SECOND EDITION.
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LECTURE
SOUTH;
DELIVERED BEFORE
THE NORTH AND THE
THE YOUNG MEN'S MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
OF CINCINNATI, OHIO,
V
JANUARY 16, 1849.
BY ELWOOD FISHER.
CHARLESTON \
PRINTED BY A. J.BURKE, 40 BROAD-ST,
A few doors East of Church-st.
1849.
Library of
Emory University
iS.1130
FEB 4 1948
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.
The progress and prospects of the Northern and Southern sections of this
Union involves some of the greatest and gravest questions of the age. Each
has a form of civilization peculiar to itself, and to modern times. The confed¬
eracy which has been formed by their union has astonished the world by its
success; but the world, as well as the two sections themselves, differ very
widely as to the causes of this success, and the agency of the two respective
systems of society in producing it.
This controversy has long been advancing on the country, and now, in
consequence of recent events, it has become general. In this part of the
country, however, we have had but one side; and as the subject is one of the
first magnitude, I have thought it highly important that it should be well
examined. In a Commercial Institution like this, it is peculiarly proper that
the causes of the wealth and the sources of the commerce of the country should
be well understood.
When the Constitution of the United States was adopted, the population
of the two sections of the United States was nearly equal—each being not
quite two millions of inhabitants, the South including more than half a million
of slaves. The territory then occupied by the two was, perhaps, aho nearly
equal in extent and fertility. Their commerce was also about the same; the
North exporting about $9,800,540 in 1790, and the South $9,200,500.* Even
the property held by the two sections was almost exactly the same in amount,
being about 400,000 millions in value each, according to an assessment for
direct taxes in 1799.* For the first quarter of a century of the present Govern¬
ment, up to 1816, the South took the lead of the North in commerce: as at
the end of that period the exports of the Southern States amounted to about
thirty millions of dollars which was five millions more than the Northern. At
this time, in 1816, South Carolina and New York were the two greatest ex¬
porting States of the Union, South Carolina exporting more than $10,000,000,
and New York over $14,000,000.*
According to the assessments made by authority of the Federal Government
in 1815 for direct taxes, the value of property in the Southern States had risen
to $859,574,697, the white population being then, according to an average
of the census of 1810 and that of 1820, about 2,749,795, or about $312 per
head, whilst the property of the Northern States amounted to $1,042,782,264,*
for 4,326.550 population, or only $240 per head.
Even in Manufactures, the South, at this period, excelled the North in pro¬
portion to the numbers of their population. In 1810, according to the returns
of the Marshals of the United States, the fabrics of wool, cotton and linen,'
manufactured in the Northern States, amounted to 40,344,274 yards, valued
at $21,061,525, whilst the South fabricated 34,786,497 yards, estimated at
$16,771,724. Thus, after the lapse of the first quarter of a century, under our
present form of Government, the South had surpassed the North in Commerce,
in Manufactures, and in the accumulation of wealth, in proportion to the num¬
ber of citizens of the respective sections.
* Pitkin.
2
Since that period a great change has occurred. The harbors of Norfolk, of
Richmond, of Charleston and Savannah, have been deserted for those of
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston; and New Orleans is the only Southern
city that pretends to rival its Northern competitors. The grass is growing in
the streets of those cities of the South, which originally monopolized our colo¬
nial commerce, and maintained their ascendancy in the earlier years of the
Union. Manufactures and the arts have also gone to take up their abode in
the North. Cities have been expanded and multiplied in the same favored
region. Railroads and canals have been constructed, and education has
delighted there to build her colleges and seminaries.
These phenomena have made a profound impression on reflecting minds
throughout the Union, and particularly in the South. By her leading states¬
men, these results have been ascribed to the policy pursued by the Federal
Government since 1816. It was at this period that the system of direct taxa¬
tion was finally abandoned, and the whole interest of the public debt, then so
much augmented by the war, as well as the increased expenditures of the
Government, were made chargeable on the foreign commerce of the country,
except the slight income from the public lands. And as at the close of the
war, the principal articles of export, in exchange for which we obtained our
foreign goods, consisted of cotton, tobacco, and rice, it was held that the new
policy was a peculiar burden on the States that produced those staples. In
addition to this, the establishment of a Bank of the United States located at
the North, with large deposites of Government money, and enabled by the
confidence of the Government to maintain a large circulation, which would
naturally be devoted to the promotion of Northern commerce, it was thought
was also adverse to Southern commercial rivalry. These two measures were
the work of a Republican Administration of the Government, but they were
strenuously opposed by the States Right party. On their passage in Congress,
it was declared by John Randolph, one of the most profound and sagacious
statesman Virginia, or any other country ever produced, that a revolution in
our Government had occurred, whose consequences no man could calculate.
"The result verified this prediction. Our population is now twenty millions, and
yet it is thought by all parties that twenty-five millions of dollars per annum is
enough for the support of Government in time of peace. Yet sixteen year's
ago, when our population was but little more than half of what it is now, this
Government exacted $32,000,000 as duties on our foreign imports, and that
too, when, in consequence of this heavy burden on our foreign trade, we only
imported 64,000,000. The Government took half the value of the imports, as
a tax on foreign trade. This outrage was the cause of South Carolina nulli¬
fication.
Now the power of the Federal Government over foreign commerce, is, by
the Constitution, precisely the same as over that among the States. It is a
power to regulate only. And the South contended, that inasmuch as the
imports from abroad 'were the proceeds chiefly of her staple exports, and
were therefore, to all intents and purposes, the product of her industry and
capital, that there was no more constitutional right to tax them on arriving
in our ports, than to tax the products of the North, when shipped to the South.
When, therefore, the statesmen of the South reflect on the great commer¬
cial and manufacturing prosperity of their country in the days of direct taxa¬
tion, and behold now her dilapidated cities and deserted harbors under the
change of system, is it wonderful that they have made the halls of Congress
eloquent with the ruin and wrong they have suffered? Or is it wonderful
that the North, whilst it cannot believe that what has been so conducive to its
3
own prosperity, should be detrimental to others, should yet take the South at
its word as to its decline, and seek for other causes of such a result. This has
been done, and negro slavery has with extraordinary unanimity been fixed
upon as the great and efficient cause of Southern decline. And it is now
assumed that the South, particularly the older States, is undergoing the pro¬
cess of impoverishment, depopulation, and decay. At the North she is contin¬
ually spoken of by almost all classes, in terms of mingled condemnation and
pity. She is accused of idleness, ignorance, cruelty, and pride. She is advised
to emancipate her slaves, and emulate the North in enterprise, industry, and
civilization.
The first object of civilized life is to accumulate wealth, as on that depends
improvement in science and the arts, and the supply of the multiplied wants of
society in that state.
And hence it is that the South is declared to be falling behind the civiliza¬
tion of the age, and is advised to abandon her peculiar institution in order to
avoid the disastrous condition of ignorance and barbarism that awaits her.
Now in an age like this, of pre-eminent intelligence, with the schoolmasters
all abroad—with the universal diffusion of the press, and the post, and on a
question like this, of the first magnitude, and the least complexity, and whilst
the people of the two sections are continually travelling amongst each other,
and engaged in discussions with one another in stages and steamboats, in cars,
in hotels, on the stump, and in Congress—it is scarcely credible that a univer¬
sal mistake prevails as to the facts. Yet in opposition to the ex isting opinion
on the subject, I maintain that the South is greatly the superior of the North
in wealth, in proportion to the number of their citizens respectively; and this
will appear by a comparison and progress of the white people of the respective
sections. The North, and even many in the South, have assumed a decline
in manufactures and commerce, to be a decline of general prosperity. This is
an error. The policy of the Federal Government, and the domestic institutions
of the Southern States, have indeed been unfavorable to the latter in those
pursuits, but the agriculture of the South has maintained and advanced in
prosperity beyond that of any other people.
« Let us first examine the condition of the white people of the two sections.
The State of Massachusetts, for instance, is generally regarded as one of the
most successful and flourishing of the North; and is constantly referred to by
the newspapers as a model for all the others, and very frequently as a taunt to
the Southern. If, however, we compare this favorite of the North with Mary¬
land, a Southern State of similar territorial extent, and one of the least of the
Southern States, we shall find the latter to be decidedly superior in wealth in
proportion to the number of her citizens. According to the census of 1840,
Maryland had a free population of 380,282, and in 1847 her property we
assessed at $202,272,650.* Massachusetts in 1840 had a population of
737,699, and her property now is only $300,000,000. Taking these two
assessments as the basis of comparison, and it appears that the average prop¬
erty of a free person in Maryland was $531, whilst in Massachusetts it is now,
in the palmiest days sli£ has ever seen, only $406 per head—the freeman of
Maryland being about 25 per cent the richer.
The States of New York and Virginia are both of great termtorial extent,
and not materially unequal in that respect. New York is also regarded habit¬
ually, as one of the grandest products of free institutions—and the present con¬
dition of Virginia is continually referred to, as a striking and melancholy result
* American Almanac.
4
of slavery. Her poverty, her ignorance, her idleness, her decay, and her mis¬
ery, are the threadbare topics of modern political philosophy here and abroad.
Let us now consider the facts. Her free population in 1840, according to the
census, was 790,810, and her property is now about $600,000,000.* The
population of New Yorkin 1840 was 2,428,921, and in 1847 her property is
assessed at $632,699,993. The average property of a free white person in
Virginia is $758; in New York it is only $260, or a little more than one-third.
Virginia, instead of being poor and in need of the pity of the much poorer
population of the North, is perhaps the richest community in the world. The
average wealth of the people of Great Britain may be about the same, hut it is
not near so productive, and I think it demonstrable that no people on earth live
in a condition of greater comfort and enjoyment than those of Virginia. Nor
is there any reason to fear a decline in her wealth. According to the census
returns of 1840, Virginia, with a free population of less than one-third of that
of New York, and a capital something less, produced from the various branches
of her industry, more than half the product of New York ; and as the total
population of Virginia, slave and free, is only about half that of New York,
it is clear that, after deducting the annual consumption of both, Virginia
will have a larger proportional surplus remaining to augment the stock of her
permanent property.
If now we examine the relative condition of the new States, the same results
are apparent. The States of Kentucky and Ohio lie side by side, and are of
similar climate, fertility, and extent—the proportion of rich land being, how¬
ever, less in Kentucky. Their age is also nearly the same, Kentucky having
been admitted as a State about eleven years before Ohio. Ohio is considered
the most prosperous State in the West, and is continually constrasted with
Kentucky for the purpose of illustrating the blighting effects of slavery on
the latter. Let us see with what reason.
In 1840, Kentucky had a free population of 597,570, and her property
amounts, according to her tax assessments of 1848, to about 272,847,696.f
Ohio, in 1840, had a population of 1,519 457, and her assessment last year
was 421,067,991.J The average value of property belonging to each free per¬
son in Kentucky is $456—in Ohio it is only $276, or more than one-third,
less; and as the population of Ohio is now still greater in proportion to that
of Kentucky than in 1840, the difference in favor of the latter is still more.
Nothing is more common than the opinion that the price of land in Kentucky
is, in consequence of slavery, much lower than in Ohio. I have examined the
Auditor's reports of both States, which present in detail the valuation of all
their lands. In Kentucky the average value is about seven dollars per acre, in
Ohio it is about eleven, and I am very confident that the quality of Ohio land is
to that extent superior—as in Kentucky there is a large mountain region for
which Ohio has nothing equivalent. Thus, then, it is manifest that the free
people of the slaveholdmg States—of those States which are uniformly regar¬
ded as the victims of pdverty and ruin—are all richer, much richer, than those
of the non-slaveholding States, which have been usually considered as the most
* The population of Massachusetts is stated, according to recent estimates in her
papers. That of Virginia was computed at the amount now assumed in 1834 by Prof.
Dew. I have seen no official statement. But if she taxes other property as high as
negroes, the total must now far exceed that estimate, as in 1847 she taxed 252,317 adult
slaves at $80,741, who are worth about $100,000,000, and taxes her other property,
real and personal, $354,154, exclusive ofmerchants' stock, and the Governor's message
states there has been an increase of 5 per cent, in every item of taxation last year,
f Ky. Auditor's Report, 1848. j; Ohio Auditor's Report.
5
flourishing members of this confederacy, and the most prosperous communities-
the world ever saw. Such at least is the testimony of official documents on
the subject—the highest authority that exists. For I have taken nearly all
these statements of the property of the several States alluded to from the assess¬
ments made by public officers, for the collection of taxes. Of the accuracy of
the valuations, it is of course impossible to speak from personal knowledge; but
those of Ohio and Kentucky are, according to my opportunities of observation,
as nearly correct as need be desired. And as to the other States, the chances
of error are perhaps as great on one side as the other.
In the slaveholding States, slaves are of course included in the property.
This is sometimes objected to, but I think without reason. The question is,
which is the most profitable investment of capital—in land and slaves—as is
usual in the slaveholding States—or in land alone, or commerce and manufac¬
tures, as in the Northern States? And this question is almost universally
decided in favor of the latter. In the South, according to its laws, the slave
is as available to his owner for the purposes of property, as any other property.
The North has held, however, that this peculiar species of property, instead
of being profitable to the owner, has been impoverishing and ruinous. And
in contradiction to this, I have shown that in every community where it exists,
there wealth abounds to a far greater extent than in the States from which it
is excluded, whatever may be their climate, soil, or territory. But even if the
assessed value of all the slaves in Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland, were left
out of the schedule of their property, the white people of those States would
remain wealthier, on an average, than those of Ohio, New York, and Massa¬
chusetts.
By others again it is contended, that in estimating the average wealth of
individuals in a community, the slaves ought to be included as persons, and
left out as property. This, I think is also an error, for the reason before stated..
"Where it is contended that the white man ought to abandon slave property
because it makes him poor, or prevents him from getting rich, it is absurd to
assert that he not only, has no property in his slave, but that other property
belongs equally to him. But if for any other purpose or view of political econ¬
omy, the slave be included with the freeman in averaging the property of a
State, it will even then appear that in the States I have considered, the Southern
are still wealthier than the Northern, counting the slaves as persons and de¬
ducting them from the property. So that in no aspect of the question what¬
ever, is there any foundation in fact for the popular delusion, that the Southern
States, or any of them, are either now or heretofore, or likely to be hereafter,
inferior to their Northern neighbors in wealth—but the reverse.
The triumph of Southern enterprize and capital in the accumulation of
wealth being established as a fact, demands of us an investigation of its causes
—and this, I think, will materially elucidate the character of modern civiliza¬
tion, and particularly that which has been developed in the United States.
The original methods of acquiring wealth, adopted by men on their organi¬
zation into communities, was by conquest or commerce. Hence the almost
exclusively military character of one great class of the ancient States, which
resulted in the universal empire successively of the Assyrian, Persian, Greek,
and Roman governments; and hence the rise of Tyre and Carthage. Hence,
also, in the middle ages, the empire of Charlemagne, and the long protracted
efforts of France to conquer England, and England to conquer France—and
the wealth of Venice, Genoa, and Holland. At a large period, when the arts
had made more progress, manufactuers were included in the means of creating
wealth. The policy of England has combined the three—conquest, commerce,
6
and manufactures—and by these she has succeeded in the construction of an
empire which, for extent of territory and wealth, has never had a parallel. The
policy of England has been dictated by her insular position. This rendered it
necessary for her to acquire the empire of the sea to be secure from invasion by
great continental powers; and with the dominion of the sea, it was easy to
establish a great colonial empire. The growth of such a great power in com¬
merce, was the strongest possible stimulus to progress in the arts and manufac¬
tures ; hence her success in them. But an extraordinary development of com¬
merce and manufactures has always resulted in the concentration of large
masses of people in cities, which causes inequality of condition, great depravity
of morals, great increase of want, and of crime ; consequences that are fatal in
the first place to liberty in governments, and finally to independence in nations.
This tendency has been so obvious and universal among the great States of all
ages, as to have caused the belief that communities, like individuals, contain
within themselves the seeds of dissolution, which must ultimately bring them
to the dust,
But whether we consider a State as a moral being, whose essence consists
ifi the principles on which it is constructed, and therefore not necessarily mor¬
tal, or whether we regard it as a mere creature of the race or persons that
founded or inhabit it, and therefore transient, there can be no doubt that its
prosperity is seriously impaired by the evils referred to, that generally attend
the progress of civilization.
Rural life has always been celebrated by the poets for its innocence.
" God made the country, and man made the town
But it is a kind of life that has seldom been thought favorable to the accumu¬
lation of wealth—the first want of civilization. It is also usually associated
with rudeness of manners. Hence the votaries of fortune and society haue
preferred the city, and if to these we add the vast multitude who seek the
immediate gratification of their appetites and passions, which cities atford, at
the hazard of future want, we have a clear solution of the undue tendency to
city at the expense of country life. This great evil, sufficient of itself to cast
a stigma on civilization and even idtimately to destroy it, was for the first time
successfully encountered and conquered by the institutions of the South; and
in the great achievement Virginia led the way. Amongst the early white
settlers of Virginia were many of the Cavaliers wrho had been driven into exile
by the triumph of the Roundheads and of Cromwell. The Cavaliers were of
the country party in England, the cities and towns were more generally devoted
to the Roundheads. The Cavaliers of Virginia seem to have brought over
with them from England a hostility even to the . modes of life of the enemies
they left behind them, as the settlers of New England, on the other hand, from
the Roundheads, became highly commercial. These peculiarities were exhibi¬
ted in a striking manner in the" progress of the two colonies. Bancroft tells us:
" But the greatest safeguard of liberty in Virginia was the individual freedom
of mind, which formed of necessity, the character of independent land holders
living apart on their plantations. In the age of commercial monopoly, Vir¬
ginia had not one market town, not one place of trade. As to all outward ap¬
pearance it looked all like a wild desert, and the mercantile world, founding
its judgment on the absence of cities, regarded it as 'one of the poorest, mis-
erablest, and worst countries in America.' It did not seek to share actively
in the profits of commerce; it had little of the precious metals, and still less of
credit—it was satisfied with agriculture. Taxes were paid in tobacco; remit¬
tances to Europe were made in tobacco; the revenue of the clergy, and the
magistrates of the colony, was collected in the same currency; the colonial
7
tradesman received his pay in straggling parcels of it; and ships from abroad
were obliged to be whole months in the rivers, before boats visiting the several
plantations on their banks could pick up a cargo. In the season of a commer¬
cial revolution, the commercial element did not enter into the character of the
colony. Its inhabitants 'daily grew more and more adverse to cohabitation.'"
Such was the character of Virginia in 1*700—ninety-two years after the
colony was founded, and seventy-six before her Independence—such she has
remained. I have seen a law passed by her Legislature during the revolution¬
ary war, prohibiting merchants from serving as Representatives in the Conti¬
nental Congress.
But this primitive character of Virginia could not have been preserved to the
extent we now behold, but for peculiar circumstances. The soil of Virginia
was found to be adapted to the cultivation of tobacco, and African slave labor
to its cultivation; and tobacco soon became an article of commerce. The intro¬
duction of this sort of labor had the effect of excluding, in a great measure,
emigration from Europe—the emigration which subverted the ascendency of
the Quakers of Pennsylvania—which has materially modified the original char¬
acter of New England, and still more of the new free States of the West. And
it has been through negro slavery that agriculture has been made, for the first
time in the history of the world, so profitable and attractive, as to render rural
life the favorite of wealth as well as of the mass of the people—to make the
country instead of the towns the abode of elegant manners and refined taste.
And this system of society has prevailed throughout the other States of the
South, owing to the similarity of their primitive character to that of Virginia—
to her example—to emigration into them of many Virginians, the warmth of
the climate, and to the culture of cotton, which is more favorable to the em¬
ployment of slave labor than that of tobacco.
Thus, then, we have fifteen Southern States—one-half of the number be¬
longing to the Union, occupying half our territory—who present the extraor¬
dinary, and, so far as my researches extend, the unparalleled result of a popu¬
lation which has acquired greater wealth by agriculture than any other people
in any other manner; and who have consequently given ascendancy within
their borders to country life over city, in social and political power. In Great
Britain, the only country which can be compared in civilization with ours, the
land holders are indeed a very wealthy class, perhaps the most so, but they
have dwellings in London, and pass a large part of the year there. The land¬
holders of Great Britain also constitute but a small portion of the population.
We must now consider the effect upon the various elements of civilization
of a population at once wealthy and rural like that of the South.
In communities which have acquired great wealth, it is almost universal
that such wealth is very unequally distributed. Extreme poverty and extreme
wealth characterize the population—but the mass are poor. This is perhaps
inevitable where manufactures or commerce or conquest are the means of
acquisition. And in England this is strikingly displayed. But it is not so in
an agricultural people. I know it is a common opinion, that much greater-
inequality of property exists in the South than in the North. But although I
do not possess exact knowledge in this point, there is enough known to prove
that this cannot be the case. The State of Virginia allows none to exercise
the elective franchise but white freeholders, leaseholders of five years, and
housekeepers who-are heads of families. Now it appears by the returns of the
Presidential election of 1844, that Virginia gave about 95,000 votes; allowing
10,000 for voters who did not attend the polls, and it appears that there are
105,000 free white males in that State who are either freeholders, leaseholders,
8
-or housekeepers and heads of families, and by the census of 1840 there were
only 157,989 white males in that State above the age of 21; so that two-thirds
of them are either freeholders, leaseholders, or housekeepers. I do not know
what proportion of the Northern States are freeholders, but I have seen a
detailed statement from one of the interior counties of NeAv York, from which
it appears that only half the voters were freeholders; and when Ave consider
that the cities of New York and Boston contain nearly half the property of the
States to Avhich they respectively belong, and that in those cities pauperism
prevails to greater extent than any where else in the Union, it is very clear
that great inequality of property prevails.
The State of Ohio, a new State and an agricultural one, and arery prosperous,
may be presumed to enjoy a tolerable equal distribution of property. There
are in this State, by the last assessment, about fifty thousand pleasure carriages,
and the possession of one of these, is an indication of a comfortable condition
of a family. In Virginia, there Avere in 1847, over 19 000, and that in a
white population about one third as great as ours is noAv. This proves that
the degree of comfort which such establishments indicate, is more diffused in
Virginia than in Ohio. The proportion of dwellings built in a year, is another
indication of comfort, and the degree of its diffusion among a people. Accor¬
ding to the returns of the marshals in 1840, Massachusetts, Avhose white pop¬
ulation is nearly the same with that of Virginia, built 324 brick houses in that
year. Virginia built 402, or nearly one fourth more. Massachusetts built
1,249 wooden houses in the same year, Virginia, 2,604, or more than double.
The cost of the houses in Massachusetts Avas $2,767,134 ; in Virginia, only
$1,367,393, or about half. Noav if this excess in the cost of the houses of
Massachusetts be attributable to the excess of business, or manufacturing struc¬
tures among them, it swells the proportion of dwellings built in Virginia, and
thus displays a still greater progress in comfort among the population of the
latter. But if the excess of cost in Massachusetts is owing to the superior
style of her dAvellings, it proves, since the number is so much less, a still greater
inequality of property. A comparison of the houses built in New York, the
same year, with those of Virginia, exhibits similar results. And I will add that
the same thing is true, by a comparison between Virginia and Ohio, although
one is considered the most declining, the other the most advancing State in
the Union ; one supposed to be the most unequal in the distribution of prop¬
erty; the other the reverse. In 1840, Ohio built 790 brick, and 2,764 wooden
houses, at a cost of $3,776,823. Thus, whilst Ave had twice the white popula¬
tion, Ave built only a fourth more of houses. Kentucky, also, as well as Virginia,
surpassed Ohio in this respect. Kentucky built 485 brick, and 1,757 wooden
houses; thus Avith only 40 per cent, of Ohio's white population, she built 75
per cent, of the number of houses Ohio did. The fact is, that Virginia and
Kentucky constructed in that year, more buildings in proportion to the whole
population, black and white, than Ohio and Massachusetts. This result does
not appear, indeed, in the cities, or in the principal streets of cities, and there¬
fore has not come to the knowledge of fugitive and superficial observers, or
newspaper item-mongers, but it is demonstrated by the labors of the officers of
government who were required to visit the country as Avell as the toAvns, the
by-ways as well as the high-ways, and it is triumphant eA'idence of the extra¬
ordinary aggregate prosperity and wide-spread individual comfort of the States
which have been selected by the new school of politicians and political econo¬
mists as the objects of their sympathies and the victims of their theories.
The same relative condition of comfort in the two respective sections of the
Union is indicated in their food. Although Virginia is not an exporter of
9
animal food, she is one of the greatest producers of it, of all the States. In 1840,
she possessed 1,992,155 hogs, which is almost identically the same number
that Ohio had, although Ohio has twice the white population, and as is well
known, is a large exporter of pork, whilst Virginia imports, in addition to her
own stock, a large quantity. New York, with three times the white popula¬
tion, was materially behind Virginia in this respect. Now it is well known
that the great mass of provisions produced in any State, are designed for domes¬
tic consumption, as the cost of transporting them to the dwellings of an agri¬
cultural people is too great to admit of their importation. Hence, the products
of such a people afford a good criterion of the character of their food. The
stock of neat cattle in New York was 1,911,244; in Virginia it was 1,024,148,
the proportion of Virginia being still the greatest. In sheep alone was New
York better off, having 5,118,777, whilst Virginia had 1,293,772, which, how¬
ever, is only about 150,000 less than her share. The proportion of poultry in
Virginia is double that of New York. And in all these articles Virginia is still
more the superior of Ohio than of New York. So also is Kentucky. So that
if it be said that New York is an importer of such provisions, and therefore
consumes more than her production indicates, what is to be said of Ohio, which
exports them'all. Now in determining the relative comfort of two civilized
communities in the same climate, the quantity of animal food they respectively
consume, is a well established criterion. Yet, here is a State in the warmer
climate consuming the greater proportion. For when it is considered that the
hog is killed for food at the age of eighteen months or two years, and neat
cattle at five or six years, it will appear that the excess of animal food in Vir¬
ginia or Kentucky over New York or Ohio is quite large—is quite large, indeed,
even if we include the slave as well as the free population of the former States.
A reference to the quality of breadstuff's and other vegetable food, leads to
the same conclusion. Virginia is the largest producer of wheat, the finest and
costliest material of bread, of any other State, according to her population. Her
crop of 1840, was 10,109,716 bushels; that of New York was only 12,286,418,
of Ohio 16,571,661. All these are wheat exporting, as well as wheat consu¬
ming States, but still the great mass of that article must be consumed in the
respective States of its production. In proportion to her white population,
Virginia produces twenty-five per cent, of wheat more than Ohio, and two
hundred per cent, more than New York. How is the deficiency supplied in
New York ? Not by importation, but by the substitution of potatoes, that
cheapest article of vegetable food, to which the misfortunes or improvidence
of Ireland have driven her. New York, instead of producing her proportion
of wheat with Virginia, which would be thirty-five millions of bushels, instead
of twelve, produces annually thirty millions of bushels of potatoes, and it is
remarkable that Virginia, with nearly half a million of slaves, instead of resorting
to this cheap food for them, produces only about three millions of bushels of
potatoes, and provides her negroes with corn, of which her annual crop is about
thirty-four and a half millions of bushels, and which is a much more costly and
substantial article of food. The tendency manifested by New York to prefer
the cultivation of the cheapest, but the more precarious and less nourishing
article of vegetable food, is also distinctly visible in all the Northern States, and
is a fact which always deserves to be considered in any estimate of their pres¬
ent and future comfort. In Massachusetts, agriculture is rapidly declining,
particularly the production of the finer sorts of breadstuff's—a fact which is
admitted and lamented by one of her leading papers—the Boston Atlas.
The following statements are from the official returns of the State:
2
10
Hush, wheat. Indian corn. Barley. Rye. Buckwheat. Potatoes.
1840 210,000 2,203,000 156,000 563,000 102,000 4,850,000
1845 48,000 1,985,000 121,931 447,000 32,000 4,767,000
Decrease 162,000 218,000 34,069 116,000 70,000 83,000
Of course it is not pretended that States of a commercial and manufacturing
character chiefly, should produce as much from the soil, in proportion to popu¬
lation, as the agricultural. But the articles they do produce, and their propor¬
tions to each other, indicate the quality of food at least of the agricultural por¬
tion of the population. Hence it appears that the farmers of Massachusetts con¬
sume but little wheat bread, and use rye, indian corn, and potatoes as substitutes.
I think now that if any thing can be shown by facts, I have demonstrated
the superior wealth of the people of the South over those of the North in pro¬
portion to their respective numbers; and this, by comparing the less prosperous
of the South with the most flourishing of the North. And I think I have
shown the South to be the most fortunate in the distribution or equalization of
wealth as well as in its acquisition. At all events, I have rescued the contro¬
versy between the two sections from the control of bold assertion and slipshod
declamation, and confided it to the umpirage of argument and document.
There are some who sneer at statistics, and assert that anything can be
proved by them. But such expressions I think are peculiar to those who deal
in assertion chiefly, and find it unpleasant to be answered with facts. For
statistics are nothing but collections of facts. I admit that facts themselves
may be powerless or pernicious to a mind not logical nor philosophical enough
to comprehend and classify them. But in relation to the affairs of this world
at least, I ask, with the English philosophic poet,
" What can we reason but from what we know."
Facts constitute the great restraint on the imposition of interests, the dogmatism
of fanatics and bigots, the fallacies of the vulgar, the prejudices of the sectional,
and the dreams of enthusiasts. Facts are the test of systems, the landmarks
of progress, the harvest of time, the elemental particles of truth.
But it is peculiarly important to resort to statistics on this question, because
they are so much employed and perverted on the other side. From the speech
of the Senator to the column of the Editor we are continually assailed with
statistical comparisons between the North and South, derogatory to the latter.
In 1839, Daniel Webster presented in a speech to the Senate in praise of Mas¬
sachusetts, an official statement of her annual products, which amounted to
nearly $100,000,000, which he characterized as the yearly fruit of her industry
and capital. This would strike every mind as evidence of great productiveness
and profit in a State of her population, since the annual product of Virginia is
only about seventy millions. But on scrutinizing the Massachusetts statement,
it is found that Webster included, as the product of her industry, the raw
material employed in her manufactures obtained from other States; the raw
cotton, the wool, the raw hides, the dye stuffs, &c., &c.
It was but the other day that we had an extract from the report of the
Commissioner of Patents, published in all the papers which undertook to give
us an estimate of the wealth of the respective States. On examination, it is
found to assume population as the basis of wealth. An average is made of the
wealth of each man in a few States, and that is multiplied by the number of
men in each State. By this rule Indiana, which is more populous than Mas¬
sachusetts, has more wealth—and the North of course gieatly more than the
South. The Commissioner of Patents is a Northern man, and travels deliber¬
ately out of the sphere of his duties to make up and send forth this absurd
table; and in thus undertaking officially and officiously to enlighten the igno¬
rance of the people, displays his own.
11
But whilst I contend that statistical evidence may be sufficient to convince,
I am aware that it is not enough to satisfy the mind, particularly when at
variance with prevalent opinions. It is a legitimate and laudable desire, even
after knowing that a thing is so, to know why it is so. And I acknowlege it
is incumbent on whoever attempts to overthrow a popular error, to show not
only that it is such, but that it must be such, on the recognized principles of
human judgment.
The reason, then, I conceive for the great pecuniaiy prosperity of the South,
is that she is generally agricultural. About half the population of the old
Northern States resides in towns or cities ; in the Southern about one-tenth.
Even Ohio, a new State with greater agricultural attractions naturally, than
any other, has already a town and city population estimated at one-fourth of the
whole ; the single city of Cincinnati, only fifty years of age, containing more
people than ten of the largest towns of Virginia, the oldest State of the Union.
But why is agriculture more profitable than manufactures or commerce ?
One reason is, that agriculture is more productive or multiplying than them;
that its products are the principal and the indispensible articles of human sub¬
sistence, and are obtained with less of human labor and skill than the others.
The fecundity of nature can never be rivalled by art. A grain of wheat when
sown will produce an hundred fold, but no fabric of the loom, no cargo of the
ship, can have its value augmented in the same proportion, without the co¬
operation of a much greater proportion of labor and skill. Commerce and
manufacture are chiefly artificial; agriculture is for the most part the work of
nature. It is true that the facility with which articles are produced from the
soil, influences materially their value in market, and that the prices of different
kinds of labor tend to equality; and it is true also, that prices of commodities
are effected by the relations of supply and demand. Hence there is no such
difference between the profits of the farmer and the artizan, or merchant, as the
relative productiveness of their labors would indicate. But the interchange of
commodities between the two classes, is by no means equal, nor is it obedient
to those laws of trade. The farmer holds the subsistence, and consequently
the property of his civilized fellow-men in his power; and this power he will
exercise when circumstances permit, according to the sentiments which the pos¬
session of power inspires; according to the prejudices of his class, to the appe¬
tite of monopoly—and not according to the wages of labor, and the law of
supply and demand. The monopoly of the necessaries of life which agriculture
confers, has produced some of the most striking social and political revolutions
in history. It enabled Jacob to extort from Esau, who was a hunter, his birth¬
right, for a mess of pottage. But Jacob himself, and his family, preferred the
li ghter labors of shepherd life to tillage, and hence from a scarcity of corn, be¬
came dependent on the granaries of Egypt, and fell into bondage. In wars
between agricultural and commercial nations, the former have general con¬
quered. Athens was overcome by Sparta—Greece by Macedon—Carthage by
Rome—events which indicate the superior resources of the conquerors, more
tha n their bravery. In England, whose commerce has been enriched by the
monopoly of the trade of colonies in every clime, and whose manufactures have
been expanded by the most stupendous inventions of genius, agriculture still
maintains pre-eminence in wealth and political power, although it comprehends
only about one-third of the population. The agriculture of the South produces
a greater variety and abundance of the staple articles of human comfort and
subsistence than that of any other region. Besides such breadstuff's and pro¬
visions as the North affords, the South has by the superior genius and energy
of her people acquired almost a monopoly of the cotton culture. The South
12
thus controls an extraordinary proportion of that food and clothing which the
world consumes, and hence makes a corresponding progress in wealth.
Whilst agricultural life is so much more productive than other avocations, it
is vastly less expensive or consuming. Almost all other pursuits resort to towns
and cities, where the style of living is costly and extravagant. It is very rare
to find farmers or planters residing in palaces of marble or granite. It is seldom
that even public buildings in the country are constructed of such materials.
But in cities they are not unusual in private dwellings with those who have the
means—whilst the great number of public buildings, churches, banks, offices,
See., are of corresponding magnificence. The style of building affords a fair
criterion of the other elements of expense in city life, diet, clothing, and amuse¬
ments. It is well known that in the larger cities, the expenditure of the wealthy
class of families amounts to some eight or ten thousand dollars a year. Now
among the planters of the South of equal wealth, in the country, it would be
hard to find a mere domestic expenditure of such an amount; perhaps rarely
more than half of it. In the country the inducement to build such habitations
is not so great. There are not so many to admire and to praise in a rural
neighborhood as throng the' streets and avenues of a large city. Nor is there
to be found in the country the over-grown millionaire to set the example, and
to fire the pride and vanity of his poorer neighbors, their wives and daughters,
with a desire to emulate and imitate.
In a city the temptation to indulgence is incessant, because almost every
object of desire is in market, and desire itself is inflamed not only by oppor¬
tunity but by rivalry.
It is this great display of wealth and luxury in cities, which has caused the
popular error that they are the peculiar abodes of wealth and prosperity; and
that the States where they abound are more flourishing than others. The
world is a great believer in appearances. But it is curious that the very cir¬
cumstances which have given to cities a character for riches, should be the causes
of that poverty, whose actual existence has been proven. For the practice of
extravagance is not confined to the rich ; but extends to every class of city life.
For in every class there are rivals struggling with each other to make the best
appearance, and the distinctions of class are so indistinct as to make each one
ambitious of equalling its immediate superior. In a word, the dominion of
fashion is far more despotic and oppressive in city, than in country life. Even
the poor seampstress, who bends over her work during the tedious hours of day,
and far into the night, to earn a meagre subsistence, until dimness gathers in
her eye, and distortion fastens on-her form, even she pays from her scanty
earnings the tribute exacted by fashion, and arrays herself in a costume as
conformable to the prevailing mode as her means can make it. But in the
country, where people do not live under each others observation and criticism
continually, it is otherwise. It is only when visiting or visited that the occasion
of display occurs, and the annual expenditure is regulated accordingly. It is
true that the average wealth of the inhabitants of cities is generally greater
than that of the rest of the people in the State, and almost equals that of pros¬
perous agricultural States. But this wealth is not the product of city employ¬
ments. It results from the influx into the city of persons who have become-rich
in the country, and who resort to the cities, because they cannot carry on agri¬
cultural operations extensively in the country in free States. This results from
the high price of agricultural labor in the free States, and its irregularity. An
industrious laborer on a farm, soon acquires enough money to buy a small
tract of public land, and emigrates to it. Hence a farmer who acquires some
wealth in these States, and finds it difficult to extend his operations in the
13
country, resorts to commercial operations, and settles in town. Even those
who would prefer remaining in the country, and yet desire to enjoy their for¬
tunes in social intercourse, find it difficult to spend their leisure pleasantly in
the neighborhood, from the want of associates of equal means, the great mass
being the occupants of small farms, without servants, and therefore lack the
means of performing the rites of hospitality, without a derangement of their
domestic systems. The want then of society in the country, the opportunity
of investing largely in towns, the chances of acquiring great fortunes by specu¬
lation, and the facilities for gratifying our various appetites which wealth affords
in cities, all conspire to divert the wealth of the country to the town, in free
States. Even in Boston, for instance, it appears by a recent enumeration that
nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants were not born in the city: nearly one-half
are natives of the Union, most of them of course from Massachusetts and the
other New England States. In fact not quite one-tenth of the people of Boston
over twenty years of age were born there. The total population of Boston in
1825 was 43,298, and in 1845 the native population, instead of being double,
was but 41,076. So that there has been no natural increase of the population
of Boston in twenty years. These facts afford striking evidence, not only of the
sources of Boston wealth, but of the rapidity with which it is wasted on its
arrival. Besides the extravagant and speculative habits of cities, which waste
their resources, we must add the enormous taxation to which they are subject.
The city of New York, with its four hundred thousand people, is taxed for the
present year about three millions of dollars, a sum which is about half as
much as the taxes of all the fifteen Southern States combined.
But the most disastrous and appalling consequences of city avocations, is
the waste of human life. In the city of New York, the deaths last year ex¬
ceeded 14,000, or one person out of every twenty-eight; and it was a year of
no uncommon mortality for that place. The great mortality of the Eastern
cities is supposed to belong chiefly to the emigrant population. But this is
not the case. In 1836, when the deaths were 8009 in New York, only a little
over one-fourth were foreign; and that must have been about the proportion
of that population. In 1847 the deaths in the city of New York were 15,788,
of whom only 5,412 were foreigners, although the mortality of that year was
increased by the ship fever, ivhich was very fatal to emigrants. The deaths
week before last were 286, of which 108, or more than one-third were foreign,
and the proportion of that population is now much more than one-third. The
mortality of New York is much.greater than it seems; because, being so largely
emigrant from the interior and from abroad, the proportion of adults in her
population is much greater than ordinary, and among adults mortality is not
near so great as among children. New York has 50,000 children less than
her share.
In the last twenty years the population of New York has nearly doubled,
but its mortality has nearly trebled.
According to an official statement* of the duration of human life in the several
avocations in Massachusetts in 1847, it appears that the average of
Agriculturists is 64,14 years. Merchants, 49.20 years.
Mechanics, 46.45 " Laborers, 46.73 "
This is the average life time in the several occupations beginning at twenty
years. According to this, the three avocations of city life, merchants, mechan¬
ics, and laborers, average about 46£ years, whilst farmers live more than 64£
years, or one-third longer! This enormous, and I had almost said atrocious
* American Almanac, 1849.
14
destruction of human life, which is continually going on in towns and cities,
is enough of itself to account for the superior progress of agriculture in wealth.
The loss of so large a proportion of time, in adult years, the expenses of sick¬
ness, and the derangement of business, make an aggregate of itself enough to
sink any reasonable rate of profit or accumulation in any pursuit. And hence
it is that the South, which is so much exempt from the corrosive action of cities
on property and population, has made such rapid progress in wealth.
Thus, then, the superior productiveness of agricultural labor, the great intrin¬
sic value as articles of necessity, or of its products, the extravagant style of
living in towns and cities, and finally, the ruinous waste of human life and
labor they occasion, are reasons enough to account for the fact previously
demonstrated, of the triumph of the agricultural States of the South over the
more commercial states of the North.
But it is objected that the Northern States are more populous, and that if
the average wealth of their individual citizens is less, the aggregate wealth of
the State is greater. This, however, is of no consequence to the argument.
The aggregate wealth of Ireland is no doubt greater than that of any of our
States, as her population is so much greater. And yet her people die by
thousands of starvation. I am considering the condition of our people, as af¬
fected by their respective institutions and pursuits. And I think this the great
point in which patriotism and philanthrophy and philosophy are concerned.
But it is asserted that the system of the South is depopulating; that the
people of Virginia are deserting her; that the population of Kentucky is al¬
most stationary; and that the whole Southern section is but thinly settled, and
promises to remain so. If it be meant by all this, that Southern modes of
living are incompatible with a dense population, I admit it, and rejoice in it.
So far as the concentration of people in towns and cities is concerned, I have
endeavored to show that such a thing is not so much to be desired. Nor do
I think it expedient to promote the augmentation of numbers within the terri¬
torial limits of a State, by a minute subdivision of farms and plantations among
a multitude of proprietors or tenants. Such is too much the tendency in the
free States, and in other countries ; and it has been found fatal to agricultural
improvement. It has resulted in France, in reducing the average size of farms
to an area of three or four acres, held under their laws of descent by distinct
proprietors. And in a part of Scotland, and in Ireland, tracts of a similar size
are held by separate tenants. And it is precisely among the peasantry of
France, the croftiers of Scotland, and the cottiers of Ireland, that stagnation and
desolation have overspread the land, and semi-barbarism and starvation, the
people. The division of land for cultivation into very small tracts, is destructive
of its value. The soil of France is, on an average, of unusual fertility, and its
climate so genial as to be favorable to a great variety of productions. Yet
there, with a dense population of its own, and in the neighborhood of Great
Britain, with its mighty cities, the greatest market in the world, the average
value of land is only five or six dollars per acre—is less than in Virginia. In
England the average size of tracts held by the several sorts of tenure, is about
150 acres, which is about as small as can be made profitable—as small as is
compatible with the due rotation of crops, a judicious variety of stock, and the
prompt adoption of improvement in culture and utensils. In France, the
owner of a three or four acre farm, worth only twenty-five dollars, cannot of
course afford to buy an improved plough—much less can the renter of such a
tract in Ireland. It would cost more than the whole crop is worth. Accord¬
ingly a large proportion of French and Irish tillage is performed with the spade
nt a great expense of manual labor; and, accordingly, it is in England, chiefly,
15
where the tracts are large, that the modern impovements in agriculture have
been made—mid there the soil is more productive and profitable. That some
Virginians, instead of adopting some of the new methods of preserving and
restoring the fertility of their lands, choose to emigrate to new States, where
the soil is already rich by nature, and is cheap, results from a mere calculation
and comparison of the cost of the two systems. And if it be found more pro¬
fitable to remove to a new than to renovate an old soil, it is an evidence of
thrift rather than poverty in the emigrant. And of this the superiority of the
new Southwestern over the new Northwestern States, which will appear by
a comparison of their property and population, is ample proof.*
But the impression exists that the population of the South, as a section, is
really stationary, or is declining. And this being assumed, it is regarded as
evidence that the people of the South are migrating, either from dissatisfaction
with its institutions or with its progress and prospects, or that the vices peculiar
to its system are unfavorable to the increase of its population—or that all
these combine to depopulate her.
But all this is a mistake. If we deduct from the free States the foreign
emigration and its offspring, the residue, representing the native population,
does not indicate so great a natural increase as the present number of people
in the Southern States.
Of the foreign emigrants, no register was kept until 1820. From that year
until 1840, it amounted to more than 700,000 persons, according to the re¬
turns. But large numbers came by the way of Canada, for which during a
considerable period, the facilities were greater than by the direct route. These
have been estimated at half the number registered in the custom house. Assu¬
ming, however, the whole number to be a million, which is the lowest estimate
I have seen, their natural increase in the twenty years could not have been less
than half a million—making 1,500,000. Now the white population of 1840,
in the free States, was 9,557,431; deducting 1,500,000 it would be 8,057,431.
In 1820 it was 5,033,983, and has consequently had a natural increase of 60
per cent.
The white population of the South was, in 1820, 2,833,585, and is now
4.635,637, which exhibits a natural increase of 65 per cent. I have included
all the foreign emigration in the North. A little of it, however, has gone to
the South : but not more than the excess of Southern people who have re¬
moved to the Northwestern States.f
This evidence of the great natural increase of Southern white population, is
an answer to another imputation against it, very current at the North. It has
been held that slavery is a degradation of labor; that therefore the white people
of the South refuse to work, and live in idleness; and that from idleness they
become dissipated, vicious, and violent. But vice is fatal to the increase of
population. It destroys constitutional vigor, diminishes the number of chil¬
dren, and afflicts the few that are born, with hereditary infirmity and prema-
* In the Kentucky Auditor's report of 1848, we find a table (No. 16) of the distribution of property in
that State, which indicates a degree of wealth, and of its equitable allotment, which may challenge
any community for comparison.
Without property, 7,436 parents, With less than $100 worth, 12,964 parents.
With from 100 to $400, 12,344 " With from 400 to $600 5,685 "
With over $600, 28,791 "
It has been alleged, that in the South there are only about 300,000 slaveholders. WeU, supposing each
adult slaveholder to have an average family of six, the slaveholding population of the South would
amount to 1,800,000, which is probably as large a proportion as the landholding population of the North.
f It has been suggested that the emigrant population arrive poor, and therefore when included in the
average of individual wealth in the North, reduce its rates. But the foreigner is generally adult if he is
poor: and therefore acquires wealth more easily than the native. If, however, the emigrant population
stricken out of the estimate, and the whole property of the North divided among the natives, their pro¬
portion will yet be far below that of the South.
16
ture death. One fact is disclosed by the census which is very significant on
this point. There is an excess among the white people of the South of 132,072
males. Among those of the North only 178,275. This is about 97,000 less
than the proportion the North ought to have, to equal the South. But when
we consider that the foreign population settles almost exclusively in the North¬
ern States, and contains much more than its proportion of males, it is apparent
that the deficit of the North in male population is much larger. N6W the
vices of civilized society affect males chiefly, young men and boys, far more
than any other. And if it were true that the South is more immoral than
the North, it would appear in the deficit of male population. But the reverse
seems to be the fact.
The explanation of this result is to be found in the same circumstances that
determine the relative wealth of the two sections. The South is rural in resi¬
dence and habits. It does not present the temptation or the opportunity for
sensual gratification to be found in city life. It is to cities that the passions and
appetites resort for their carnival. The theatre, the gaming house, the drinking
house, and places of still more abandoned character abound in them, and to
these the dissipated youth goes forth at night from home, along the high road
to ruin. In the family of the Southern planter or farmer, although wine may
be drank and cards played, all is done at home under parental and feminine
observation, and therefore excess can never go so far. Of course the sons of
planters visit the cities, but those in their neighborhood are trivial in size, and
meagre in attractions—those more distant are the more seldom seen. The
ancient poets, who thought that the lower regions were the abode of great and
good men as well as bad, located the entrance in a remote and solitary place.
Thus Homer conducts Ulysses on his visit to the shades of his brother warrior
Greeks, to a thinly settled country of dark skinned people.
" When lo, we reached old Ocean's utmost bounds,
Where rocks control his waves with ever-during mounds,
There in a lonely land and gloomy cells,
The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells."
There he found the portals of the infernal world. So Virgil conducts Eneas
to the sombre and solemn forest of the Cumean sybil. But with our improved
conceptions of the character of that place and its inmates, and the most direct
avenues to approach it, the modern Epic poet, who desires to give his hero a
view of it, will have to fix the gateway in the heart cf a great city, where the
vices hold their revels. 'Tis there
" The gates of Hell are open night and day,
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way."
It cannot be said that the excessive mortality among the males of the North
is owing to their unwholesome employments. For the females are employed
in similar or more destructive avocations. In Massachusetts, about fifty thou¬
sand women work in factories, and yet, in that State, there is an excess of
7,672 females, whereas if the natural proportion of the sexes existed among
the native population, or such as is found at the South, Massachusetts ought
to have an excess of about twenty-two thousand males. So that at present
she has about thirty thousand females beyond the due proportion. It is true
that Massachusetts loses a portion of her male population by emigration to the
West, although she is reinforced again by the excess of males in the foreign
emigrants that have settled there. But there still remains a large portion who
must have perished by the sickness and vices of the towns and cities that con¬
tain so large a part of her people—Boston alone, with its suburb towns, having
a population of 200,000, or nearly one-third of all the State. So then, the
operation of the institutions of this model State of the North, is to violate the
17
laws of nature by a separation of tbe sexes; to send thousands of her sons
away from their happy condition at home, to encounter the hardships of the
West; to send multitudes of others to die by dissipation in her cities, and to
place her lonely and deserted women, not in convents, but in factories. I
have said that there are about fifty thousand women employed in the factories
of Massachusetts. Such is the testimony of the official census of the State in
1845. Those who are thus employed, it is well known, are generally young,
unmarried women, as such a vocation would be rather incompatible with the
domestic duties of wives. Now, according to the census of 1840, there were
but about 57,000 women in that State between the ages of seventeen and
twenty-five. So that about seven-eighths of the marriageable women of Mas¬
sachusetts, at a time of life that ought to be sacred to love and courtship, to
pleasure and to hope, to home and to society, are sent forth from the parental
roof, to labor for years, confined to over-heated rooms, containing a hundred
persons each, confined to a space five feetsquare, for thirteen hours a day, under
a male overseer, and not permitted to receive a visit from a lover or a relative
in the mill, except by the permission of the proprietor's agent, or at the
boarding-house, except by the permission of the proprietor's house-keeper;
for such are the regulations and conditions of Lowell. This confinement to
factories postpones the marriage of the women of Massachusetts to an average
of twenty-three or twenty-four years.* I do not know at what age precisely
marriages occur in Virginia, but the census shows that Virginia, with fewer
adults, has 100,000 more of children.
In determining the condition of civilized communities, it is generally con¬
sidered essential to inquire into the state of their pauperism; not only because
the paupers themselves usually constitute a considerable class, but because
their number affects vitally the condition of the entire laboring class.
In the State of New-York, the progress of pauperism has been rapid. In
1830, the number supported orrelieved, was 15,506. In 1835, it was 38,962
—according-to Chapin's United States Gazetteer for 1844. In 1843 or 4 the
number had increased to about 72,000 permanent, and the same number of
occasional paupers, making a total of 144,000, as appears from the Journal of
Commerce. These were for the whole State, and there was thus, one pauper
to every seventeen inhabitants. In 1847, there were received at the principal
alms houses for the city of New-York, 28,692 persons, and out-dow relief
was given out of public funds to 34,572 persons, making a total of 73,264.
So that about one person out of every five in the city of New-York was depen¬
dant, more or less, on public charity. The total cost that year, of this pauper¬
ism, was $319,293 88.* For this present year of 1849, the estimate is
$400 000, according to the Mayor's message.
In Massachusetts, it appears by the returns, that there were, in 1836,5 580
paupers, and in 1848, 18 963. These were all in the alms-houses. Those
relieved out of the alms-houses, were 9,817, making a total of 28 510, according
to the report of the Secretary of State of Massachusetts. And the returns
from forty-one towns are omitted. If allowance be made for these, it will be
seen that in Massachusetts, one person out of every twenty is a constant or
occasional pauper. It thus appears that in these two States, pauperism is
advancing ten times as rapidly as their wealth or population. It has become
so great as to include large numbers of able-bodied men, who it appears cannot,
or what is worse will not, earn a subsistence; and if such be the case, what must
be the condition of the great mass of people hanging on the verge of pauper¬
ism, but withheld by an honorable pride from applying for public charity.
* American Almanac.
3
18
Now, throughout the greater part of Virginia and Kentucky, pauperism is
almost unknown. I passed, some time ago, the poor-house of Campbell
county, Kentucky, on the opposite side of the river, and there was not a solitary
inmate. And I have known a populous county in Virginia to have but one.
It has generally been supposed that the paupers of Massachusetts and New
York are principally foreign emigrants. But this is a mistake. In the 5,580
paupers of Massachusetts in 1836, only 1,192 were of foreign birth—but little
over one-fifth—which does not probably exceed the proportion then of that
population in the State. In 1845, of 1 016 persons admitted into the alms¬
houses of Boston, 490 were foreign of whom 382 were Irish; but that was the
year of Irish famine. In 1848 of 18 993 paupers received into the alms-houses
of Massachusetts, 7 413 were foreigners.* We do not know what proportion
of that people of the State are foreigners; in Boston there is about one-third.
When pauperism extends to the class that are able to labor, it is evident
that the wages of labor are reduced to the cost of subsistence. And hence the
whole class must be subjected to the melancholy and terrible necessity of
working, rather to avoid the poor-house, than of bettering their condition.
And the pauper in an alms-house is a slave. He works under a master, and
receives nothing but a subsistence. And there are already in New York and
Massachusetts about one hundred thousand persons in this condition; about
an equal number occasionally so; and they are increasing at the rate of 200
per cent., whilst the whole population does not increase 20 per cent, in ten
years. In Cincinnati, the number of paupers, permanent and occasional,
already amounts to two thousand.
Whilst the property of the North is thus compelled to contribute to the
support of this great and growing burden, and the labor of the North must
not only assist in its support also, but must work in competition with it, they
are subjected to another mighty evil, which springs from, or at least is aggra¬
vated by the same causes, and that is crime.
The number of convicts in the three penitentiaries of New York, Auburn,
Sing Sing, and Blackwell's Island, is about two thousand. In the penitentiary
of Virginia, there are only 111 whites, 89 blacks. This indicates four times
the amount of crime in proportion to the white population in New York, as in
Virginia. In the State of Massachusetts, there were in 1847, 288 persons in
the State prison, which indicates more than twice the crime in that State as in
Virginia. Taking all the New-England States together, their penitentiary
convicts are twice as numerous in proportion to population as in Virginia, as
will be seen by consulting the American Almanac for 1849. It contains
sketches of the criminal statistics of the several States, and is New-England
authority. In Ohio, there are 470 persons in the penitentiary ; in Kentucky
130, Ohio being 25 per cent, the most, according to population. According
to the returns of the Kentucky penitentiary, one-half of her convicts, for the last
ten years, came from the single county in which Louisville, her principal town,
is located, and one-third of the whole number were born in free States. So-
much for the States of the North, agricultural, manufacturing and commercial,
old and new, as compared with those of the South in crime. The results are
uniformly and largely in favor of the South.
If we turn to the official reports of crime in the great cities of the North, we
behold a state of society exhibited, at which the mind is appalled. In Boston,
the number of persons annually arraigned for crime exceeds four thousand,
and, of this number, about one-third are females. So that one person out of
every 14 males, and one out of every 28 females, is arrested annually for
♦American Almanac, 1849.
19
criminal offences. There may be some who are arraigned more than once a
year, but, on the other hand, there must be many who escape detection alto¬
gether.
In New York the proportion of crime is about the same, some eighteen
thousand persons having been arrested there last year. Of these it is said six
thousand were for drunkenness, twelve thousand were committed to the tombs
for examination, of whom ten thousand were committed for trial. Of these,
there were sentenced to the State prison. 119 men, and 17 women; to the
penitentiary 700 men, and l70*women ; to the city prison, 162 men, and 67
women; total, 981 men, 254 women; showing an amount of crime in a single
city greater than in all the Southern States together. In the Kentucky peni¬
tentiary there is not a single woman; in the Virginia I believe there is none.
The enormous amount of crime in the Eastern cities, which already rivals
the depravity of those of Europe, has been ascribed to the multitude of Euro¬
pean emigrants. But the returns do not sustain this plea. Of 7,009 persons
in the jails and houses of correction in Massachusetts in 1847. only 1165 were
natives of foreign countries. This is less than one-fourth of the whole number,
and cannot vary materially, from the proportions of the foreign and native
population in the State.*
Whilst the South has been so much more secure than the North in life and
property, from individual crime, it has been at. least equally exempt from social
disturbance. The apprehensions of danger from the dissimilarity of its white
and black population have not been realized. The proportion of white and
black remains as at first, about two to one. Even in Brazil, where this propor¬
tion is reversed, where there are two blacks to one white, tranquility has reigned
for a quarter of a century. And it is remarkable that Brazil and the U nited
States, the only two nations on this continent, where African slavery prevails,
are the only two which have succeeded in the establishment of stable and
flourishing social and political institutions. In all the Spanish American
States, where the attempt has been made to introduce political equality among
distinct and dissimilar races, it has been followed by incessant insurrection,
anarchy, poverty, vice, and barbarism.
When the Union between the North and South, under our present Consti¬
tution, was formed, the social, political, and economical operation of the institu¬
tions, peculiar to each, were matters of theory and conjecture. We have now
had the experience of half a century, and the result is before us in the facts I
have presented—facts against which neither speculative philosophy nor sec¬
tional prejudice, egotism, or fanaticism can prevail.
It will be observed I do not compare the whole people of the North with
the whole population of the South. I am now comparing the whites only of
both sections; it being the first object to ascertain the effects of their respective
institutions on the whites of the two sections. I do not compare Northern
cities with Southern, but the whole people, rural and urban, together of one
■section, with those of the other. I have referred more particularly to Northern
cities, because they contain so large, if not the largest portion of Northern
population, and are the boast and characteristic of the Northern system. I
have also preferred to compare the old States of the sections, not only because
they are similar in climate and productions, but because in them the effects
of the two systems are more developed, and as has been coutmdec1, to the
great disadvantage of the South.
There is a chiss of topics of a more intangible nature, but not the less im¬
portant, and which are much insisted on in this controversy, that now remains
•American AJmanac, 1849.
20
to be briefly considered. It is urged, that religion and education are more
prevalent and flourishing in the North than in the South. It is true that the
form of religion existing in New-England,and by law established,wasextremely
strict and self-denying, as that of Virginia, the Episcopal, was then one of the
most indulgent of Protestant sects. But it is well known that the Puritan
character has been rapidly degenerating and passing away. Indeed, the forms
of that faith are no longer dominant in Boston, the ancient seat of its power,
and in their place, the Unitarians have prevailed, and they are gaining ground
rapidly in New-England. A change has occurred in Virginia, but a change in
the opposite direction. Instead of the Episcopalians, the Baptists are predom¬
inant in Virginia. Thus, under the operation of their respective institutions,
the religion of Massachusetts has receded from one of the most strict, to one of
the most relaxed systems of the Protestant faith, while Virginia has advanced
from one of the most indulgent, to one of the stricter forms of religious disci¬
pline. There are no means of ascertaining the number of members in all the
churches in the several States. Virginia has about 80,000 of Baptists alone,
she has 30 000 Methodists,* and a larger proportion yet of Episcopalians
than any other State. Altogether she must have her full proportion.
But it is in education that the North claims the great pre-eminence over the
South. In Massachusetts, according to the census of 1840, there were but
4,448 white persons above the age of twenty, who could not read and write,and
in Virginia, there were 58 787 ; in Ohio, there were 35,364; in Kentucky,
40,016; in Illinois, 27,502; in Mississippi 8,360. Thus it appears, that
whilst there are more than twelve times as many illiterate persons in the oldest
Southern, as in the oldest Northern State, the proportion changes as we ad¬
vance westward, until we find a greater proportion of them in a new State of
the North, than in one of the South. And thus it seems that in the new States,
where children are not educated at public expense, and where, therefore, their
parents must provide for them, the children of the South are better educated,
or rather, perhaps, it would seem, that the emigration from the North is much
more ignorant than the South. Still, however, the odds of school instruction
are decidedly with the North. This results from obvious causes. The terri¬
torial area of Virginia is probably nine times as great as that of Massachusetts.
If, therefore, Virginia were disposed to adopt the common school system, it
would require nine times the schoolhouses and teachers to afford the same
conveniences for attending school that exist in Massachusetts. Virginia is a
thinly settled agricultural State, intersected by several ranges of mountains.
In many places there could not be found ten scholars in ten miles square. In
such places, a population might be able to live comfortably, but not to establish
a school, or send their children abroad to boarding schools. Hence, there
must be a considerable number without schools In commercial and manu¬
facturing States, or those of small farms and dense agricultural population,
this evil is not so much felt.
But Virginia has a system of oral instruction which compensates for the
want of schools, and that is her social intercourse. The social intercourse of
the South is probably much greater than that of any people that ever existed.
There is certainly nothing like the number of visits among the families of a
city, or even the same square in a city, as prevails in the country of the South.
And these visits are not fashionable calls, but last for days and weeks, and they
are the great resource of the South for instruction and amusement. It is true
that persons are not taught at such places to read or write, but they are taught
to think and converse. They are the occasions of interchanging opinions and
•American Almanac.
21
diffusing intelligence; and to perform the duties, to enjoy the pleasures of
such intercourse, to please, to shine, and to captivate, requires a degree of
mental culture which no custom of the North so much demands. Accordingly,
the South exhibits the remarkable phenomenon of an agricultural people,
distinguished above all others of the present day, by the elegance of their
manners, and the intellectual tone of their society.
The North excels in books. In History she has Bancroft and Prescott; in
Poetry, Bryant, Halleck and Whittier; in Criticism Everett and Channing.'
In sculpture she has produced a Powers. Her Franklin has drawn the light¬
ning from Heaven, and taught it to play harmlessly around our very hearths:
her Morse has even given letters to lightning, and lightning to letters ! The
North excels in the arts and the physical sciences, ininventions and improve¬
ments. She excels in associative action, not merely for railroads and manu¬
factures, but for literary, benevolent and religious objects. I do not desire to
detract one iota from her exalted merits and high civilization. Hut in indi¬
vidual character and individual action, the South excels. For a warm heart
and open hand for sympathy of feeling, fidelity of friendship, and high sense
of honor; for knowledge of the sublime mechanism of man, and reason and
eloquence to delight, to instruct, and to direct him, the South is superior; and
when the North comes into action with the South, man to man, in council or
in the field, the genius of the South has prevailed from the days of Jefferson
to Calhoun, from Washington to Taylor.—And it is to the solitude which the
rural life of the South affords, so favorable to reflection, and it is to the ele¬
vated rural society of the South so favorable to the study of human nature,
that we must ascribe these qualities of persuasion and self-command by which
her statesmen and captains have moved the public councils, and won so many
a field.
The abolition of African slavery in the South has been urged for many
years by a portion of Northern people. And now its restriction to its present
territorial limits is the avowed purpose of almost every Northern State. The
basis on which this policy rests is the assumption that slavery is sinful and
unprofitable. The means now relied on to arrest its future progress is not
the persuasion of the people of the slaveholding States, but the numerical
power of the free States acting through the Federal Government. Suppose
now the South had a majority of votes, and were to announce its determi¬
nation to arrest the further progress of commerce and manufactures in con¬
sequence of their poverty, pauperism, crime and mortality, what would be
the sentiment every where felt in the North ? Why, one of indignation,
scorn and resistance. Such does the South feel now !
When the North American colonies confederated for resistance to Great
Britain, the territorial area of the Southern portion of them was 648,202
square miles—that of the Northern only 164,081, or about one-fourth as
large. Virginia alone had, by Royal charter, the whole Northwestern terri¬
tory in her limits, and during the war had confirmed her title by the patriotism
and. valor of her own citizens—who rescued even Illinois from British power.
But before the present Constitution was formed, Virginia, with a magnanimity
almost infatuated, had ceded to the confederacy, for the formation of free
States, the whole Northwestern territory, now constituting the States of
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, containing 261,681 square
miles, and making the territory of the free States rather more than that of the
slaveholding. The object of this cession and the ordinance of 1*787 was to
equalize the area of the two sections. The acquisition of Louisiana in 1803,
added 1,138,103 square miles to our territory, of which, by the Missouri
22
compromise, the South obtained only 226,013 square miles, or about one-
fifth—the other four-fifths, notwithstanding it came to us as a slaveholding
province, were allotted to the North, which thus had acquired more than
700,000 square miles of territory over the South. Florida aud Oregon were
acquired by the treaty of 1819, by which the South got 59,268 square
miles, and the North 341,463 making the Nortli about 1,000,000 of square
miles the most. In 1845 Texas was annexed, which added only 325,520
square miles to the South, even if all Texas were included. In 1848 we
obtained 526,078 square miles more in the territories of New Mexico and
California. And now the North claims the whole of this also—and not only
this but half of Texas besides, which would make the share of the North
exceed that of the South neaily 1,500,000 square miles—a territory about
equal in extent to the whole valley of the Mississippi, and leaving the South
only about 810,812 square miles, while the North retains 2,097,124, or
nearly three-fourths of the whole ! And this too when the South contributed
her full share of the men and money by which the whole territory was obtain¬
ed. In the revolutionary Avar the South furnished an average of 16 714
men in each year, and the North 25,875, which nearly corresponds with
their respective number of citizens, and that, too, although the Avar Avas Avaged
chiefly against the large cities of the North—cities being in war the most
tempting and the most vulnerable points of attack. In the Avar with. Mexico
the South supplied two-thirds of the A-olunteer?, which constituted three-
fourths of the entire force employed. The revenue by which these Avars
have been supported, the public debt paid, and the price for the territory
furnished, has been raised chiefly by duties Avhich have notoriously operated
designedly and incidentally to promote the industry and capital of the North,
and to oppress those of the South.
If after all this the South should submit to be plundered of her share of
the territory noAV in dispute, Avhen, as an agricultural people, she requires her
full proportion, she would be recreant to her interests, her power, her right,
her honor, and her fame—recreant to her history and her destiny.
One of the proposed objects of these Northern reformers, is to promote the
prosperity of the South. I have shown that she Avants none of their aid, and
that there are at home thousands of criminals to reform and hundreds of thou¬
sands of paupers to be relieved,on whom their philanthrophy may be exhausted.
Is it for the Avelfare of the slave they are contending? I hold it to be the
duty even of him who undertakes to subA'ert the established order of things, to
manifest at least as much respect for experience as experiment and it so hap¬
pens that the experience of emancipation has been ample and diversified.
In llayti, the black after exterminating the Avhite population, remained in¬
dependent and isolated, the exclusive architect of its own institutions and des¬
tiny. The result is that they have relapsed into pristine barbarism. The
exports of Hayti amounted in 1789 to about twenty-five millions of dollars;
they do not now amount to one-tenth of that sum. The Haytien contents
himself Avith the cultivation of a feAv yams for a mere subsistence, and a mere
hut for a dwelling. The blacks and mulattoes are at ciA'il Avar, and yester¬
day's papers announce that an army of tAventy thousand men Avas advancing
against the principal town, Port-au-Prince.
Another plan of emancipation is, to send the liberated to Liber'a. But be¬
sides the expenseof such a system, which renders it impracticable, it is attended
Avith the death of from one fourth to one-half of the emigrants by the coast
fever.
The third plan attempted is that by the British in their West Indies—the
plan of gradual abolition by apprenticeship, and ultimate equality of black
23
and white ; and this also has failed. The exports of Jamaica have already,
in the first ten years of the experiment, fallen one-half. The negroes refuse
to work even for high wages beyond what is necessary for mere subsistence,
the planters are bankrupt plantations are already abandoned, and the island
is hastening to the condition of Hayti.
The fourth plan of emancipation is that which has been going on with us.
That of manumission by the will of the master, the freedman remaining with
black and white, or seeking other States. This experiment has not succeeded.
The emancipated slave does not appear to be willing to perform the amount of
work necessary to enable him to compete successfully with the white laborer.
In the State of New York the Constitution conferred the right of suffrage on
colored persons owning $250 worth of property. Yet in the city of New York
in 1845, out of 11,939 colored people, there were only 103 voters, and notwith¬
standing their numbers are augmented by frequent manumissions and fugitive
slaves, they do not increase so rapidly as the slave population, which is evidence
that their condition is not so comfortable. It is also a curious fact, that of
386,293 free persons of color in 1840, nearly half (183,766) preferred to re¬
main in the Slave States, where certainly, as a class, they are treated with no-
peculiar favor. In Massachusetts, where so much sympathy is expressed for
them, they cannot or will not live. There are less now of them in Boston than
there was twenty years ago, and in both Virginia and Massachusetts there are
ten times as many free colored people in the penitentiary as their proportion
of the white population. Is it then for the sake of such emancipation as the
West Indian, which results in idleness, barbarism, and civil war among the
blacks, or for Liberian, which exterminates, or the American, which subjects
them to crime and want, that Philanthropy would undertake to overturn the
unrivalled system of Southern civilization.
But we are told that slavery is an evil. Well, so is war an evil, and so,
perhaps, is Government itself an evil, since it is also an abridgment of liberty.
But one of the first objects of our Constitution is to provide for war—for the
common defence. And the people of the United States prefer the evil of war
to the greater evils of being plundered and subdued. They prefer the evil of
Government to the greater evil of anarchy. So the people of the South prefer
slavery to the evils of a dense manufacturing and commercial population, which
appear to be inevitable without it; and the black man may prefer the slavery
of the South to the want, the crime, the barbarism and blood which attend his
race in all other countries. In the practical affairs of human life in its present
state, choice of evils is frequently all that is in our power. Good and evil in
fact become relative, and not positive terms. And the necessity is recognized
by the example of our Savior, who applied the extreme remedy of the lash to
the money changers, who profaned the temple. It is consistent for a rigid
sect like the Quakers to oppose slavery, becaush they proscribe and repudiate
war, and luxury, and all other evils. And we may all hope for the time to
come, when, in the progress of Christianity, the evils of slavery in the South,
and those of pauperism, crime, and mortality in the North, will be greatly
mitigated or abolished. But the North can now make no protest, because
the luxurious system of Northern civilization not only subjects the great mass
of the people to unwonted labor and privation, but actually sacrifices in peace
a greater amount of life than is usually expended by communities at war.
If then, the welfare of neither white nor black in the South would be promo¬
ted by the restriction or abolition of slavery, would the prosperity of the
North be advanced ? The only thing of which the North complains, on its
own account, is the ratio of representation fixed by the Constitution, v hich
24
gives the South a vote equal to three-fifths of the blacks. But on the other
hand, in consequence of the existence of slavery in the South, the North has
a monopoly of foreign emigration. This amounted, as we have seen, from
1829 to 1840, to a million and a half, including its increase. In the previous
thirty years it must have been, with its increase to this day, at least half a
million more. Since 1840 it has amounted to a million besides. So that
the North has the vote and the power of three millions of people against the
political power which slavery now confers, and that is equivalent to a white
population only of about two millions.
And furthermore, by the peculiar agricultural employment of Southern
industry and capital, the South is a customer and consumer of Northern
manufactures and commerce, and of Northwestern agriculture. Abolish
slavery, and convert the South into a people of mechanics, artizans, and
merchants, and instead of being a customer, she becomes a competitor of the
other section. And if the march of pauperism, crime, and mortality of the
North be so great now, what would it be then?
The condition of modern civilization is far more laborious and oppressive
than the ancient. The seats of ancient science and the arts were in the mild
climates of the Mediterranean shore, or in the south of Asia and Europe. And
in America the ruins of her unrecorded civilization are to be found in Palenque
and Copan, all in a similar climate. The genius of England has carried civi-
lizati rn to a more northern latitude, and that of America has extended it, if
not higher in latitude, to a still more rigorous climate than that of England.
The wants of such a climate are great and imperious. The cost of fuel alone
in the city of New York exceeds $16,000 000 annually. The clothing must
be much warmer, the houses more substantial, the food more nourishing, and
all more expensive than a milder climate. And this great augmentation of
the burdens of civilized life must be borne in the North by freemen, not as
of old by slaves.
Hence have we seen the fearful struggle of Northern labor for subsistence,
notwithstanding the immense aid it has derived from modern machinery and '
invention. But take from that labor the custom, and subject it to the compe¬
tition of the South, where so much less is required for subsistence, and that
so much cheaper, and the result would be as ruinous to the present system of
the North as to that of the South. These two great systems have grown up
together. That of the North could not have so much expanded without a
market in Southern agriculture—nor could this have grown so great but for
the demand and supplies of the North. Together they have flourished; to¬
gether they must falter and fall. To restrict, therefore, the territorial exten¬
sion of the South, and by circumscribing its industry render it unprofitable, is
to restrict and paralize the prosperity of the North in all its departments.
Together these institutions have marched harmoniously to that eminence and
success which have won the prosperity of both at home, and extorted the
admiration of the world abroad. If either should fall by the hand of the
other, the crime would not only be fratricide, it would be suicide; and over
the mouldering ruins of both would deserve to be written the epitaph : Here
were a people who disputed abont the capacity of the African for liberty and
civilization, and did not themselves possess the capacity to preserve their
own.
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