniel Webster……….. 14 William H.

Harrison…… 234 Martin Van Buren…….. 60 James K. Polk………..

170 Henry Clay………….. 105 Zachary Taylor……….. 163 Lewis Cass…………… 127 Franklin Pierce………. 254 General Winfield Scott….. 42 James Buchanan……… 174 John C. Fremont……… 114

Millard Fillmore………. 8 Name of Candidate. Elect’l vote J ohn Adams………….. 71 Thomas Jefferson………. 68 Thomas Jefferson………1. MtV 73 John Adams…………. 64 Thomas Jefferson……… 162 Charles C. Pinckney…….4 WliP 14 James Madison……….. 128 Charles C. Pinckney…… 45 James Madison……….. 122 De Witt Clinton………. 89 James Monroe………… 183 Rufus King…………… 34 James Monroe…………… 218 No opposition but one vote Andrew Jackson*…….. 99 John Q. Adams……….. 84 W. H. Crawford……….

41 I-Henry Clay…………… 37 i Andrew Jackson………. 178 John Q.

Adams……….. 83 AID FOR KANSAS. As a sort of accompaniment to many of the preceding tables, we will * No choice by the people John Q. Adams elected by the House of Representatives. e 188 Yea 1832 Year. 1796 isoo 1804 1808 1812 ‘1816 1820 1836 1840 1844’ 1848’ 1852 1856 1824 1828

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. here introduce a few items which will more fully illustrate the liberality of freedom and the niggardliness of slavery.

From an editorial article that appeared in the Richmond (Va.,) Dispatch, in July, 1856, bewailing the close-fistedness of slavery, we make the following extract: Gerrit Smith, the Abolitionist, has just pledged himself to give $1,500 a month for the next twelve months to aid in establishing freedom in Kansas. He gave, but a short time since, at the Kansas relief meeting in Albany, $3,000. Prior to that, he had sent about $1,000 to the Boston Emigrant Committee. Out of his own funds, he subsequently equipped a. Madison county company, of one hundred picked men, and paid their expenses to Kansas. At Syracuse he subscribed $10,000
for Abolition purposes, so that his entire contributions amount to at least $40,000.” Under date of August 9, 1856, an Eastern paper informs us that “The sum of $500 was contributed at a meeting at New Bedford on Monday evening, to make Kansas free. The following sums have been contributed for the same purpose: $2,000 in Taunton; $600 in Raynham; $800
in Clinton; $300 in Danbury, Ct. In Wisconsin, $2,500 at Janesville; $500
at Dalton; $500 at the Women’s Aid Meeting in Chicago; $2,000 in Rockford, Ill.” A telegraphic dispatch, dated Boston, January 2, 1857, says: “The Secretary of the Kansas Aid Committee acknowledges the receipt of $42,678.” Exclusive of the amounts above, the readers of the New York Tribune contributed at least $30,000 for the purpose of securing Kansas to Freedom; and with the same object in view, other individuals and societies, as occasion required, made large contributions, of which we failed to keep a memorandum. The Legislature of Vermont appropriated $20,000; and other free state legislatures were prepared to appropriate millions, if necessary. Free men had determined that Kansas should be free, and free it is, and will ever so remain. All honor to the immortal patriots who saved her from the death-grasp of slavery! Now let us see how Slavery rewarded the poor, ignorant, deluded, and degraded mortals-swaggering lickspittles-who labored so hard to gain for it a “local habitation and a name ” in the disputed territory. One D. B.

Atchison, chairman of the Executive Committee of Border Ruffians, shall tell us all about it. Over date of October 13th, 1856, he says: “UTp to this moment, from all the States except Missouri, we have only received the following sums, and through the following persons: A. W. Jones, Houston, Miss………………………………$152 H. D. Clayton, Eufala, Ala………………………………. 500 Capt. Deedrick, South Carolina………………………….. 500 $1,1521” On this subject further comment is unnecessary. Numerous other contrasts, equally disproportionate, might be drawn between the vigor and munificence of Freedom and the impotence and stinginess of Slavery. We will, however, in addition to the above, advert to only a single instance. During the latter part of the summeil 189

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. of 1855, the citizens of the despicable little slave-towns of Norfolk and Portsmouth, in Virginia, were sorely plagued with yellow fever. Many of them fell victims to the disease, and most of those who survived, and who were not too unwell to travel, left their homes horror-stricken and dejected. To the honor of mankind in general, and to the glory of freemen in particular, contributions in money, provisions, clothing, and other valuable supplies, poured in from all parts of the country for the relief of the sufferers. Portsmouth alone, according to the report of her relief association, received $42,547 in cash from the free States, and only $12,182 in cash from all the slave States, exclusive of Virginia, within whose borders the malady prevailed.

Including Virginia, the sum total of all the slave State contributions amounted to only $33,398. Well did the Richmond Examiner remark at the time-” we fear that generosity of Virginians is but a figure of speech.”

Slavery! thy name is shame! The following statistics of Congressional representation, which we transcribe from “Reynolds’ Political Map of the United States,” published in 1856, deserve to be carefully studied: UINITED STATES SENATE. Sixteen free States, with a white population of 13,238,670 have thirtytwo Senators. Fifteen slave States, with a white population of 6,186,477, have thirty Senators. So that 413,708 free men of the North enjoy but the same political privileges in the United States Senate as is given to 206,215 slave propagandists. IOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES. The free States have a total of 144 members. The slave States have a total of 90 members. One free State Representative represents 91,935 white men and women. ()ne slave State Representative represents 68,725 white men and women. Slave Representation gives to slavery an advantage over freedom of thirty votes in the House of Representatives. CUSTOM HOIUSE BEcEIPTS-1854. Free States………………………………………$60,010,489 Slave States……………………………………… 6,136,969 Balance in favor of the Free States…………………..$54,873,520 A contrast quite distinguishable! That the apologists of slavery cannot excuse the shame and the shabbiness of themselves and their country, as we have frequently heard them attempt to do, by falsely asserting that the North has enjoyed over the South the advantages of priority of settlement, will fully appear from the following table: 190

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. FREE STATES. 1614 New York first settled by the Dutch. 1620 Massachusetts settled by the Puritans. 1623 New Hampshire settled by the Puritans. 1624 New Jersey settled by the Dutch. 1635

Connecticut settled by the Puritans. 1636 Rhode Island settled by Roger Williams. 1682 Pennsylvania settled by William Penn. 1791 Vermont admitted into the Union. 1802 Ohio admitted into the Union. t816 Indiana admitted into the Union. 1818 Illitnois admitted into the Union. 1820 Maine admitted into the Union. 1836 Michigan admitted into the Union. 1846 Iowa admitted into the Union. 1848 Wisconsin admitted into the Union. 1850

California admitted into the Union. 1607 Virginia first settled by the English. 1627 Delaware settled by the Swedes and Fins 1635 Maryland settled by Iris h Catholi cs. 1650 North Carolina settled by the English.

16T7 South Carolina settled by the Huguenots 1733 Georgia settled by Gen.

Oglethorpe. 1782 Kentucky admitted into the Union. 1796 Tennessee admitted into the Union. 1811 Louisiana admitted into the Union. 1817 Mississippi admitted into the Union. 1819 Alabama admitted into the, Union. 1821

Missouri admitted into the Union. 1836 Arkansas admitted into the Union.

1845 Florida admitted into the Union. 1846 Texas admitted into the Union.

In the course of an exceedingly interesting article on the early settlements in America, R. K. Browne, formerly editor and proprietor of the San Francisco Evening Joumrnal, says: ” Many people seem to think that the Pilgrim Fathers were the first who settled upon our shores, and therefore that they ought to be entitled, in a particular manner, to our remembrance and esteem. “This is not the case, and we herewith present to our readers a list of settle ments made in the present United States, prior to that of Plymouth: 1564. A Colony of French Protestants under Ribault, settled in Florida. 1565. St. Augustine* founded by Pedro Melendez. 1584. Sir Walter Raleigh obtains a patent and sends two vessels to the American coast, which receives the name of Virginia. 1607. The first effectual settlement made at Jamestown, Va., by the Londou Company.

1614. A fort erected by the Dutch upon the site of New York. 1615. Fort Orange built near the site of Albany, N. Y. 1619. The first General Assembly called in Virginia. 1620. The Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock.”

FREEDOM AND SLAVERY AT TRE FAIR. WE(AT FREEDOM DID. At an Agricultural Fair held at Watertown, in the State of New York, on the 2d day of October, 1856, two hundred and twenty premiums, ranging from three to fifty dollars each, were awarded to successful competitors-the aggregate amount of said premiums being $2,396, or an average of $10 89 each. From the proceedings of the Awarding Committee we make the following extracts: Hiram Converse………………….$50 00 George Parish…………………… 25 00 J.

Staplin………………………. 20 00 A.

Blunt……………………….. 25 00 Wm.

Johnson…………………… 25 00 A. M.

Rogers……………………. 20 00 C.

Baker……………………….. 25 00 J. W.

Taylor……………………. 10 00 Wm.

Ottley……………………..5 00 H. Weir…………………………

3 00 E. S. Hayward…………………… 3 00 L.

Marshall…………………….. 3 00 Aggregate amount of twelve premiums…………………… $214 00 An average of $17 83 each. * The oldest town In the United itates. 191 SLA’VE STATES. Best Team of Oxen, Best Horse Colt, Best Fill y, Best Brood Mare, Best Bull, Best Heifer, Best Cow, Best Stall-fed Beef, Best sample Wheat, Best sample Flaxseed, Best sample Timothy Seed, Best sample Sweet Corn,

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. WHAT SLAVERY DID. At the Rowan County Agricultural Fair, held at Minieral Springs, in North Carolina, on 13th day of November, 1856, thirty premiums ranging from twentyfive cents to two dollars each, were awarded to successful competitors-the aggregate amount of said premiums being $42 00, or an average of $1 40 each. From the proceedings of tile Awarding Committee we make the following extracts: R.

W. Griffith…………………..$2 00 T. A. Burke……………….. 2

00 James Cowan……………………. 2 00 M. W.

Goodman………………….. 2 00 J. F.

McCorkle……………………. 2 00 J. F. McCorkle………………2

00 T. A. Burke………………..2 00) S. D.

Rankin……………………… 1 00 M W. Goodman…………………..

50 J. J. Summerell…………………… 25 Thomas Barber…………………… 25 Thomas Hyde…………………….. 25

Aggregate amount of twelve premiums…………………….$16 25 An average of $1 36 each. Besides the two hundred and twenty premiums, amounting in the aggregate to $2,396, Freedom granted several diplomas and silver medals; besides the thirty premiums amounting in the aggregate to $42, Slavery granted none-nothing. While examining these figures, it should be recollected that agriculture is the peculiar province of the slave States. If commerce or manufactures had been the subject of the fair, the result might have shown even a greater disproportion in favor of Freedom, and yet there would have been some excuse for Slavery, for it makes no pretensions to either the one or the other; but as agriculture was the subject, Slavery can have no excuse whatever, but must bear all the shame of its niggardly and revolting impotence; this it must do for the reason that agriculture is its special and almost only pursuit. The Reports of the Comptrollers of the States of New York and North Carolina, for the year 1856, are now before us. From each report we have gleaned a single item, which, when compared, the one with the other, speaks volumes in favor of Freedom and against Slavery. We refer to the average value per acre of lands in the two States let glaveholders read, reflect, and repent. In 1856, there were assessed for taxation in the State of NEW

YORK, Acres of
land………………………………………….30,080,00O0 Valued at…………………………………………….$1,112,133,136

Average value per acre………………………………… $36 97 In 1856, there were assessed for taxation in the State of NORTH CAROLINA, Acres of land…………………………………………32,450.560

Valued at………………………………………… $98,800.636

Average value per acre……………………………$3 0O 192 Best pair Match Horses, Best Horse Colt, Best Filly, Best Brood Mare, Best B ull, -

Best Heifer, Best Cow, Best Stall-fed Beef, Best Sample Wheat, Best Lot Beets, Best Lot Turnips, Best Lot Cabbage,

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FRPEE FIGURES AND SLAVE. It is difficult for us to make any remarks on the official facts above. Our indignation is struck almost dumb at this astounding and revolting display of the awful wreck that slavery is leaving behind it in the South. We will, however, go into a calculation for the purpose of ascertaining as nearly as possible, in this one particular, how much N-orth Carolina has lost by the retention of slavery.

As we have already seen, the average value per acre of land in the State of New York is $3C 97; in North Carolina it is only $3 06; why is it so much less, or even any less, in the latter than in thle former? The answer is, Slavery. In soil, in climate, in minerals, in water-power for manufactural purposes, and in area of territory, North Carolina has the advantage of Neew York, and, with the exception of slavery, no plausible reason can possiblybe assigned why land should not be at least as valuable in the valley of the Yadkin as it is along the banks of the Genesee. The difference between $36 97 and $3 06 is $33 91, which, multiplied by the whole number of acres of land in North Carolina, will show, in this one particular, the enormous loss that freedom has sustained on ae. count of slavery in the Old North State. Thus: 32,450,560 acres a $33 91…..

$1,100,398,489. Let it be indelibly impressed on the mind, however, that this amount, large as it is, is only a moiety of the sum that it has cost to maintain slavery in North Carolina. From time to time, hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars have left the State, either in search of profitable, permanent investment abroad, or in the shape of profits to Northern merchants and manufacturers, who have become the moneyed aristocracy of the country by supplying to the South such articles of necessity, utility, and adornment, as would have been produced at home but for the pernicious presence of the peculiar institution. A reward of eleven hundred million of dollars is offered for the conversion of the lands of North Carolina into free soil. The lands them3elves, desolate and impoverished under the fatal foot of slavery, offer the reward. How, then, can it be made to ai)pear that the abolition of slavery in Northl Carolina, and, inee(i, throughout all thie Southern S.tates-for slavery is exceedingly iniaicial to thenl all-is not demanded by every consideration of justice, prudence, and good sense? In 1850, the total value of all the slaves of the State at the rate of four hundred dollars per head, amounted to less than one hundred and sixteen miillion of dollars. Is the sum of one hundred and sixteen inillioni of dollars mnore desirable than the sum of eleven hundred million of dollars? When a man has land for sale, does hle re-ect thirty-six dollars per acre and take three? Non-slavelolding whies! look well to your interests! Many of you have lands; copairatively speaking, you have not-hingig else. Abolish slavery, and you will enhance the value of every league, your 193 9

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FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. own and your neighbors’, from three to thirty-six dollars per acre. YouI little tract containing two hundred acres, now valued at the pitiful sum of only six hundred dollars, will then be worth seven thousand. Your children, now deprived of even the meagre advantages of common schools, will then reap the benefits of a collegiate education.

Your rivers and smaller streams, now wasting their waters in idleness, will then turn the wheels of multitudinous mills. Your bays and harbors, now unknown to commerce, will then swarm with ships from every enlightened quar ter cf the globe. Nonslaveholding whites look well to your interests! Would the slaveholders of North Carolina lose anything by the aboli tion of slavery? Let us see. According to their own estimate, their slaves are worth, in round numbers, say, one hundred and twenty mil lions of dollars. There are in theState twenty-eight thousand slave, holders, owning, it may be safely assumed, an average of at least five hundred acres of land each-fourteen million of acres in all. This num ber of acres, multiplied by thirty-three dollars and ninety-one cents, the difference in value between free soil and slave soil, makes the enormous sum of four hundred and seventy-bur million of dollars-showing that by the abolition of slavery, the slaveholders themselves would realize a net profit of not less than three hundred and fifty-four million of dollars.

Not long since, a gentleman in Baltimore, a native of Maryland, re marked in our presence that he was an abolitionist because he felt that it was right and proper to be one; “but,” inquired he, ” are there not, in some of the States, many widows and orphans who would be left in destitute circumstances, if their negroes were taken from them?” We replied that slavery had already reduced thousands and tenlls of thousands of nonslaveholding widows and orphans to the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance, and that we did not believe one slaveholding widow and three orphans were of more, or even of as much consequence as five nonslaveholding widows and fifteen orphans. ” You are right,” exclaimed the gentleman, ” you are right, I had not viewed the subject in that light before; I perceive you go in for the greatest good to the greatest number.” Of course we were right-we do go in for the greatest good to the greatest number. The fact is, every slave in the South costs the State in which he resides at least three times as much as he, in the whole course of his life, is worth to his master. Slavery benefits no one but its immediate, individual owners, and them only in a pecuniary point of view, and at the sacrifice of the dearest rights and interests of the whole mass of nonslaveholders, white and black. Even the masters themselves, as we have already shown, would have been far better off without it than with it. To all classes of society the institution is a curse; an especial curse is it to those who own it not. Nonslaveholding whites! look wvell to your interests I iu-i

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OHAPTER X. OMMERCIAL OITIES-SOUTHERN OOMMERCE. Ir great’mprovements are seldom to be expected from great proprietors, they are least of all to be expected when they employ slaves for their workmen. The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any. A person who can acquire no property, can have no interest but to eat as much, and to labor as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase bis own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.-ADAM SMITH. OUR theme is a city-a great Southern importing, exporting and manufacturing city, to be located at some point or port on the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia or Virginia, where we can carry on active commerce, buy, sell, fabricate, receive the profits which accrue from the exchange of our own commodities, open facilities for direct communication with foreign countries, and establish all those collateral sources of wealth, utility and adornment, which are the usual concomitants of a metropolis, and which add so very materially to the interest and importance of a nation. Without a city of this kind, the South can never develop her commercial resources nor attain to that eminent position to which those vast resources would otherwise exalt her. According to calculations based upon reasonable estimates, it is owing to the lack of a great commercial city in the South, that we are now annually drained of more than One Hundred and Twenty Millions of Dollars! We should, however, take into consideration the negative loss as well as the positive.

Especially should we think of the influx of emigrants, of the visits of strangers and cosmopolites, of the patronage to hotels and public halls, of the profits of travel and transportation, of the emoluments of foreign and domestic trade, and of numerous other advantages which have their origin exclusively in wealthy, enterprising and densely populated cities.

Nothing is more evident than the fact, that our people have never entertained a proper opinion of the importance of home cities. Blindly, and greatly to our own injury, we have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars toward the erection of mammoth cities at the North, while our own magnificent bays and harbors have been most shamefully disregarded and neglected. Now, instead of carrying all our moiy to New York, PhiadeIyhisa B3ton and (Y,inIafti suppose we litd it

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196 COMMERCIAXI, CITIES-SOUTHERN COMMERCE. on the south side of Mason and Dixon’s line-as we would have done had it not been for slavery-and had disbursed it in the upbuilding of Norfolk, Beaufort, Charleston or Savannah, how much richer, better, greater would the South have been to-day? How much larger and more intelligent would have been our population? How many hundred thousand natives of the South would now be thriving at home, instead of adding to the wealth and political power of other parts of the Union? How much greater would be the number and length of our railroads, canals, turnpikes and telegraphs? How much greater would be the extent and diversity of our manufactures? How much greater would be the grandeur, and how much larger would be the number of our churches, theatres, schools, colleges, lyceums, banks, hotels, stores and private dwellings? How many more clippers and steamships would we have sailing on the ocean, how vastly more reputable would we be abroad, how infinitely more respectable, progressive and happy would we be at home? That we may learn something of the importance of cities in general, let us look for a moment at the great capitals of the world. What would England be without London? What would France be without Paris? What would Turkey be without Constantinople? Or, to come nearer home, what would Maryland be without Baltimore? What would Louisiana be without New Orleans? What would South Carolina be without Charleston? Do we ever think of these countries or States without thinking of their cities also? If we want to learn the news of the country, do we not go to the city, or to the city papers? Every metropolis may be regarded as the nucleus or epitome of the country in which it is situated; and the more prominent features and characteristics of a country, particularly of the people of a country, are almost always to be seen within the limits of its capital city. Almost invariably do we find the bulk of the floating funds, the best talent, and the most vigorous energies of a nation concentrated in its chief cities; and does not this concentration of wealth, energy and talent conduce, in an extraordinary degree, to the growth and prosperity of a nation?

Unquestionably. Wealth develops wealth, energy develops energy, talent develops talent. What, then, must be the condition of those countries which do not possess the means or facilities of centralizing their material forces, their energies and their talents? Are they not destined to occupy an inferior rank among the nations of the earth? Let the South answer. And now let us ask, and we would put the question particularly to Southern merchants, what do we so much need as a great Southern metropolis? Mlerchants of the South, slaveholders! you are the avaricious assassinators of your country! You are the channels through which more than one hundred and twenty millions of dollar

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COMl.ERCIAL CITIES -SOUTIIERN COEIRCE. $120,000,000-are annually drained from the South and conveyed to the North. You are daily engaged in the unmanly and unpatriotic work of impoverishing the land of your birth. You are constantly enfeebling our resources and rendering us more and more tributary to distant parts of the nation. Your conduct is reprehensible, base, criminal. Whether Southern merchants ever think of the numerous ways in which they contribute to the aggrandizement of the North, while, at the same time, they enervate and dishonor the South, has for many years, with us, been a matter of more than ordinary conjecture. If, as it would seem, they have never yet thought of the subject, it is certainly desirable that they should exercise their minds upon it at once. Let them scrutinize the workings of Southern money after it passes north of Mason and Dixon’s line. Let them consider how much they pay to Northern railroads and hotels, how much to Northern merchants and shopkeepers, how much to Northern shippers and insurers, how much to Northern theatres, newspapers, and periodicals. Let them also consider what disposition is made of it after it is lodged in the hands of the North. Is not the greater part of it paid out to Northern manufacturers, merchants, and laborers, for the very arti cles which are purchased at the North-and to the extent that this is done, are not Northern manufacturers, mechanics, and laborers directly countenanced and encouraged, while, at the same time, Southern manu facturers, mechanics, and laborers, are indirectly abased, depressed, and disabled? It is, however, a matter of impossibility, on these small pages, to notice or enumerate all the methods in which the money we deposit in the North is made to operate against us; suffice it to say that it is circulated and expended there, among all classes of the people, to the injury and impoverishment of all almost every individual in the South.

And yet, our cousins of the North are not, by any means, blameworthy for availing themselves of the advantages which we have voluntarily yielded to them. They have shown their wisdom in grow ing great at our expense, and we have shown our folly in allowing them to do so. In this respect, Southern merchants, slaveholders, and slavebreeders, should be the special objects of our censure; they have desolated and impoverished the South; they are now making merchan dise of the vitals of their country; patriotism is a word nowhere recorded in their vocabulary; town, city, country-they care for neither; with them, self is always paramount to every other con sideration. From letters received in 1857, from the mayors of eighteen of our great commercial cities, nine free, and nine slave, which letters have been published in all the book editions of this work, we present the fellowing important particulars: 197

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COMMERCIAL CITIES-SOUTHERN COMMERCE. NINE FREE CITIES. Wealth Name.

Population. Wealth. Wealth per capita New York……………………..

700,000 $511,740,492 $731 Philadelphia…………………. 500,000

325,000,000 650 Boston……………………… 165,000 249,162,500

1,510 Brooklyn……………………… 225,000 95,800,440 425

Cincinnati…………………….. 210,000 88,810,734 422

Chicago………………………. 112,000 171,000,000 1,527

Providence…………………… 60,000 58,064,516 967

Buffalo……………………….. 90,000 45,474,476 505 New Bedford………………….. 21,000 27,047,000 1,288 1 2,083,000

$1,572,100,158 $754 NINE SLAVE CITIES. Name. Population. Weth. Wealth per capita. Baltimore…………………….. 250,000 $102,053,839 $408 New Orleans………………….. 175,000 91,188,195 521 St.

Louis……………………. 140,000 63 0)0,000 450

Charleston……………………. 60,000 86,127,751 602

Louisville……………………… 70,000 81,500,000 450

Richmond…………………….. 40,000 20,143,520 503

Nol-fol]i………………………. 17,000 12,000,000 705

Savannah…………………….. 25,000 11,999,015 480

Wilmington……………………. 10,000 7,850,000 785 787,000

$875.862,320 $477 Let it not be forgotten that the slaves themselves are valued at so much per head, and counted as part of the wealth of slave cities; and yet, though we assent, as we have done, to the inclusion of all this ficti tious wealth, it will be observed that the residents of free cities are far wealthier, per capita, than the residents of slave cities. The reader, we trust, will not fail to examine the figures with great care. In this age of the world, commerce is an indispensable element of national greatness. Without commerce we can have no great cities, and without great cities we can have no reliable tenure of distinct nationality. Commerce is the forerunner of wealth and population; and it is mainly these that make invincible the power of undying states. How it is, in this enlightened age, that men of ordinary intelligence can be so far led into error as to suppose that commerce, or any other noble enterprise, can be established and successfully prosecuted under the dominion of slavery, is, to us, one of the most inexplicable of mysteries.

Southern Conventions, composed of the self-titled lordlings of slavery, Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains, and Squires-may act out their annual programmes of farcical nonsense from now until doomsday; but they will never add one iota to the material, moral, or mental interests of the South-never can, until their ebony idol shall have been utterly demolished. It is a remarkable fact, but one not at all surprising to those whose 198

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COMMERCIAL CITIES-SOUTHERN COMMERCE. philosophy leads them to think aright, that Baltimore and St. Louia the two most prosperous cities in the slave States, have fewer slaves in proportion to the aggregate population than any other city or cities in the South. While the entire population of the former is now estimated at 250,000, and that of the latter at 140,000-making a grand total of 890,000 in the two cities, less than 6,000
of this latter number are slaves; indeed, neither city is cursed with half the number of 6,000. In 1850, there were only 2,946 slaves in Baltimore, and 2,656 in St. Louis-total in the two cities, 5,602; and in both places, thank heaven, this heathenish class of the population was rapidly decreasing. The census of 1860 will, in all probability, show that the two cities are entirely exempt from slaves and slavery; and that of 1880 will, we prayerfully hope, show that the United States at large, at that time, will have been wholly redeemed from the unspeakable curse of human bondage. What about Southern commerce? Is it not almost entirely tributary to the commerce of the North? Are we not dependent on New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Cincinnati, for nearly every article of mer thandise, whether foreign or domestics Where are our ships, our mari ners, our naval architects? Alas! echo answers where? Reader! would you understand how abjectly slaveholders themselves are enslaved to the products of Northern industry? If you would, fix vour mind on a Virginia gentleman-a breeder, buyer, and seller of bipedal black cattle who, withal, professes to be a Christian! Observe the routine of his daily life. See him rise in the morning from a Northern bed, and clothe himself in Northern apparel; see him walk across the floor on a Northern carpet, and perform his ablutions out of a Northern ewer and basin. See him uncover a box of Northern l)owders, and cleanse his teeth with a Northlern brush; see him reflecting his physiognomry in a Northern mirror,. and arranging his hair with a Northern comb. See him dosing himself with the medicaments of Northern quacks, and perfuming his handkerchief with Northern cologne. See himr referring to the time in a Northern watch, and glancing at the news in a Northern gazette. See him and his family sitting in Northern chairs, and singing and praying out of Northern books. See him at the breakfast table, saying grace over a Northern plate, eating with Northern cutlery, and drinking from Northern utensils. See him charmed with the melody of a Northern piano, or musing over the pages of a Noitlie..r.. novel. See him riding to his neighlbor’s in a Northen car riage, or fir rowing his lands with a Northern plough. See liin lightilg llis cigLr w’ithl a Northern match, and flogging his negroes wvithl a Nortlhern lash. See him witl-Northern pen and ink, writing letters on Nortlier:aperr. and sending them away in Northlern envelopes, sealed with Northern wax, and impressed with a Northern stamp. Pelhap)s our Virginia ge,tle manar is a merchant; if so, see hiL, at his store, making an unpatriotic 199

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200 COMMERCIAL CITIES-SOUTHERN COMMIERCE. use of his time in the miserable traffic of Northern gimeraeksand haber daslicryy; see him when you will, whlere you will, he is ever surrounded with the industrial products of those whom, in tile strange inconsistency of his hleart, lie execrates as enemies, yet treats as friiends. I-is labors, his talents, his influence, are all for the North, and not for the South. For the stability of slavery, and for the sake of his own personal aggrandizement, hlie is willing to sacrifice, and does sacrifice, the dearest interests of his country. As we see our ruinous system of commerce exemplified in the family of our Virginia gentleman-a branch of one of the first families, of course!-so we may see it exemplified, to a greater or lesser degree, in almost every other family throughout the length and breadth of the slaveholding States. We are all constantly buying, and selling, and wearing, and using Northern merchandise, at a double expense to both ourselves and our neighbors. If we but look at ourselves attentively, we shall find that we are all clothed cap-d-pie in Northern habiliments. Our hats, our caps, our cravats our coats, our vests, our pants, our gloves, our boots, our shoes, our under-garments-all come from the North; whence, too, Southern ladies procure all their bonnets, plumes, and flowers; dresses, shawls, and scarfs; frills, ribbons, and ruffles; cuffs, capes, and collars. True it is that the South has wonderfifl powers of endurance and recuperation; but she cannot forever support the reckless prodigality of her sons. We are all spendthrifts; some of us should become financiers.

We must learn to take care of our money; we should withhold it from the Nortl-h, and open avenues for its circulation at hoeme. We should not run to New York, to Philadelphia, to Boston, to Cincinnati, or to any other Northern city, every time we want a shoe-string, or a bedstead, a fishhook or a hand-saw, a tooth-pick or a cotton-gin. In ease and luxury we have been lolling long enough; we should now bestir ourselves, and keep pace with the progress of the age. We must expand our energies. and acquire habits of enterprise and industry; we should arouse ourselves from the couch of lassitude, and inure our minds to thought and our bodies to action. We must begin to feed on a more substantial diet than that of proslavery politics; we should leave off our siestas awnd post-meridian naps, and employ our time in profitable vocations. Before us there is a vast work to be accomplishled-a work which has been accumulating on our hands for many years. It is no less a work than that of infusing the spirit of liberty into all our systems of commerce, agtricuilture, mnanffictures, government, literature, and religion. Oligarchlal despotism must be overthrown; slavery must be abolished. 9*

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CHAPTER XI. FAOTS AND ARGITMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. Slavery is the infringement of all laws. A law having a tendency to preserve slavery would be the grossest sacrilege. Man to be possessed by his fellow-man!-man to be made property of! The image of the Deity to be put under the yoke! Let these usurpers show us their title-deeds!-BOLIVAR.

FINDING that we shall have to leave unsaid a great many things which we intended to say, and that we shall have to omit much valuable matter, the product of other pens than our own, but which, having’collected at considerable labor and expense, we had hoped to be able to introduce, we have concluded to present, under the above heading, only a few of the more important particulars. In the first place, we will give an explanation of the reason WHY THE PRESEXT VOLUME WAS NOT PUBLISHED IN BALTIMORE. A considerable portion of this work was written in Baltimore; aad the whole of it would have been written and published there, but for the following odious clause, which we extract from the Statutes of Maryland ” Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That after the passage of this act, it shall not be lawful for any citizen of this State, knowingly to make print, or engrave, or aid in the making, printing, or engraving, within this State, any pictorial representation, or to write or print, or to aid in the writing or printing any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill or other paper of an inflammatory character, and having a tendency to excite discontent, or stir up insurrection amongst the people of color of this State, or of either of the other States or Territories of the United States, or knowingly to carry or send, or to aid in the carrying or sending the same for circulation amongst the inhabitants of either of the other States or Territories of the United States, and any person so offending shall be guilty of a felony, and shall on conviction be sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary of this State, for a period not less than ten nor more than twenty years, from the time of sentence pronounced on such person.”-Act passed Dec. 1831. See 2d Dorsey, page 1218. Now, so long as slaveholders are clothed with the mantle of office, so long will they continue to make laws, like the above, expressly calculated to bring the nonslaveholding whites under a system of vassalage little less onerous and debasing than that to which the negroes themselves are accustomed. What wonder is it that there is no native literature in the South? The South can never have a literature of her own until after slavery shall have been abolished. Slaveholders are either too lazy or too ignorant to write it, and the nonslaveholders-even the few whose minds are cultivated at all-are not permitted even to make the attempt. Down with the oligarchy! Ineligibility of slaveholders. never another vote to the trafficker in human flesh! 9* 201

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2o2 FAOTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. SLAVERY THOUGHTFUL-SIGNS OF

CONTRITION. The real condition of the South is most graphically described in the following doleful admissions from the Charleston Standard: “In its every aspect, our present condition is provincial. We have within our limits no solitary metropolis of interest or ideas-no marts of exchange-no radiating centres of opinion. Whatever we have of genius and productive energy, goes freely in to swell the importance of the North. Possessing the material which constitutes two-thirds of the commerce of the whole country, it might have been supposed that we could have influence upon the councils of foreign States; but we are never taken into contemplation. It might have been supposed that England, bound to us by the cords upon which depend the existence of four millions of her subjects, would be considerate of our feelings; but receiving her cotton from the North, it is for them she has concern, and it is her interest and her pleasure to reproach us. It might have been supposed, that, producing the material which is sent abroad, to us would come the articles that are taken in exchange for it; but to the North they go for distribution, and to us are parcelled out the fabrics that ar. suited to so remote a section. Instead, therefore, of New York being tributary to Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah or New Orleans, these cities are tributary to New York. Instead of the merchants of New York standing cap in hand to the merchants of Charleston, the merchants of Charleston stand cap in hand to the merchants of New York. Instead of receiving foreign ships in Southern waters, and calling up the merchants of the country to a distribution of the cargo, the merchants of the South are hurried off to make a distribution elsewhere.

In virtue of our relations to a greater system, we have little development of internal interests; receiving supplies from the great centre, we have made little effort to supply ourselves. We support the makers of boots, shoes, hats, coats, shirts, flannels, blankets, carpets, chairs, tables, mantels, mats, carriages, jewelry, cradles, couches, coffins, by the thousand and hundreds of thousands; but they scorn to live amongst us.

They must have the gaieties and splendors of a great metropolis, and are not content to vegetate upon the dim verge of this remote frontier. As it is in material interests, so it is in arts and letters-our pictures are painted at the North, our books are published at the North, our periodicals and papers are printed at the North. We are even fed on police reports and villainy from the North. The papers published at the South which ignore the questions at issue between the sections are generally well sustained; the books which expose the evils of our institution are even read with avidity beyond our limits, but the ideas that are turned to the condition of the South are intensely provincial. If, as things now are, a man should rise with all the genius of Shakspeare, or Dickens, or Fielding, or of all the three combined, and speak from the South, he would not receive enough to pay the costs of publication. If published at the South, his book would never be seen or heard of, and published at the North it would not be read. So perfect is our provincialism, therefore, that enterprise is forced to the North for a sphere-talent for a market-genius for the ideas upon which to work - -indolence for ease, and the tourist for attractions.” This extract exhibits in bold relief, and in small space, a large number of the present evils of past errors. It is charmingly frank and truthful. De Quincey’s “Confessions of an Opium Eater,” are nothing to it. A distinguished writer on medical jurisprudence informns us that “the knowledge of the disease is half the cure; ” and if it be true, as perhaps it is, we think the Standard is in a fair way to be reclaimed from the enormous vices of proslavery statism. FREE LABOR

MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTH. Those of our readers who share with us the conviction that one of the very best means of ridding the South of the great crime and curse

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FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY TIHE WAYSIDE. of slavery, is, by a system of thorough organization on the part of a considerable number of individuals, to bripg Free Labor into direct competition with Forced Labor, will also share with us the profound satisfaction of learning, from the following communication, that the united efforts of gentlemen of noble instincts and purposes have been eminently successful in this regard; and that the future is glowing with promises of grand results which are destined soon to be brought about through the energy and patriotism of such companies and corporations as the one in question: ” OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN EMIGRANT

AID AND HOMESTEAD COMPANY, t No. 146 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, June 9tb, 1859. f “H. R. HELPER, ESQ.: “DEAR SIR: In fulfillment of my promise, I will try to give you an outline of the object and operations of the American Emigrant Aid and Homestead Company. Your’Impending Crisis’ has abundantly demonstrated the fact, that land in the slave States is valued, purchased and sold at prices many times less than the same quality of land will command in the free States. It is likewise easy to show that, in the border slave States, counties comparatively free are worth many times as much per acre as land of the same quality in counties cursed with the incubus of slavery. “In the little State of Delaware, containing only three counties, nearly all the slaves are found in the Southern county of Sussex, which by the last census was appraised at $8 per acre, while the Northern county of Newcastle, without slaves, was, by the same census, appraised at over $28 per acre. The-fact above stated is also very clearly shown by the statistics of the following counties in Virginia: Name.

Acres. Valuation. Val. per acre. Freemen.’ Slaves. Hancock…………

49,Ti9 $,181,512 $ T2 5 40-417 8 Brook e…………. 52,441 1 316,591 25

10 5,023 81 Ohio…………… 59 73[ 23}2,9 51 34 00 17,842 164

Southampton……. 855,69 1 1,068 o 11 8 Ot 7,766 5,755

Greenville……….. 1-6 988 427,173 2 T70 1,854 8,785 “It is worthy of note that the comparatively free counties here given, are very hilly, far from tide water, and settled within the last fifty or sixty years, while the slave counties have a beautiful, gently rolling surface, lie near tide water, and the unequalled harbor of Norfolk, and have had the advantage of cultivation for nearly two hundred years. The Homestead Company, looking at these facts, proposes Christian colonization in the border slave States, not by single or separate settlement, but by organized emigration, carrying with it all the schools, churches, habits of industry, social institutions, and elements of a high civilization; and thus, settling large tracts by united and sympathizing companies of liberty and Union-loving men, their investments are quadrupled in value by the mere act of settlement. We believe there is no department of human enterprise more benefited by system and cooperation, than that of emigration. Our experience has amply proved that this plan is not only profitable to all parties concerned as a financial operation, but that it furnishes the most feasible means of extending the Empire of Freedom and genuinfie Christianity, and is. in fact, one of the mrost inviting and oeneficent enterprises of the ae. We feel confident that our movement of con erted emigration has alreadclv denoitrated the trutLh of the proposition, titt flee domn, like godliniess, is profitable for the life that now is, as well as that which is to come;’ and that it has opened an easy, practicable, and profitable way to estab lisle free institutions in all the border slave States. Our operations lhave been totls far confined principally to the State of Virginia, and the results, to utmyself have been hithliy grattifying. One of the outgrowths of our enterprise, has been the establishment of fieedom of speech. Durilng the last year I have been allowed a liberty of discussion on the subject of slavely, which, in 1856, would have demanded my blood or banishment. Indeed. in the towns of Western Virginia I have been serenaded, and invited to public entertain ments end to make addresses upon that subject so lately proscribed, and scarcely 203

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BEYOND THE WEST. g-ized and admired the clouds of vapor as they rolled over and through ea,ch other, changing in form and co)lor, blending more than the colors of’the rainbow; but a matchless combination of the roughest, to the most refined shades, celestial islands floating in mid air. As we were lost in admiration, the eastern horizon began to take on yellow and purple; the great round faced luminary, imparting light and warmth, began trtend her streams of use and beauty between two sentinel mountains on the east, the “Gateway of the Day” here truly; but we had another last view, and all evaporated like a fascinating dream. Could an artist have placed it upon canvass? But who can “gild refined gold or paint the lilly? Who can paint the mountains. the seas or the skies?” Who will presume to fix limits upon the wonders of universal and p)rolific nature, or place boundaries upon the Divine love which permeates and suffuses it? Going down some distance upon a second precipice, we were where a good view of the falls and river could be had. Looking down about five hundred feet, the river looked as peaceful as a summer sun. Not far above, the falls are in full view. The stream is divided into several channels by small islands of rock coming together, and uniting their strength t)efore taking the swift, dizzy plunge of at least two I i I I i I I I I I I I I

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FACT’S AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIIDE. African slavery, which entails unutterable stupidity, shiftlessness and degradation on the superior race.

It is quite impossible, however, to describe accurately the miserable condition of the class to which we refer. Their poverty, their ignorance and their comparative nothingness, as a power in the State, are deplorable in the extreme. The serfs of Russia have reason to congratulate themselves that they are neither the negroes nor the nonslaveholding whites of the South. Than the latter there can be no people in Christendom more unhappily situated. Below will be found a few extracts which will throw some light on the subject now under consideration. In an address which he delivered before the South Carolina Institute. in 1851, William Gregg says: ‘ From the best estimates that I have been able to make, I put down the white people who ought to work, and who do not, or who are so employed as to be wholly unproductive to the State, at one hundred and twentyfive thousand. Any man who is an observer of things could hardly pass through our country without being struck with the fact, that all the capital, enterprise and intelligence, is employed in directing slave labor; and the consequence is, that a large portion of our poolr white people are wholly neglected, and are suffered to while away an exist ence in a state but one step in advance of the Indian of the forest. It is an evil of vast ma,,iitude, and nothing but a change in public sentiment will effect its cure. These people must be brought into daily contact with the rich and intelligent-they must be stimulated to mental action, and taught to appreciate education and the comforts of civilized life; and this, we believe, may be effected only by the introduction of manufactures. My experience at Graniteville has satisfied me that unless, our poor people can be brought together in villages, and some means of eniployment afforded them, it will be an utterly hopeless effort to undertake to educate them. We have collected at that place about eight hundred people, and as likely looking a set of country girls as may be found-industrious and orderly people-but deplorably ignorant, three-fourths of the adults not being able to read or to write their own names. ” It is only necessary to build a manufacturing village of shanties, in a healthy location, in any part of the State, to have crowds of these people around you, seeking employment at half the compensation given to operatives at the North. It is indeed painful to be brought in contact with such ignorance and degradation.” Again; he asks: ” Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ignorant, degraded white peo ple among us, who, in this land of plenty, live in comparative nakedness and starvation? Many a one is reared in proud South Carolina, from birth to manhood, who has never passed a month in which he has not, some part of the time, been stinted for meat.

Many a mother is there who will teil you that her children are but scantily provided with bread, and much more scantily with meat; and, if they be clad with comfortable raiment, it is at the expense of these scanty allowances of food. These may be startling statements, but they are nevertheless true; and if not believed in Charleston, the members of our legislature who have traversed the State in electioneering campaigns, can attest the truth.” Black slave labor, though far less valuable, is almost invariably better paid than free white labor. The reason is this: the fiat of the oligarchy has made it fashionable to ” have negroes around,” and there are, we are grieved to say, mnany nonslaveholding white sycophants, who, in order to retain on their premises a hired slave whom they falsely imagine secures to them not only the appearance of wealth, but also a position of high social standing in the community, keep them.Vel 7ee in a perpetual strait. 205

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206 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. In the spring of 1856, we made it our special business to ascertain the ruling rates of wages paid for labor, free and slave, in North Carolina. We found sober, energetic white men, between twenty and forey years of age, engaged in agricultural pursuits at a salary of $7 per month including board only; negro men, slaves, who performed little more than half the amount of labor, and who were exceedingly sluggish, awk ward, and careless in all their movements, were hired out on adjoining farms at an average of about $10 per month, including board, cloth ing, and medical attendance. Free white men and slaves were in the employ of the North Carolina Railroad Company; the former, whose services, in our opinion, were at least twice as valuable as the latter, received only $12 per month each; the masters of the latter received $16 per month for every slave so employed. Industrious, tidy white girls, from sixteen to twenty years of age, had much difficulty in hiring themselves out as domestics in private families for $40 per annum board only included; negro wenches, slaves, of corresponding ages, so ungraceful, stupid and filthy that no decent man would ever permit one of them to cross the threshold of his dwelling, were in brisk demand at from $65 to $70 per annum, including victuals, clothes, and medical attendance.

These are facts, and in considering them, the students of political and social economy will not fail to arrive at conclusions of their own.

Notwithstanding the greater density of population in the free States, labor of every kind is, on an average, about one hundred per cent. higher there than it is in the slave States. This is another important fact, and one that every nonslaveholding white should keep registered in his mind.

Poverty, ignorance, and superstition, are the three leading characterIstics of the nonslaveholding whites of the South. Many of them grow up to the age of maturity, and pass through life without ever owning as much as five dollars at a time. Thousands of them die at an advanced age, as ignorant of the common alphabet as if it had never been invented.

All are more or less impressed with a belief in witches, ghosts, and supernatural signs. Few are exempt from habits of sensuality and intemperance. None have anything like adequate ideas of the duties which they owe either to their God, to themselves, or to their fellow-men.

Pitiable, indeed, in the fullest sense of the term, is their condition. It is the almost utter lack of an education that has reduced them to their present unenviable situation. They are now completely under the domination of the oligarchy, and it is madness to suppose that they wil ever be able to rise to a position of true manhood, until after the slave power shall have been utterly overthrown.

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CHAPTER XIL SO0THER N LITERATURE. Meanwhile a change was proceeding, infinitely more momentous than the acquisition or Io of any province, than the rise or fall of any dynasty. Slavery, and the evils by which slavery is everywhere accompanied, were fast disappearing.-MACAULAY. My voice is still for war. Gods! can a Roman Senate long debate Which of the two to choose, slavery or death? A day-an hour of virtuous Liberty Is worth a whole eternity of bondage I ADDISON. Write, speak, avenge, for ancient sufferi! Impale each tyrant on their pens of stee Declare how freemen can a world create, And slaves and masters ruin every State.

BARLOW. IT is with some degree of hesitation that we add a chapter on South. ern Literature-not that the theme is inappropriate to this work; still less, that it is an unfruitful one; but our hesitation results from our con scions 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. What is the actual condition of Literature at the South? Our ques tion 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 Theo.ogical Treatise. We comprehend in it all the active ties engaged in the creation, publication, and sale of books and period 207

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SOUTHERN LITERATURE icals, from the penny primer to the heavy folio, and from the dingy, coarse-typed weekly paper, to the large, well-filled daily. 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, semni-monthly, monthly and quarterly, published in the slave Slates, including the Dis trict of Columbia, were seven hundred and twenty-two. These had an aggregate yearly circulation of ninety-two million one hundred and sixtyseven thousand one hundred and twenty-nine (92,167,129). The number of periodicals, of every class, published in the nonslaveholding 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). Nearly nine years have elapsed since these statistics were taken, and these nine years have wrought an immense change in the jour nalism 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 nine 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 belles-let tres, is laid under contribution by the journals of the nonslavehold ing States. This is true only to a very limited degree of Southern jour nals. 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. 208

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SOUTHERN LITERATURE. Facts of great interest and importance appertainilg to the two most widely circulated and influential journals in America perhaps we might, with propriety, say in the world-will be found in the following carefully-prepared tabular statement: TABL:E 33. AGGREGATE

CIRCULATION OF THE DAILY, SEMI-WEEKLY, AND WEEKLY NEW YORK TRIBUNE,* APRIL

25, 1859, AND OF THE DAILY NEW YORK HEREALD,t AUGUST 2, 1856. Slave States. Tribune. Herld. Alabama…………..51……. 80

Arkansas…………… 10…….. Delaware…………..253…….. 25

235 Florida……………… 41…….. 45 Georgia…………….

78…….. 170 Kentucky……………. 548…….. 68

Louisiana…………… 108…….85 Maryland……………. 45……..

1,158 Mississippi………….. 15……. 11 Missouri………………

633……41 North Carolina………… 51…….. 44 South Carolina……….. 45…….. 189 Tennessee……………. 307……..

42 Texas………………. 132…….. 5

Virginia……………5………. 176 District of Columbia……

130…….. 817 Totals…………. 3,240…….2,611 Fre e States.

T,iblne. Heia,l California……….. 2,431…….. Connecticut……….

8,638…….. 2,146 Illinois…………… 12,769……. 85S

Indiana………….. 10,09S…….. 86 Iowa…………… 7,523……..

49 Maine……………. 7,677……. 5S Massachusetts……..

8,154…….. 1,058 Michigan…………. 9,264…….. 256 New Hampshire…… 6,239……. 189 New Jersey………. 5,477…….. 8,830

New York………… 65,186…….. 47,2T5 O h i o…………….. T

19,74 0…….. 200 Pennsylvania……… 15,292…….. 2,510 Rhode Island……… 2,151…….. 322 Vermont………… 8,242…….. 185

Wisconsin………… 8,042…….. 38 Totals……….. 196,923……..

58,410 Throughout the nonslaveholding 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. The self-stultification of folly, 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, moral utterance of unfettered minds, without which there can be no proper literature; but an emascu lated substitute therefor, from which the element of freedom is elimi nated; husks, from which the kernel has escaped-a body, from which the vitalizing spirit has fled-a literature which ignores manhood by confounding if 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 * See THE TRIBUNE of April 25th and 2Tth, 1859. t See Ta HERALD
of August 6th, 1356. I 209

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SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 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 comnmon 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 rmaterial 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.

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 artisan, the professional man, and even the common laborer, going to or returning from their daily avocations, are busy with their morning and 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 210 0

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SOUITHERN LITERATURE. 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 thait justifies the stealing of all territory contiguous to our own, and kindred topics, constitute the warp and woof of conversation.

What follows, our readers will, we think, agree with us, is of great significance in this connection: TA1LBL] 34. NUMBER OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

FRANKED BY UNITED STATES SENATORS*-1858. FREE STATE SENATORS. SLAVE STATE

SENATORS. State. e - Totl. State. Name. Do|en-Total.. Total.

State~~~~~~.Nae.t; ments. _________l~eoe’~et. Broderick i8,000 T,500

Alabama. Fitzpatrick 1,500 138,000 California..

I…19,000…..Clay…….11,500 Connecticut. ster… T 7,000

Arkansas….Sebastian.. 2,000 Connectic,ut… Dixon..~T00Akna…..Jono…

80010,000 Dixon ~~~~~~~Johnson… 8,000t Douglas… $45 038,000

Dlwr…Bates………….. Illinois……. Trumbull. 445000 85,000

Delaware…. 40,000 M a ll8r,000 6t000….. Fitch….. 6.000 Y 2, 000 1100

26,000 Falorid…yuee…..,000 Indiana……. t 000 26,000 Florida…….

Harnl an.4 14,0 000 Georgia.. Toomb 2,000 Iowas……. I v erl a. 1, 0 h mson… 80, 0 0 0 Fessenden 14,000 en k. Tms Maine……. Hamlin… l B,000 en Crittenden 10 000 Massachusetts. Wvuilsone….oo. 1,000

Louisiana.. lBdenjallmn 118,000 1 Sunr..H,0Parc en….,0 l,0 Michigan…..

Sthuas.rl5.; 24149,000 t 263,000 Maryland-….Pearce.Ke 5680008 11,00 CN.

Hamp21re. H lale 14, 000 Brown.. 18,000 24,000 .. 14 M10,000. Davis……

6,000 Hae14‘0 6,6000 Wright… 8,000 Missouri…… Polk……. 15,‘000,00

0 New Jersey… 10o,0oo00 Polk…….15,00022e5 New York…. eSKgard…

819‘000 100,000 N. Carolina… Rlidgman.. 21,’ 500 Ohio…njamin.. 19,000

C Wilsons….. Lo0i0iEans…. Sliel }…. 1.,..) MaOhiot……..

Sm…,0100. Carolina… ammnd Wade….12,000O~

P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ennsdylai.Bg-r… 54,000 6400Tenese.. el….7001, CaMeronic5,000 Johnson.. 11,000 Pennsylvania. B~~~~~~~~~~al~~ml~ouson.

00006,0 tnese..Bl. ~ 1 0 handllen.. 2,800 Texas…….Henderson. Rhode ISland. simmons.P 2ou00… 5000 6 5,000 24,500 I Mason… 2,000 4,000

Collamer 8,000 I 5,000 Virginia….. ute. “. 20 Vermont.a……2,000

Foot……‘0 Duke..4,500 t 6,000 wLsconsWi…. Dorolettlen Total……..176,500 Totalr……..1,019,800 Thus we perceive by the above table, that, while thirtytwo Free State Senators send 1,019,800
documents-an average of 31,869 each, thirty Slave State Senators send only 176,500 documents-an average of but 5,883 each, showing an average balance of 25,986 in favor of every * See debate on the proposed amendment to the Post-office bill, to increase the rates of postage, in the United States Senate, February 24, 1859. Senators from the slave States strongly, but unsuccussfully, advocated the passage of the amendment. Thanks to the free State Senators, who opposed and defeated it I On account of the pitiable poverty and ignorance of slavery, as is shown in a preceding table, the mails were transported throughout the Southern States, during the year 1855, at an extra cost to the General Government of more than six hundred thousand dollars! In the free States, during the same period, postages were received to the amount of more than two million of dollars over and above the cot of transportation I 211

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SOLTIERN LITERATURE. Free State Senator! Thus do the lazy proslavery officials of the South perpetuate the ignorance and degradation of their constituents, by withholding from them-especially from their miserably-duped nonslaveholding constituents-the means of information to which they are justly entitled, and which they would receive, if represented by men whose sense of duty and honor was not irremediably debased by social contact with slaves and slavery. 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 ” 4……1 473 New Hampshire……….1 310

Massachusetts………..1 ” 166 Maine…………..l… 108

Michigan…………….1 ” 97 Rhode Island…………1 ” 67 New Jersey…………… 1 ” 58 New York………….1 ” 56

Pennsylvania…………1 60 Ohio……………….1 43

Indiana………………..1 18 Illinois………….1 ” 1…..1 17 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-fifthi of the whole; in the free States, the proportion is more than three-fths. 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 inr the ignorance and stolidity of the masses; it naturally and necessarily represses general literary culture. A free press is an institution almost unknown at the South. Free speech is considered as treason againsi 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 ;o 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 tile enemies of slavery. We could fill page after page of this 212 Louisiana…………… I to every 38i Maryland…………… 1 1 4 27 ,Alis ” - pi………….. 1 20

Delaware…………… 1 is South Carolina………. 1 1 7

Missouri……………. I 16 Alabama……………. I 15

Kentucky………….. I 13i Georgia…… 1 13 Virginia……………. I 12t Arkansas……………1 11 Tennessee………….. I 11 North Carolina………. 1 7

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SOUTIERN LITERATURE. 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 short while since, banished from his home in Virginia, and the accomplished Hedrick 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 ostracized 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. 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 Christen dom-it makes Southern politics a libel upon all the principles of Repub licanism-it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honorable profession of letters. Than the better class of Southern authors them selves, none will feel more keenly the truth of our remarks. They write books, but can find for them neither publishers nor remunera tive 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 Nort~erL pub lisher. Simms writes novels and poems, and they are scattered abroad from the presses of Northern publishers.

Eighty per cent. of all the copies sold are probably bought by Northern readers. 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 inse parable; the one can never have a vigorous existence without being wedded to the other. 213

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SOUTHERN LITERATURE. Our work is done. It is the voice of the nonslaveholding 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 nonslaveholding whites of the South, desire and expect to elevate to the Presidency, in 1860, an able and worthy representative of the great principles enunciated in the Republican platform adopted at Philadelphia in 1856; and that, forever thereafter, we will, if we can, by our suffrages, hold the Presidential chair, and other high official positions in the Federal Government, sacredly intact from the occupancy and pollution of ProSlavery demagogues, whether from the North or from the South; and furthermore, that if, in any case, 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! red IND. 214

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JUST PUBLISHED. PRESID)ENTIAL CANDI)IDATES. CONTAINING SKETCHES

BIOGRAPHICAL, PERSONAL AND POLITICAL, Of 21 Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860. Ote, vol., 12mo., Cloth. Price $1 00. This work contains accurate and life-like sketches of the leading PRESIDENTIAL

CANDIDATES, SO that any one can, at a glance, ascertain the position of the leading statesmen on ALL THE GREAT ISSUES OF THE DAY, thus making the book not only interesting for its biographies, but reliable for its facts.

It is impartial as between men and parties. OPINIONS OF TXHE PRESS. From the Evening Post, New York. “These Biographies appear to be unusually accurate, as well as as readable. Copious and pertinent extracts fromn the speeches and writings of each of the candidates are inserted, giving a clear view of their position on all the main political issues of the day.

The book will form a convenient and useful political manual.” From the New York Sun. “The book has the merit of presenting considerable information, in a compact shape, in a form easily preserved, and useful for reference.

For these reasons, the book will obtain a large circulation.” From the Daily Courant, Hartford, Conn. “The sketches are well drawn, and the book is an interesting one.” From the Ohio Daily State Journal. “To publish this volume at the present time, was enterprise, which we trust will prove as profitable to the publisher, as we are sure it will to the public.

People want to know the men spoken of for the next presidency; and this book tells them briefly, and candidly, and fairly. The book is well written, and gotten up in good style.” From the Cortland County Republican. “No one can afford to be without the information contained in this book, and we know of no place where it can be had at so little cost, and where, at the same time, it is so reliably and so well expressed.”

From the Daily News, New York. “The interest is great which attaches to this work.” From the New York Courier and Enquirer. “This book is written with impartiality and good judgment. The author has an easy, graceful style, that charms the reader, while he is seeking after the facts which appear to view on every page.” This book will have a large sale, and Agents should take hold of it at once. Copies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price, $1. Address A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER, 145 NASSAU STREET, NEW YOUiL

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OLD HEPSY: A POWERFUL NATIONAL STORY BY MRS. MARY A. DENISON. Price $1 25.

THrE book is a large 12mo. volume, of nearly 500 pages, and is embellished with ten portraits of characters in the work, engraved by the first artist in New York. It is pronounced by the press generally, to bs one of the most powerful stories ever written in this country. The author is now engaged in dramatizing it for the stage, and it is being trans lated into the German language. It will soon be republished both in England and Germany. 0PIFX0O S OF THE D PRESS+ The writer has made an excellent use of the abundant resources of her theme, aud well sustained nor claim to the mastery of a fresh and vigorous pen.” From The Evenissg Post (Nc-w York).

“This powerful story forcibly illust.rates the juflusuce of slavery upou the social and domestle relations-in a new aspect of literature. It is a picture which, though dark aud fearful, is true From The Pennsylvania Inquirer (Philadelphia). “The characters and incidents are all from real life. The style is glowing and graphic, and the details are full of interest from first to last. The work, indeed, is one of rare merit, and cannot but produce a sensation.” “As a literary composition, it ranks higher than either of Mrs. Stows’s publications. It is impos. sible to deny to the author of’ OLo HEPSEx’ a powerful pen.” From The pringeltl Rspulican (ifass). “It is a story full of excitement, and its revelations are probably true.” From Zion’s iferald (Boston). “Had not’ Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ preceded it, this beok would have produced a sensation quite equal to that.” From The Christian Enqairer (New York). “It Is one of the most powerful antislavery works which has ever been produced. The characters of Old Hepsey, Mabel, and Lawyer Kenneth, are drawn to life, and the excitement of interest is almost painful as the end is approached.” From Home ssion Recorsf (Ness York). “The Incidents are thrilling. By those who are judges,‘OLD Harsiv’ Is pronounced equal to From 77The Cielsea HTerald (Mass). , Mrs. Denison has achieved complete success in this work, and it will be read with absorbing interest at every New England fireside.” From The American Baptist (New York). “It has all the fascination of a regular romance, excelling, in this respect, both;Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and’ Dred.”’

AGENTS WANTED in every part of the free States and Canadas to engage smediately in the sale of this book, to whom liberal discount will be given. Single capies sent to any address, postpaid, on receipt of $1

Address A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER, 145 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK

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