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 Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032773255 
 
'dUL oJ' ^^' ^"-^^^^ </ 
 
THE 
 
 AMERICAN QUESTION 
 
 NATIONAL ASPECT. 
 
 BEING ALSO 
 
 AN INCIDENTAL EEPLY TO MK. H, E. HELPER'S "COMPENDIUM OF 
 THE ZMPENDINfi CEISIS OF THE SOUTH." 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIAS PEISSNER, 
 
 PEOFESSOE IN TTSIOS OOIXESS. 
 
 NEW YOKK: 
 H. H. LLOYD & CO., PUBLISHEB8, 
 
 25 HOWAED BTEEET. 
 1861. 
 
 <^ 
 
£ 
 Wo 
 
 Entered, according lo Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 
 
 ELIAS PEISSNEE, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the tTnited States for the Southern 
 District of New York, 
 
 Davibs & Kent, 
 
 bterxottpebs and electrottperb, 
 
 118 If^msau Street. 2^. T. 
 
 If,/ r,r 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Slavery, irrespective of its being right or wrong, is a, historical 
 fact, and depends as such, in its rise, growth, and decay, on the 
 various circumstances of time and place which surround it, and 
 have surrounded it, in different nations and periods. The soil, 
 the climate, the geological and geographical congeniality with the 
 most thickly settled countries of Europe, the large immigration 
 consequent thereupon, the character of the settlers, — in short, land 
 and people, production and population, made emancipation easier in 
 our Northern States than in most of the Southern. 
 
 Therefore, we must censure those who wantonly throw all hlame 
 and all curses on the slaveholder as such ; hut we must also con- 
 demn the Slave-PoKtician who, on the natural circumstances unfavor- 
 able to speedy emancipation in the South, raised a play-ground for 
 his political ambition and cast new obstacles in the way of freedom. 
 
 The imprudent abolitionist and the selfish politician exert a, lilie 
 influence upon the nation, though it be of different intensity. They 
 rouse enmity and hatred between two sections of the same country ; 
 they, intentionally or unawares, render the Union less desirable and 
 less honorable ; they create fears, and threats, and expeiiments of 
 dissolution. 
 
 For this their influence on Union and Nationality have we under- 
 taken to review the course of the deadly antagonists. Within the 
 Union, then, alone the question of Slavery can be solved in such 
 a manner as to bring permanently the greatest benefit to all par- 
 ties concerned. This is, indeed, tlie American question, and it will 
 haunt us whether there be a temporary dissolution of the Union 
 or not. Slavery, far from being a sufficient reason for breaking 
 
iv PEEFACE. 
 
 the Union, adds new cause, new interest, new ties to draw us still 
 more closely together. 
 
 To prove this is the object of the present treatise. Consequently, 
 we have ventured to present in their proper light the two most 
 famous arguments of the present day — the one taken from Political 
 Economy, the other weeded out from history — and have endeavored 
 to prove that they nowhere teach unrelenting hatred and disunion. 
 Mr. H. E. Heipek's collection of figures and testimonies having he- 
 come more popular than any other, we have taken his production 
 as a basis for our First Two Books. The seriousness of the subject 
 seemed at first to exclude all humor; but Mr. Helper's passion and 
 folly would, in some instances, have made any other treatment 
 unfair and altogether unpalatable to the general reader. 
 
 In our Third Book we give Slavery its logical place in the pro- 
 gressive history of the world, and trace its social development within 
 our own coimtry, while in the Fourth Book we show its relation 
 to the Union as a polUicdl body. 
 
 Uhios College, Jan, UJi, 1861. * 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE ITTTMBBES. 
 
 (m BEPLT TO CHAPTERS 1., IX., X., XI., AND XII. OF MR. HIXPEr's OOM- 
 PENDHIM.) 
 
 I. The Science of Statistics. — ^11. False Impressions from True Num- 
 bers. — ^m. False Reasoning from True Numbers. — IV. New York 
 and Norfolk. — ^V. New York and New Orleans. — VI. Louisiana and 
 Massachusetts, New Orleans and Boston, Alabama and Maine. — VH. 
 New York buys Virginia. — VHI. Imports and Exports combined of 
 all the Principal Ports. — IX. Helper mistaking Years. — ^X. Helper 
 ignoring Paupers and Criminals. — XI. Helper on Hay. — ^XH. Ex- 
 haustion of Lands and Hands. — ^Xm. The First Cause and Last 
 Effect omitted by Helper in all his Arithmetical Eeasonings. — ^XIV. 
 Population, the Fundamental Cause of Production. — XV. Eatio of 
 Increase of Population in Different Countries. — ^XVI. Batio of the 
 Natural and the Artificial Increase of the Population of the United 
 States. — XVll. Eatio of Immigration in the Different States of the 
 Union.— XVHt. Cause of the Difference.— XTX. Effect of Immi- 
 gration on the Show-Tables of the South and the North. — XX. The 
 Ultimate Effect of Production on Population. — XXT. The Negro 
 Multiplying — ^his Show-Tables all Right. — XXTT. Everybody Living 
 Longer there where the "Niggers" are. — XXTTT. The Posterior 
 Part of Helper's Statistical Body. — XXIV. Conclusion page 9 
 
 BOOK n. 
 
 THE TESTIMONIES. 
 
 (in reply to chapters ni., rv., v., vi., vii., ahd vin. or me. helper's 
 
 COMPENDroM. 
 
 I. Single Testimonies.— n. The Chapters HI. to IX. of Mr. Helper's 
 Compendium.— m. The Testimony of the Union.— IV. The Testi- 
 mony of England. — ^V. The Testimony of France. — VI. The Testi- 
 
yI contents. 
 
 mony of Germany.— VII. The Testimony of Russia.— VIII. The 
 Testimony of Greece and Kome.— IX. The Testimony °f *f« 
 Churches and of the Bible.— X. The Testimony of Living Wit- 
 nesses.— XI. General Remarks on the Testimonies.— XII. Mr. 
 Helper's Bloody Plan ^^ 
 
 BOOK in. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 I. Slavery in History.— 11. Negro Slavery in History.— HI. Continu- 
 ance of Negro Slavery in the Southern States.— IV. The Plea of the 
 Curse.— V. The Plea of Eace Inferiority.— VI. The Plea of Philan- 
 thropy.- Vn. The Plea of Necessity.— VIII. The Plea of Self-In- 
 terest. — IX. The Plea of the Constitution. — X. Requisites for a 
 Truly Philanthropic Emancipation : 1. Delicacy ; 2. Political Non- 
 interference with the South ; 3. Prudence. — XI. Actual Work al- 
 ready Accomplished in our Land : 1. Prohibition of the Slave-Trade ; 
 2. Abolition of Slavery ; 3. Spreading of the "White Population ; 4. 
 Amalgamation ; 5. Colonization. — XTT. Conclusion 81 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 THE CEISIS. 
 
 I. Balance of Power. — ^H. Secession. — HI. Our Policy. — IV, Integrity 
 of the Union ; the National Property, Fortifications, Custom-Houses, 
 etc. ; the Separate States : Texas ; California ; Louisiana ; the Border 
 Slave States; Tennessee and Arkansas ; the two Carolinas, and the 
 Western Gulf States. — V. Prognostic of a Southern Hexarchy. — 
 TI. A Proposal for a new Compromise. — Conclusion 131 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 THE NUMBERS. 
 
THE AMEEICAN QUESTIOJ^. 
 
 booe: I- 
 THE NUMBEES. 
 
 nr EEPLT TO CHAPTERS r., IX., X., XI., AOT) XII. OP ME. 
 HELPEe's COMPENDIUM. 
 
 I— THE SCIEN"OE OF STATISTICS. 
 
 "We have taken as a basis of this first part of our treatise 
 Mr. Helpee's famous Numbers, by the aid of which he 
 attempts to draw a new dividing line between two sec- 
 tions of the same country. These Numbers have become 
 a sort of ground- work for popular reasoning on Union and 
 Disunion. And this bearing alone is the cause of our 
 attack. But before entering upon a special review of 
 them, we will make a few general remarks. 
 
 The science of statistics is yet in its swaddling-clothes. 
 Statistical accounts were kept in ancient times, but they 
 referred principally to the government, and not to the 
 nation at large. In the middle ages such accounts were 
 entirely neglected ; and what there were at any time had 
 neither system nor order. In most modem times this 
 science has grown, and especially during the present 
 century ; though even now the world and its philosophers 
 are not agreed in respect to its limits or its definition. 
 
 1* 
 
jQ THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 A regular census of the population, to be repeated at 
 fixed intervals, was first instituted by the United States, 
 in the first year of its existence, and only since the begin- 
 ning of this century have England and France foUowed 
 our example. But what confusion reigns in these census 
 tables, even in our modern times, may easily be seen from 
 a few glances at their headings and diagrams, not to men- 
 tion the single blunders which so frequently incur the cen- 
 sure of the common daUy press. 
 
 F. B. Hough, the superintendent of the New York 
 census in 1855, confesses in despair, "that it is, especially 
 as it regards the wealth and production of the State, a 
 labyrinth which we can not hope to be able to survey, 
 unless a change is made in the whole system." What 
 names shall we give to the censuses of other States, if 
 that of N"ew York is already seen to be " a labyrinth ?" 
 But into such labyrinths Mr. Hinton Rowan Helper 
 went groping for his numbers. 'No wonder he was lost, 
 for Ariadne's thread seems not to have fallen to his lot. 
 
 H. F. Brachelli (one of those untiring German savans 
 whose patient toiling remains ever a wonder to us Yankees 
 as a class), in a recent statistical work on Germany, names 
 several himdred volumes as his authorities, and adds, then, 
 humbly : " I, of course, could only give approximate state- 
 ments, and had to omit many things from want of sufficient 
 data." 
 
 There is, indeed, no writer of any note, nor " any thor- 
 ough scholar or profound thinker," who is not aware of 
 the imperfect state of this science. Improvements are 
 being made continually ; but, as yet, sufficient care is not 
 taken in collecting the statistics, nor is there system in it 
 nor has any system been appUed during periods sufficiently 
 
THE NUMBEES. jj 
 
 long to -warrant all imaginable deductions and generaliza- 
 tions. 
 
 But all sciences, in their infancy, are somewhat presump- 
 tuous. And this is the case with the newly-invented sci- 
 ence of statistics. Everything must now be reduced to 
 numbers. Virtue, vice, morality, education, misery, hap- 
 piness, slavery, freedom, love — all these vague and un- 
 mathematical quantities — must now be expressed in math- 
 ematical form.ulas. For there is no more quality : every- 
 thing is quantity ! This cant has, for a long time, been 
 ringing in our ears, and Mr. Hinton Rowan Helper seems 
 to be one of its modem trumpeters, though of the lower 
 order. 
 
 Yet we must take men as they are, and, therefore, we 
 wiU now view Mr. Helper Lq his character as number- 
 dealer. 
 
 II.— FALSE IMPKESSIONS FROM TRUE NUMBERS. 
 
 We must take men as they are, and we must also take 
 numbers as they are. We will now suppose that the num- 
 bers which Mr. Helper extracts from official reports, and 
 those which we ourselves will draw from similar sources, 
 are all true and correct. They are aU — ^let us suppose — 
 exact numerical expressions of real facts. Now let us 
 give a few examples, to see what the impressions are which 
 these true numbers may make on our minds. We take 
 them from the Official Census of the United States, 1850. 
 
 TABLE I. THE DEAF AND DUSIB, BLIND, LAME, INSANE, AND 
 
 IDIOTIC PERSONS IN NEW YORK AND VIRGINIA. 
 
 State of New York 6,630 
 
 State of Virginia 3,676 
 
 This is a very nice statistical table, and quite character- 
 
12 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTIOIir. 
 
 istic of the science of statistics. " The deaf and dumb, 
 bliad, insane, and idiotic persons," -like the Living Wit- 
 nesses, are all huddled together in one company. A happy 
 family, indeed ! 
 
 After we had recovered somewhat from the shock the 
 presence of such a variety of cripples naturaUy caused, we 
 looked again at the figures, all told and positive. At first 
 sight — and this is the only sight men often take — ^N"ew 
 York seems to have almost twice as many " deaf and dumb, 
 blind, insane, and idiotic persons" as Virginia. And we 
 did, indeed, set ourselves at work to bewail the glorious 
 Empire State, which, in spite of its freedom, was getting 
 so distressingly blind and insane, and deaf, and idiotic, and 
 dumb, while darkened Virginia saw and heard, and thought 
 and spoke in a ratio so much greater. 
 
 Now, there is nothing so very unfair in this example. 
 We get about the same impression from many of Mr. 
 Hblpee's tables, and his bewaUings are often not based 
 on firmer ground. But let us look at one of his exam- 
 ples: 
 
 TABLE II. THE EXPOETS OP TSSW YOEK AST) VIEGINIA. 
 
 Mr. Helper states that the exports in 1852 amounted 
 
 (in round numbers for popular use). 
 
 In New York to $87,484,000 
 
 In Virginia to 2,505,000 
 
 A common man compares these two numbers and ex- 
 claims : " Alas ! Virginia has forty times less exports than 
 New York !" Now let us but add the comparative popula- 
 tion of the two States : 
 
 New York 1850 3,097,000 
 
 Virginia, 1850 1,421,000 
 
 And, without going into any further reasoning, but by 
 
THE NUMBEES. I3 
 
 only finding the proportions of the exports to the number 
 of inhabitants, our wonder and surprise would be reduced 
 at least fifty per cent. We wUl soon give more examples ; 
 but we have first another observation to make, intimately 
 connected with all these numerical parades. 
 
 m.— FALSE EEASOOTNG FROM TEUE NUMBEES. 
 
 'No one doubts that there must be a cause for these 
 special facts and their representative numbers, and indeed 
 a cause for just what they are. We mean, they must be 
 the result of some agent, or the consequence of some prior 
 principle ; and we must see, too, that the numbers may all 
 be correct, singly and added, but stiU we may mistake 
 their cause or causes, mistake the relations of several such 
 numerical tables, mistake their consequences, and at last 
 their efiect on man. For man is, after all, the end 
 of the whole song of numbers and notes. There seem, 
 then, to be some difficulties in the way of using and 
 explaining numbers; but Mr. Helper does not think 
 so. He has an improved camera obscura, a kind of 
 a dark-lantern or "nigger" glass, which, showing every- 
 thing in the same swarthy hue, gives at once the 
 cause for everything, seen or unseen ; and that is, by- 
 the-by, the only glass he ever uses. While thus we 
 others, poor mortals, must break our heads, and think, 
 and compare, and study, and observe, he simply looks 
 through his mysterious glass and exclaims: "Slavery!" 
 and all difficulties vanish at once. We envy the man for 
 his time-and-labor-saving machine, but can not refrain from 
 giving our curious readers a few examples, to show in what 
 a peculiar way it works. We are tempted to believe that 
 its balance-wheel is a little out of order. 
 
14 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 IV.— NEW YOEK AND NORFOLK. 
 The wise Governor of Virginia extols, as Mr. Helper 
 quotes, the bygone trophies of the harbor of Norfolk, and 
 laments its present miserable condition, numbers ever being 
 added to demonstrate and to prove. Now, there is many 
 a harbor on the long coast of the Atlantic which has 
 met with a similar fortune, both South and North. It was 
 prophesied that New York would become "the center 
 of trade and great emporium of North America," and 
 even of the whole Western world, long, long ago — long 
 before Governor Wise bewailed his country — at a period, 
 indeed, when the enslaved children of innocent darkness 
 were stiU gracing the shores and streets of New Amster- 
 dam. The James River is no Hudson, and the AUeghanies 
 are no Palisades. The lakes of the North, too, have some 
 little influence on commerce. We might as well compare 
 London with Norwich. But still Mr. Helper uses his dark 
 machine, looks through the glass, and answers : " Slavery!" 
 Now, does Mr. Hintox Rowan Helper really think 
 that, if Virginia had emancipated her slaves as soon as 
 New York, the proportion between the commerce of 
 Norfolk and that of New York would have stiU been the 
 same in 1850 as it was in 1790? Or, that "the direct 
 foreign trade of Norfolk would still exceed that of the city 
 of New York ?" Or, that Virginia would stiU " stand pre- 
 eminently the first commercial State of the Union ?" Or, 
 " that her commerce would still exceed m amount that of 
 all the New England States combined ?" No, we can not 
 think him lacking thus much in judgment. But still, his sta- 
 tistical exhibitions would lead to such conclusions, and he 
 himself must have had similar impressions when he turned 
 
THE SrUMBEES. I5 
 
 away from the picture he had drawn of the two States, 
 " with feelings mingled with indignation and disgust." 
 
 v.— NEW YORK AND NEW ORLEANS. 
 But why did Mr. Helper not take the statistics of 
 New Orleans and compare them with those of New York ? 
 This would have been, in every respect, a fairer compari- 
 son than New York and Norfolk. New Orleans is the 
 great outlet of the IMississippi, the principal point of attrac- 
 tion for the South and West ; New York a similar magnet 
 for the North, East, and Northwest. Now let us see the 
 exports of the one and of the other, not forgetting, how- 
 ever, that New York now rules, and will probably rule 
 for many years to come, over the largest productive area 
 of the United States. 
 
 TABLE HI. ^EXPORTS AND IMPORTS. 
 
 \_From the "Annuttire de VEconomie Politique et de la Staiisiique," Paris, 1859.] 
 [The table refers to the year 1857 — at least we think so, from compar- 
 ing some of its general items with the report of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury of the United States for that year.] 
 
 Total exports of the United States $338,985,000 
 
 Total exports of New York 111,029,000 
 
 Total exports of New Orleans 91,536,000 
 
 Total exports of Boston and Charlestown. . 24,894,000 
 Total exports of Mobile 20,575,000 
 
 This is the order of the cities in amount of goods ex- 
 ported. In this table New Orleans is the second, and, 
 indeed, comes very near to New York. Would not this 
 give a fairer and more respectable picture than New York 
 and Norfolk ? Or, let us take the imports, according to 
 the same document : 
 
 Total imports of the United States $360,890,000 
 
 Total imports of New York 222,550,000 
 
 Total imports of 31 States (exc. New York) 148,340,000 
 Total imports of Boston and Charlestown. . 44,840,000 
 
 Total imports of New Orleans 24,891,000 
 
 Total imports of Philadelphia 17,850,000 
 
jg THE AMBEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 We see from tMs taMe that New Tork takes two thirds 
 of an the imports of the United States, and New Orleans 
 comes immediately after Boston, and before Philadelphia. 
 At any rate, this would again have been a fairer compari- 
 son than New Tork and Virginia, South Carolina and 
 Pennsylvania, North Caroliaa and Massachusetts. 
 
 But let us imitate Mr. Helpee. 
 
 VI. — LOUISIANA AND MASSACHUSETTS— NEW OR- 
 LEANS AND BOSTON— ALABAMA AND MAINE. 
 
 TABLE IV. VALUE OF EXPORTS FEOM 1856 TO 1857. 
 
 IFrom Vi6 official report of the Treasi^rer of the United States.'} 
 
 Exports of Louisiana (Slave State) $91,894,000 
 
 Exports of Massachusetts (Free State) 30,146,000 
 
 Exports of Kew Orleans (Slave) 91,536,000 
 
 Exports of Boston and Charlestown (Free) . . 24,894,000 
 
 Exports of Alabama (Slave) 20,576,000 
 
 Exports of Maine (Free) 8,716,000 
 
 There is that negro-loving Massachusetts, of good old 
 Puritan stock, with its manufacturing palaces and its 
 spacious port! There is Northern Maine, with its im- 
 measurable natural wealth and its magnificent harbor ! 
 And stiU the poor Slave States are ahead of them ! Neither 
 the elevation of modern Athens nor the depth of Portland 
 can stifle " our indignation and disgust !" But the picture 
 would become still more alarming if we added some items 
 of population. We have not the populations of 1857 at 
 hand, and therefore we must be content to give those of 
 1 850. The numbers would now be different, but the ratios 
 would not vary much. 
 
 Population of the State of Louisiana 517 oog 
 
 Population of the State of Massachusetts 994' 000 
 
 Louisiana had already three times as many dollars of 
 exports as Massachusetts; but the comparison of their 
 populations would double the ratio. 
 
THE NUMBEES. J^ 
 
 Oh, thou unfortunate Massachusetts ! tvpice three times 
 below thy Slave sister on the Mississippi ! Thou suhkest 
 so low probably because, in days of yore, thou bumedst 
 with Puritan zeal those four innocent Quakers, in rashness 
 the prototypes of thy Abolitionists ! 
 
 And thou, thrice iinhappy Boston, Charlestown included, 
 free white and free colored, and still 870,000,000 behind the 
 Slave city of New Orleans ! Why didst thou emancipate 
 Mum Bet ? That first free " nigger" girl of the North is 
 the cause of all thy shortcoming ! 
 
 But this would be Helper's logic and Hinton RowAii's 
 rhetoric, and we abstain from indulging longer in those 
 articles. 
 
 Let us open his own show-tables again ! 
 
 Vn.— NEW YOEK BUYS VIRGINIA. 
 
 Mr. Helper had probably his numerical hosts continu- 
 ally before his eyes, and sometimes accidentally combined 
 one item with another, and then made a comparison without 
 "jumping exactly at conclusions." Thus he saw the num- 
 bers which express the real and personal wealth of the city 
 of New York, and somewhere in their vicinity the num- 
 bers of Virginia. " Well," says he, " what do you think of 
 that ? The city of New York could buy the whole State 
 of Virginia!" Now, what is Mr. Helper's purpose? 
 Why his surprise ? Is that all due to Slavery ? Are there 
 no other rich cities in the world? The wealth of a whole 
 nation often concentrates in a city. There is no Negro 
 Slavery in England ; but they say London could easUy buy 
 one or two' provinces of its own — New York and a few 
 European kingdoms included. 
 
jg THE AMEEIOAN QUEBTION. 
 
 Vin.— IMPORTS AND EXPORTS COMBINED OF Alli THE 
 PRINCIPAL PORTS. 
 Fighting, with inimbers as arms, seems, after all, a pleas- 
 ant exercise. It fastens the interest, and while it amuses, 
 it strengthens the Constitution. We must continue this 
 prelude a little longer. 
 
 TABLE V. TOTAJL IMPOETS AND EXPORTS. 
 
 IFrom the " Annmjire" {quoted oJ<«i«).] 
 
 Of the United States $723,850,000 
 
 New York 346,939,000 
 
 New Orleans 116,784,000 
 
 Boston and Charlestown 73,167,000 
 
 Charleston, S. C 30,023,000 
 
 Philadelphia 24,985,000 
 
 Baltimore 24,287,000 
 
 San Francisco 23,566,000 
 
 Mohile 21,485,000 
 
 Oswego, Champlain, and Lakes 18,123,000 
 
 Savannah 11,450,000 
 
 Eichmond 6,600,000 
 
 There, Mr. Helper, are the principal ports of aU our 
 States, Free and Slave. They stand there, aU in order, ac- 
 cording to their merits — old grandmother New York at 
 the head. But do you not see that her children follow her 
 peaceably, one after the other — ^first a black one and then 
 a white ome ? Do you not see, too, that N'ew Orleans has 
 indeed grown to be rather a big boy, though raised down 
 South, where the "niggers" are? Why wiU you come 
 and disturb this order and harmony between children of 
 the same mother, who walk along dressed in numbers 
 more harmonious than the planets even ? 
 
 But Mr. Helper has somewhat the nature of a cpmet 
 and hence his disturbing influence. Before we lose sight 
 of him entirely, we may point out a few more of his 
 eccentricities. 
 
THE NUMBEES. 
 
 19 
 
 IX.— Hi;j.PEE MISTAKHiTG YEAES.* 
 Mr. Helpee, in his fir'st comparisons, which were to pre- 
 pare the way for all "indignation and disgust," chose not 
 only three Free States which are generally considered as 
 the most wealthy and populous of the whole Union, and 
 compared them with three Slave States which show, ac- 
 cording to the United States census, the least growth; 
 but, in order to make the "disparities" still more "de- 
 grading," he selected just those years which best suited 
 his " patriotic purpose." Thus, in his comparison of the 
 imports and exports of New York and Virginia, he saw 
 fit to give the exports of 1852 instead of 1853 — Virginia's 
 tables showing, in the former year, $1,000,000 less than in 
 the latter, and Ifew York $21,000,000 more. Immediately 
 afterward, in the table of imports, he changed again to 
 1853, New York having imported in that year $46,000,000 
 more than in 1852, and Virginia $836,854 less. He draws 
 quite liberally on the uneven treasures of 1852, 1853, 1854, 
 and 1855. Sometimes, too, he mistakes States for Cities, 
 and vice versa. Thus, he does not compare the exports of 
 Pennsylvania and South Carohna, as he does of New 
 York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina; but 
 he takes Charleston and Philadelphia. The States, how- 
 ever, would give the following results : 
 
 Pennsylvania. Sonth Carolina. 
 
 Imports in 1791 $3,436,000 $2,693,000 
 
 Imports in 1853 6,255,000 15,400,000 
 
 The strongest Pro-Slavery State would compare too well in 
 that respect. 
 
 * Several tables and estimates were thankfully received by the 
 author from S. Babstow, a student ia Union College. The numbers 
 9, 10, 11 are based upon a selection of them. 
 
20 THE AMEEICAN QUESTIOIT. 
 
 But why did the impartial "patriot" not compare 
 Maine and Georgia, Michigan and Missouri, Connecticut 
 and Kentucky, which would have given much fairer re- 
 sults ? They would have been altogether fairer States to 
 be compared with each other, in regard to extent, natural 
 advantages, and history. The educational statistics, espe- 
 cially, would have confounded Mr. Helpee's universal 
 argument. 
 
 X.— HELPER IGNORING PAUPERS AND CRIMINALS. 
 
 But to his six States Mr. Helpee might well have added 
 some statistics about pauperism and criminality, things 
 which are regarded by some to be as sure an index of the 
 state of society as the amount of hay and hemp produced. 
 We may supply here that little oversight. 
 
 TABLE VI. — WHOLE NFMBEE OF PAUPEES STJPPOETED AND 
 CEIMINALS CONVICTED WITHIN THE TEAE 1850. 
 
 PATIPEES. 
 States. Popnlation. Paupers. Proportion. 
 
 New York 3,097,000 39,835 1 in 50 
 
 Virginia 1,421,000 5,118 1 in 200 
 
 Massachusetts 904,000 15,777 1 in 60 
 
 North Carolina 869,000 1,931 1 in 400 
 
 Pennsylvania 2,311,000 11,550 1 in 200 
 
 South Carolina 668,000 1,642 1 in 400 
 
 CRIMINALS. 
 States. Population. Criminals. Proportion. 
 
 New York 3,097,000 10,279. . . 1 in 800 
 
 "Virginia 1,421,000 107. .. 1 in 13,000 
 
 Massachusetts 990,000 7,250. . 1 in 1 200 
 
 North Carolina 869,000 647... 1 in I'sOO 
 
 Pennsylvania 2,311,000 858. . . 1 in s'oOO 
 
 South Carolina 668,000 46. . . 1 in 14' 000 
 
 But we know well that the result of such comparisons 
 would destroy the symmetry of the artistico-statistical 
 work of the patriot, and on that ground he may be par- 
 doned by an art-loving community. 
 
THE irtJMBEES. 21 
 
 XI.— HELPEE ON HAY. 
 
 " "We can now prove," Mr. H. says, " and we shall now 
 proceed to prove, that the annual hay crop of the Free 
 States is worth considerahle more, in dollars and cents, 
 than aU the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, hemp, and cane- 
 sugar annually produced in the fifteen Slave States." He 
 quite hberaUy gives 111 as the average value of a ton of 
 hay, and produces the following recapitulation : 
 
 Hay crop of Free States $142,138,998 
 
 Sundry products of Slave States 138,605,723 
 
 Balance in favor of Free States $3,533,275 
 
 USTow, the tables and estimates of Prof. De Bow, " the 
 able and courteous Superintendent," are quite different. 
 According to his Compendium of the Census of 1850, we 
 find the average price of hay to be seven dollars, and that 
 of the other products differing in a similar way from 
 Hblpeb's " impartial" estimates. (See tables CLXXXVI. 
 and CXX. of the United States Census.) Our recapitula- 
 tion would then present the following figures : 
 
 Hay crop of Free States $88,836,874 
 
 Sundry products of Slave States 141,100,081 
 
 Balance in favor of the South $52,263,807 
 
 The value of the cotton crop of 1850 alone exceeded, 
 
 according to Prof. De Bow's tables, the hay crop of the 
 
 North by $2,000,000. In a similar way might other tables 
 
 be modified. Bushel Measure Products would appear as 
 
 follows : 
 
 Free States $276,839,041 
 
 Slave States 244,770,070 
 
 Balance In favor of the Korth $32,069,041 
 
 Instead of Mr. Helper's 44,782,636 
 
22 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 And the Pound Measure Products would present the fol- 
 
 lowing table : 
 
 Free States $151,260,408 
 
 Slave States 155,648,222 
 
 Balance in favor of the South $4,387,814 
 
 Instead of Helper's in favor of the North. . 59,199,108 
 
 Besides, the agricultural home manufactures show, ac- 
 cording to Prof. De Bow, a balance in favor of the South 
 by more than $8,000,000, which might be added to the 
 bushels or pounds of the South. The District of Colum- 
 bia, too, is mentioned there as of some little value, while 
 in the eyes of the tabulating Mr. Helpek it is a perfect 
 nonentity. But we must abstain from further particulars. 
 
 XII.— EXHAUSTION OF LANDS AND HANDS. 
 
 We have pointed out some of the modifications of 
 which Mr. Helper's numbers are susceptible, though we 
 consider them one by one. These were, however, but a 
 few skirmishes among the outposts, of Httle advantage 
 to either side. We now begin to make more wholesale 
 work of them, though the main battle is not yet on hand. 
 
 Mr. HJELPEE speaks of the exhaustion of the South ; 
 but his words and conclusions might just as well be ap- 
 plied to the whole Union. We aU— Slave States and Free 
 States, North and South — are exhausting our lands and 
 our hands, our soU and our labor, our agriculture and our 
 general industry. We take all the different branches of 
 industry together, because they are as intimately and 
 naturally connected as the members of our physical bodies. 
 An injury done to one is an injury done to all. The time 
 is graduaUy passing away in which party pohticians can 
 further arouse and excite the producer against the manu- 
 
THE NUMBEES. 
 
 23 
 
 facturer, or the merchant against either. We begin to 
 understand that their interests are the same. Long before 
 Bastiat pnhHshed his Sarmonies Economiques, this prin- 
 ciple was anticipated. The systematic exposition of it by 
 modern economists can leave no doubt in the mind of the 
 impartial student as to its merits. Let us be glad that 
 the dark times of industrial enmity are coming to an end ! 
 There is no truth in the old saying, " What one gains, 
 another must lose !" Our earth is not a pandemonium. 
 Only as long as men are ignorant of their true self-interest, 
 is there a " beUum omnium adversus omnes" — a war of 
 everybody against everybody. As society advances and 
 civilization grows, the great principle of harmony is per- 
 ceived to reign over all that concerns matter oi; man. 
 
 Let us now refer to our own H. C. Caeet, and see 
 some of the applications of this principle to the United 
 States. We can not do better than to use his own lan- 
 guage, for he is the acknowledged apostle of this " har- 
 mony of interests." He has directed all the powers of 
 his mind toward that one great principle, and has ex- 
 pounded it with an energy almost bordering on mono- 
 mania. We have so much the more a right to quote him, 
 as he, too, has written statistical works, and also a volume 
 on Slavery. In his Lbttee X. to President Buchak^ajst, 
 he says': 
 
 " Throughout the larger portion of the Union the market is distant 
 hundreds and thousands of miles, and the consequences are seen in 
 the fact that the soil is becoming almost everywhere exhausted — 
 wealth thus diminishing when it should increase. 
 
 "How it diminishes has recently been shown by an eminent agri- 
 culturist, from whom we learn : 
 
 "Tliat the potash and phosphoric acid annually taken from the 
 land is worth, at the usual market-price of these commodities, nearly 
 $20,000.000 — scarcely any of which is ever returned. 
 
24 
 
 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 " That the ashes of 600,000,000 tushels of corn are annuaUy taken 
 from the soU— scarcely any of which are ever returned. 
 
 " That the total annual waste of the mineral constituents of food is 
 'equal to 1,500,000,000 hushels of corn.' 
 
 '"To suppose,' says the author of these estimates—' to suppose that 
 this state of things can contmue, and we, as a nation, remain pros- 
 perous, is simply ridiculous. We have as yet much virgin soil, but 
 it will not he long ere we reap the reward of our present improvidence. 
 It is merely a question of time, and time wiU solve the problem in a 
 most unmistakable manner. What with our earth-butchery and prod- 
 igality, we are each year losing the intrinsic essence of our vitality. 
 
 " ' Ovi country has not yet grown feeble from this loss of its life- 
 blood, but the hour is fixed when, if our present system continue, the last throb 
 of the nation's heart mil have ceased, and when America, Greece, and Rome vnU 
 stand together among the ruins of the past. 
 
 " ' The question of economy shoiild be, not, How much do we an- 
 nually produce, but. How much of our annual productions is saved to 
 the soil ? Labor employed in robbing the earth of its capital stock 
 of fertilizing matter, is worse than labor thrown away. In the latter 
 case, it is a loss to the present generation ; in the former, it becomes 
 an inheritance of poverty for our successors. Man is but a tenant of 
 the soil, and he is guilty of a crime when he reduces its value for other 
 tenants who are to come after him.' 
 
 "Waste, such as is here described, Mr. President, is a crime, and it 
 finds its punishment in the natural, moral, and political decline, to 
 which your attention has now been called. Look almost where the 
 traveler may, he is struck with the wretched condition of that which, 
 in this country, is called agriculture, but which, in the civilized coun- 
 tries of Europe, would be denominated pure and simple robbery of the 
 great bank given by the Creator for the use of man. Its effects are 
 shown in the facts that, in New York, where eighty years since twenty- 
 five to thirty bushels of wheat were an ordinary crop, the average is 
 now only fourteen, whUe that of Indian com is but twenty-five. In 
 Ohio, a State that but half a century since was a wUdemess, the aver- 
 age of wheat is less than twelve ; and it diminishes when it should in- 
 crease. Throughout the West the process of exhaustion is everywhere 
 going on ; the large crops of the early period of a settlement being 
 followed invariably by smaller ones in later years." 
 
 You may caE this a dark picture, or a gloomy prophecy. 
 But it is the same that Liebig but lately pointed to, from 
 his far-famed laboratory. It is the same that Fe. List has 
 deduced from history. It is the same that PnoinDHON reads 
 
THE NUMBEES. 25 
 
 in Socialism, when he says : " Of what account can all con- 
 solidations of property and artificial manurings be against 
 such a radical exhaustion !" It is the result of that suici- 
 dal pohcy " which first exports food and then men" — that 
 drives the son from his home and sends him to seek his 
 fortune in distant lands — -that scatters a population over ex- 
 tensive wastes of land and makes it descend in the scale 
 of civilization — that disregards the value of productive 
 power, and looks only at momentary production and gain 
 — a policy which is ever doomed to pant and to reach after 
 more lands, though the old homesteads might harbor a 
 hundred millions more. It is, indeed, excusable if our 
 countrymen, ashamed of their nation's decay, lose then- 
 patience, and write from abroad : " A nation that can not 
 make its own clothing, its bunting for its flags, and carry 
 its own letters, deserves to be placed where foreigners 
 place us — ^between the Russians and Negroes in point of 
 civilization." And in the face of all this Hviug testimony 
 of aU nations, Mr. Helpek indifferently takes up his dark- 
 lantern, and, negrofied aU over, exclaims: "Slavery! 
 Slavery !" And our poor laborers, still suffering from the 
 di'eadful crisis and general insecurity, listen with mingled 
 feelings of hope and fear to the false prophet. 
 
 JSTational independence, diversity of employment, work 
 for every talent, consohdation of our settlements, human- 
 ity to our laborers, humanity to the laborers of the world, 
 real, solid, undisturbed, steady progress ; all point us to a 
 home market, to home industry, to a home pohcy, to home 
 protection, recommended by all our statesmen, from 
 WASHniTGTON', JEEFBESOiir, and MABisoif, to Jackson', 
 Clat, and Webstee, while the party tricksters and mis- 
 taken philanthropists have, these long years, mystified the 
 
3g THE AMEEICAN QUEBTION. 
 
 diflferent interests of the people with the question of 
 Slavery, as if it were the sole poiat whereia the nation 
 was sore and suffering. 
 
 It is not our "present purpose to adduce extensive facts 
 and reasonings on the subject of the harmony of the dif- 
 ferent interests. We only ask our countrymen whether 
 we might not, with equal propriety,' use, at least to a con- 
 siderahle extent, Mr. Helper's language about the South, 
 in reference to our whole Union. Substituting " Europe" 
 for " the North," who can fail to be struck with the adapt- 
 edness of his language to our whole common country — ^to 
 the Slave States and to the Free States ? 
 
 "Europe is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they must, and 
 do, mate two pilgrimages per annum — one in the spring and one in 
 the fall. In one way or another, we are more or less suhservient to 
 Europe every day of our lives. In infancy we are swaddled in Europmn 
 muslia ; in childhood we are humored with European gewgaws ; in youth 
 we are instructed out of Northern books [by teachers who have learned 
 from European volumes, we may add] ; at the age of maturity we 
 sow our ' wild oats' on European soil ; in middle life we exhaust our 
 wealth, energies, and talents in the dishonorable vocation of entailing 
 our dependence on our children, and on our children's children, and to 
 the neglect of our o-»vn interests and the interests of those around us, 
 in giving aid and succor to every department of European power ; in 
 the decline of life we remedy our eyesight with European spectacles, 
 and support our infirmities with European canes ; in old age we are 
 drugged with Northern physic [that may be so to some extent] ; and 
 finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern cam- 
 bric [or rather in European broadcloth], are stretched upon a bier, 
 borne to the grave in a Northern carriage, entombed with a Northern 
 spade [by an Irish grave-digger], and memorized with a European 
 slab!" 
 
 So we go! There is bathos for you! This is what 
 somebody calls an inverted climax, or the art of sink- 
 ing I Mr. Helpee followed his man up, or rather down, 
 to the very grave, than which there is nothing lower! 
 As we are sadly deficient in that sort of genius, his Ian- 
 
THE NtJMBBES. 27 
 
 guage came to ns mucli a propos. A peroration charao- 
 teristio of this subject of exhaustion ! 
 
 Xin.— THE FIEST CAUSE AND LAST EEFEOT. 
 
 In all his hosts of numbers and numerical deductions, 
 Mr. HiNTON Ro"WAiq- Helper has forgotten one great 
 agent ; namely, Population — the very beginning from 
 which every number and show-table comes, and the very 
 end in which they aU must concentrate again — the very 
 original cause and the very ultimate effect — the fundar 
 mental basis and the crowning top of the whole industrial 
 edifice, with all its manifold figures, Arabic and Roman. 
 
 We win start with a few facts or principles, the most 
 of which are self-evident. Wbenever there is any explana- 
 tion needed, we will give it, still as concisely as possible in 
 order not to interrupt the general train of our argument. 
 
 XIV.— -POPULATION THE FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE OF 
 PRODUCTION. 
 
 Production depends upon Population. Where there is 
 not the latter, the former can not be. The larger the 
 population is, the more extensive must be production, at 
 least in our civilized communities. Generally one hundred 
 men can produce more than fifty can. And, indeed, pro- 
 duction not only keeps pace with population, but even 
 goes ahead of it. 
 
 This question is of too great importance to be lightly 
 passed over. For there were those, and probably are stiU 
 some, who believe that a curse rests upon all increase of 
 population. Men came to this belief especially from the 
 fact that certain nations of modern ages could no longer 
 support their inhabitants, who therefore were forced to 
 
28 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 leave their homes and to seek subsistence in countries as 
 yet more thinly settled. Philosophers have been very 
 busy trying to find a cause and a law for this phenomenon. 
 The English economist, Malthtjs, at last thought he had 
 found them. " Population," he says, " tends to outgrow 
 the production of food ; Population increases in a geomet- 
 rical progression, whUe Production increases only in an 
 arithmetical one." This theoiy is in immediate connection 
 with that of Ricaedo in regard to the course of cultivar 
 tion, namely, "that society begins with cultivating the 
 most fertile soils, and, as population increases, must take 
 possession of the poorer and less productive ones." Ac- 
 cording to this compound theory. Production grows more 
 slowly than Population. A nation must thus continually 
 expect smaller returns for the labor of its inhabitants; 
 they have less to consume, less to live upon, and poverty 
 and misery must be the end. Sismondi, one of this school 
 of economists, uses, in this respect, the following precious 
 words : " As soon as population has increased to too large 
 an extent; that is, as soon as over-population takes place, 
 the surplus must yield to a dire necessity. The earth 
 must swallow again the children she can not nourish.'' 
 Providence must thus take refuge in pestilence and war, 
 and thus decimate human society at proper times; else 
 over-population will take place, with all its horrors of 
 poverty and starvation. According to this theory, the hu- 
 man race has the great privilege of choosing between two 
 evils — war and murder, or famine and starvation, with some 
 slight variation of pestilence, or expatriation to a country 
 where the doom, however, is only delayed for a while. 
 
 Let us cast away this direful irony on Nature and 
 Providence! These learned commentators on the plans 
 
THE NTJMBEES. 29 
 
 of God have misinterpreted the story of Pandora's box. 
 Hope is stUl left to man, and left to him mitU " he enters 
 heU." Nature is not so gloomy as their theory, and poor 
 Providence, too indvdgent, must not too often bear the 
 complaint of friend and foe. Ricaedo's hypothesis, on 
 ■which, to a great extent, the whole bloody theory is based, 
 has been fomid entirely false. Men have everywhere, as 
 H. C Caret has proved, begmi with the cultivation of the 
 higher and less productive soils, and descended gradually 
 to the lower and more fertile ones, to cultivate which the 
 first settlers had not the requisite capital. But even with- 
 out this, knowledge, and capital, and production must 
 necessarily increase with the increase of population. We 
 will not further discuss this point, but add some statistical 
 proofs ffom the " Testimony of the Ifations." 
 
 McCDiioCH says about England: "The population of 
 England, since the eighteenth century, has doubled ; the 
 production certainly tripled or quadrupled." 
 
 Petjcbcet, one of the most celebrated statisticians of 
 Europe, says : " The peasant in France, who formerly had 
 known but very gross food and unhealthy beverage, has 
 now meat, wine, bread, and beer. If we turn to Germany, 
 the change for the better is still more striking than in 
 France; and thus, while the numbers of the population 
 are continually iucreasing, their comforts and enjoyments 
 are increasing stiU more rapidly." 
 
 A writer iu one of the agricultural journals of Bavaria, 
 after a most careful examination and statistical comparison, 
 says : " The present emigration from Europe is not com- 
 manded by necessity. Europe itself is an agricultural con- 
 tinent. The present population is 263,000,000. If order 
 and quiet would reign, 400,000,000 of people might easily 
 
g(j THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 be supported." The southeastern part of Russia might 
 alone feed a whole continent. 
 
 Production increases, then, faster than population. That 
 this is the case with the United States, too, writers of 
 every description have proved, by filling their volumes 
 with pleasing tables concerning the great increase of our 
 material happiness. 
 
 We do not wish to be misunderstood in this. We said, 
 that it is population which causes the production and origi- 
 nates thus the statistical show-tables of exports and imports, 
 of agriculture and commerce, and of every item of national 
 wealth and happiness which can be expressed by numbers. 
 We went further, even, and showed that a hundred persons 
 produce not only twice as much as fifty, but even more ; 
 perhaps three or four times as much — for different reasons 
 to state which we wiU not interrupt our general argument. 
 And this is the opening of our labyrinth ! But we will go 
 slowly, and may, at our pleasure, safely retrace our steps. 
 
 XV.— RATIO OF INOEEASE OE POPULATION IN DIF- 
 FERENT COUNTRIES. 
 
 We know now, on the whole, the effect of population 
 on production. Now let us compare the statistics of our 
 own country with those of other leading nations of mod- 
 ern civilization, and see at what rate nations generally 
 increase in population ! Let us find out whether we, the 
 United States of America, are above or below the com- 
 mon rate. We wiU not now ask why or wherefore but 
 only see and compare the statistical facts. Their con- 
 nected thread will gradually lead us to causes and influ- 
 ences which worked upon Mr. H.'s show-tables of the 
 South and of the North. 
 
THE NTJMBEES. 31 
 
 TABLE Vir. EATIO OF KATUEAL INCEEASB OP POPULATION' 
 
 OE DIFFEBENT COtTSTTEIESi COMPAEED AVITH THE U. S. 
 [From the Cmsus of the ZT. &, I860.] 
 States. Year. Population. Year. Population. 
 
 Great Britain, . . 1800 '. . 15,800,000 1861 . . . 27,475,000 
 
 England 1801 8,350,000 1851. . .16,921,000 
 
 Ireland 1805 5,395,000 1851... 6,515,000 
 
 Scotland 1801 1,608,000 1851 . . . 2,888,000 
 
 France 1801 27,349,000 1851. . .35,783,000 
 
 Prussia 1816 10,349,000 1849. . .16,331,000 
 
 United States.. 1800- 
 
 ■Whites.. 4,304,000 
 Fr.Col'd. 108,000 
 Slaves... 893,000 
 
 19,553,000 
 
 434,000 
 
 1851 .j 3,204,000 
 
 Total.. 5,305,000 J [ 23,191,000 
 
 We will add here the table which shows the increase of 
 the population of the United States from decennium to 
 decennium. 
 
 TABLE vm. EATIO OF THE LNCEEASB OF THE POPULATION 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES FEOM DECADE TO DECADE. 
 
 Tears. Whites. Free Colored. Slaves. Total 
 
 1790 3,172,000 59,000 697,000 3,929,000 
 
 1800 4,304,000 108,000 893,000 5,305,000 
 
 1810 5,862,000 186,000. . . 1,191,000 7,239,000 
 
 1820 7,861,000 238,000. . . 1,538,000 9,638,000 
 
 1830. . . . 10,537,000 319,000. . . 2,009,000. . . .12,866,000 
 
 1840. . . . 14,195,000. . . . 386,000. . . 2,487,000. . . . 17,069,000 
 1850. . . . 19,553,000 434,000. . . 3,204,000. . . .23,191,000 
 
 We see from these tables that Great Britain has not 
 quite doubled its population in fifty years. England, sep- 
 arately or with Scotland, has a little more than doubled in 
 the same number of years. France has, during that same 
 half century, increased its numbers by only a little more 
 than one half, and Prussia has, during that time, increased 
 at about the same rate as England. To double the popu- 
 lation in about fifty years, has been the highest ratio ob- 
 tained by any of these modern nations, though some sta- 
 tisticians state that England doubled its population in forty- 
 five years. Or, as the Census says : " The annual increase 
 of the IJnited States has been nearly three times as great 
 
32 THE AMEBICAN QUESTION. 
 
 as that of Prussia, notwithstanding the large population 
 that was added to her by the partition of Poland ; more than 
 four times as much as Russia ; six times as much as Great 
 Britain ; nine times as much as Austria ; ten times as much 
 as France." 
 
 But how does it come that the United States is so much 
 ahead of any other nation ? During the same fifty years 
 it has increased its population to almost five times its origi- 
 nal number. It has not doubled in fifty years, but in 
 twenty-five, nay, almost in twenty, if we compare only the 
 white tables. 
 
 Everybody wiU, of course, give immigration as the 
 reason of this extraordinary increase. But let us see how 
 much this faster increase of our population is due to immi- 
 gration. 
 
 XVI.— RATIO OF THE NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL 
 
 INCREASE OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED 
 
 STATES. 
 
 Should we proud Republicans, modern Israelites, and 
 modem Romans — as we are often called — ^measure our- 
 selves and our natural productiveness by the standard of 
 other nations, such as England, France, or Prussia — called 
 the most enlightened nations of old Europe — our mmibers 
 would, at best, have doubled in fifty years ; that is, our 
 population would have been, in 1850, 10,610,000, instead 
 of 23,191,000. There would remain an increase of 12,581,- 
 000 which could not be accounted for otherwise than by 
 immigration. Or, if we take only the white population, 
 there would have been, in 1850, 8,608,000, instead of 
 19,553,000, and the immigrants and their descendants 
 would then be 10,945,000. 
 
 Let us see another account. An able statistical writer 
 
THE NUMBEES. 33 
 
 from Washington, who took great pains in his calculations, 
 arrived, after having carefully counted each year's in- 
 crease, at the following conclusions : 
 
 TABLE IX. THE NATIVE WHITE POPULATION. 
 
 [jF/'om RwnVs MerclMnW Magazine, iTo. OZCVL] 
 
 The native white population of the United States, in 1850, 
 
 would have been, without immigration since 1800 8,995,000 
 
 " 1810 10,710,000 
 
 " 1820 12,318,000 
 
 " ■' " " 1830 14,330,000 
 
 " " 1840 16,771,000 
 
 And the immigranis and thdr descendants number, in 1850, 
 
 since 1840 3,265,000 
 
 " 1830 5,656,000 
 
 •' 1820 8,669,000 
 
 " 1810 9,277,000 
 
 " 1800 11,032,000 
 
 One account ascribes thus to immigration, since 1800, 
 12,581,000 ; the other, 10,945,000 ; and the third account 
 gives 11,032,000. 
 
 What right have we, now, to reject one of these accounts or 
 an approximate number ? Do we procreate more children 
 than other nations ? Is our ratio of annual births over 
 deaths more favorable ? Do we live longer ? And if 
 some statisticians wish to have it so, have they ever given 
 fuU weight to the effects of immigration on the tables of 
 population ? If they give the ratio of our natural increase 
 as being 0.13 or 0.30 per cent, in our fiivor, may they not 
 have been slightly mistaken in their difficult calculations ? 
 Did they know, and if so, did they make due allowances 
 for the fact, that children of foreign parents, though born 
 but one day after their mother's arrival on this soil, are aU 
 classed among the natives ? But though the result of our 
 numerical and ethnological comparisons and deductions 
 can hardly be doubted, stiU we will fortify it by another 
 consideration : namely — ^the fact that the immigrants in- 
 
 2* 
 
34 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 crease naturally faster than the natives, and, therefore, 
 help proportionately more than the natives to fill the tables 
 of population. We quote from a speech of the author, 
 delivered some years ago at Albany : 
 
 " This fact," he says, " has but lately attracted public attention. In 
 the Massachusetts census of 1855, the reporter, summing up his 
 statistics, finds that the native population of that State is about three 
 and a half times larger than the foreign one, but that the births are 
 almost equal, 48 per cent, native, and 46 per cent, foreign, the rest 
 unknown. He looks with wonderment at those numbers, and comes 
 to the conclusion that the immigrants must propagate themselves 
 quicker than the natives. Foreign women, he calculates, must produce 
 children three times faster than American ladies. Yet this greater 
 fecundity of foreign women is not confirmed, certainly not to that 
 extent. Newspapers came, then, to the aid of the perplexed reporter, 
 and stated that there were more foreign females in Massachusetts than 
 males ; but this also did not explain the proportion of the increase. 
 The reporter remains puzzled, and he guesses, at last, that if that 
 increase goes on at the same ratio, the foreigners will yet swallow the 
 natives. 
 
 " Now, this mystery is fully explained by our above observation, 
 najnely, the great proportion of grown-up persons amxyng the immigrants. 
 This is the fundamental cause of the faster increase. Take on an 
 average an equal number of foreigners and natives, and there will be 
 more grown-up persons among the foreigners, and therefore more 
 marriages, and then more children. Many foreigners in that number 
 will be ready to enter the vineyard of the Lord, and extend the 
 empire of human flesh, while as many natives are yet lying in their 
 nurses' arms, with hardly flesh enough for their own tender limbs." 
 
 But let US see the proportion of grown persons among 
 the immigrants. We refer to the table of Mr. Edmund 
 Flagg, the efficient Superintendent of the Statistical 
 Bureau of the State Department. It is for the year 1855, 
 but may weU be taken as a standard for former years, 
 for the proportion of grown persons must in those times 
 have been still larger, as it is but lately that immigrants 
 have had the confidence to come, with their whole families, 
 to this "fqr-pff lanfl," 
 
THE NTTMBEES. 
 
 35 
 
 TABLE X. THE AGE OP IMMIGRANTS. 
 
 irrom the Eeport of the Superintendent of the Statistical Bureau of tlie State 
 Department, 1865.] 
 Males. 
 
 Under 5 years of age . . . 
 Between 5 and 10 years 
 
 " 10 " 
 
 15 ■ 
 
 
 " 15 " 
 
 20 
 
 
 " 20 " 
 
 25 
 
 
 " 25 " 
 
 30 
 
 
 " 30 " 
 
 35 
 
 
 " 35 " 
 
 40 
 
 
 Forty years and upward 
 
 Age not stated 
 
 
 
 . 8,000.. 
 
 . 7,000.. 
 . . 6,000.. 
 .. 8,000.. 
 
 .24,000. . 
 ..22,000.. 
 
 .13,000.. 
 , . 9,000.. 
 
 .12,000.. 
 
 .11,000.. 
 
 Females. 
 . 8,000.. 
 . 6,000.. 
 . 5,000.. 
 .16,000.. 
 .16,000.. 
 .10,000.. 
 . 5,000.. 
 . 4,000.. 
 . 7,000.. 
 . 8,000.. 
 
 Total. 
 16,000 
 14,000 
 11,000 
 34,000 
 40,000 
 32,000 
 19,000 
 12,000 
 19,000 
 19,000 
 
 Total 135,000. . . .89,000. . . .224,000 
 
 This table shows that three fourths of the iminigrants 
 may be taken as persons between the ages of fifteen and 
 forty-five. If ow, set these two classes of new-comers in our 
 nation at work — on one hand you have the products of 
 natural increase by birth, on the other the products 
 of artificial increase by immigration ; — the former nothing 
 but frail little children, to be petted and nursed for years 
 to come ; 75 per cent, of the latter commonly stout and 
 healthy, and at once ready to work -and produce ; — ^the 
 former yet exposed to all those decimations by the diseases 
 and dangers of the young ; the others, ah-eady tried and 
 decimated on land and sea, and only those of them counted 
 who had stood the trial ! Now, let this process go on 
 year after year, which will increase proportionately faster ? 
 
 But we win be Uberal toward ourselves ! We will not 
 take the twelve millions, or the eleven millions. We wUl, 
 on account of the somewhat greater mortality of foreign 
 children, go still a million or so lower, and say that about 
 one half of the white population of the United States in 
 1850 is due to the iminigrants and their descendants since 
 the year 1800. 
 
33 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 [According to the well-known statistician, F. H. Bea- 
 CHELLi, the number of inhabitants of German origin, in 1856, 
 was 5,250,000, viz., about the fifth of the then population 
 of the United States. K we now add to this number of 
 Germans the large Irish immigration, and then that of the 
 other nations of Europe, our own account wiU be found 
 rather too low than too high.] 
 
 -And if, then, it is true that about one half of the white pop- 
 ulation of the United States is due to the immigrants and 
 their descendants since 1800, would it not be a fair con- 
 clusion, too, that the statistical show-tables of " material" 
 products — and such are most of those expressed by num- 
 bers — owe at least half their swellings to the i m migrants ? 
 Which class of inhabitants are chiefly engaged in " mate- 
 rial" production? We may be allowed to quote once 
 again from an address of the author : 
 
 " Certainly, this Union might have reached its present power — I do 
 not say without immigration at all (for we are all immigrants), hut 
 without immigration siace 1800 — but not so soon, not so fast ; it would 
 have had to toil and to grow yet many years to come. There would 
 now be less capital here, less cultivated land, less commerce ; there 
 would be fewer engines, fewer shops, fewer roads, fewer vessels, fewer 
 houses and palaces, fewer comforts, and fewer luxuries. Your meu-of- 
 war, your fortifications, your public buildings, your power at home, 
 your power abroad throughout the world, your private and pubhc 
 treasuries would dwindle, and many of the natives who are now man- 
 agers, and conductors, and directors, and merchants, and speculators, 
 and officers, and reverends, and doctors, and judges, aud.senators, most 
 honorable Senators, many of them, would now be common day-labor- 
 ers, mechanics, instructors, or canal diggers — professions which are 
 most graciously left to the foreigner — professions of less honor, of less 
 pay, but of more labor." 
 
 The same language may be observed in the columns of 
 
 the New York Tribune (March 11, 1859) : 
 
 " Our able and ambitious youth are attracted to trade, to the profes- 
 sions, to fiUibustering of some sort — rarely to any form of productive 
 
THE NUMBEES. 87 
 
 industry. Advertise to-day for a man to manage a farm, and three 
 fourths of the responses will come from men of Europmn hirth. Ad- 
 vertise for a boy in a lawyer's office, a clerk in a store, a partner in a 
 venture to Pike's Peak, and two thirds of the responses will come from 
 native Americans. We are, as a people, intent on getting suddenly rich 
 by some kind of speculation, rather than on slowly acquiring a com- 
 petence by industry." 
 
 Thus, should the above nuiaber of the foreigners and 
 their descendants be found even somewhat too large, there 
 ■would be no doubt about our final conclusion, that at least 
 one half of the common production of the coimtry is due 
 to them. 
 
 XVII.— EATIO OF IMMIGRATION" IN THE DUTERENT 
 STATES OF THE UNION. 
 
 We have thus seen how much of the population and 
 how much of its more rapid increase, how much of the 
 production and how much of its larger tables, must be due 
 to immigration. We now wiU ascertain what portion of 
 this immigration ffeU to the part of the South, and how 
 much to the part of the North, and then we will try to 
 find the causes of the difference. 
 
 We tate again the Census of the United States fbr 
 1850. There we wiU see the proportion of foreigners — 
 "not bom here" — ^to the natives, "born here, whether 
 from native or foreign parents." For the official census is 
 liberal toward the children created abroad but born here ; 
 they are all called " natives." Our tables, however, do not 
 suffer in this case, since all States are treated alike liberally. 
 
 [We expressly give our statistical tables in round num- 
 bers, in order to impress more strongly their general 
 character, and the proportion of their difference when 
 compared with one another.] 
 
gg THE AMEEICAN QTTEBTION. 
 
 TABLE XI. THE RATIO OF FOEBIGNEES IN^ THE PEBE STATES. 
 
 [from file Official Cms'M of the Wmted States, 1850.] 
 Teee States. Total Inhabitants. Foreigners. 
 
 California 92,000 21,000 
 
 Connecticut 370,000 38,000 
 
 niinois 851,000 111,000 
 
 Indiana 988,000 55,000 
 
 Iowa 192,000 20,000 
 
 Maine 583,000 31,000 
 
 Massacliiisetts 994,000 163,000 
 
 Michigan 397,000 54,000 
 
 New Hampshire 317,000 14,000 
 
 New Jersey 489,000 59,000 
 
 New York 3,092,000 655,000 
 
 Ohio 1,980,000 218,000 
 
 Pennsylvania 2,311,000 303,000 
 
 Rhode Island 147,000 23,000 
 
 Vermont 314,000 33,000 
 
 Wisconsin 305,000 110,000 
 
 Total 13,434,000 1,908,000 
 
 THE RATIO OP FOEEIGNEES nST THE SLAVE STATES. 
 
 Slave States. Total Inhabitants. Foreigners. 
 
 Alabama 771,000 7,000 
 
 Arkansas 209,000 1,000 
 
 Delaware 92,000 5,000 
 
 Florida 87,000 2,000 
 
 Georgia 906,000 6,000 
 
 Kentucky 982,000 31,000 
 
 Louisiana 517,000 67,000 
 
 Maryland 583,000 51,000 
 
 Mississippi 606,000 4,000 
 
 Missouri 682,000 76,000 
 
 North Carolina 869,000 2,000 
 
 South Carolina 668,000 8,000 
 
 Tennessee 1,002,000 5,000 
 
 Texas 212,000 17,000 
 
 Virginia 1,421,000 22,000 
 
 Total 9,612,000 304,000 
 
 XVIII.— CAUSE OF THE DIEFEEEN'OE IS THE PEOPOE- 
 TION OF IMMIGEANTS IN THE DIFFERENT STATES 
 OF THE UNION. 
 
 During our whole argument we heard frequent whispers 
 of: "Slavery! aU due to Slavery!" We will now make 
 some " excerpts" from the above statistical tables, in order 
 to see whether those whispers were oraculous. 
 
THE NUMBEE3. 39 
 
 TABLE XII. ^DIFFEESNCK rST THE PEOPOETION OF IMMI- 
 GRANTS IN FK3E2E STATES. 
 States. Square Miles. Foreigners. 
 
 New York 47,000 665,000 
 
 Pennsylvania 46,000 303,000 
 
 Massachusetts 7,000 163,000 
 
 Vermont 8,000 33,000 
 
 New Hampshire 8,000 14,000 
 
 Wisconsin 53,000 110,000 
 
 Michigan 56,000 64,000 
 
 TABLE XIII. DIFPEEENCE IX THE PEOPOETION OF IMMI- 
 
 GEANTS IN SLAVE STATES. 
 States. Square Miles. Foreigners. 
 
 South Carolina 28,000 8,000 
 
 Georgia 58,000 6,000 
 
 Kentucky 37,000 31,000 
 
 Louisiana 41,000 67,000 
 
 Tennessee 44,000 5,000 
 
 Florida 59,000 2,000 
 
 Alabama 50,000 7,000 
 
 TABLE XIV. DIFFEEENCE IN THE PEOPOETION OF IMMI- 
 
 GEANTS IN SLAVE AND FEEE STATES COMPAEBD. 
 States. Square Miles. Foreigners. 
 
 Maryland (Slave) 11,000 51,000 
 
 Maine (Free) 35,000 31,000 
 
 Louisiana (Slave) 41,000 67,000 
 
 Iowa (Free) 50,000 20,000 
 
 California (Free) 188,000 21,000 
 
 Missouri (Slave) 65,000 76,000 
 
 Michigan (Free) 56,000 54,000 
 
 TABLE XV. SOSEE ADDITIONAL DIFFEEENCBS lEEESPECTIVE 
 
 OF SQUAEE MILES. 
 
 Free States. 
 States. Foreigners. 
 
 Connecticut 38,000 
 
 Rhode Island 23,000 
 
 Massachusetts 163,000 
 
 Illinois 111,000 
 
 New Jersey 59,000 
 
 Wisconsin 710,000 
 
 Indiana 55,000 
 
 Free and Slave States. 
 States. Foreigners. 
 
 Mississippi (Slave) 76,000 
 
 Iowa (Free) 20,000 
 
 Maryland (Slave) 51,000 
 
 Vermont (Free) 33,000 
 
 New Hampshire (Free) . . . 14,000 
 
 Kentucky (Slave) 31,000 
 
 Maine (Free) 31,000 
 
 There are four tables as simple as the multiplication 
 table. In ihe first of them there are seven Free States. In 
 none of these is there any Negro Slavery. Why, then, is 
 there such a difference in their share of i mm igrants ? New 
 York and Pennsylvania have about the same number of 
 
40 
 
 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 square miles ; but the former has about twice as many im- 
 migrants. Vermont and New Hampshire, too, have about 
 the same area ; but the former, again, has over one half 
 more foreigners than the latter. Massachusetts, with 
 about 1,000 square mUes less than either, has stiU more 
 than ten times as many foreigners as the one, and five 
 times as many as the other. Wisconsin, with about the 
 same number of square miles as Michigan, has more than 
 twice as many foreigners. Has Southern Negro Slavery ex- 
 erted its whimsical influence even on the Northern States ? 
 
 But look at the second table. There, again, are seven 
 States. AH Slave States ! And still. South Carolina, with 
 an area half that of Georgia, has one fourth more immi- 
 grants. Louisiana has only one seventh more square milea 
 than Kentucky, and still has more than double the num- 
 ber of immigrants. It has fewer square nules than Ten- 
 nessee, but twelve times as many foreigners. Florida and 
 Alabama have about the same area, but the latter has two 
 thirds more foreigners. What is the reason of this differ- 
 ence ? Negro Slavery again ? Is Negro Slavery blacker 
 in Florida than in Alabama ? Is the Negro less a Negro 
 in Louisiana than in Tennessee ? 
 
 Let us pass on to the third table. Another seven States, 
 some Free, some Slave. There is Maryland with its Slavery, 
 and Maine with its Freedom. And still Maryland, with 
 only one third of the area of Maine, has 20,000 more immi- 
 grants. Louisiana has one fifth less square miles than 
 Iowa, and still the Slave State has three times as many 
 foreign inhabitants as the Free. California, with more 
 than four times as many square mUes as Louisiana, has 
 three times less foreigners. Missouri, with one seventh 
 more square miles than Michigan, has two sevenths more 
 
THE N0MBEES. 41 
 
 foreigners. Has, in these cases, Negro Slavery been an 
 attractive force ? 
 
 Or, let us take Northern and Southern States without 
 reference to square miles, as in the fourth table ; for there 
 is, both South and North, plenty of room for a hundred 
 times more immigrants. Has Negro Slavery caused Con- 
 necticut to have more foreign inhabitants than Rhode 
 Island ? Massachusetts more than Lliaois or New Jersey ? 
 Wisconsin more than Indiana? Mississippi more than 
 Iowa ? Maryland more than Vermont or New Hampshire ? 
 Kentucky the same number as Maine ? 
 
 Or, compare the number of foreigners in each State with 
 its native population ; or the number of foreigners to the 
 square mile with aU the inhabitants to the square mile ; 
 the different States will most stubbornly resist a common 
 rule or law, but especially will they object to such quack 
 barometers as the deus ex machina iiivented by Mr. Hrsr- 
 TOif Rowan Helper. 
 
 Prom the facts and numbers presented by us, any im- 
 partial reader must see that there were other causes at 
 work besides Slavery to direct the waves of emigration, 
 and to produce such a difference in the numbers of foreign- 
 ers in the different States. From the earUest period of our 
 Union, the emigrants have chosen certain ports, which were 
 not pointed out to them by the white or black color of some 
 of the inhabitants, but by the great order of Nature. Places 
 like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or New 
 Orleans were the great and tried harbors to receive the 
 emigrants. They were the great starting-points selected 
 by Nature as the principal thoroughfares of the Western 
 Continent. Many of the emigrants, then, when once ar- 
 rived on the shores of their "Promised Land," would 
 
42 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 not, could not, wander far into the interior, and only a 
 smaU minority went out of the regular course to States 
 and places on the left or on the right. 
 
 As the inland routes were gradually opened, they moved 
 in larger numbers farther to the West. This was in ac- 
 cordance with the country's poUcy, whichj on the whole, 
 was to scatter the population over an area as large as pos- 
 sible, to form new Territories and new States, to get new 
 agricultural products to exchange for foreign fabrics, in- 
 stead of building up the home market, and consolidating 
 and developing the old lands and States. But when the 
 emigrants saw their plans thwarted in the East, and new 
 hopes and "free homesteads" held out in more distant 
 regions, whither should they move ? Neitherwas cotton the 
 article of growth which they were acquainted with, nor had 
 the South the climate which they were accustomed to 
 in the countries from which most of them came. They, 
 therefore, went North and West! Says the celebrated 
 statistician, G. F. Kolb : " It is the climate similar to that 
 of Central Europe which attracts the emigrants to the 
 North, and West of the United States, in preference to 
 any other land." We add here a table which shows which 
 cUmate sends the most emigrants, and which might thus 
 expect the most : 
 
 TABLE XVI. ^PLACES OF BIETH OP THE FOEEIGIT POPUXA- 
 
 TIOKT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 IWrom the Census of the United States, 19B0.] 
 
 States. Komber. 
 
 Austria 900 
 
 Russia 1,000 
 
 Norway ' ' . 12',000 
 
 Denmark 1^000 
 
 Sweden s'^OOO 
 
 Prussia 10,000 
 
 British America 147,000 
 
 "^o*^ 2,116,000 
 
 States. Number. 
 
 England 278,000 
 
 Ireland 961,000 
 
 Scotland 70,000 
 
 Wales 29,000 
 
 Germany 573,000 
 
 Belgium 1,000 
 
 Holland 9,000 
 
 Switzerland 13,000 
 
THE NTTMBEES 43 
 
 2,116,200 emigrants come from the Northern and Middle 
 States of Europe, and the total number is only 2,212,000 ! 
 How many remain to be counted to the southern parts of 
 the world ? France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Mexico, and the 
 whole of Asia, have only about 90,000 to be divided among 
 them. 
 
 There is, then, the climate, the geographical position, 
 the river-beds, the bays and the harbors, the lakes, the 
 mountains and valleys, the soils and the zones, and many 
 other natural facts, which determined the future of this 
 whole continent and of the different States long before the 
 first foot of civilized man touched this soU. The Tiber and 
 the Thames, the NUe and the Rhine, had theii- histories 
 predicted by the Book of Nature long before a Rome or a 
 London, before pyramids or castles, were dreamt of. And 
 so the St. Lawrences, the Hudsons, and the Mississippis 
 of this continent had their future marked out long before 
 Mr. Helpeb came, trying to negrofy our understandings. 
 
 XIX.— EFFECT OF TMTVfTGRATIOIT ON THE SHOW-TABLES 
 OF THE SOUTH AND. OF THE NOETH. 
 
 Let us now sum up this whole matter of immigration. 
 We have stated and proved that population is the funda- 
 mental cause of aU production ; 
 
 That if the population increases, the production must 
 increase at a still higher ratio ; or that, if there are twice 
 as many persons at work, they will " manufacture" thrice 
 or four times as large and as plentiful show-tables of every 
 sort and material ; 
 
 That population in our land increases at a most enor- 
 mous rate, and that neither England nor France can keep 
 up with it ; 
 
44 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 That this extra glory is, however, not due to any natu- 
 ral privilege, but to the immigrants, of whom seventy-five 
 per cent, are, like Melchisedek, already grown up when 
 they are horn ; or — what is the same for all practical con- 
 siderations — when they are borne to this country ; 
 
 That at least one half of the population of the United 
 States in 1850 is due to the immigrants and their descend- 
 ants siace 1800 ; 
 
 That the different States, whether Free or Slave, had 
 different proportions of these immigrants ; 
 
 That this difference can not be explained alone by Mr. 
 Helper's universal cause of everything under creation: 
 namely, Negro Slavery ; 
 
 That nature has marked out the course of empires, and 
 that Providence does not first make cities and then rivers 
 to flow by them, and at last shores and banks to keep them 
 La proper limits. 
 
 And now, if we take another look at the tables we 
 have presented, we see that the whole number of foreign- 
 ers — ^foreign-born inhabitants — in these United States is 
 2,212,000, of which the Free States take about six sevenths, 
 and the Slave States only one seventh. 
 
 If, now, we take this as a general ratio — and we may, 
 according to other tables, fairly do so — of the whole im- 
 migration and descendants since 1800, and call this whole 
 immigration only 10,000,000, we find that 8,500,000 of 
 these artificial helps were allotted to the North, while the 
 South received only 1,500,000. 
 
 Now, set two countries, or two sections of a country, at 
 work, the one receiving annually a fresh supply of men 
 and women at the rate of 7,000 to every 1,000 of the 
 other — continue this process for a period of fifty years. 
 
THE NUMBEES. 45 
 
 these foreign men and women continually digging and 
 toiling, producing matter and men with eagerness, in- 
 creasing in numbers at rates so astonishing, cultivating 
 lands, working day, and even night, in the sweat of their 
 faces, with bodies stout and hands accustomed to labor, 
 bringing millions of doUars into the country, saving old 
 and lajing up new stock, increasing and thriving lustily 
 on a fresh and grateful soil, in a free land, in the very 
 midst of industrial progress, in an era to which none pre- 
 vious in history can be compared as to swiftness of pro- 
 duction and effective means and instruments to assist the 
 hand of man — ^let these proportions (seven to one), under 
 such most favorable circumstances, and under influences 
 never dreamed of before, work on for a period of fifty 
 years — add then to this, if you please, the difierence be- 
 tween the Northern and the Southern laborer — take the 
 Negro as he is, wholly barbarous, half barbarous, or half 
 civilized, unskillful at least, for many years, causing for a 
 long period a heavy draft on Southern treasure for the 
 purchase-money (mostly paid to Northern traders) — a 
 slave, too, and, as such, ready and willing to work only 
 because and when he must — a slave now, to be a slave 
 forever, as far as he knows, without hope of position or 
 of gain ; whUe the immigrant brings, at least, traces of 
 the civilization of the world with him, is a free man, 
 works for himself, appropriates whatever wages he may 
 make and whatever his wife and children may earn — ^the 
 master of his hands, of his family, of his property, with 
 considerable chances for honor and position even — ^let the 
 two sections under such different influences work on for 
 a period of fifty years, and at the end of this period com- 
 pare the numbers and figures, the statistical tables of 
 
46 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 wealth and of products, of commerce, agriculture, and 
 manufactures of the one section and the other, aside from 
 all the various natural causes favorable to the one and 
 disadvantageous to the other — ^will you be surprised to 
 find the tables of the one much lower than those of the 
 other ? 
 
 We are not surprised that the statistical tables of the 
 North are so much larger than those of the South, but 
 we are surprised that they are as large in the South as 
 they are. The South has done more than we should have 
 expected, under existing circumstances. 
 
 But, let none imagine that should the South at once 
 liberate all its slaves, there would be such a rush of immi- 
 grants as Mr. Helpee would like to see, by the aid of Ms 
 dark-lantern. It will take many generations to accustom 
 the Northern-born native, or foreigner, to more Southern 
 climes, and only a slow and steady advance will, or can, 
 give the South the artificial aid which will enable it 
 to increase more rapidly in numbers and men. And this 
 slow and steady advance, as far as destined by Nature, 
 has been going on this long time, in spite of Negro 
 Slavery, which, to be sure, has lessened the pressure, but 
 could not stem the flood. But that rush of foreign- 
 ers can not, even in the North, always remain the 
 same. It has probably reached its crisis. It wiU, and 
 does sink, and in the same manner the Northern show- 
 tables will and do sink, whUe the South, less accustomed 
 to artificial aid, will feel less the growing want. There is 
 not total darkness in the future of the South ! Let 
 it manage its powers well! Let it give a willing ear 
 to the teachings of history ! Perhaps De Soto's dreams 
 about the Valley of the Mississippi may yet be realized, 
 
THE HUMBEES. 4.J 
 
 and in that great central empire of the continent of North 
 America, the South "will not be the least among the 
 children of Israel." 
 
 XX.— THE ULTIMATE EFPECT OF PRODUCTIOST ON 
 POPULATION. 
 
 It is a question, after aU, whether the greater amount of 
 production in a country is a sure index of a corresponding 
 degree of happiness and welfare among its people. Al- 
 ready the Italian economist, Fuoco, said: "Not produc- 
 tion, but distribution, is the first and principal question in 
 economy." 
 
 And Blajs^qui, in his " History of Political Economy," 
 called this same idea "the great motto of the social science 
 of the nineteenth century." 
 
 One nation may, indeed, produce a vast amount of ma- 
 terial products, and still keep the producers, especially 
 the laborers, in a miserable condition, by giving them but 
 a small share in the common produce. Another nation 
 with a smaller amount of products may distribute this 
 amount more equally and proportionately, and thereby 
 procure a greater amount of common happiness. Just as 
 in the case of families. One father may gain twice the 
 amount that another does, but use proportionately six timeg 
 as much to gratify his own selfish appetites. The family 
 of the latter wiU be the better off; there will be a greater 
 amount of happiness caused by a smaller amount of 
 means. In a nation, the fathers with the depraved appe- 
 tites are the rich and privileged squanderers. The whole 
 principle may be stated thus : A nation is well o^ not in 
 proportion to the amount, but to the equal distribution 
 
48 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 and the rational use of its wealth and products— a field as 
 yet little explored by the science of statistics ! 
 
 Without now going further into an elaborate discussion 
 and explanation of this question, however important it 
 may be, we wiU merely state that the natural increase of a 
 people, their quality remaimng unimpaired, is generally 
 taken as an index of the degree of their happiness. But 
 we repeat, this increase shows less the amount of the 
 production of wealth, than the proportion of its distribu- 
 tion. The principle itself, however, is imassailable in its 
 general bearing. 
 
 We now apply this to the population of the South. 
 
 XXI— THE NEGEO MULTIPLYING— SZ? SHOW-TABLES 
 ALL EIGHT. 
 
 We will compare the Negroes imder dijQferent masters. 
 H. C. Caeet, in his work, " The Slave Trade, Domestic 
 and Foreign," Chapter 11., shows that in all the British 
 Islands where there was Negro Slavery, the Slaves 
 universally decreased in number. He first takes up Jamai- 
 ca, and shows that the number of Negroes imported into 
 that island can not have been less than 700,000. "E 
 to these," he continues, "we were to add the children 
 that must have been born on that island in the long period 
 of 178 years, and then to reflect that all who remained for 
 emancipation amounted to only 311,000, we should find 
 ourselves forced to the conclusion that Slavery was here 
 attended with a destruction of life without a parallel in the 
 history of any civUzed nation." In St. Vincent, the 
 births steadily diminished in number. In British Guiana, 
 there was a decrease of 12,000 from 77,000 in fifteen 
 years! and a similar decrease in other colonial posses^ 
 
THE NUMBEES. 49 
 
 sions. The nmnber emancipated in the West Indies 
 ■was 660,000, while the number imported and retained for 
 home consumption had certainly amounted to 1,700,000. 
 
 Had Mr. Helper known this, or spoken of it, how " the 
 chevaliers of the lash, and the robbers and the murderers," 
 would have again flown from his lips! But let us see 
 what the .statesman and economist Cahet says, who 
 has certainly as much philanthropy as the showman, 
 Helpee: 
 
 " While thus exhibiting the terrific waste of life in the British 
 Colonies, it is not intended either to assert or deny any voluntary 
 severity on the part of the land-holders. They were, themselves, as 
 will hereafter be shown, to a great extent, the slaves of drcumstamxs, 
 over which they had no control, and it can not be doubted that much, very 
 much, of the responsibility must rest on other shoulders !" 
 
 This is the same H. C. Caret whom Mr. Helper brings 
 up among his Testioionies of Living Witnesses ! Might there 
 not, in the South of our country, too, some such extenu- 
 ating circumstances have been fomid which should have 
 tempered somewhat Mr. H.'s wrath and bridled his bloody 
 tongue ? We wiU see ! 
 
 Mr. Caret passes on to Negro Slavery in the Union, and 
 after a most careful examination and comparison of statis- 
 tical tables, gives us what he calls " a tolerable approxi- 
 mation to the number of Slaves imported into the territory 
 now constituting the Union, namely, on the whole, 
 333,500." 
 
 " The number," he says, " now in the Union exceeds 
 3,800,000 ; and even if we estimate the import as high as 
 380,000, we then have more than ten for one ; whereas in 
 the British Islands we can find not more than two for five, 
 and perhaps even not more than one for three. Had the 
 Slaves of the latter been as well fed, clothed, lodged, and 
 
 3 
 
gQ THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 Otherwise cared for, as were those of these Provinces and 
 States, their numbers would have reached seventeen or 
 twenty millions. Had the blacks among the people of 
 these States experienced the same treatment as did their 
 fellows of the islands, we should now have among us less 
 than one hundred and fifty thousand Slaves !" 
 
 Has not Mr. Helper been " too hasty in mating up his 
 mind on the subject," though he says the contrary ? Has 
 he not "jumped at conclusions," though he denies it? 
 Has he acted with " perfect calmness and dehberation," as 
 he so naively asserts ? He says, that " the non-slavehold- 
 ing white of the second degree of Slavery is treated by 
 the slaveholders as if he were a loathsome beast." Hoy 
 must the Negro of the Jirst degree of Slavery have been 
 treated ? Who or what stands a degree lower than " a 
 loathsome beast?" Mr. Helpee's dictionary of Vile 
 "Words not being at hand, the question must remain un- 
 answered for the present. 
 
 And stUI, the Negro lived, his cheeks grew fat, his body 
 plump, he multiplied and replenished the earth, and we 
 have seen as jolly a crowd of darkies down in Richmond, 
 as ever on Boston Common or in the Wilds of Africa ! 
 
 Now, who tells a falsehood, Mr. Hjblpbe or his Num- 
 bers? It is the old story again! The Numbers are all 
 well. But Mr. H. sees " through a glass darkly." 
 
 XXII.— EVEEYBODY LIVING LONGER THERE "WHERE 
 THE "NIGGERS" ARE. 
 
 Those Southerners, m spite of their Negro Slavery, 
 have still produced something. They have, as Mr. Hel- 
 per indirectly proves, some agriculture, some manufacture, 
 som,e cotton, soms banks, some railroads ; they vrite, or 
 
THE NUMBEES. 51 
 
 at least send, through the post-office some letters, found some 
 schools and libraries, publish smne newspapers, give som^ 
 votes, bmld some churches, get out some patents, some Bibles 
 and some tracts, harbor som^ foreigners, send out some mis- 
 sionaries, and do something for colonization and civilization. 
 But not only this : we find at the end that these people 
 " down South" do, after all, not suffer a great deal from 
 their producing only soms rye, and som^ wheat, and som^ 
 newspapers, and som^e lot cabbage, for : TTiey do not only 
 not die faster than the Northern people, but, on the contrary, 
 they are healthier and live longer. We add a table to 
 prove : 
 
 TABLE XVII. EATIO OF DEATHS TO LIVHTG PGPUIATION'. 
 
 ]_From the C^dal C&m^&ndium of Mr, Haip&r^s OrisU^ 
 Motto of his Titix-pagx.— " The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by 
 liberal things shall he stand." — Isaiah. 
 
 States. Percentage. 
 
 Southern States (Slave) 1 in 74.60 
 
 Northern States (Free) 1 in 72.39 
 
 TABLE XVm. AMEEICAN LONGEVHTT. 
 
 [_From a recent edition of Blake^s Biographical IHciionary.'] 
 
 States. Kamber of Deceased Centenarians. 
 
 Southern States (Slave) 68 
 
 Northern States (Free) 69 
 
 The reason for this greater Mortality and shorter Lon- 
 gevity in the Northern States must lie somewhere hidden 
 among " the Potatoes, the Clover-Seeds, tjie Brood Mares, 
 the Beans and Peas, the Stall-fed Beef, and other Produce," 
 from which Mr. Helper so scientifically draws his argu- 
 ments. 
 
 Now, which is the better of the two? To produce 
 fast and die fast, or to produce slower and live longer? 
 Of what use is all our digging out, and heaping up, and 
 gathering in, when during all the trouble necessary in this 
 
g2 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 process of production and reproduction, our heads grow 
 light, our hearts gloomy, and our bodies lank, and at the 
 end of the whole affaire, when at last the time for enjoy- 
 ment should have arrived. Pale Death comes to give us 
 kindly the last stroke, that sends us beyond the reach of 
 the dunghiUs of our material wealth ? 
 
 While the reader is left for a moment to himself to de- 
 cide which part to choose, we will gather up whatever is 
 left of Mr. H.'s statistical existence. 
 
 XXm.— THE POSTERIOE PART OF ME. HELPEE'S STA- 
 TISTICAL BODY. 
 
 The main body of Mr. H.'s statistics is contained in 
 that part of his Compendium which precedes the Dead 
 and Living Testimony. We are through with that. Thel-e 
 remains now nothing but the Appendix, which, by-the-by, 
 has all the characteristics of appendixes in general. It is 
 protracted, unmeaning, and winds up in a curl. 
 
 There is a whole sea of mysterious numbers, all care- 
 fully labeled with " Negro Slavery," and any amount of 
 Northern gewgaws, strewn around like Yankee notions, 
 interspersed with sundry rhetorical flourishes " excerped" 
 and repeated from the Body of his Statistics. It is a kind 
 of deluge after the Testimony of the " Wiser and Better" 
 men. 
 
 But, unconsciously or with his wonted impartiality, Mr. 
 Helper puts, at times, some seasoning in, which makes 
 the surface a little more palatable. Such is his innocent 
 slur on the number-filled North. To be sure, he does not 
 spare the Southern " breeder, buyer, and seUer of bipedal 
 black cattle, who withal professes to be a Christian," but 
 he speaks also of " Northern quacks, Northern lashes for 
 
THE NUMBEEB. 53 
 
 Southern slaves, Northern gimcraeks and haberdashery." 
 This is quite a relief. But the Northern pianos, Northern 
 knives, and Northern apparel are carefully repeated. We 
 at first thought, in seeing these old faces again: "Here 
 beginneth the second" edition of the same book! 
 
 But the most attractive part in this appendix of several 
 chapters, is the grand display of Mr. Helper's logic, un- 
 assisted by the dark-lantern. For it must not be ex- 
 pected that he again brings forth but one reason — ^namely, 
 his old cherished Negro Slavery. Not at all ! The ap- 
 pendix hangs rather loose from the body and plays its 
 capers with wanton individuality. 
 
 "We will now give the curious reader a few examples 
 of that caudal logic : 
 
 He says that the South has contributed but little 
 to the cause of Negro Slavery in Kansas, and the reason 
 of it is, not Negro Slavery this time, but the poverty 
 and the niggardliness of the Southerners. This exceptio 
 in principiis would be admissible were it not for the deli- 
 cacy of its terminology. 
 
 In his chapter on offices, he proves that the Southern- 
 ers have, in most cases, the majority, all on account of 
 Negro Slavery ; but when he accidentally finds an office 
 where the Northerners happen to have the majority, he 
 does not give Negi'o Slavery as the reason, but superior 
 or special talent which can only be grown up North. (Mr. 
 Heupek is from North Carolina.) 
 
 He shows, then, the comparative literary character of 
 the North and of the South, by giving the number of 
 newspapers, and especially the circulation of the New 
 York Hi-ibune and the New York Herald in the Free and 
 Slave States. We think, of course, highly of the news- 
 
g^ THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 paper, but that would be stretching its influence ultra 
 modum et decorum. 
 
 He also measured the physical and mental activity of 
 the members of the United States Senate, by the number 
 of public documents they frank. According to this calcu- 
 lation, Chandlee, of Michigan, has over twenty times as 
 much of that article as Ceittenden, from Kentucky. And 
 Douglas, of Illinois, has three hundred times as much as 
 SuMNEE, of Massachusetts. " This shows, also," Mr. H. 
 says, "that the people of the South are not a reading 
 people; but tobacco, pohtics, and especially fine-looking 
 wenches, constitute the warp and woof of their conversar 
 tion." Mr. Douglas sent 345,000 documents, that is, more 
 than aU the Free States Senators together (Mr. Chandler 
 excepted). He is not one of "the lazy pro-slavery offi- 
 cials," we suppose, " who perpetuate the ignorance and 
 degradation of their constitutents." 
 
 He complains that he was not able to publish his book 
 in the South, when he had just given extracts from the 
 Charleston Standard, which in strong terms criticised the 
 condition of the South. This is called by logicians a con- 
 tradictio in adjecto. 
 
 He thinks, too, that the city which publishes the most 
 books and papers nanst, eo ipso, be also the most literary. 
 Poor " country folks," like Mr. Helper and his reviewer, 
 must renounce their fame to the glory of New York, Bos- 
 ton, or Philadelphia. And then he adds, that the execu- 
 tors and agents of Calhoun, Benton, Simms, and other 
 Southern writers, send their works to be published in New 
 York. The reason for this strange phenomenon is Negro 
 Slavery, and, therefore, aU right ! 
 
 These examples are aU nicely set up in copious num- 
 
THE NUMBEES. 55 
 
 bers, and surrounded with occasional wHnings, such as 
 about the poor women working in the field, whom he 
 would Uke to advance into the frying-pans of factories. 
 
 But at last he proves that the non-slaveholding whites 
 are very illiterate, and thus, we humbly think, that they 
 can not read, much less understand, his book ! Now, this 
 crowns the whole ! Poor Mr. Helper can neither reach 
 his subject nor his object. He is no agitator ! He only 
 addresses the non-slaveholding whites, and for them he 
 wrote his book ! and, now, on the very last pages of his 
 volume, he proves that his clients can not read! Why 
 did he not first write a "Webster's SpeHing-Book" for 
 the non-slaveholding whites of the South ? 
 
 And thus he winds himself through, until, on the last 
 page, in " indignation and disgust" over what he wrote, 
 he curls up in the following graceful style : 
 
 " Southern Literature is a travesty on the profession of- 
 letters,^'' and " Southern Religion is a stench in the nostrils 
 of Christendom,^^ 
 
 • Ifegro-nursed Washuigton ! first son of the South and 
 of the Union! ward off the heartless curses of a per- 
 verted man, whose motive may be good, but whose 
 tongue runs loose and wild. There is now a dearth of 
 great men, Forth and South ! Send us whole-souled men, 
 no matter what zone "or section may produce them! • We 
 do not need, as yet, "American Platos, Homers, Shak- 
 epeares, and Humboldts," but send us a few more States- 
 men, who, dispassionate but unflinching in their princi- 
 ples, are able to lead our great empire safely through the 
 storms that overhang it ! 
 
gg THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 XXrV.— CONCLUSION. 
 
 We think we have thus proved, in this Book, that the 
 famous Numhers, or, in other words, the Statistical Dispari- 
 ties between the Free and the Slave States, do not justify 
 our resorting to violent words and violent measures, 
 whereby we increase the enmity between the two sec- 
 tions, and make the Union appear less desirable and less 
 honorable. 
 
 They give us no reason why we should be ashamed of 
 the South, and throw heartless curses on its land and 
 people. 
 
 Bat we must here abstain from any general remarks on 
 the great question. In this first Book we have strictly 
 confined ourselves to the Numbers ; in the second, we will 
 treat, ia a similar way, the Testimonies. After having, 
 then, overthrown these two separate arguments, we will 
 face the whole question. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE TESTIMONIES. 
 
booe: n. 
 THE TESTIMONIES. 
 
 m EEPLT TO CHAPTEES H., m., IV., V., VI., VH., ASD VUI. 
 OF MB. HELPBe's compendium. 
 
 I.— SINGLE TESTIMONrES. 
 
 "We will now show that the Testimonies of single men 
 and nations, taken from their historical connections, have 
 no better claim than the Numbers. 
 
 Were we to foUow separate testimonies, we would for- 
 ever be tossed aromid as on a stormy sea, knowing not 
 whither to go. But there is a steady progress of human- 
 ity — a progress which gradually corrects or overrides all 
 individual fancies and theories, and teaches us, in the 
 plastic forms of real events, the ways and measures for 
 our future course. 
 
 But before we lay before the reader the mark-stones of 
 this progress, and give Slavery its relative place therein, 
 we will first pass in review the Testimonies as they are 
 presented by Mr. Helper. We take him again, because 
 he has classified them better than any one before him. 
 We may seemingly aid Mr. O'Co^'oe, but we do this 
 only in order to overthrow, once for aU, that double-faced 
 sophistry which draws its arguments from single and dis' 
 connected Testimonies. 
 
60 
 
 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 n.— THE OHAPTEES IH. TO IX. OF ME. HELPEE'S 
 COMPENDIUM. 
 
 At the beginning of Chapter iii., Mr. Helpee advises 
 the people " to forget for a moment what he has written 
 on the subject of Slavery, and to ignore all that he may- 
 write hereafter." Though it be difficult for us to forget or 
 to ignore what he has not yet said, the object of the advice 
 is highly commendable. For, after having given his own 
 opinion, he now appeals to the "sayings of wiser and 
 better men," to collect which has cost him " much time, 
 labor, and money." Our indebted country has probably, 
 by this time, repaid him amply for his trouble. Trouble 
 it must, indeed, have been to collect such an array of 
 opinions, and all of them well assorted, in Mr. Hblpee's 
 style — ^first Southern Testimony, then Northern, afterward 
 the Testimony of the Nations, then that of the Churches, 
 three pages of Bible Testimony, and, at last, thirty pages 
 of Living Witnesses to bring up the rear ! A formidable 
 array, forsooth ! But though his course differs sadly from 
 that which he promises in his introductory chapter, where 
 he says, " It is not our purpose to draw a broad line of 
 distinction between right and wrong, to point out the 
 propriety of moraUty and its advantages over immorality, 
 nor to waste time in pressing a universally-admitted truism, 
 that virtue is preferable to vice," still we take his issue, 
 and put these abstract opinions in their proper light. 
 Should we, perhaps, at times, throw too much shadow 
 upon the picture, we must be excused ; for Mr. Helpee, 
 has certainly been too Hght, and airy, and spiritual in this 
 part of the work. Wherever his heavy and dark brush 
 appears, we will not fail to supply the necessary light. 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. 61 
 
 m.— THE TESTDIOKT OF THE TJNIOK 
 Mr. Helper seems, at first, to know the way we ought 
 to follow. But when we think ourselves near the longed- 
 for aim, we perceive that he, like an ignis fatuus, has led 
 us astray. We seem, indeed, to be in duty bound, in 
 these moments of danger, to wander reUgiously to the 
 graves of our noble forefathers who have made us one and 
 united, and to seek at their shi-ine light and knowlege for 
 our fear-beset ways. But when, with Helper's help, we 
 are at the sacred spot hallowed by the memories of com- 
 mon struggles and the time-honored compact of our TJnion, 
 what does Mi\ H. show us ? Naught but mangled bones, 
 torn with sacrilegious hand from venerable bodies ! For 
 such are his " excerpts" and " extracts." 
 
 We can not and we wiU not deny the noble sentiments 
 of the founders of our republic. We know that Freedom, 
 in the abstract, finds more sympathizers among the great 
 and noble of this world, than Tyranny and Slavery. We 
 know that our forefathers, almost to a man, thought our 
 Slavery to be an evil, and we honor them for it. But did 
 they ever use such language as Mi-. Helper ? Did they 
 ever propose such schemes and measures ? He has shown 
 in what respect our common forefathers agreed with 
 his own sentiments, why did he not show, too, in what 
 they disagreed with him ? Washington, " the father of 
 our country," an example to us in aU that is really good and 
 great — ^though he had such ardent wishes for the gradual 
 abolition of Slavery, what measures did he propose? 
 What plans did he favor ? Or, was Lafatette's scheme, 
 in form or spirit, anything like that of om* modem phUan- 
 thropist ? Or, was Franklin's Society for Promoting the 
 
g2 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 Abolition of Slavery anything like that corporation of 
 Non-Conformists which he proposes among the non-slave- 
 holding whites of the South ? Or, where are the rebel- 
 lious harangues of Jefferson, who yet called the Slaves 
 " citizens and brethren ?" Where the great stratagems and 
 proposals of Madison, who yet opposed the introduction 
 of the term " Slave" or "Slavery" into the Constitution? 
 Or, has Mr. Helper more greatness of soul than Washing- 
 ton, more stern republicanism than Jefferson, more wis- 
 dom than Franklin, or more virtue then Madison ? Or, 
 take the representative men of a second generation ! Are 
 the Websters, the Clays, knaves and fools compared 
 with him ? Has it not been, heretofore, a well-understood 
 principle among all the statesmen of our republic, to look 
 upon Slavery as upon an undeniable historical fact, what- 
 ever our abstract opinions may be about its right or 
 wrong ? And, is this course of action of our noble 
 ancestors not as certain, not as frank, not as important as 
 their abstract opinions ? Was it not always their policy, 
 instead of putting forth their opinions about Slavery, 
 rather to think of means and ways to get along with iC, 
 and to harmonize, as far as it was possible, Union and 
 Reform? In all their endeavors to aboli^ Slavery, did 
 they not always carefully appeal to the slaveholders them- 
 selves, and this, .indeed, privately, and not through the 
 organs of an excited populace ? And did aU those great 
 men of other times — our foremost pride, our greatest honor 
 in the eyes of the world — did they, by suppressing over 
 and over again the temptihgs of their " abstract opinions," 
 and by continually contriving new ways of peaceful reform, 
 did they, the noblest men of our entire history, by yield- 
 ing thus, defame their character or pollute their manhood? 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. 63 
 
 There never fell from their unstained lips, words lite 
 these: 
 
 "Peevish, — Soikt, — Mean, — Booes op Vandalio hearts and minds, 
 — Zekevekent Distoktebs op the Tetith,— Savage, Babbakous Kid- 
 mappers,— Chevalieks OF THE Lash and Lords of the Shackle !" 
 
 Are these, words of a friend and brother ? Are they 
 words of an enemy, even ? Ai-e they words of a man ? 
 Or, have the insulted shades of our common forefathers 
 already smitten the intemperate one with insanity ? These 
 are not words to soothe! These are not the means 
 to heal ! This is not the language of Peace and TJnion ! 
 
 IV.— THE TESTIMOirr OF ENGLAOT). 
 
 Ml*. Helper is an unrelenting foe. His collective indus- 
 try is inexhaustible. He is not content with appealing 
 to our own noble ancestors. After having " excerped" 
 testimony in favor of his opinion from the wise men of the 
 South and of the North of his own land, he introduces, or 
 uses in a similar way, the Testimony of the Nations. He 
 begins with England. Now, we do not think that Locke, 
 Fox, Pitt, and Bfeke would have acted more nobly, more 
 hberally, and niore prudently than Washington, Feank- 
 LiN, Hamilton, and Webster, if they had been placed in 
 similar circumstances. But still, we can not and will 
 not question England's philanthropy. 
 
 To be sure, the condition of depopulated Ireland is still 
 pitiful to behold. Says a recent writer on Ireland : " An 
 Irishman has nothing national about him except his rags." 
 Or another : " Let an EngHshman exchange his bread and 
 beer, and beef and mutton, for no breakfast, for a luke- 
 "warm lumper at dinner, and no supper. With such diet, 
 
64 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 ho-w muoli better is he than an Irishman? — a Celt, as 
 he calls him. No, the truth is, that the misery of Ireland 
 is not from the human nature that grows there — ^it is from 
 England's perverse legislation, past and present." Or, let 
 us look at our own shores ! How often we find the brave 
 and warhke Celt of former days, crippled and degraded 
 by ages of tyranny and oppression! But, England is 
 philanthropic, and the Irish are not Negroes, nor are they 
 Slaves ! 
 
 Or, let us turn our eyes away from Ii'eland across the 
 ocean, toward that happy land of emancipation. Says a 
 recent writer: "A short term and cupidity strain the 
 lash over the poor Coolie, and he dies ; is secreted if he 
 lives, and advantage taken of his ignorance for extended 
 time when once merged in plantation-service, where inves- 
 tigation can be avoided." But again, the Coolies are no 
 Slaves ; they are but hired servants, and England's philan- 
 thropy is safe ! 
 
 We are not yet through with the Testimony of En- 
 gland, who is always loudest in condemning our Slavery. 
 We will give her a fair hearing. How closely she watches 
 those poor Hindoos ! How effectually she keeps them down, 
 whenever they express any dissatisfaction Vith the happi- 
 ness she forces upon them! She has instituted among 
 those " half-naked barbarians" an awful solidarity, by which 
 the province is responsible for the labor of all its men and 
 women. But stUl, England is phUanthropicl She has 
 carried rails and Bibles, free-schools and steamboats, tele- 
 graphs and libraries to India, all for the benefit of those 
 half-naked barbarians ! And should telegraphs and Bibles 
 not have the requisite effect of happifying, opium will be 
 administered to them, and to "all the world, and to the 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. 65 
 
 rest of mankind." She will no longer permit those savage 
 Hindoos to roast as witches wrinkled old women, for she 
 knows too well, from her own experience, the unfairness 
 of such proceedings ; nor does she, in these days, allow any- 
 where the Hand of Justice to cut the ears of those who speak 
 against State or Church. Now, this is decided progress I 
 England is the civilizer and Christianizer of the world! 
 To be sure, there is still robbing and flogging, murdering 
 and starving enough in the " dominions of the Gracious 
 Queen, where the sun never setteth ;" but England, never- 
 theless, dislikes Slavery in general, and Negro Slavery in 
 the United States in particular, and her lords and ladies 
 are ever ready to eat and drink with the poor common- 
 ers of the West, eager of philanthropic royalty ! There 
 are similar laurels waiting for Mr. Helpek, and we are 
 glad, for his sake and our own, that he has appealed to the 
 Testimony of our Cousins! 
 
 But England emancipated her slaves in the West India 
 Islands! She expended .£20,000,000, we suppose, from 
 sheer philanthropy, and may we ask: Whom did her 
 philanthropic measure benefit? Jamaica, that brilliant 
 island, saw her land and people degenerate, says H. C. 
 Caeet ; the planter sold cheaply and left, the slave did 
 not work. Such must be the effect of all revolutionary or 
 sudden abolition ; and, though the emancipated lands may 
 gradually recover from the ill-devised blow, they can only 
 do so with loss of much property and at the cost of much 
 human misery. 
 
 v.— THE TESTIMONY OF FEANCE. 
 After England comes Prance, aa usual. But this Testi- 
 mony comes at rather a peculiar time. Not many years, or 
 
gg THE AMERICAN QUESTION 
 
 even months, ago, France was concerting a plan to intro- 
 duce " voluntary Negro labor" into her tropical colonies, 
 the demand for whose products was so rapidly increasing 
 everywhere. It was said that England herself, at first, had 
 favored the plan, but after having looked somewhat deeper 
 into the scheme, her philanthropy, or some other hidden vir- 
 tue, got frightened, and she dissuaded her noble ally from 
 accomplishing the voluntary Slave-trade. For, what was it 
 but a second edition of the Slave-trade, perhaps in some 
 improved style, a la Franfaise or a la Coolie f 
 
 But Mr. Helper speaks of Rousseait and Montes- 
 quieu! Does he think that the "constitutional" Mon- 
 tesquieu would have acted differently from our "con- 
 stitutional" Madison? Or, did Lafayette act differ- 
 ently from Jefferson, the renowned pupU of Rous- 
 seau and Voltaire? But, then, has Mr. H, any idea 
 of the gloomy age in which those philosophers lived 
 and wrote? There were in that century thirty-seven 
 famines, more or less severe, in France. Rousseau 
 wrote his Contrat Social to starving millions, and Mon- 
 tesquieu's Esprit des Lois was but a futile remedy for a 
 dying generation. Alas! what misery was brooding at 
 that time, unheeded, by the side of reckless extravagance ! 
 France was approaching her revolutionary crisis ! But 
 the blood of a hundred thousand, slain on the altar of 
 Liberty, could not wash away her tyranny! And the 
 blood of other hundreds of thousands, slain to the idol 
 of Glory, could not wash away her crimes ! And in the 
 face of this self-condemnation, Mr. Helper brings up the 
 Testimony of France ! Let France sweep at her own 
 doors! There is, as yet, as much dust and dirt in her 
 precincts, as there was in the twelve stables of Augias ! 
 
THE TESTIMOlsriES. 67 
 
 VI.— THE TESTIMONY OF GERMANY. 
 
 Germany, thou famous land of thought and theory! 
 Where are thy radical statesmen, to teach us systems like 
 those of Mr. Helpeb? Thou land of slo-r movements, 
 thou land of forty tyrants ea; officio, and forty hundred times 
 forty hundred assistant masters with pens and lashes, with 
 anathemas and jails ! Oh, unfortunate collector ! More 
 xmfortunate stiU ia your individual citations ! 
 
 We pass by the aristocratic Goethe, who, in his love of 
 humanity, had scarcely time to think a moment of his 
 country's weal or woe, and venture a few remarks on 
 LuTHEE, better known in this land. 
 
 We must be aware that the people of Luthee's time, 
 like our own " good folks," were not eager after reforms 
 in matters of religion only. In their articles of demands, 
 the reUgious and worldly elements were always mixed and 
 blended with each other. " Priests chosen by the com- 
 munity," they asked for, and " ISo more Serfdom ;" " Free- 
 dom of Belief — and AboKtion of unjust Taxes." The spir- 
 itual and temporal always went together. And they had 
 reason enough to think of this world also ; for, " they 
 were badly clothed, dwelt in houses without floors or 
 pavements, slept on straw, Kved on ' black' bread, apples, 
 and water, saw meat but rarely, and many never at all, and 
 had often no bread, even." 
 
 The conservative Niebtthe, even, had to confess that the 
 right was, at first, on the side of the poor people, But 
 how did LtTTHEE feel and act toward the despairing 
 wretches? When he heard about their rebellion, he 
 wrote : " Let the balls fly among them ; else they do still 
 worse things. There is no need of pity. Obey they 
 
eg THE AU10BIOA.N QUBBTION. 
 
 mustl God, siiroly, Avill siivo tlm iimoocnl, ns IIo did 
 Joroiuiiih and Lot. If llo iloos not, llioy Buvoly aro not 
 innocent 1" llatlior hnvsh laugimjjto ! Or, in his lot tcr to 
 Bnvou EiNsiKDici.N, who had asked liini wliotlior lio sliould 
 libomto Ills slaves: "The ooinnum man," ho answorod, 
 "must ho loiulcd with huvdoim, cImo ho ■will jimw too 
 wanton." And loaded and burdonod ho wns I Tho vovongo 
 taken on those poor poasantH A\im horrible. Thoso who 
 liad saved their lives and Hod homo to thoir families woro 
 hunted out ami cruelly niuvdcrod or blinded, muliliitod, and 
 disgraced. Uarel'ootod wore tlioy ibrciod to bou; ibrgivciioHM 
 from the hand of their oppreBSor», and ilnes were laid upon 
 thorn, to pay which it took genoriitii)ns and Lfonerations. 
 LuTiiici^ oven, was at last moved to i)ity ; for, " cruelty 
 seonu'd to have gone too I'ar." 
 
 But this would load >im beyond the Umits of our present 
 imdortakins. We only think that Mr. llici.ncii ooiild 
 hardly have made good AbolitiouiHlH of Ijuriimi and 
 
 VII.-TllK TKHTIMONY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Mr. ITmTON Kowan irici.ricit does not know much of 
 the political condition of the KuHsian ]ieople, wo suMiiiHit, 
 The |iiivilogod noblomen tlioniHolvoM are not very fl'oo. 
 Says a Russian: "Their privilcffcH are, to take olllco if 
 they can get any; to leavo it whoi. (hey are diHrniHHcd; to 
 go abroad if they get passportH ; and to buy real estate if 
 they have money." And tlioMo wxw tho "upper-ten" of 
 IluHsia. There are, then, Homo twenty or thirty claHSOs of 
 other Hubjoets, partly slaves and partly free, and wholly 
 unfreo and completely slaves, omounting to an iiidefinilo 
 number of millions. Among i\w\\\, thoro is a continuous 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. QQ 
 
 emancipation, in the Uussian sense of the word, and the 
 most modern coiij) d'dtat of Aiexanper III. is not without 
 pi-oc'cdonts among the former Alexanders. It is a difficult 
 thing to emancipate those people of thirty or forty differ- 
 ent races and of as many different customs, duties, and 
 languages ; and a wholesale emancipation, though sounded 
 with the roaring voice of the Northern Bear, is a sheer 
 impossibility. Nor does the present emperor mean it so, 
 though Mr. Hkuee may have read his nkas so. More- 
 over, if the emancipation is to be intrusted to the same 
 worthy officials \\ho had the supervision of oppression and 
 taxation, then woo to the new-made Russian freeman I 
 lie will have to pay dearly for what they call liberty. So 
 much for tlie Home Department. Now a word about 
 Foreign Affairs. 
 
 We do not generally take Russia as a model of freedom, 
 nor do we expect much from her in this line. Nor does 
 she herself much believe in the liberty of the races. She 
 has helped Austria in subduing Hungary, and has just 
 finished a hundred years' war against Ciroassia. The last 
 Will of rKTKit the Great is her Bible, and her Czar is her 
 God. fYeodom can be hoped for only as fai- as it docs not 
 conflict with the one or the otlier. The prospects of lib- 
 erty are, then, not very fair, and we think even a Russian 
 edition of the " Compendium of the Crisis" would change 
 matters but little. 
 
 VIII.— THE TESTIMONY OF GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 This Testimony is simply absurd ; for one needs not to 
 be a scholai' to know the theories and practices of G reece 
 and Rome in regard to Slavery. Slavery was a fixed and 
 acknowledged institution among all the states of antiquity. 
 
1^0 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 They went still further. Xenophon calls all manual occu- 
 pations dishonorable and unworthy of a citizen. Plato 
 says that such occupations degrade those who exercise 
 them. Solon, the oil-merchant, made some allowances 
 for the trader only, probably from an esprit de corps. 
 Aeistotle calls the slave a part of the family property. 
 That good old philosopher has some ugly passages, which 
 do not savor much of AboUtionism. " Nature herself," 
 says he, " has made Slavery," and he reasons thus on it : 
 " The animals (man included) are divided into male and 
 female. The male is more perfect, and therefore com- 
 mands. The female is less perfect, and thus obeys!" 
 (Aristotle does not seem to be very sound on the 
 Punctum JKanthippicum, or Women's Rights question.) 
 " But, well," continues the philosopher, " there are among 
 men those who stand as much below others as the body 
 below the soul, or the beast below man. And these indi- 
 viduals, fit for physical labor only and incapable of doing 
 anything more perfect, are destined by Nature for Slavery, 
 because there is nothing better for them than to obey. 
 But what great difierence is there, after aU, between a 
 slave and a beast ?" Singular Abohtion doctrines these ! 
 
 Yet one glance at Rome. Juvenal says : " The Romans 
 consume the nations to their very bones." They had 
 temples erected to Jupiter, the Plunderer, and disliked 
 commerce, "because it has made others their slaves." 
 But why should we waste time about something which 
 schoolboys can teach ? Mr. Helper, the Blunderer, alone 
 can quote such examples from History ! The domain of 
 antiquity and classical antiquarianism belongs entirely to 
 Mynheer Van Dyke and to your Honor Mr. O'Conok. 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. 71 
 
 IX.— THE TESTmONT OF THE CHUECHES AND OF THE 
 BIBLE. 
 
 Mr. Helpee writes two chapters on this subject. But 
 we think the Churches — or, rather, Mr. H.'s clergymen — 
 may just as well he omitted. For they either teach the 
 Bible, on which all churches are more or less based — in 
 which case they are superfluous — or they do not teach 
 what the Bible does, and then Mr. H. must have already 
 included them under his " wiser and better men" of each 
 nation and section. 
 
 But our collector has again stepped on dangerous ground. 
 We will quote for him a few verses from the Old and a 
 few from the New Laws. He must try to get along with 
 them the best he can. 
 
 We read in Leviticus xxv. 44, 45, 46 : " Both thy bond- 
 men, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be 
 of the heathen that are round about you ; of them shall 
 ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the chil- 
 dren of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them 
 shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which 
 they begat in your land ; and they shall be your possession. 
 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children 
 after you, to inherit them for a possession ; they shall be 
 your bondmen forever: but over yom- brethren the chil- 
 dren of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with, 
 rigor." 
 
 In 1 Timothy vi. 1, 2 we read : " Let as many servants 
 as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of 
 all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not 
 blasphemed." 
 
 The venerable Thomas Scott adds, in his " Comment- 
 
72 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 aries on the Holy Bible," in the one case : " The Israelites 
 were thus permitted to keep slaves of other nations." 
 And in the other case : " This shows that Christian mas- 
 ters were not required to set their slaves at liberty." 
 
 Now, we are generally called a Christian nation, and are 
 often compared to the Israelites of old. But neither in 
 the one character nor in the other are we forbidden to 
 keep slaves, nor could we as a Joint Stock Company of 
 Christian Israelites derive, in any way, such a prohibition. 
 
 But why refer to a book — and especially now — which 
 has been used, and turned, and interpreted, and falsified 
 m so many diflferent ways, to serve any sect, or party, or 
 fancy, or ambition in the history of social tyranny and 
 freedom ? Why refer to a book whose " Kingdom is not 
 of this earth, but of the Life to come ?" 
 
 Let us never mention it in settling or discussing our 
 Slavery question ! There is inflammatory matter enough 
 between us! "We do not want to call still more the 
 odium theolofficum, that most odious of church-feelings, 
 to our aid! We are a progressing humanity! Om- 
 heavenly wants may, in all these phases of development, 
 remain the same ! The forms of worship, even, may be 
 unchanged ! But our worldly wants certainly do change, 
 and with them the forms of social and political life. 
 Therefore, let the Bible no more interfere, lest we put the 
 Good Book into a false position. 
 
 X.— THE TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. 
 
 We are now, happily, over the opinions of the " wiser 
 
 and better men," and are prepared to judge upon the 
 
 Testimony of the Living Witnesses. Thirty long pages 
 
 of Living Witnesses ! A formidable phalanx, which Mr. 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. 73 
 
 Helper might — as he says — increase ad infinitum, ifow, 
 we do not undervalue the testimonies he has thus col- 
 lected, nor even those which he might have collected, 
 or may yet collect in times to come. Nor yet do, or can 
 we refute them as they are. They are all very good in 
 their proper places. But one thing pleased us considera- 
 bly, namely, the fact of such a motley crowd of Living 
 Witnesses all beiag thrown peU-meU on one and the same 
 platform. Sbwaed and Snodgeass, Sumitee and Phil- 
 lips, Geeeit Smith and Bueltngame, Caeet and Pae- 
 KBE, Geeelbt and Raymond, Bbechee and Bellows, 
 Chase and Tappait, and forty or fifty others, all huddled 
 together in one common group ! Has any human mortal 
 ever seen such a number of so different characters brought 
 together so peacefully on any previous thirty pages of 
 cotemporary history? No, not in a directory, even! 
 They all have nearly the same opinions about Slavery in the 
 abstract, but how different are their actions ! Some of 
 them act just as "Washington or Jeppeeson did. But 
 there are others whose consciences require, in addition, the 
 establishment of Underground Railroads ; others, again, 
 may be called practical men, they use the abstractions as 
 party capital; there is a class, too, who, being of the 
 cathoUc cast, think — "Faith without works is dead!" 
 and therefore furnish pikes and money for others to battle 
 and to die in the cause of human Uberty ; there is, indeed, 
 a small number — abstract opinions always being equal — 
 who really fight, and fear neither death nor the gallows ; 
 there is also quite a number who think most bravely, but 
 " take it out" m talking, and some few go even further 
 than the rest, and try to induce the Negroes to rise in 
 rebellion against their masters, and achieve, with blood 
 
74 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 and murder, their inborn African liberties ! And all these 
 different characters stand on Mr. Helper's pages firmly 
 fcoit together ! Must these Living Witnesses not be sur- 
 prised at the company they are forced to keep ? At any 
 natural occasion of contact, they would fly to the four 
 winds on discovering such neighbors as Mr. H. gives 
 them ! But what humanity and patriotism could not do, 
 Mr. Helpbe's jugglery has accomplished. They are all in 
 apparent harmony. This is certainly a "curiosity in 
 literature." 
 
 XI.— GENERAL REMARKS ON THE TESTIMONIES. 
 
 These are the Testimonies. We did not add to each 
 class of them their counterparts, which might easily have 
 been found in the History of Opinions, or might have 
 been gleaned, without much trouble, from the writings 
 of the Pro-Slavery apostles, but we confined ourselves to 
 a few illustrations. What is true of them, is true with 
 respect to all others which the Helpers and the O'Conors 
 may, jointly or separately, with limited or unlimited re- 
 sponsibility, hereafter collect and classify. By reasoning 
 from single opinions, or even from single facts, we may 
 at our pleasure successfully prove or disprove the same 
 thing. 
 
 We are, in this connection, spontaneously reminded of 
 the famous dialecticians of old Greece. They were mas- 
 ters in casuistry, and they knew that they were when they 
 went to Rome to display their power. There they dis- 
 proved, before astonished crowds, in the afternoon, what 
 they had proved in the morning, and carried conviction 
 at both times. The Roman people were at that time but 
 little skilled in rhetorical tactics, and they applauded alto- 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. 76 
 
 gether too liberally. Such is the popular heart, often 
 yielding too generously to momentary impressions. Tout 
 comme chez nous ! Such arguments are, therefore, very 
 useful on occasions when momentary excitement is all that 
 is aimed for. But they are Talueless when we want a 
 sound and solid basis for our course of action. 
 
 But before taking leave entirely of Mr. Helpee, we will 
 yet look a moment at the bloody Plan with which Num- 
 bers and Testimonies, collectively, have inspired him. It 
 is a proposal for a wondrous coup d'etat, which would at 
 once rid us of all our difi&culties. 
 
 XII.— ME. HELPER'S BLOODY PLAN". 
 
 Long before Mr. H.'s great chapter on Abolition ar- 
 rives, its approach is perceived by the more intemperate 
 rhetoric. The beginning of the chapter itself is, however, 
 in quite a humorous and pleasant strain. It is like the 
 deceitful smUe of sunshine while the thunder-clouds are 
 already towering over the hiUs that gird the horizon. So 
 we take it, at least. "The non-slaveholding whites," 
 says Mr. H., " ought to demand from the slaveholders 
 any number of millions of dollars for the decrease in 
 value of their (the non-slaveholders) lands, during the 
 dark period of Slavery in the South." "Well, these non- 
 slaveholding whites might just as well protest against their 
 having been bom, and sue their parents for the damages 
 sustained thereby. For, their fathers or grandfathers, or 
 somebody higher up in that transcendental line that leads to 
 Adam, must be responsible for those brawny " members 
 from Africa," who are the cause of aU the mischief. But 
 Mr. H. must intend this whole compensation matter 
 merely for fun; else he would not, shortly after, have 
 
ijQ THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 adduced testimony to prove " that the non-slaveholders 
 possess the poorest lands, and the slaveholders own the 
 most fertile soils." We let it, therefore, pass as a httle 
 fun, and ■will look again into the angry face of the threat- 
 ening storm-cloud. 
 
 like distant thunder, the :'amous Plan for Ahohshing 
 Slavery gradually draws nearer. It has an ugly look at 
 the outset, and seems to promise hard weather. Some 
 excuses, pressed out by an overburdened conscience, fall 
 like rain-drops through the sky. But the thxmder-cloud is 
 unrelenting. Nearer and nearer it draws, until at last it 
 stands, mad and roaring, over our heads, and, raging, un- 
 furls its blood-red banner of Destruction and Desolation. 
 
 " 1st. Thorough Organization and Independent Political 
 Action on the part of the N on-Slaveholding Whites. 
 
 " 2d. Ineligibility of Pro-Slavery Politicians — Never any 
 other Vote to any one who Advocates the Retention and 
 Perpetuation of Human Slavery. 
 
 " 3d. No Co-operation with Pro-Slavery Politicians — No 
 Fellowship with them in Religion — No Affihation with 
 them in Society. 
 
 "4th. No Patronage to Pro-Slavery Merchants — No 
 Guestship in Slave-waiting Hotels — No Fees to Pro-Slav- 
 ery Lawyers — No EmplojTnent of Pro-Slavery Physicians 
 — No Audience to Pro-Slavery Parsons. 
 
 " 5th. No more Hiring of Slaves by Non-Slaveholders. 
 
 "6th. Abrupt Discontinuance of Subscription to Pro- 
 Slavery Newspapers. 
 
 "Tth. The Greatest Possible Encouragement to Free 
 White Labor." 
 
 A few rain-drops, sprinkling excuses on the Bottses 
 and Stanleys, Beowns and Biaies, proved that the 
 
THE TESTIMONIES. >J>J 
 
 Storm had passed away. Some more little thundering in 
 the distance, and all yras over. The sky was clear, the 
 sun shone bright, and nobody was hurt, " frankly, fairly, 
 squarely." 
 
 But, earnestly, has anybody ever seen more moonshine 
 and madness put into the sacred Number VII. ? What a 
 horrible and ridiculous heptade ! what an awful slaughter- 
 house platform ! what a septuple nonsense ! And all this 
 language Mr. H. addresses to the non-slaveholding whites, 
 " who are," as he says, " cajoled into the notion that they 
 are the freest, happiest, and most intelligent people in the 
 world, and believe what the slaveholder tells them." Mr. 
 Helper addresses this murderous heptalogue to these 
 "illiterate" non-slaveholding whites, "who are but one 
 step in advance of the Indians of the forest, who are de- 
 plorably ignorant, three fourths of the adults not being 
 able to read or to write their own names" [the other 
 fourth being probably comprised in the flattering term 
 " white sycophants who have negroes around"]. Now, 
 add to this such language as — " Haughty cavaliers of 
 shackles and handcufis, and lords of the lash," while the 
 Northerners are the "liberty-loving patriots," then you 
 have all the elementary ingredients, not of a common 
 Abolitionist of old Noah's or Webstee's stamp, but of 
 the Helper caste, " whose line of duty is clearly defined, 
 and whose intention it is to follow it faithfully or die in 
 the attempt." 
 
 Now, we humbly think that in Kansas, at Harper's 
 Ferry, and in Charleston, there have been shooting and 
 murdering, hanging and dying, enough. "We do not 
 exactly mean by this to dissuade Mr. Helper altogether 
 from dying, if he thinks he would help the cause more 
 
^8 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 by Hs death ; but still we believe that for " common 
 folks," and for the great majority of people in general, 
 it would be better " to do one's duty faithfully" and lite 
 in the attempt. But in order to work and live, a different 
 plan is needed from that of Mr. Helper. His is, indeed, 
 a dying effort, scented with the cold air of the grave and 
 the unfriendly fragrance of corpses. 
 
 We attempt to oppose to this war, blood, and death 
 scheme, a Living Plan — a work of friendship and peace, a 
 proposal of union and harmony, not drawn from the heated 
 crucible of our own individual fancies, hopes, and passions, 
 but from the great workshop of nature, which hes open 
 to all faithful students of history. It may not be covered 
 with the smiles of sunshine and the pleasing light of flat- 
 tered prejudices, but it leads not to perpetual war and 
 final destruction, 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 THE DEYELOPMENT 
 
BOO^ III. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 I.— SLAVERY IN HISTORY. 
 
 Let us smother for a moment the angry feelings which 
 long disputes have aroused within us ; let us lay aside all 
 artificial issues to which enmity and exasperation have 
 forced us ; let us ignore all arguments and theories which 
 amhition, self-interest, and pride have created; let us for- 
 get all hostile acts, on one side and on the other, to which 
 our blind passions and false issues and arguments have car- 
 ried us ; let us then look at Slavery as it appears in History, 
 not from the narrow platform of American party poUtics, 
 but from the broad family circle of humanity, of which 
 our nation is a member. Let us cast away all polemical 
 spirit and look at Slavery objectively as a historical fact, 
 and trace it back in the different periods of the Story 
 of Man, so that we may see its development and divine 
 from the Past the prospects of the Future ; for this is 
 the spirit in which we must study History. 
 
 We win, however, not give a learned treatise, but only 
 sketch its course, imtil we arrive at our own doors, and 
 see our own Slavery and the circumstances which sur- 
 round it. 
 
 Though the generous minds of the whole civilized world 
 
g2 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 may deem it inhuman in principle for a man to own his 
 fellow-man, still History, on aU its pages, declares itself 
 decidedly in favor of the fact. From the remotest ages, 
 man has been owned and Slavery has existed, though 
 names and forms may have differed. "War seems to have 
 been everywhere the origin of it — at least, in the earher 
 stages of human society — just as war was then the sum 
 total of all international intercourse. If, in civilized ages, 
 war is the exception — or, at least, ought to be — and peace 
 the rule, so, in barbarous periods, war is the rule and 
 peace the exception. In these struggles of barbarous 
 tribes, the prisoners of war were considered the property 
 of the victors, who held this property by no common law, 
 but by force. The victors held unUmited authority over 
 their prisoners ; they could destroy or keep them, just as 
 any other kind of property which had in some way become 
 their own. In times or cases in which these live prisoners 
 were of no use, they were killed ; and they were not killed 
 only when they could serve the victors to some purpose, 
 in which latter case they became slaves. This is the 
 origin of Slavery in the times of barbarism of any nation 
 or tribe — in the primitive phases of human society, where 
 "Might is Right." The slave himself had his right to 
 become free whenever there was not enough might or 
 force to keep him longer in subjection. 
 
 The word " slave" is of modern origin, as it first ap- 
 peared in the long struggles between the Slavonic tribes 
 of the East and the Western Europeans of Germanic 
 origin, in which the former were generally overcome and 
 subdued. 
 
 Let us now see how it has been with Slavery in the na- 
 tions and ages which have heretofore claimed some right 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. 83 
 
 to the title of civilization. There have, as yet, been but 
 three great civilizations in the world : the old Asiatic, in 
 its manifold branches, the Greco-Roman, and the Modern 
 European, in which latter, also, this continent, as a great 
 European colony, must be reckoned. In the two former 
 civilizations, that is, among the so-called ancient nations. 
 Slavery was a conditio sine qua non — the fundamental 
 condition of their system of social economy. It was the 
 great characteristic of all ancient national compacts, and 
 wherever we cast our eyes we find it. It came to them 
 from the times of their barbarism, and was sustained and 
 increased by many accidental causes in their history. It 
 was a punishment for crime at one time, a payment for 
 debt at another. It was the last disgrace to which the 
 gambler was to submit among some nations ; it was the 
 last means to shield the poor and weak from hunger and 
 danger among others. 
 
 But as these nations advanced in culture and civilization, 
 the condition of the slaves became modified. They were 
 still the principal laborers in all the branches of rising in- 
 dustry (for "man" seemed not to have been made for 
 labor, but only for war and the chase, and labor was only 
 worthy of a slave, of a low-bred man, or, in some nations, 
 of woman) ; but they were treated more gently, and ob- 
 tained some rights and privileges. Though these nations 
 never abolished Slavery entirely, still we know the friendly 
 intercom-se between master and slave, especially among 
 the Greeks and the Romans. Thus, could the slave, among 
 the Athenians, sue his master for cruel treatment. Beating 
 a slave or killi ng hJTn was reserved to the public authorities. 
 A slave was allowed to gain and to own property, and to 
 buy his liberty. Similar was the condition of the slave in 
 
54, THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 the Romaa Empire. Thoagh the Justinian Code still 
 granted to lie master the vitce necisqtce potestas — the 
 right to pummel and to slay — still the whole tenet had 
 become obsolete in practice. The master was often satis- 
 fied with a certain tithe or daily payment, as is the case 
 in our own Southern dlties, and he fi-equently promised his 
 slare entire freedom as soon as he (the slave) had gathered 
 a certain amount of property. There were many manu- 
 missions for Tarious other causes, such as extraordinary 
 fidelity, or self-sacrificing services of any kind. Slavery 
 m.ust, indeed, have changed considerably in character, 
 since even most skillful artists and men of superior edu- 
 cation and refinement were found in its ranks, and great 
 poets, generals, and statesmen were bom in Slavery, or of 
 slave parents. 
 
 Modem civilization may be said to have begun with the 
 appearance of the Germanic nations upon the theater of 
 Europe, especially since the time of the overthrow of the 
 "Western Boman Empire. As long as they were in a 
 barbarous or semi-civilized state, they obtained and held 
 slaves in the same manner as other tribes and nations. 
 During the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, even, there 
 were, according to the best authorities, as many slaves in 
 Germany as there were free men. Among the Anglo- 
 Saxons, the per-centage of slaves was even stiQ greater. 
 But in the Slavery of the different modem nations 
 that rose on the ruins of the old Roman Empire, similar 
 changes took place, as in Greece and Rome. The sale of 
 slaves to a foreign land was forbidden at an early time, 
 and their general condition, mostly by reason of the in- 
 fluence of the Christian Church, was gradually so much 
 improved that it deserved even another name. The slave, 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. 85 
 
 during the so-called period of chivalry and feudalism, be- 
 came a " serf," and Slavery became serfdom, not unlike 
 the Roman colonate in the latter times of the empire. 
 The serf was less owned as to his life tiian as to his serv- 
 ice. Serfdom may thus be regarded as the great stepjang- 
 stone to freedom, just as, vice versa., the poor free man, in 
 those feudal times, often sank to the state of serfdwn. 
 We do not mean by this that Slavery Tvas changed into 
 serfdom by a positive law. But that intermediate and 
 mitigated condition of the Slave was none the less a real- 
 ity. Thus, in England, " Villany" originally meant Slav- 
 ery ; but it was a different thing in the middle ages. 
 
 This, again, was similar in Rome and modem Europe. 
 But there the Romans stopped. This milder form of 
 Slavery continued as long as the empire itself and even 
 survived its fall. This was not so with the modem na- 
 tions. There arose, in spite of old systems and old theo- 
 ries, a new element, a new principle, with the advance of 
 industry. It was "Honor to Labor," the characteristic 
 element of the triumphant civilization of the modem 
 nations. It is this principle which prolongs the lives of 
 modern empires, and will finally bring about the civiliza- 
 tion of the world. It is the want of this principle which 
 brought decay upon the ancient nations before the foot of 
 the barbarian had even yet trodden upon their soiL It is 
 " Honor to Labor" which brought the man of labor at last 
 to honor and freedom. Gradually his burdens grew less. 
 Instead of all the labor of his whole day, the serf owed 
 only part of his labor to his master, and then only certMn 
 services at certain seasons or in certain contingencies. 
 What formerly was unrewarded service, gratuitously de- 
 manded and offered, received some remuneration, though 
 
86 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 small it may have been. Such remunerations became, with 
 the increased productiveness of labor and the increased 
 value of the laborer himself, more adequate, until forced 
 service became voluntary service, since the lord held up 
 as high rewards or wages for labor as any other person. 
 These are some of the ways ia which serfdom passed 
 away, though the extinction of its last forms required 
 some legislative enactment. Such enactments were made 
 in most nations of Europe during the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries ; and after many ages of struggles, 
 the enslaved man became at last free. 
 
 II.— NEGRO SLAVEET IN HISTORY. 
 
 Negro Slavery is as old as any other Slavery, and its 
 origin is war, as among any other tribes, nations, or races, 
 be they white, yellow, or red. Prisoners of war were slain 
 or made slaves, in the continent of Africa, long before 
 European and American slave-traders appeared on its 
 shores — long before Baeth, the learned traveler, saw 
 black slaves owned by black masters — long before the 
 interests of African industry " tied the Negroes to the 
 plows and drove them Uke oxen." 
 
 Among modern nations, the Spaniards were the first 
 who made and owned African slaves. It was during 
 their long wars with the Moors or Arabs, who, in their 
 western stream, had spread over the whole northern part 
 of Africa, even to the Pyrenean Peninsula, and had taken, 
 for many centuries, a firm footing on Spanish soil, at the 
 very dawn of modern European civilization. During these 
 struggles and wars with the Mohammedan intruders of 
 Asia, who once threatened to subdue all Europe, the Span- 
 iards at last drove them away to Africa, and followed them 
 
THE DETELOPMEKTT. 87 
 
 in their turn to that continent. The wars continued there, 
 and the so-called "Black Moors," the real Africans by birth 
 and race, had often to expiate for the wrongs committed 
 by the " Arabian Moors." 
 
 But after the discovery of America, when the Industrial 
 Period of Modern Civilization began, this kind of Slavery, 
 namely, Negro Slavery, changed radically its character. 
 While among all nations, in China even, and on aU con- 
 tinents, Slaveiy became milder, and was slowly passing 
 from every country where there were but the faintest rays 
 of civilization, Negro Slavery took a new and powerful 
 start. Let us view, a moment, the relative position of this 
 fact in the history of the world's progress. 
 
 The continent of Africa, the land of the Negro — if we 
 take Negro as the general term for those manifold tribes 
 that inhabit Africa — was the last which appeared on the 
 great theater of the civilization of the world. 
 
 Asia had its time the first of all the continents. It was 
 the cradle of human progress. It had grown, lived, and 
 decayed, before our present nations and their civilization, 
 their lands and continents even, were dreamed of. Their 
 social life was, indeed, confined to one continent, and on 
 this continent, again, the Chinese were separated by insur- 
 mountable barriers from the land and civilization of the 
 Hindoos, and these again from the civilization of Western 
 Asia, which itself stretched only to the Mediterranean and 
 its shores. Egypt was but a small part of Africa, and 
 may as well be counted to Asia, and the Phenicians and 
 Carthagenians pierced but little into the continent of 
 Africa. The great Sahara was the Western and Southern 
 limit of their empires. Thus the Asiatic colonies on the 
 one side, and the young rising kingdoms of Media and 
 
88 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 Persia on the other, extended but little the area of this 
 civilization, which remained truly Asiatic in origin, form, 
 and character. 
 
 Then came the Geeco-Romak civilization. This, too, 
 stretched, in spite of its extensive "wars and glorious 
 achievements, over only a comparatively small area, in 
 which the shores of the Mediterranean and the adjacent 
 lands were, and played the principal parts. We know, 
 indeed, that the great empire of Rome, in its period of 
 highest splendor, stretched over the totus orbis terrarum — 
 over the whole world ; but we know, too, how large this 
 " whole world" was — with no America, with almost no 
 Africa, with little of Asia, and but the Southern part and 
 some of the Northern territory of Europe ; in all, about 
 one half the territory of the United States. 
 
 But now came the Modeest Eueopban civilization. Its 
 area was at first Europe. The new nations of Italy, 
 Spain, France, Germany, and England arose and stretched 
 their influence farther and farther over the then known 
 countries. The " Straits of Gibraltar" were no longer 
 honored as the termini mundi — the ends of the world. 
 The seats of ancient civilization were sought again. The 
 new world of America was discovered, conquered, and 
 colonized. The islands of the South Sea became known. 
 The sea route to India was found, and expedition followed 
 expedition, until at last the whole earth was known, and 
 the ancient seats of glory, as weU as the heretofore un- 
 known and untrodden soils, were drawn into this general 
 and cosmopolitan life of the human family. CiviUzation 
 was no longer confined to the shores of the Midland sea, 
 but it was girded by all the shores of all the seas. What 
 were formerly the branches of the Midland sea became 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. 89 
 
 now the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and those island 
 kingdoms of former times became empires of whole con- 
 tiaents. Such is Modern European civilization. 
 
 The last continent that joined this universal cycle, and the 
 last race that took active part in this universal life, were 
 Africa and the Afeican. The Northern shores of that 
 continent, as we have seen, were hut small helts of land, 
 colonized by foreign races. The Arabs, even, knew com- 
 paratively but httle of the great heart of Africa. It was 
 left to the most modern missionaries of Selfishness and 
 Civilization, of Trade and Religion, of Curiosity and 
 Science, to open some insight into the life of the main- 
 land. Untouched by the rise and fall of empires and 
 civilizations, it had followed an isolated life. But unlike 
 the Australians, the Africans had preserved a physical 
 strength, which caused surprise to civilized man ; and un- 
 like the Indians of America, they had learned some agri- 
 culture and some industry, had some state life, and had 
 reached some degree of culture, the most, even, in those 
 parts which were least exposed to the inroads of the 
 modern colonizer and trader. And this is the land — this 
 is the race which was to furnish the modern slaves. While 
 the Chinese were lingering along a half-civilized life, and 
 the Hindoos were degenerating from their early culture ; 
 while Western Asia decked her soils with the broken 
 mins of former glory, and the Greek, even, grew in body 
 and mind unworthy of their noble forefathers ; while 
 Western Europe, under the influence of the Germanic 
 race, was rising to be the lawgiver of the world, and sent 
 its colonists to all the distant lands on a mission of regen- 
 eration ; whUe the Red Man of the New World was bat- 
 tled with until «' he had to go toward the setting sun," 
 
90 THE AMEEIOAH QUESTIOlf. 
 
 Africa was destined to fumisli the Slave of the day, the 
 Slave of modern nations, the Slave par excelience, the 
 Slave of the new, industrial, cosmopoUtan, and Chiistian 
 civilization ! 
 
 This modern Negro Slavery is, therefore, indeed, a 
 "peculiar institution." It arose not in times of barbarism, 
 nor through accidental warfare of fighting tribes. It was, 
 in this respect, unique, isolated, one by itself in time, 
 place, and circumstances. When Slavery was everywhere 
 passing away, this pecuHar modern iS'egro Slavery first 
 began. The slave was no longer the accidental captive in 
 fierce battles, waged for glory, power, and fame, the 
 delights of the ambitious barbarian. But in place of 
 " glorious" wars, there came inglorious slave-hunts, for no 
 other object than to make captives, to sell these captives 
 as slaves to the civilized man of modern times, who was to 
 take these slaves to distant lands and continents, to sell 
 them again to others, where they, with all their descend- 
 ants, are bound to labor and to toil during their lives. 
 Slavery thus became industrial, like the whole world and 
 its civilization, and lost all its romantic features of old. 
 The continent last discovered was to serve as the principal 
 theater for this Slavery, and the race last found was to be 
 the Slave race. 
 
 The Spaniards introduced this Slavery very soon after 
 the discovery of this Western World, whose virgin soil 
 needed the labor of whole races. Hayti, the first free black 
 land, was also the first slave land. Four months before 
 the Mayflower arrived, slaves were already in Virginia, 
 through the kind aid of Dutch sailors. Since that time, 
 the merchants of the North and of the South, of the East 
 and of the West, of this and of other lands and conti- 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. 91 
 
 nents, have been zealously competing -with each other in 
 this once honored traffic in human flesh, and whatever 
 stain and curse are connected with it rest alike on this 
 whole land and on the whole modem world. White men 
 soon accustomed themselves to own Mack men. The 
 Spaniards, French, Dutch, English, Americans, all and 
 everybody, owned Negroes, and sold and bought them, 
 and used them as their slaves. Laws of discipline, and 
 systems to regulate the relations of master and slave, soon 
 engaged the statesmen of all nations, and filled volumes of 
 their codes. 
 
 ni.— m;geo slavery m the southeek states. 
 
 Though modern Negro Slavery has some peculiarities, 
 it is stUl Slavery in aU its cardinal poiats. Some may say 
 that, in our days, a distinct race is set aside to be slaves ; 
 but this, even, can be found in other periods. The Greeks 
 regarded the Scythian race as born for Slavery. Similar 
 were the ideas of the old Germans in respect to the 
 Sclavonians, and "barbarous" and "slave" were almost 
 synonymous terms among the "civilized" nations of an- 
 tiquity. These civilized nations, however, were sadly 
 undeceived in after-times. If we thus would judge from 
 the history of other kinds of Slavery to the future of our 
 own, we should be forced to the conclusion that Negro 
 Slavery, too, must have its growth, its modifications, and 
 its end. The peculiar features which distinguish our 
 Slavery from others, such as its mercenary origin, its 
 industrial character, its growth in a period of great 
 achievements in science and politics, which seemed to 
 promise hope, and freedom, and happiness to the whole 
 human race, these peculiar features would speak more in 
 
92 THE AMERICAN QUESTIOIT. 
 
 favor of modifications and a gradual abolition than in 
 favor of a perpetual continuance. But why should we 
 longer urge the argument of history ? The whole ques- 
 tion has already been decided in principle, and to a great 
 extent in fact, too. For all civilized nations — whatever 
 their other sore spots may be — and half of our States 
 have emancipated the former ISTegro Slaves — the whole 
 modem civilized world has long acknowledged that it is 
 unjust and inhuman to receive, with chains and fetters in 
 our hands, a new race, neglected and isolated. To re- 
 open the slave-trade, and put again a degrading stamp 
 upon aU Africa, to doom the whole race and continent to 
 be a perpetual and entire Slave race and Slave continent, 
 none but a rash, thoughtless, and misguided politician can 
 think or hope. The people of the whole civilized world 
 stand ready with the weapons of the world to repel any 
 further outrage on a shamefully treated continent. The 
 question is, therefore, not whether Africa shall be a slave 
 continent, and the African a slave per se, nor even that all 
 the Negroes transported into our land shall be slaves for- 
 ever, but the issue is only whether those Nbgeoes who 
 
 ARE STILL OWiraiD AS SLAVES BY THE SoirTHEE]Sr StATES OF 
 
 OTJE Union shall be slaves forever, or pass gradually into 
 freedom, as it happened in ninety-nine other parts of the 
 civilized world where Slavery had formerly existed. The 
 question as to the continuance of Negro Slavery is, there- 
 fore, strictly an American — and, indeed, a Southern — 
 question only. 
 
 Without solely relying, however, on our general argu- 
 ment, we will now shortly review the different special 
 pleas which are here raised in favor of the continaance of 
 Negro Slavery in the South. 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. 83 
 
 rV.— THE PLEA OF THE CUESE. 
 
 God, or rather Noah, cursed the descendants of Ham, 
 the father of Canaan. We read in Genesis ix. 25 : " And he 
 said : Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be 
 imto his brethren." There are a great many hermeneuti- 
 cal difficulties connected with this text. " Noah drank of 
 wine and was drunken. * * * And Noah awoke from 
 his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto 
 him." And then he cursed him. Now, this is quite natu- 
 ral ; but it shows, as the venerable Thomas Scott says, 
 " human imperfection in Noah" to drink wine ; and espe- 
 cially, we may add, to drink too much of it, so as to get 
 drunk. But, then — ^in all due reverence be it said — ^it 
 would be quite natural, too, that Noah, awakening in or 
 from his drunkenness, should use " imperfect" and intem- 
 perate language. 
 
 But, be this as it may. Ham showed a vile character in 
 doing what, he did, and he deserved strong punishment. 
 Yet, why not only Ham, but also his young and thought- 
 less son, should be cursed, and not only he, but all the 
 descendants of Ham — ^after the whole human race having 
 been once most radically cursed in A-nATw — ^this remains a 
 mystery. 
 
 Nor is it certain that God heard Noah's curse. To 
 conclude a posteriori^ from the misery and oppression of 
 Africa, that God did hear this curse, such an argument we 
 may object to in many ways. The African is by no means 
 the most cui-sed of this earth. There is the history of the 
 Aztecs, of the Australians, of the Fejeeans, and of many 
 isolated tribes and races toward the North and South 
 poles, with whom the African can fairly be compared to 
 
94 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 his advantage. With the exception of modem Negro 
 Slavery, he has surely endured less misery than millions 
 of Chinese and Pariahs. His numbers compare well with 
 most of the half-civilized races, especially if quality is not 
 overlooked. The men ia the interior of Africa are intel- 
 ligent, too, and mild, says Livingstone ; and their peculi- 
 arly modern curse has been passing away this long time. 
 
 There are, too, some ethnological difaculties in this 
 question. Some say the curse does not refer to the Afri- 
 can Negroes at aU. The Egyptians, the Phenicians, and 
 the Carthaginians certainly were not of one and the same 
 race with the Negroes. K Egypt is meant, there is cer- 
 tainly as much misery on the Nile as in the Soudan, or on 
 the Mountains of the Moon. 
 
 But why should we endeavor to deduce our principles 
 of social and physical action from the Book of the Soul- 
 Life. The Good Book, we must repeat, has nothing to do 
 with the outward forms of this life. And did it even 
 curse the Negro, who among us Christians is ready to 
 sei-ve as the executor of this curse ? But, especially we, 
 the great Republicans and Free men of the modem world 
 — shall we be the hangmen of Liberty ? There is nowhere 
 in the Good Book an express order given to us for that 
 purpose, and there are but few who, on their own respon- 
 sibility, would undertake the work on the groimd of 
 " drunken" Noah's curse ! 
 
 v.— THE PLEA OF EACE INFERIOEITY. 
 
 There is, at least, no longer any dispute among the 
 
 lovers of Southern Negro Slavery, whether the Negro is a 
 
 man or a monkey ; and the comparison of the Negro slaves 
 
 to horses and alligators, or to any domestic or wild cattle, 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. 95 
 
 has become insipid, though it may come from the Kps of 
 clowns and punsters. The Negro is now generally re- 
 garded as a man, though an inferior man ; and nobody will 
 doubt that he is an inferior man if we compare him with 
 the favored Caucasian of the present day. We wiU now 
 examine somewhat the causes of this inferiority of races. 
 
 When we look attentively into the history of mankind, 
 our eyes meet three great facts — we may call them Facts 
 of Difference. There is first, at aU periods, in aU places, 
 and at all stages of human culture, a Difference among 
 Individuals, though they may belong to the same race, or 
 nation, or family, even. It is a physical and moral differ- 
 ence as distinct as that of our faces. This is one of the 
 great obstacles to those theories of communistic equahty. 
 No Spartan law of education, no Free-School system, no 
 Forced education, no Democracy, no Rehgion, no Philan- 
 thropy has ever yet succeeded to make men equal, be it 
 physically, morally, or socially. 
 
 This same difference appears when different individuals 
 are connected and formed into associations, be they fami- 
 nes, tribes, nations, or races. And this i^ the second fact. 
 Just as the development of an iadividual depends upon 
 his genetic structure, and upon the circumstances in which 
 he is placed — or, in Comte's language, upon the character 
 of the organism and of the medium which surrounds it — 
 so do, also, associations of any kind depend upon their 
 inward genetic power and upon the outward influences. 
 Among these outward influences are the geographical and 
 physical condition of the respective lands, the degree of 
 isolation from other tribes and nations, or of communica- 
 tion with them, the state of culture of these tribes at the 
 time of contact, and the interest the more advanced soci- 
 
96 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 eties take in lower and less advanced organisms. Should 
 even the inward endowments of two tribes be the same, 
 the difference of the circumstances that surround them 
 might change their whole character. 
 
 The third fact is, that associations, like individuals, are 
 born, grow, decay, and die at dijEferent periods and have 
 different durations of life. This fact depends directly 
 upon the second. 
 
 The workings of these three great facts have ever made 
 the picture of the human world-life greatly variegated. 
 Now nations arose, then they fell. One race was still 
 lying in barbarism, while another was in the very zenith 
 of its civilization. This same civilized race became weak 
 and decrepit, while the barbarous one rose to strength and 
 power. One people grew to the greatest perfection ; an- 
 other was arrested in the midst of its course. In the 
 great history of the races and nations, we see, indeed, 
 the same phenomena continually repeating themselves as 
 in the history of the individuals of one and the same 
 nation. But this. is the necessary principle of aH human 
 development. DiflEerence, indeed, is the element of aU 
 harmony. There have been, and there will ever be, dif- 
 ferent individuals in the same nation destined to fulfill 
 different tasks and duties. Some will grow earlier, faster, 
 and higher ; others wiU ever remain in the lower walks 
 of life. And exactly thus it is with the tribes, nations, 
 and races of the whole human family. Different nations 
 and different ages have different tasks t6 perform. Some 
 will rise to magnificent dimensions, as their literature and 
 art will bear witness in aU generations to come. Such 
 were the Greeks. Others wiU grow, too, but some gro- 
 tesque temples and broken idols will be all that remains to 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. Qij 
 
 speak of th.eir former glory. Such, were the old Mexicans. 
 Some wiU remain barbarous during long periods, and be 
 subjected and subdued at one time, but at length will 
 gradually rise and set their feet upon the necks of their 
 former victors. Such is the story of the Germans and 
 the Romans. Some races will be interrupted in their 
 long childhood ; a more: civilized race wiU fall upon them, 
 and whatever germ there may have been in them, the 
 more powerful race wiU destroy it. Such we learn from 
 the history of the conquest of America and the '' sinking 
 away" of the Indians. Some wUl be entirely neglected and 
 isolated, until they are so degenerate that they are forever 
 lost, Uke the Australians. Others, again, have once had 
 Bome civilization, but have sunk gradually to a lower level 
 until they were aided by more advanced nations to rise 
 again to higher life, though this be often a cruel process. 
 Such is the story of the Hindoos and the English. There 
 have been tribes, and even cultivated ones, of whom now 
 the names even have passed away. Such are the Goths. 
 There are others whose countries were decked with pal- 
 aces of imheard-of luxury and splendor, which now are 
 deserts and wastes for "wolves to howl in." Look to 
 Asia for examples ! Wbere are the pi-oud Assyrians ? 
 The Northern temperate zone, the largest habitable land, 
 must naturally remain the principal theater or the central 
 part of aU human culture. But has this favored zone ever 
 saved from decay the tribes and nations that poured in 
 upon it ? No ; the principle of degeneracy depends upon 
 no clime or sun ! It gnaws in the heart of the privileged 
 Caucasian, who dwells near the center, as well as in the 
 Patagonian's breast, who is hurled far off to the outer end 
 of the radius. 
 
98 THE AMEEIOAN QITEBTION. 
 
 Such has heen, heretofore, the strange history of the 
 world — a continuous up and down, and still a progress. 
 And is history now to stop ? Are there no more tribes, 
 and nations, and races to come ? Do not Asia, Northern 
 Europe, and Africa yet harhor millions who seem to be 
 waiting for their time to play some more conspicuous part 
 m the world's history? Or, are we bhnd to the new 
 comers who, from year to year, vindicate with greater 
 emphasis their right to be among the nations ? 
 
 In the face of these historical facts, what place can we 
 ascribe to the African ? He is among the latest comers. 
 "What prospect has he in this turmoil of human progress ? 
 The people of Africa seem certainly not lost beyond 
 the hope of recovery. They do not look like a decrepit, 
 wasted, and ruined race. Nobody can look at the mus- 
 cular strength of the Negro, and caU him the oflFspring 
 of a dying race. Let us view him in Africa ! They say 
 he is inferior to us. Well ; but is it impossible to raise 
 him to any higher degree of culture ? Who can affirm 
 that, in the face of the most modem developments of our 
 heroic travelers, Vogel, Baeth, and Livingstone? There 
 seems to be a difference in tribes among them^ just as any- 
 where else. But, on the whole, they are not a people of 
 the lowest character. Though they were isolated so many 
 centuries, they did not remain mere hunters. They 
 reached, by themselves, some agriculture, some manufac- 
 ture, some commerce, some civilization. Or, if we view 
 them in their contact with more civilized nations, they cer- 
 tainly are not void of the power of imitating. In Africa 
 itself they have manufactures of iron slave-chains — the 
 best that are made, they say. And here, our own experi- 
 ence does certainly not show that the Negro, North or 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. gg 
 
 South, is incapable of progress. But how can we expect 
 much from him in this our land ? In the South he is a slave, 
 all direct means of progress being withheld from him. In 
 the North he was emancipated rashly, cast upon a world 
 whose ways he did not know, generally unaccustomed to 
 managing his own business or owning property ; in a word, 
 untaught in the lessons of liberty. Besides, he was thrown 
 among a crowd of Yankees, Dutchmen, Irishmen, and 
 Germans, aU of them descendants of a race long civil- 
 zed, all eager after gain, and aU skillful in obtaining it. 
 How disadvantageous was the Negro's position here! 
 How long, indeed, will and must it take him to rise to a 
 level with us, who have the start of him by centuries of 
 culture ? Perhaps he will never reach us. But, that he 
 is capable of some degree of civilization, who can deny, 
 whether he may look upon the toils and feasts of the planta- 
 tion, or upon the schools and huts of the North ? And 
 are there not many Negroes who have reached a higher 
 intellectual standing in our community than ever can be 
 reached by many of our own native or foreign population 
 of Caucasian blood ? No impartial man can look at the 
 Negro here, and declare him. incapable by nature of any 
 progress. The Negro is a progressive being — a man, and 
 not a brute. 
 
 But, suppose he can never reach the degree of the civil- 
 ization of the Caucasian ! Suppose he wiU ever remain as 
 inferior to him as he now is ! How can we arrive, from 
 the fact of relative inferiority, at the necessity of Slavery ? 
 By what train of logic can we come to the conclusion that 
 inferior races must be made slaves, and not only this — for 
 Slavery may at first be best for them if we abstract from the 
 manner of their coming here — ^but that they must be kept 
 
100 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 slaves in perpetuum, ? . Must, then, all inferior races, and 
 nations, and tribes be likewise made slaves ? Well, then, 
 we have plenty on our hands, and fillibustering will not 
 cease untU all Mexico, all China, all the Indies, all Pata- 
 gonia, all Affica, all Asia, and a good part of Europe is 
 enslaved ! For such inferior tribes and nations are found 
 everywhere — a little higher, a little lower. Where is the 
 line beyond which there is no more freedom, but only eter- 
 nal Slavery ? 
 
 No, we Americans, a small portion of the civilized people 
 of this world, and a portion of this small portion again, 
 all lovers of hberty, we, the nation of the " happy and the 
 free" above others, we can not oppose effectually the ways 
 of the world, the voice of civilization, the lessons of His- 
 tory. The Negro is iniferior, at least now ; he may ever 
 be so ; but he is not therefore necessarily to be a slave, or, 
 rather, the slave of the American cotton-field, forever, and 
 with aU his descendants ! 
 
 VI.— THE PLEA OF PHILANTHKOPY. 
 No man will ever plead philanthropy for the slave-trade. 
 A heartless trader in human flesh presents himself, ivith 
 an appropriate vessel, on the coast of Africa. There he 
 meets a misled, barbarous chief. Excitement for gain 
 prompts them both — the trader and the chief — to make a 
 bargain. The trader lays down a heap of the good things 
 of this world, which flatters the senses of the savage. 
 The savage chief, in his turn, arranges a man-hunt, catches 
 as many descendants of his race as he can get, and gives 
 those who are alive and well to the trader in fulfillment of 
 his bargain. The trader packs them, like so many beasts, 
 into the infected huU of the slave-ship, carries them to a 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. 101 
 
 foreign land, and there again are sold as many as are 
 alive after this second process. The man, who first was 
 free, is then a slave, owned by another race, in another 
 land, forever. Is that philanthropy ? Is that -love of 
 mankind ? 
 
 But let us abstract from the dark origin of Negro 
 Slavery. Let us forget the millions who were transported 
 before the foundation of our Free Republic and after it ! 
 Let us forget the demoralization which civilized man has 
 thus thrown upon the newest comer among the races! 
 Let us forget the demoralization which he has, to some 
 degree, unconsciously loaded upon himself! Let us forget 
 Humanity! Let us take Slavery as it is in our own 
 Southern States ! Suppose even the slave-ship, with aU its 
 horrors, is the messenger of philanthropy ; suppose it was 
 and is philanthropy to fetch the Negro from his native 
 land, and make him a slave — ^is it philanthropy to keep 
 him a slave after he has once quitted the ship, entered our 
 land, unlearned his barbarism, taken upon himself the 
 work of civilized man, and imitated his ways ? Is it 
 philanthropy to keep him down, or to destroy any little 
 ray of progress that may indirectly strike the poor wretch ? 
 No, Philanthropy, above aU, would teach us — after such 
 great wrongs on our side and such favorable experiences 
 on the other — ^to help the poor man, to give him the 
 means of culture, to teach him the rudiments of civilized 
 life, and to try, at least, like all nations heretofoi'e, to 
 make him an intelligent slave, whether this process may 
 lead him to freedom or whether it may never break the 
 chains of bondage. To treat him as a man, as an anthro- 
 pos, Philanthropy certainly must demand of a man. 
 
102 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 YII.— THE PLEA OF NECESSITY. 
 
 But who ■will work our cotton-fields ? We now abstract 
 from all philanthropy or humanity ! Who will work under 
 our burning sun ? Agassiz says the white man can as well 
 as the black man, or he may, we think, at least accustom 
 himself to it. And Liyingstone writes from Africa even : 
 " I have never had a day of illness since my return. We 
 find, too, that, so far fi-om Europeans being unable to 
 work in a hot climate, it is the want of work that kills 
 them. The Portuguese all know that as long as they are 
 moving about, they enjoy good health ; but let them settle 
 down and smoke all day, and drink brandy, then — not a 
 word about brandy in the fever that follows — the blame is 
 aU put on the climate." The Germans, too, seem to get 
 along, in every kind of thrift, very comfortably in Texas. 
 
 But suppose, even, that we need the Negro — and we, 
 too, think we do — would we lose him by raising him to 
 liberty ? Not at all. If we teach him the ways of self- 
 reliance and freedom, and treat him as other laborers, he 
 will never leave what has become to him his native coun- 
 try. He will not come North, for he will prefer the 
 warmer sun of the South, better adapted to his nature, 
 and prefer the soil where he has learned to be free. He wiU 
 prefer the work which he has learned to do, and the 
 society which surrounded and aided him during his re- 
 generation. For, that he can be grateful and is capable 
 of patriotism the war of the Revolution bears ample tes- 
 timony. Nor could he long to go back to Africa, which, 
 indeed, has become to him a strange land. As little would 
 he leave as the descendant of the European leaves his 
 adopted fatherland to recross the ocean and settle in the 
 
THE DEYELOPMEIfT. 103 
 
 old world, whicli now is as new to him as the "Western 
 world was to his ancestors. If the Negro were free, he 
 would voluntarily stay here, where often force alone now 
 keeps him. He would perform the lower duties of social 
 life for generations to come, and in these lower walks he 
 would remain, should he he incapable of ever competing 
 with the old Caucasians. Surely, we want the Negro, 
 and we shall have him, whether Free or Slave. 
 
 VIIL— THE PLEA OF SELF-INTEREST. 
 
 "We find that everywhere in history where emancipation 
 was gradually prepared and finally accomplished, the 
 estates of the masters became many times more valuable 
 than before. Examples are frequently given by the many 
 writers on Slave and Free labor. The Count of Beens- 
 TOEFF is said to have lost one hundred thousand dollars by 
 emancipation ; but his annual income from his estates rose 
 from three thousand to twenty-seven thousand dollars. 
 
 The Slave, as long as he works for his master, wiU gen- 
 erally be as lazy as the circumstances and the lash will 
 permit. From this principle there arose those manifold 
 computations of the economists and the various estimates 
 of the comparative cost of Free and of Slave labor. But 
 on the whole, they aU agree that Slave labor is the more 
 expensive of the two. And this is just what the South 
 needs. Make the Xegro more intelligent and skillful, and 
 give him the hope of his future emancipation, then will his 
 ambition soon tell upon the estates of the master. During 
 this gradual process of emancipation, the master can only 
 be the gainer. 
 
 TtrcKEE thinks that Nature seems to demand a certain 
 ratio of the population of a country to its square miles 
 
104 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 before a master can emancipate his slaves with gain to 
 himself. To apply the rule of an arithmetical means to a 
 dozen examples of emancipation is rather venturesome. 
 The principal and decisive condition of the master's pre- 
 serving his self-interest in emancipation, is that it he 
 gradual. In such a case it has never brought loss on any 
 master in any example from history, whatever the above- 
 mentioned ratio may have been. 
 
 IX.— THE PLEA OF THE OONSTITUTIOF. 
 
 We have here the last of the pleas generally heard in 
 favor of the continuance of Negro Slavery in our Southern 
 States. The plea of the Constitution ! And, indeed, the 
 "Constitution alone can and does, in our eyes, recognize 
 Slavery ! But there it stands, that noble instrument, with 
 the name " slave" carefully avoided. There stands at its 
 side another cherished document — the Declaration of In- 
 dependence — with its startling principle : " That all men 
 are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain inalienable rights ; and that among these are 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Neither of 
 these, our Primitive Laws, stamp the Negro to be a lower 
 being than a man. This man may be your property, slave- 
 holder ! But — aside from any humanity — you still do not 
 own him as you do " your horse or your ass." You know 
 that you indirectly vote for him ; you know that you can 
 not kUl him when he gets old, as you do " your horse or 
 your ass !" You know that there is some little difference 
 between owning him and owning "any other cattle!" 
 You can not make him out a beast or a brute : not from 
 the Constitution, not from any law of man, be it written 
 or only secretly engraved in the human breast. You know 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. , 105 
 
 that the Xegro is a man ! for this is, after all, the ques- 
 tion. Man or Beast — this is the final issue ! But our nohle 
 Constitution, in letter and spirit, abhors an interpretation 
 which ambitious politicians would like to force upon it. 
 Not " beast," or " brute," or " cattle," not even " slave," 
 is the term given to the Negro !• " Bound to service" is 
 all that expresses the relation of slave and master. 
 
 Wherever provisions are made respecting slaves, they 
 are so worded as not to stigmatize them as even a distinct 
 caste or class. In Art. I., Sec. 2, persons " bound to serv- 
 ice for a term of years" are classed with the free persons ; 
 and " all other persons" — meaning, in the language of the 
 Constitution, "persons bound to service" without any 
 qualification of time, or, in common language, slaves — are 
 put on the same footing as the " Indians not taxed." Art. 
 IV., Sec. 2, from which the Fugitive Slave Law is derived, 
 is a provision against " persons held to service or labor in 
 one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another," 
 and comprises obviously all persons, black or white, held 
 to service for any period of time, however short or long. 
 This provision includes slaves, but it is not made for them 
 alone. The Constitution recognizes Slavery, to be sure, 
 but not as a general, national, and hereditary institution, 
 authorized by the laws of the United States as such, but 
 as a local relation between master and slave, calling it 
 expressly " service or labor in one State, under the laws 
 thereof" 
 
 But let us not with conscious wiUfulness misunderstand 
 and distort the suggestions, hopes, wishes, and intentions 
 of those "noble men who framed our Constitution and 
 founded our Union," lest their desecrated memory pervert 
 and crush us. 
 
106 . THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 X.— EEQUISITES FOE A TRULY PHILANTHEOPIO 
 EMANCIPATION. 
 
 Though our minds may now have given up all prejudices, 
 and we may look with impartial eyes upon the fact of our 
 Negro Slavery and its gradual emancipation as taught hy 
 history, still there are yet heavy obstacles in our way. 
 May we be allowed to state what, in our opinion, are the 
 primary requisites of a peaceful solution of this difficult 
 question ? 
 
 I. DELICACY. 
 
 Negro Slavery exists only in some of our States. No 
 earthly power can force it again on the Free States or on 
 the world. Its local character is therefore a reality. But 
 just on account of this local character of Slavery, the 
 greater delicacy is needed. If Negro Slavery stiU ex- 
 isted in aU our States, and under similar circumstances, no 
 party or section could be charged with ignorance of facts 
 or intentional distortions and selfish interests. It would 
 then be regarded as a common good, or as a common evil, 
 or as a common necessity, and be discussed freely, Hke any 
 other question, independent of locality. It would not 
 rouse a whole section against another, and divide our 
 country geographically as it does poUticaUy. It would be 
 an easier work to get rid of a common enemy, and would 
 need less care and delicacy in words and actions. 
 
 England was in a very different position from what 
 we are. Slavery existed in one of her distant colonies or 
 dependencies, which was but a small part of her empire. 
 But our Slavery exists in our very midst ; in sixteen 
 co-equal States of our confederate republic. It is thus 
 cherished in a considerable portion of our land, and 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. IQij 
 
 it therefore needs great delicacy of treatment, unless 
 we give up the idea of regarding ourselves as equal mem- 
 bers of the same Union, and citizens of the same nation. 
 
 II. — POLITICAL >-ON-I>TEEFEEEXCB WITH THE SOTjTH. 
 
 There is no doubt that the present Slave States once 
 knew what a dubious guest they harbored in the Negro 
 Slave. They had men as liberal, as wise, as noble, and as 
 energetic as the men of the Xorth, in whose words and 
 teachings the policy best for their country was expressed, 
 distinctly and unmistakably. Again and again did they 
 publicly denounce Slavery, in language strong and de- 
 cided : but the spirit of which could not be misinterpreted 
 or suspected. They even contrived ways and means to 
 gradually get rid of Slavery, and they had associations for 
 that purpose. 
 
 The Southern States were faiily on their way toward a 
 final abolition, just as the Northern. The latter were, 
 however, their predecessors in this work from many other 
 reasons than mere philanthropy. Climate, the character of 
 their products, and immigration, made, from the very 
 beginning, the negro slave less desirable and less neces- 
 sary there than in the South. StUl, the Southern States, 
 too, thought of emancipation, though they were naturally 
 to come last, and their work was to be slower, in the same 
 degree that their peculiar geographical position, and their 
 climate, soU, and production had allotted to them a larger 
 number of slaves. 
 
 We wiU quote here some well-known passages from 
 Southern writers, to see what the state of feeling on this 
 subject was as late as 1832. Said the elder Ritchie, in 
 the Richmond Enquirer: "Means sure but gradual, sys- 
 
log THE AMEEICAK QUESTION. 
 
 tematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the 
 mass of evil which is pressing upon the South, and will 
 BtiU more press upon her, the longer it is put off." He 
 was referring to Negro Slavery. Faulkner, too, said, at 
 that time, in the Virginia House of Delegates : " Sir, I am 
 gratified to perceive that no gentleman has yet risen in 
 this Hall, the avowed advocate of Slavery. The day has 
 gone by when such a voice could be listened to with 
 patience, or even with forbearance." This was in 1832. 
 Why did aU these free words about "withering and 
 blasting effects of Slavery" stop soon afterward ? It can 
 be proved with almost mathematical certainty what share 
 the rash interference of AboUtionism had in delaying the 
 work of the Free labor movement in the South. Let us 
 here quote a memorable passage from Daniel Webstee, 
 whose clear-sightedness none wiU question. Referring to 
 that same matter, he said : 
 
 ' ' Let any gentleman who doubts of that recur to the debates in tho 
 Virginia House of Delegates, in 1832, and he will see with what free- 
 dom a proposition made by Mr. Randolph for the gradual abolition of 
 Slaveiy was discussed in that body. Every one spoke of Slavery as he 
 thought ; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were 
 applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, 
 I believe, were all published. They were read by every colored man 
 who could read, and to those who could not read, those debates were 
 read by others. At that time Virginia was not unwilling nor afraid 
 to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know 
 as much of the discussion as they could learn. That was in 1832. As 
 has been said by the honorable member from South Carolina, these 
 Abolition societies commenced their course of action in 1835. It is 
 said — I do not know how true it may be — that they sent incendiary 
 publications into the Slave States ; at any event, they attempted to 
 arouse, and did arouse, a, very strong feeling ; in other words, they 
 created great agitation in the North against Southern Slavery. Well, 
 what was the result ? The bonds of the slaves were bound more 
 firmly than before ; their rivets were more strongly fastened. Public 
 opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited against Slavery, 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. 109 
 
 and was opening out for the discussion of the question, drew hack and 
 shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether anybody in Vir- 
 ginia can now talk as Mr. Randolph, Governor McDowell, and others 
 talked, openly, and sent their remarks to the press, in 1832 ? We all 
 know the fact, and we all know the cause ; and everything that this 
 agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, hut to restrain, 
 not to set free, but to bind faster the slave population of the South." 
 
 There can not be any doubt that Northern Abolitionism 
 ■was one of the causes of the change of feeling in the 
 South. 
 
 Abolition of Slavery can never be effected by a hostile 
 political party in States in •which there is no Slavery. For 
 the South wiU. never, can never, be forced into abolition. 
 •We abolished our Slavery in the North without any inter- 
 ference on the part of the South or the West, and the 
 same privileges must be granted to the other States. 
 Abolition of Slavery was heretofore effected by the action 
 of separate States, and they consulted neither in regard to 
 time nor manner with any other State. Each State acted 
 by itself, and excluded all interference of others. They 
 may have been influenced by the example of other States 
 or nations, stUl they surely excluded all political interfer- 
 ence either from the Federal Government or from single 
 States. And such — State by State — wiU be the course 
 of emancipation until the whole work is accomplished. 
 The question of abolition ought, therefore, never to 
 enter the mind of any Northern man as far as he is a 
 member of a political party. In the abstract, everybody 
 has a right to his oproion, but a political party is no agent 
 for abstract schemes and wishes, but for such measures as 
 are best fitted for immediate political action. In belong- 
 ing to a party, a man does not thereby become a traitor to 
 his opinion; he only subscribes to the rationality and 
 
110 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 justice of certain political measures proposed. But abo- 
 lition of Slavery can never appear as such a measure on 
 the programme of any political party in the North. 
 
 Besides the impracticability of such an undertaking, it 
 is against the Constitution, to which a political party, as a 
 medium of political action, owes strict adherence. If we 
 are dissatisfied with the Constitution, we ought not to 
 cover our intention with false issues, but we ought openly 
 to confess our plans, and employ all means prescribed for 
 changes or amendments in that instrument. 
 
 Abolition of Slavery, as a political measure, belongs 
 chiefly to the South. There are still, as in former times, 
 fearless champions of freedom there to start the work 
 again, and the initiative comes with better grace from 
 their own men. The South will recover from its excite- 
 ment. This very process of secession will be the means 
 of opening its eyes again to the righteous claims of Free- 
 dom. There are now, in several Slave States, parties 
 which dare to attack Slavery in some shape or other, and 
 in some States their final object, abolition, is openly 
 avowed. There, agitation is proper. It may have been 
 silenced in these days of over-excitement. But this state 
 can not last long. Times of prudence and peace will re- 
 turn, and the former work, though now interrupted, will 
 be taken up again with renewed vigor. 
 
 Thus delicacy, reason, and the Constitution oppose alike 
 all political interference of the North with the question of 
 abolition in the South. 
 
 in. — PEUDBNCE. 
 
 English emancipation, as we have above stated, can not 
 serve as a model for us. But we have a wambg example 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. HI 
 
 nearer at hand, in the abolition of Slavery in our own 
 Northern States. 
 
 Though the lands, in the care of a numerous crowd of 
 sldllful and energetic colonists, did not suffer so much as 
 in the West Indies, stiU the small minority of colored 
 people found themselves in a condition very similar to 
 that of the Negroes of the English colonies. Suddenly 
 they passed from Slavery to a state in which they had to 
 unlearn, or learn otherwise, what as slaves they had learned. 
 They were like helpless children. They wandered around 
 uncared for and homeless ; they struggted with dis- 
 eases, and lived, and still live, in poverty, being often 
 in want of the necessaries of life. Liberty was, to many, 
 a curse. It wUl take much more time, and cost many 
 more sacrifices, before they are in a condition to profit by 
 the advantages of freedom. Thence arose those facts 
 which Calhoun used in his Defense of North American 
 Slaverj', addressed to Lord Aberdeen, though he mistook 
 entirely the cause, for it is the manstee of emancipation 
 only which did the injury. 
 
 The only beneficial and satisfactory way of emancipation 
 is the slow and gradual change and reform of the condition 
 of the slave. We must instruct him in the elements of 
 common and practical knowledge. This is the fundamental 
 reform. Then we must, in the language of Mr. Caret, 
 accustom him " to possess and manage property" — reforms 
 already partially introduced into some of our Slave States. 
 The slave may be hired out by the master, as in some of 
 cm- Southern cities. The field-slave may be allowed to 
 cultivate, under the master's control, some acres of land 
 for himself. As in Rome, the slave may be allowed to 
 buy his liberty — reforms already applied to some extent. 
 
112 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 Other aids in this slow work of emancipation might be 
 suggested in dififerent places ; for true and beneficial 
 emancipation can only be paetial, locai, iNDivmrAL, 
 and GKADTJAL. We can not do it by one stroke ! It is 
 a complicated work, to which we aU may lend our feeble 
 hands. Some slaves would thus soon be made free ; others 
 would have to serve a longer apprenticeship for hberty. 
 The Abolitionists and philanthropic men of all creeds and 
 platforms may hasten on this work of love. They are 
 liberal ; let them, therefore, send their money to procure 
 liberty for those who are deemed to deserve it. Let them 
 then take care of them, and supply whatever the new-horn 
 freeman may afterward need. Let the Colonization So- 
 ciety, too, be aided in its work. Help to send to Africa 
 those civilized Negroes who wish to aid their race in its 
 progress ! Let all who know new remedies and plans of 
 peace be listened to, and aU who can materially help, send 
 their portions; while the slaveholding States themselves 
 concert and advise and reform, until at last, this voluntary 
 emancipation being nearly completed. State after State 
 may seal, by a legal enactment, the fact of the Negro's 
 freedom ! 
 
 Should, then, any financial consideration delay the work 
 of Humanity, or in any way thwart its purposes, there 
 will be millions in the Union who will readily adopt our 
 reading of Webster's language when he says : 
 
 "There have been received into the treasury of the 
 United States eighty millions of dollars, the proceeds of the 
 sales of the public lands ceded by Virginia, If the residue 
 should be sold at the same rate, the whole aggregate wiU 
 exceed two hundred millions of dollars. If Virginia and 
 the South see fit to adopt any proposition to reUeve them- 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. 1J3 
 
 selves from ' Slavery,' they have my free consent that the 
 government shall pay them any sum of money out of its 
 proceeds which may be adequate to the purpose." 
 
 XI.— ACTUAL WORK ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED QT OUR 
 OWN LAND. 
 
 On reading the wholesale denunciations which are so 
 liberally thrown upon our repubhc, both by foreign and 
 native writers and orators, it would, at first, seem as if our 
 land and people had not yet done anything at all toward 
 " gradual" abolition of Slavery. 
 
 Says G. F. Kolb, in his new work, " The Statistics of 
 tlie World:" "There is no reason why we should accuse 
 the American republic for the existence of Slavery; for 
 Negro Slavery is a relic from the time when the land was 
 under a monarchical government. But stiU, the guilt of 
 not having Kmited that baneful institution, which is a dis- 
 grace to humanity, and of not having worked toward its 
 gradual abolition, rests heavily on the modem republicans 
 of America." 
 
 " Done nothing toward gradual abolition of Slavery !" 
 We are accustomed to such language from the lips of 
 high-souled theorizers, but we hardly expected to find it 
 on the scientific pages of the i' cool and calculating" sta- 
 tistician. StUl, such seems to be the general language of 
 the present day, to be mechanically repeated by each new 
 self-appointed judge in the High Court of Universal 
 Justice. 
 
 Has our national development really been so exceptional 
 as to deserve the maledictions of the whole civilized 
 world ? Have we, indeed, not progressed at all toward 
 greater freedom ? Have we been steadily descending in 
 
114 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 the scale of civilization ? Are we an anomaly in the his- 
 tory of modern nations? Or, can we show the same 
 slow and gradual work of emancipation as they? We 
 confess that our country might have done more if it had 
 been more prudent and less selfish. But we have done 
 something, and this something is worthy of the consid- 
 eration of the world, before our final judgment is pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 Let us look into our actual history ! 
 
 I. PEOHIBITION OF THE SLAVE-TEADE. 
 
 The United States was the first nation to abolish the 
 slave-trade. We take from the learned charge of Judge 
 James M. Wayne the following data : 
 
 "The first act was passed on the 22d of March, 1794, when General 
 Washington was President. It was intended to prevent any citizen or 
 resident of the United States from equipping vessels within the United 
 States, to carry on trade or traffic in slaves, to any fordgn cmirdry. 
 (Brig Trlpbenia vs. Harrison, W. C. C, 522.) That is, though slaves 
 might be brought into the United States until the year 1808, in vessels 
 fitted out in our ports for that purpose, they could not be carried by 
 our citizens or residents in the United States in such vessels, iwb any 
 foreign country. 
 
 " The next act of Congress was passed on the 2d March, 1807, when 
 Mr. Jefferson was President. The act of 1807 begins by subjecting 
 any Vessel to forfeiture which shall be found in any river, bay, or har- 
 bor, or on the high seas, within the jurisdictional limits of the United 
 States, or which may be hovering on the coast, having on board any 
 negro, mulatto, or person of color, for the purpose of selling them as 
 slaves, or with the intent to land them in any port or place within the 
 United States. 
 
 "The act of 1818 prohibits the importation of negroes altogether 
 into the United States, from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, 
 without excluding the return to it of such slaves as might leave the 
 United States as servants of their owners, comprehending such as have 
 been employed as seamen on a foreign voyage. 
 
 "The act of 1819 authorizes the President, in a more particular 
 manner than had been done before, to use the naval force for the 
 prevention of the slave-trade, points out the circumstances and the 
 
THE DETELOPMENT. X15 
 
 localities in which seizures of vessels may be made, directs the dis- 
 tribution of the proceeds of them after condemnation, requires that 
 negroes found on board of them shall be delivered to the marshal, 
 what that officer's duly then is, and again commands that the 
 officer making the seizure shall take into his custody every person 
 found on board, being of the crew or officers of the vessels seized, 
 and that they are to be turned over to the civil authority for prosecu- 
 tion. 
 
 " This brings us to the last act upon the subject, that of the 15th 
 May, 1820. It denounces any citizen of the United States as a 
 pirate, and that he shall suffer death, who shall become one of the 
 crew or ship's company of any foreign [slave] ship ; and that any 'per- 
 son vihuUxer becomes a pirate, and shall suffer death, who shall be- 
 come one of the crew or ship's company of any vessel owned, iu the 
 whole or in part, or which shall be navigated for or in behalf of 
 any citizen of the United States, or who shall land from such ves- 
 sel on any foreign shore, and shall seize any negro or mulatto not 
 held to service or labor by the laws of either of the States or Terri- 
 tories of the United States, with intent to make such negro or mulatto 
 a slave, or who shall decoy, or forcibly bring or carry, or who shall 
 receive on board of such ship, any negro or mulatto with intent to 
 make them slaves. 
 
 "In the year 1823, the House of Eepresentatives of Congress 
 adopted a resolution to request the President to prosecute, from time 
 to time, negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and 
 of America, for the effectual abolition of the African slave-trade, and its 
 ultimate denunciation as piracy under the laws of nations, by the con- 
 sent of the civilized world. 
 
 "All the nations of Europe, as well as of America, have followed 
 in the same legislation, and the object of the resolution of 1823 seems 
 to be near its accomplishment. 
 
 "Upon three occasions since 1824, the subject has been under the 
 consideration of Congress, and at each time has a determination been 
 fully expressed to maintain the principles that have been incorporated 
 into the legislation of the country. 
 
 There were several occasions, before and after these 
 legal enactments, when the Congress of the United States 
 expressed their abhorrence of the slave-trade. And this 
 was and is a sentiment common to the great majority of 
 people both North and South. 
 
116 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 II. ABOLITION OP SLATEET. 
 
 At the beginning of our existence as an independent 
 
 nation, in 1776, there were slaves in each of the thirteen 
 original States. 
 
 TABLE XIX. NXTMBEE OP SLATES IN 1776. 
 
 [CensMS Report of 1850.] 
 States. Number of Blares. 
 
 Massachusetts 3,500 
 
 Bhode Island 4,373 
 
 Connecticut 6 000 
 
 New Hampshire 629 
 
 New York 15,000 
 
 New Jersey 7,600 
 
 Pennsylvania 10,000 
 
 Delaware 9,000 
 
 Maryland 80,000 
 
 Virginia , 165,000 
 
 North Carolina 75,000 
 
 South Carolina 110,000 
 
 Georgia 16,000 
 
 Total 502,132 
 
 Other accounts give the number at 479,000. 
 Massachusetts, Ehode Island, New Hampshire, New 
 York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, all, at an early date, 
 abolished Slavery within their jurisdiction. 
 
 Then, out of territory ceded to the United States by 
 Virginia — the State which had at that time by far the 
 greatest number of slaves, about one third of the total 
 slave population of the Union, — we have formed the fol- 
 lowing States : 
 
 Kentucky 1792 (Slave) 
 
 Ohio 1802 (Free) 
 
 Indiana 1816 ( " ) 
 
 nUnois 1818 ( " ) 
 
 Michigan 1837 (Free) 
 
 And from Michigan — 
 Iowa.... 1846 f " ) 
 
 Wisconsin 1848 ( " ) 
 
 Thus, six of the thirteen original States have abolished 
 Slavery within their territories, and six new Free States 
 were formed from the territory of the Slave State of 
 Virginia. 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. UY 
 
 Vermont, too, was formed from New York in 1791, and 
 Maine from Massachusetts in 1820. California, Minnesota, 
 Oregon, and Kansas are new Free States. 
 
 To be sm-e, seven of the original thirteen States have 
 not yet abolished Slavery, and nine new Slave States have 
 been added. 
 
 But nobody can deny that we have done something 
 "toward the gradual abolition of Slavery." For in 1776 
 we had nothing but Slave States, and now the majority of 
 the States are Free. 
 
 Or, let us take the oldest and the newest Census of the 
 United States, and compare the increase of the Free with 
 that of the Slave. 
 
 Tear. Free. Slaves. 
 
 1790 3,231,900 697,800 
 
 1850 19,987,500 3,204,300 
 
 The increase of the Free is thus 518 per cent., while 
 that of the Slave is only 859 per cent. Freedom has thus 
 increased at a greater ratio than Slavery, should we even 
 take the above number unconditionally. 
 
 " But," says Mr. K01.B, " the proportion is reverse in the 
 South ; the slaveholders have succeeded there in bringing 
 about an enormous increase of these unfortunates." To 
 this we must decidedly object. The increase of the slave 
 population is the greatest argument for the South. For 
 it proves, on the whole, the good treatment of the slaves 
 by their Southern masters. It shows, indeed — as we have 
 had occasion to remark — the greater humanity of the 
 Southerners when compared with other masters. But, 
 however that may be, this can never be used as an argu- 
 ment against the South. 
 
 The work of emancipation, or gradual abolition, has 
 
118 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 been steadily going on since the very beginning of our 
 national existence. It commenced East and North, and 
 gradually pressed farther toward the South and West. Nor 
 did it halt at the boundaries of the present Slave States. 
 It has already entered them, and is progressing there in spite 
 of political and financial interruptions and disturbances. 
 
 m. ^THE SPREADING OP THE VTHITE POPtlXATION. 
 
 The present border Slave States are now the principal 
 theater of action in this work of Freedom. We wiU first 
 give a few tables showing the relation of the White to the 
 Slave Population, and the increase of the former over the 
 latter. 
 
 TABLE XX. POPTXLATION OF THE BOEDEE STATES IN 1850. 
 
 [From ihe Umied States Census."] 
 
 States. Whites. Free CoVd. Slaves. Total CoI'd. Total Pop. 
 
 Delaware 71,100 18,000 2,200 20,200 91,500 
 
 Maryland 417,900 74,700 90,300 165,000 583,000 
 
 Virginia 894,800 54,300 472,500 526,800 1,421,600 
 
 Kentucky 761,413 10,000 210,900 220,900 982,400 
 
 Missouri 592,004 2,600 87,400 90,000 682,000 
 
 2,737,217 159,600 863,300 1,022,900 3,260,500 
 TABLE XXI. ^PEOPOETION OF WHITE TO TOTAL POPULATION 
 
 IN 1850. (in pee cents.) 
 
 States. 1T90. 1800. ISIO. 1S20. 18S0. 1840. 1850. 
 
 Delaware 78.36 77.56 76.18 75.99 75.05 75.00 77.75 
 
 Maryland 65.26 63.34 61.78 63.88 65.12 67.70 71.68 
 
 Virginia 59.08 58.43 56.59 56.61 57.31 59.76 62.94 
 
 Kentucky 83.66 81.41 79.76 77.02 75.27 75.69 77.50 
 
 Missouri — — 82.64 84.08 81.73 84.41 86.79 
 
 TABLE XXII. PEOPOETION OF FEEE COLOEED TO TOTAl 
 
 POPULATION. (in pee CENTS.) 
 
 States. 1T90. 1800. 1810. 1820. 1880. 1840. 1850. 
 
 Delaware 6.60 12.86 18.08 17.81 20.66 21.66 19.75 
 
 Maryland 2.51 5.73 8.92 9.75 11.84 13.21 12.82 
 
 Virginia 1.71 2.29 3.14 3.48 3.91 4.02 3.82 
 
 Kentucky 0.15 0.33 0.42 0.52 0.71 0.92 1.02 
 
 Missouri — — 2.91 0.56 0.41 0.41 0.38 
 
THE DEYELOPMENT. 119 
 
 TABLE XXIII. ^MANUMITTED AND FirGITITE SLAVIIS IN 1850. 
 
 BORDER STATES. 
 
 States. Slaves. Manumitted. Fugitives. 
 
 Delaware 2,200 277 26 
 
 Maryland 90,300 493 279 
 
 Virginia 472,-500 218 83 
 
 Kentucky 210,900 152 96 
 
 -"Bouri 87,000 50 60 
 
 863,300 1,190 544 
 
 These four tables are intimately connected with each 
 other. 
 
 The proportion of the White population had in 1850 
 risen, in per cent., in — 
 
 Delaware. 
 
 Maryland. 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Missouri. 
 
 Since 1820. 
 
 Since 1810. 
 
 Since 1810. 
 
 Since 1880. 
 
 Since 1810. 
 
 1.74 
 
 9.90 
 
 6.45 
 
 2.23 
 
 4.15 
 
 The proportion of Free Colored persons had in 1850 
 risen, in per cent., in — 
 
 Delaware. Maryland. Virginia. ' Kentucky. Missouri. 
 
 13.15 10.31 2.11 0.87 2.53 (dec.) 
 
 Thus, the proportion of the White and Free Colored pop- 
 ulation was steadily increasing in the Border States ; or, 
 in other words, the Border Slave States are thus slowly and 
 peacefully being transformed into Free States, and in some 
 of them the work of Freedom is almost completed. The 
 relative decrease of the proportion of the Free Colored 
 population of Missouri is but a seeming exception. It 
 was the effect of the extraordinary immigration of whites. 
 Missouri rose in forty years, from the 22d to the 13tb place 
 among the States, Slave and Free. 
 
 The more extreme Southern States have as yet been less 
 affected by the invigorating breath of Freedom which 
 blows from the North. But, still, Tennessee seems to 
 follow somewhat in the track of Kentucky, and North 
 Carolina in that of Virginia, while Louisiana, by reason of 
 
120 THE AMEEIOAN QUEBTIOIir. 
 
 its geographical position, its river, and its intimate con- 
 nection with the Northwest, presents about the same 
 features as the border Slave States. 
 
 POPTTLATIOK OF LOUISIAlfA IN 1850. 
 Whites. Free Colored. Slaves. Total Colored. Total Pop. 
 255,400 17,400 244,800 262,200 517,700 
 
 PEOPOBTION OF WHITE TO TOTAX POPULATION. (iN PEE CENTS.) 
 1810. ■ 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 
 
 44.82 47.83 41.46 44.96 49.35 
 
 PKOPOETION OF FEEB COLOEBD TO TOTAL POPULATION. 
 1810. 1820. 1880. 1840. 1850. 
 
 9.91 7.15 7.74 7.24 3.37 
 
 MAUMITTED AND FUGmVE SLAVES. 
 Slaves. Manumitted. Fngitives. 
 
 244,800 159 90 
 
 Thus the proportion of the white population in Louisi- 
 ana increased 7.89 per cent. The cause of the decrease in 
 the proportion of the colored population is, as in the case 
 of Missouri, due to the extraordinary immigration of 
 whites. Missouri and Louisiana are the two Slave 
 States which receive the greatest share of foreign and 
 native immigrants. The five Border States and Louisiana 
 together receive about 80 per cent, of the immigration to 
 the whole South. ■ 
 
 TABLE XXIV. ^NATIVES OF THE FEEB STATES AJ>rD IMMI 
 
 GEANTS IN THE SLAVE STATES. 1850. 
 
 THE BORDER SLAVE STATES. 
 
 Natives of Free States. Foreign Immigrants. 
 
 Delaware 6 900 5,600 
 
 Maryland 23,800 51,300 
 
 Virginia 29,000 22,500 
 
 Kentucky 31,300 31,800 
 
 Missouri 55,600 76,200 
 
 THE WESTERN GULP STATES AND THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 Louisiana 14,567 ' 67,200 
 
 Texas 9,900 7,400 
 
 Tennessee 6,500 5,300 
 
 Arkansas 7,900 1,300 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. 121 
 
 THE CABOLINAS ASD THE EASTEKN GVU! STATES. 
 
 Natives of Free States. Foreign Immigrants. 
 
 North Caroliaa 2,100 2,500 
 
 South Carolina 2,400 8,200 
 
 Georgia 4,200 6,500 
 
 Florida 1,700 2,600 
 
 Alabama 4,900 7,400 
 
 Mississippi 4,500 4,300 
 
 The flesh and spirit of the free white population of the 
 North and of Europe seem thus to act as leaven in the 
 work of emancipation in the Border States. The forma- 
 tion of a solid middle class of laborers, who neither are 
 slaves nor keep slaves — ^the increase of the free colored 
 population — ^the greater number of manumissions there 
 than in other Slave States, in spite of the greater losses 
 from fugitives — are facts intimately interwoven with each 
 other. These States have thereby undergone such a 
 change, and present such pecjiliar features, that it would 
 be unfair to class them with the other Southern States. 
 .They are in a state of transition which niakes them a 
 class by themselves. 
 
 IV. — AMAiGAMATIOir. 
 
 There is another force at work in the cause of Freedom. 
 It is a physical force, but it acts as imconsciously as the 
 social one we have just mentioned. It is the amalgama- 
 tion of the white and the black races. The African and the 
 Caucasian have never been connected so intimately as 
 here. This coimtry is in reality cosmopolite. Not only 
 do the different branches of the same race — the Indo-Ger- 
 manic — freely mingle with one another, but even two 
 distinct races, in different stages of civilization, are here 
 violently thrown into mutual embrace. 
 
 We wUl not now examine into the ethnological or the 
 moral merits of such a mixture, but only state the influence 
 
122 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 it haa on the social condition of the Mack race. And 
 here one great fact stares us in the face, and that is : Amalga- 
 mation breeds freedom. It is as if the drop of blood 
 from the ruling Caucasian, in the veins of the mongrel off- 
 spring, would never rest until the creature is as free as the 
 creator. Let us see the general statistics referring to this 
 matter ! 
 
 There were, in 1115, about 479,000 slaves in this coun- 
 try. We were not able to find anywhere how many of 
 them were Mulattoes. StUl, according to the statistics of 
 other years, they must have been proportionately but a 
 smaU number. 
 
 Things have greatly changed since 1775. The Negroes 
 must have freely mixed with the white population. 
 
 KTJMBBE OF BLACKS A3SI> MTJLATTOES. 
 * 
 Tear. Blacks. Mulattoes. Total. 
 
 1775 479,100 
 
 1850 3,233,000 405,700 8,638,700 
 
 There were, thus, about as many Mulattoes in 1850 as 
 there were slaves in 1775 ; and eleven per cent, of the col- 
 ored population have a tincture of white blood, 
 
 NUMBER OF FEEE BLACKS AND FREE MULATTOES. 1860. 
 
 Total. Slaves. Free. 
 
 Blacks 3,233,000 2,957,600 275,400 
 
 Mulattoes .... 405,700 246.600 159,100 
 
 As, in the North, both Blacks and Mulattoes are free, 
 we add a table of the Slave States only. 
 
 TABLE XXV. NUMBER OF FREE BLACKS AND FREE MULAT- 
 TOES IN THE SLAVE STATES. 1850. 
 
 THE BOEDEK STATES. 
 
 States Total Blacks. Free Blacks. Total Mulattoes. F. Mulattoes. 
 
 Delaware 18,600 16,400 1,700 1,600 
 
 Maryland 143,800 61,100 21,500 13,600 
 
 Virrinia ..... 447,000 18,800 79,700 13,400 
 
 Kentucky 188,600 7,300 32,300 2,000 
 
 Missouri 75,800 1,600 14,100 931 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. 123 
 
 THB CAK0LINA3 AND THE EASTEKN GTJU STATES. 
 
 States. Total Blacks. Free Blacks. Total Mulattoes. F. Mulattoes. 
 
 North Carolina. 281,900 10,200 34,000 17,200 
 
 SouthCaxolina. 377,000 4,500 16,800 4,300 
 
 Georgia 360,400 1,400 24,100 1,500 
 
 Florida 36,500 229 3,700 703 
 
 Alabama 321,800 567 23,300 1,700 
 
 Mississippi.... 290,400 295 20,300 600 
 
 THE OTHEB SLAVE STATES. 
 
 Louisiana 228,300 200 33,900 14,000 
 
 Texas 50,600 2,600 7,900 257 
 
 Tennessee 221,700 3,300 24,100 3,700 
 
 Arkansas 40,900 140 6,700 400 
 
 Still it is difficult to give each State its proper share in 
 this kind of Freedom's worldiig, because there are no star 
 tistics respecting the emigration of Mulattoes to other 
 States. We give, therefore, the general ratio only, which 
 is sufficient for our present purpose. Nine per cent, of the 
 Blacks — hut sixtt-foue per cent, of the Mulattoes, are 
 free. It matters little how and through whose agency so 
 many Mulattoes became free, though there is 1 Mulatto to 
 every 234 white inhabitants of the North, while there is 
 1 to every 18 of the South; but 64 per cent, of the Mulat- 
 toes are free. 
 
 Thus amalgamation breeds freedom. There is no mis- 
 take in those simple figures. The black color, too, of 
 the Negro bids fair gradually to pass away, and in 
 some hundred years a genuine Negro will be a curiosity 
 in this land of ours, especially a Negro slave. Still, as 
 the Mulatto is more attractive than the Negro, amalga- 
 mation with the latter might stop. But nature has well 
 provided in this regard. The Mulatto, as we have proved 
 above, becomes free, and leaves his place to the Negro. 
 
 V. COLONIZATIOIT. 
 
 This is another agency in the cause of Freedom. The 
 first American Colonization Society was organized Janu- 
 ary 1st, 1817 — ^nine years after the abolition of the slave- 
 
124 
 
 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 trade. Since that time similar societies have been founded 
 in many States. They all have the same purpose in view, 
 and act with each other in harmonious concert. Some 
 statistical tahles wiU show how much has been done by 
 colonization toward the " gradual abohtion" of Slavery. 
 
 In order to get a little insight into the details of its 
 working, we take the following table from the "Ammal 
 Report of the American Colonization Society," 1858. 
 
 
 HEST 
 
 VOYAGE 
 
 DECEMBER, 1856. 
 
 State. 
 
 Bom 
 free. 
 
 Slave. 
 
 By whom Emancipated. 
 
 MassacliuEetts . . . 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 Maiyland 
 
 Virginia 
 
 Do 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 11 
 
 68 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 4 
 8 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 54 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 19 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 Emancipated by will of T. Sliearman, 
 
 of Fauquier County. 
 Emancipated by will of James H. 
 
 Do 
 
 Terrell, of Albemarle County. 
 Purchased by the executors of J. H. 
 
 Do 
 
 Tyrrell. 
 Given by their owners. 
 
 Do 
 
 Purchased their fteedom. 
 
 Do 
 
 Emancipated by persons in Kentucky. 
 
 Do 
 
 Emancipated by S. E. Houston, of 
 
 North Carolina . . 
 Do 
 
 Union, Va. 
 Emancipated by will of Mrs. M. L. 
 
 Gordon, of Hartford. 
 Emancipated by Miss Charity Jones, 
 
 
 Bladen County. 
 Emancipated by Mrs. M. A. Williams, 
 
 Do 
 
 Savannah. 
 Emancipated by will of J. B. Tafts, 
 
 Do 
 
 Alabama 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 Do 
 
 of Savannah. 
 
 Ema,ncipated by Eichard Hoff, of Eg- 
 bert County. 
 
 Purchased their freedom. 
 
 Emancipated by C. C. West, of Wood- 
 viUe. 
 
 Emancipated by Harvey Berry, of 
 Bath County. 
 
 Emancipated by will of Elizabeth Van- 
 derson, of McMinnville. 
 
 Emancipated by John Jipson, Sparta. 
 
 Do 
 
 Do. by Peter and Nancy 
 
 California 
 
 Burum, of White County. 
 
 Total 
 
 9 
 
 208 
 
 
THE DEVELOPSfBNT. 
 
 125 
 
 From the same Report we made the following general 
 table : 
 
 TABLE XXTI. NrMBEE OF EMIGRANTS SENT TO LIBERIA BY 
 
 THE AJIERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY AND ITS AUXILI- 
 
 ARIES, FROM 1820 TO 1857, INCLUSIVE. 
 
 Year. No. 
 
 1820 80 
 
 1821 33 
 
 1822 37 
 
 1823 65 
 
 1824 103 
 
 1825 66 
 
 1826 182 
 
 1827 222 
 
 1828 163 
 
 1829 205 
 
 1830 259 
 
 1831 83 
 
 1832 1,131 
 
 Year. 
 
 1833. 
 
 1834. 
 
 1835. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1838. 
 
 1839. 
 
 1840. 
 
 1841. 
 
 1842. 
 
 1843. 
 
 1844. 
 
 1845. 
 
 No. 
 278 
 127 
 146 
 243 
 138 
 109 
 
 47 
 115 
 
 85 
 248 
 
 85 
 140 
 187 
 
 Year. 
 
 1846. 
 
 1847., 
 
 1848., 
 
 1849. 
 
 1850. 
 
 1851. 
 
 1852. 
 
 1853., 
 
 1854. 
 
 1855. 
 
 1856. 
 
 1857. 
 
 No. 
 89 
 51 
 441 
 422 
 500 
 675 
 640 
 783 
 553 
 207 
 538 
 370 
 
 TABLE XXVII. NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS SENT TO LIBERIA, 
 
 1820 TO 1857, INCLUSIVE. 
 
 Indiana 78 
 
 Illinois 34 
 
 Missouri 83 
 
 Michigan 1 
 
 Iowa 3 
 
 Texas 16 
 
 Choctaw Nation 7 
 
 Cherokee Nation ^ . . . 1 
 
 California 1 
 
 FROM EACH STATE, FROM 
 
 Massachusetts 34 
 
 Rhode Island 36 
 
 Connecticut 46 
 
 New York 205 
 
 New Jersey 35 
 
 Pennsylvania 179 
 
 Delaware 5 
 
 Maryland 543 
 
 District of Columbia 104 
 
 Virginia 3,442 
 
 North Carolina 1,283 
 
 South Carolina 415 
 
 Georgia 1,030 
 
 Alabama 105 
 
 Mississippi 536 
 
 Louisiana 261 
 
 Tennessee 697 
 
 Kentucky 637 
 
 Ohio 55 
 
 The above does not include the number (about 1,000) that have been 
 sent by the Maryland Colonization Society to the Colony of " Maryland 
 in Liberia.'' 
 
 This is a work in which all States are co-operators, and 
 all individuals may lend their assistance. It is wonderful 
 what this American Colonization Society has accomplished 
 
 Total number 9,872 
 
 Number bom free 3,730 
 
 Number purchased their 
 
 freedom 332 
 
 Number emancipated in 
 view of emigrating to Li- 
 beria 5,810 
 
126 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 ■with comparatively small means. It -would only need 
 greater liberality on tlie part of the United States, the 
 States, and individuals to prosper the noble -work still 
 more, and make the Uttle Republic of Liberia " one of the 
 brightest hopes" of modern philanthropy. 
 
 The forty-third Annual Report of the American Colon- 
 ization Society for 1860 refers to the "pressure of the 
 monetary difficulties of the country," which the Society 
 has felt considerably. But there is a little paragraph 
 showing the effect of our political difficulties on the work 
 of colonization, which we can not help giving in fuU : 
 
 " Emigration of Free colored persons has, from several 
 causes, been retarded ; but in the Northern and Middle 
 States, during the last year, their thoughts have been 
 directed to Africa, and they have sought knowledge of its 
 advantages for their future home. In the South, this 
 class, in consequence of agitations on the Slavery question, 
 are exposed to new trials ; in some cases compelled to 
 leave the places of their residence, and we trust Divine 
 Providence will direct their way to Liberia, where alone, 
 at present, their highest interests can most certainly be 
 secured and perpetuated. And surely common humanity 
 (to say nothing of the spirit of the religion of Christ) de- 
 mands, while these people are expelled from some districts 
 of the South to seek in vain for comfortable homes at the 
 Itforth, that their friends should encourage and assist them 
 to take possession of the great inheritance prepared for 
 them by Providence in the land of their fathers." 
 
 OONCLUSIOF. 
 We have now passed over the whole ground of the 
 social development of our question in all its principal 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT. 127 
 
 phases, down to the present day. The general progress 
 of humanity — the spirit of modern rehgion — the common 
 origin of man descending from the same ancestral parents, 
 and made after a common type — philanthropy, love of man 
 in a narrower sense of the word, or love of everything 
 created — the physical and the moral interests of the slave- 
 holder — the spirit of the Constitution, and the incontro- 
 vertible "logic of facts" in our own history — all point 
 toward protection and assistance of our brethren in bond- 
 age, toward a mitigation of their condition, and a gradual 
 abolition. History has not spoken in vain for us, and 
 Humanity is not an empty sound. We are no exception, 
 no anomaly in modern progress. We have prohibited the 
 slave-trade; we have directly abolished Slavery in some 
 States ; we have sent oiu- missionaries of white flesh and 
 jfree spirit aU over our land ; we have condescended to a 
 generous amalgamation with the black man; we have 
 civilized and colonized. These are certainly unmistakable 
 symptoms of our passing, hke other modem nations, on- 
 ward toward greater freedom and GKADrAL ABOLiTioir. 
 
 Thus, everything points toward the gradual aboUtion of 
 Slavery, and- Slavery must and will vanish from our soil, 
 except the infamous slave-trade be re-opened, or a new race 
 be enslaved. But neither part of this alternative can be 
 realized. We can not, in the face of almost unanimous 
 resolutions in Congress, passed from the earliest beginning 
 of our nation down to the present time, re-estabUsh that 
 world-desired traffic in human flesh. We can not so much 
 despair in our present era as to believe that a gang of wily 
 politicians might be found who would dare to undo, in 
 a disgraceful moment, what a hundred noble years have 
 done. No ! no new slave AviU ever be imported by the 
 
128 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 consent of the United States, nor will ever a new slave be 
 made, be he of African or other blood, through war or 
 conquest. The time "for the repeal of the laws in the 
 way of importation of bond-servants from Africa, and for 
 the passage of proper laws to protect the same," wUl 
 never come ! That unsophisticated merchant who; from 
 his retirement in Tivoli or Paphos, sent forth such words 
 as the above to an "ignorant" ISTorth, will never be able 
 to ship or see shipped a cargo of African flesh into the 
 United States, nor will his children or children's children 
 ever have that innocent pleasure. 
 
 But why is there now, in the face of aU this irrefutable 
 testimony of progressive history, so much strugghng and 
 battling on the part of sonie of us against this work of 
 Freedom ? Why is there such a violent stemming against 
 Liberty, that most precious gift to man, so tenderly cher- 
 ished by everything living? Is Freedom a curse, and 
 Slavery bliss ? Is Freedom weakness, and Slaveiy power? 
 I And has not all this work been done within the Union ? 
 Why are there now cries and Ordinances of disimion and 
 secession ? What is the disturbing element which troubles 
 the waters of peace and interrupts the work of Freedom ? 
 
 But this wUl lead us to the political aspect of the ques- 
 tion, which requires, indeed, our special and separate 
 attention. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 THE CRISIS 
 
THE CKISIS. 
 
 I.— THE BALANCE OF POWER. 
 
 Thr new product of cotton, "which in 1794 was 
 scarcely an item of export," gradually increased and made 
 the slave more valuable to the South. This increase of 
 cotton created a new interest, not known to the North, and 
 even unimagined by the framers of the Constitution ; and 
 on it a new political machinery was founded ; . it was the 
 so-called Balance of Power, into which aU the Slave States 
 were gradually drawn. 
 
 Whenever this force or interest appears in one and the 
 same nation, the term " Union" has almost lost its power, 
 and " Harmony" alone can take its place. Balance of 
 Power is the sign of the existence of a " diremptive" or 
 centrifugal force somewhere. Common attraction has 
 ceased, and Balance of Power is only the artificial glue to 
 keep together heterogeneous elements. But this struggle 
 for Balance of Power became a definite historical fact in 
 the same measure that the geographical sections became 
 more distinct and separated. The South required now for 
 every new Free State a new Slave State, and the old Con- 
 stitution was " squeezed," and bent, and interpreted to suit 
 the new wants. The noble foimders of our Union, and 
 
132 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 the framers of our Constitution, did not foresee such a 
 state of things. They did not suspect the so speedy ar- 
 rival of King Cotton and Queen Balance "with their re- 
 spective suites. But these royal guests have arrived ! 
 They have been here a long time, managing and develop- 
 ing their forces ! They are of a grasping stock, too ! 
 They have a Manifest Destiny to help them along. They 
 hold a brilliant court, and their followers and armies are 
 ■well fed and weU rewarded with offices and honors ! They 
 have the Spread-Eagle for their colors, though, in their 
 enlarged patriotism, they never forget themselves entirely. 
 They have procured Texas " for the Union." They have 
 obliterated that awkward Une drawn across " a common 
 country." They have endeavored to carry their ideas into 
 all the new States and Territories. They are liberal 
 enough to carry their " property" there, too, in all its 
 diflferent shapes, and work it for the more rapid progress 
 of those new lands. They see, themselves, the wrong of 
 Balance of Power in a Union, and therefore do their best 
 to make this vast empire one, united, and common in 
 everything ; in hearts, in hands, and in aU sorts of prop- 
 erty, landed and personal, immovable and movable, black 
 and white. That they are earnest in their purposes, 
 they have lately shown in Kansas, though they may have, 
 at times, met with failures. That they have pluck and do 
 things thoroughly, they have most recently proved by hang- 
 ing all they could procure, or keep aUve, of the Harper's 
 Ferrymen. But, these are not things that grow over-night, 
 or reach to such dimensions hy inward strength only. 
 They needed the care of outsiders, and they had it, 
 indeed, most effectually. The North, with hot-house ten- 
 derness, Idndly kept off all the cold blasts, and thus aided 
 
THE CRISIS. 133 
 
 the growth of the Political Power of the South. "The North, 
 for some reason," says Daniel Webster, " never exercised 
 their majority efficiently five times ia the history of the gov- 
 ernment, when a division or trial of strength arose." Among 
 the courtiers around the new-born throne, we saw, there- 
 fore, representatives of aU the States of the Union, South 
 and North, East and West, and the royal couple never 
 rejected outlandish applicants. It gave the court a more 
 cosmopolitan air when all the climates of this Western 
 World, those where the " colored people" dwell, and those 
 where the " Mggers" grow, sent their pale sons to joiu in 
 doing homage. 
 
 But the whole court has for some time been growing 
 old and feeble. Its usurpation ia obliterating the political 
 compromise line of Freedom and Slavery was the culmi- 
 natiug point of its power. It violated the humble Magna 
 Charta of Freedom, and then commenced the days of 
 trouble and dissension, as was prophesied even by South- 
 em Statesmen. 
 
 The feeling of indignation soon gave itself vent in bit- 
 ter words. The halls of our legislatures resounded with 
 the most passionate language. At last it came to bloody 
 acts. The most cowardly assaults were haUed as deeds 
 of valor. Threats of disunion were soon everywhere ut- 
 tered, as indifierently as if there was no such word as 
 Treason in the laws of our land. Northerners were driven 
 from the South, and Southern youths were eager to flee 
 from the " pestilential air of Northern Abolitionism." The 
 frontiers of the two sections were strewn with the bones 
 of murdered citizens, slain by brother-hand. The gallows 
 of John Beown was gloomily towering over the once 
 sacred Mason and Dixon's line ; and now, shooting, lynch- 
 
134 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 ing, and hanging are the regular order of the day. But 
 Kansas is free, and the party raised on account of Southern 
 usurpation has at last gained the victory. 
 
 " One evil never comes alone." King Cotton lost, at 
 the same time, his monarchical privileges all over the 
 world. There are now many lands rising which dare 
 to compete with his universal power. Thus, disappointed 
 in his hopes and thwarted in his plans. King Cotton 
 lost his temper, began a family quarrel, dismissed his 
 cherished old queen. Lady Balance, and allied himself to 
 Dame Secession, young and sprightly in appearance, but 
 treacherous and rotten at the core. lii auger he leaves 
 his old mother Union, builds a new home, a new capital, 
 and a new throne, where he can, undisturbed by the 
 groans of Freedom, feast alone and forsaken on the halle- 
 lujahs of Slavery. 
 
 In order to reach his object and satisfy his ruhng ten- 
 dency, he is ready to nullify, to secede, to separate, to 
 break the Union ; to fight, and slay, and be slain — all for 
 the sake of Power and Rule. He wants to draw into his 
 modern hexarchy all cis-Masonic States, from which even 
 the Albino courtiers of the North shall henceforth be ex- 
 cluded. 
 
 But let us dismiss all personifications and figures, and 
 face the present trouble in all its gravity. 
 
 The American question has gradually become one of 
 nationality. The establishment of the Missouri line, drawn 
 tlirough the midst of a common country, was one of the 
 first great pohtical onslaughts against our nationality. It 
 was, indeed, the first step toward denationalization. Un- 
 der the protection of that Une, that unnatural element of 
 Balance of Power grew until it was forced to turn either 
 
THE CEISIS. 135 
 
 into Supremacy or Secession. Thwarted in the former, 
 the South had only the latter to rely upon. Had it not 
 been for that political interference, the American question 
 would never have assumed the present character. 
 
 II.— SECESSION. 
 
 Since the Constitution of the. United States contains no 
 special provision for the case of a State ■wishing to secede 
 from the Union, the inference might be fair that States 
 have no constitutional right of secession. The Constitution 
 seems even positively to prohibit secession. We read in 
 Art. n.. Sec. 10 : "No State shall, without the consent of 
 Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships 
 of war, in time of peace, enter into any agreement or 
 compact with another State, or with a foreign power." 
 Even the preparatory steps necessary for secession seem 
 thus to be forbidden by the Constitution. But should the 
 South seek to evade the letter of the Constitution by a 
 separate secession, it would undoubtedly violate its spirit. 
 Madison's words : " The Constitution requires an adoption 
 in toto and forever !" are generally acknowledged to be the 
 fair interpretation of that instrument. 
 
 But we will leave the question of the constitutionality 
 of secession undecided. We will even suppose that the 
 Constitution does not prohibit secession. In such a case 
 we must have recourse to general poUtical reasoning and to 
 arguments from history. We wiU take the popular view 
 of " State," for otherwise the question would be decided 
 in a moment. 
 
 K this Union is a mere compact for an indefinite number 
 of years, its end, as its beginning, must depend upon some 
 act of mutual agreement between the parties concerned. 
 
136 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 In making the original compact, certain conditions were en- 
 tered into by the parties, and certain duties were im- 
 posed upon them, expressly or by the very nature of the 
 compact. Should even aU these duties and conditions have 
 been complied with on the side of the party wishing to 
 secede, an unceremonious withdrawal would be illegal and 
 cause a total forfeiture of aU claims on the common prop- 
 erty. In any case, then, a consultation with the different 
 members of the compact seems to be necessary, previously 
 to a positive act of open secession. 
 
 Such cases are nothing novel in the history of states, 
 and they were long since formalized by writers on Public 
 Law. Geotius, thus, agreeably to the above reasoning, 
 sums up the whole matter by saying : " A state which had 
 been one, may be divided, either consensu mutuo, or vi 
 hellica." " Mutual Consent" or " Force of War" is thus the 
 alternative given by the " Father of the Law of Nations," 
 the first authority in Public Law, even to the present day. 
 " Mutual Consent" is, however, the first clause of that 
 alternative, and " Force of War" is consequent only upon 
 a failure of the first. 
 
 Almost all cases of a similar nature in modem history 
 verify the above alternative and the order of its succession. 
 The way by " Mutual Consent" was first tried, and only 
 when all peaceable means were found futile, was " Force 
 of War" resorted to. 
 
 Such is the history of the Netherlanders, of world-wide 
 fame. For many years they had endured the blighting 
 breath of the Spanish tyrant. They had felt each new 
 wrong, each new insult, each new disgrace thrown upon 
 them by a fiendish power. They protested, they peti- 
 tioned, they prayed for justice, they remonstrated, they 
 
THE CEISI3. 13^ 
 
 sent delegates to the King, they opened negotiations, they 
 sued for redress; and only when petitions and remon- 
 strances, conventions and negotiations, brought about no 
 definite result, they raised their arms to fight tor their 
 rights, they seceded and declared their independence of an 
 unfriendly government. 
 
 Such, too, was the history of our own United States two 
 hundred years later. We were similarly circmnstanced 
 and acted similarly. We, too, petitioned and protested, 
 convened and negotiated, and only when remonstrances 
 and threats proved futile, was war declared and independ- 
 ence achieved. 
 
 These are the two most brilliant examples of secession 
 in modern history. There are others, memorable, too, but 
 less successful. Poland could not recover its independence. 
 Hungary was ruthlessly delivered to Austria. In others still, 
 secession was less bloody, as in the separation of Belgium 
 from Holland ; and Neufchatel, the Swiss canton, went, in- 
 deed, quite peaceably out of the guardianship of Prussia. 
 
 But there is an example of secessionary character in 
 a country which bears great resemblance to our own. 
 It is in Switzerland, a republican confederacy hke ours, 
 only growing less slowly into a united nationality. In 
 1846, several cantons or states resolved upon settLog up a 
 " Sonder-bund," a separate league. But the federal au- 
 thorities, backed by the patriotic masses of the other can- 
 tons, tarried not long in deciding which policy to choose — 
 that of coercion or that of " laissez faire" A federal 
 army was sent against the rebels, and in spite of Austrian 
 arms and Catholic money, the secessionists were conquered, 
 and Jesuitism, the bone of contest in that case, was hurled 
 from the territory of united Switzerland. What Jesuitism 
 
138 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 ■was there, Slavery is here. We will examine whether such 
 a " Jacksonian" policy would suit the present circumstances. 
 
 III.— OUE POLICY. 
 
 Which policy wiU now be expected on one side and on 
 the other ? What wUl the South do, and what the United 
 States ? 
 
 These Southern States which are eager after revolution- 
 ary fame, might undoubtedly profit by the two great mod- 
 els we cited. We can not expect so much hu mili ty as in 
 the early days of the Netherland struggles, nor so much 
 patience as in our own American revolution. But the 
 chivalric Southerners ought not to be behind the sturdy 
 Dutchmen, or the valiant Americans of old, in the ways 
 of gallantry and manliness. They ought, certainly, to 
 show as much frankness and forbearance toward a free 
 repubhc as those early heroes showed toward despotic 
 kings. They ought first to endeavor to obtain retrievance 
 for their injuries, real or imaginary; and even in the case 
 of a temporary refusal of their requests, they ought, as 
 freemen and republicans of the nineteenth century, try 
 again all peaceable means to avoid a violent disrupture of 
 the once cherished empire. It can only be lamented that 
 some of the Southern States have taken a different course, 
 a course unwise and fatal to their best interests. 
 
 And what might we reasonably expect from the central 
 power of the United States, from the Union as such? 
 She -would listen to the grievances which are given as 
 cause for secession; she would endeavor to remove this 
 cause, should those grievances be found to rest on real 
 injustice done to the respective parties by the repubhc; 
 she would construe and interpret the Constitution, the 
 
THE 0EI8IS. 139 
 
 principal and fundamental bond of our Union, in the 
 liberal spirit of this enlightened age ; and should those 
 grievances be found to be mere fancies, she would try to 
 convince the rebellious States of their unjust and injurious 
 policy ; and, lastly, if negotiations and persuasions should 
 be of no avail, she would be tempted, from love of peace, 
 rather to let a' State go than to incur the responsibility of 
 the horrors of a civU war. 
 
 And stiU such a yielding policy would awaken some fear 
 for the future of the empire even in the most peace-loving- 
 breast. "Where and when would secession then stop ? If 
 the " sovereign" States have a right to secede, what would 
 hinder us from brealdng into thirty-four separate and in- 
 dependent republics ? Further stiU, we, the " sovereign" 
 people of these United States, have established this Con- 
 stitution! Would not the "sovereigns" of each State, 
 then, have the same right of brealdng it as the States, or 
 even more than they ? What would hinder the city of 
 New York from seceding ? What, other cities, and coun- 
 ties, and islands, and townships ? Whither would this 
 "separatism," "this disorganizing individualism," lead us ? 
 " Would not," in the words of Tatlee Lewis, " a polit- 
 ical death come over what before was fuU of social life, 
 and society be decomposed in its individual elements, and 
 no longer be a Body, but a Mas« — a mass of putrescent 
 and fermenting atoms ?" 
 
 We are not yet near such a stage of perfect disorganizar 
 tion. But it is clear that a jdelding poUcy would not save 
 us from that danger. 
 
 This consideration wiU be weighed in the minds of 
 patriotic statesmen North and South, and wUl influence 
 their action. 
 
140 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 It wotild have been much easier to secede in the 
 earliest days of the republic and of the new Constitution. 
 There were, at that time, thirteen little colonies scattered 
 over a large surface. Each little colony formed a prov- 
 ince or State by itself. Each had a small population, 
 and was often separated from the others by large 
 wastes and impassable woods, or aUenatihg prejudices. 
 A single glance into- the history of those thirteen different 
 settlements, a mere look at a geographical map of that 
 time, must disclose the secret. They were as yet but 
 loosely connected, and their principal bond of TJnion 
 was at first merely a common opposition to a common 
 enemy. 
 
 But what a different aspect the country has now, after a 
 united growth of nearly a century ! The frontiers between 
 the different States are obliterated. The enlightened pop- 
 ulation increased and spread over woods and wastes. The 
 once separated States blended and grew into each other, and 
 had we now to form a new Confederacy, a new Constitution, 
 a new State, a new Nation, would it ever enter our minds 
 now to make a dividing line between Connecticut and 
 Rhode Island, between New Hampshire and Massachu- 
 setts, between Delaware and Pennsylvania and Maryland ? 
 What need would there be of such a number of Governors 
 and Capitals and separate Legislatures and other political 
 machinery in the New England States ? And we might 
 multiply our examples. But it is sufficient for the present 
 purpose to point out the undeniable fact that we have all, land 
 and people, grown more and more into a better, united, and 
 more compact body, whose period of epiphysis is almost 
 over, and has thus caused such an intimate connection that 
 any separation of its members would leave an open, if not a 
 
THE CEI8I8. 141 
 
 fatal -wound. Several Southern States, carried away by 
 the first excitement, and aided by a wavering policy of 
 the federal government, may make secession a fait ac- 
 compli on paper. It seems highly probable that this wiU 
 be the face the matter will take. But this very non- 
 opposition will allay the passion of the seceders, and they 
 will soon awake to a consciousness of the fearful posi- 
 tion in which they have placed themselves ; for the people 
 can not, for any long period of time, remain bUnd to 
 the immeasui'able advantages of a common Union, and 
 the unavoidable injuries and calamities arising from Dis- 
 union. 
 
 This growing together, this united national life, is even 
 the very distinguishing characteristic of our present won- 
 derful civilization. Germany is panting for unity, and has 
 made the preparatory steps for its accomplishment. Italy 
 has inaugurated a more poetical and radical method of 
 reaching the same end. The republics of Central America 
 are laboring under the same process, and South America 
 appreciates slowly the merits of union. 
 
 History clearly shows that Disunion of parts that prop- 
 erly belong together, is fatal in the end. There is Holland, 
 formerly so powerful, and Belgium, and the Hanse towns, 
 and the Italian republics. " Individuals," says the famous 
 Fe. List, " owe the greatest part of their productive 
 power to the political organization and to the power 
 of the country in which they reside. A considerable 
 population, and a vast territory, with varied resources, 
 are essential elements of normal nationality, fundamental 
 conditions of moral culture, as well as of material develop- 
 ment of political power." 
 
 There is among a united people less fear and insecurity, 
 
142 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 and, consequently, less -waste of labor ; a more steady in- 
 dustry, and a more reliable market. The policy of even 
 friendly foreign states changes often tmawares, and causes 
 disappointment and loss beyond their own limits. There 
 are no fortresses needed to protect the many boundaries, 
 no troops or vessels to watch possible encroachments, no 
 turnpikes or custom-houses to guard against foreign com- 
 petition. There is free communication, free commerce, 
 free trade, in the largest and most essential acceptation of 
 the word ; unfettered exchange of products, unfettered in- 
 tercourse of men. This is the free trade for which the 
 greatest statesmen and economists were laboring through 
 so many centuries against that self-spUtting system of feudal 
 seclusiveness and dismemberment. Those heroes are now 
 ignorantly thrown in the category of the narrow-minded 
 modem free-traders, who, m their eagerness after foreign 
 trade, forget the labor, freedom, and consolidation of their 
 own country. Free trade is, indeed, a vital principle of a 
 nation's life, if it means free commerce of men and pro- 
 duce, not on principles of privileges inherited or newly 
 granted, but on principles of the equal interests of all 
 individual members and states, of common sympathy, of a 
 common policy, and a common destiny. Free trade in this 
 sense creates fresh stimulus, new thrift and enjoyment, 
 security and reliance, peace and power, an accumulated and 
 multipUed force, and leads a nation, as a compact body, 
 toward one common object. 
 
 This is what is meant by Union ; this is what is meant 
 by Nationality ; and these advantages are either already 
 at our command, or they are growing upon us so much 
 the more exuberantly as we diligently watch our Union, 
 ward off its dangers, reform its abuses, regulate its gov- 
 
THE CEIBIB. 143 
 
 emment, and understand our mission. We have, indeed, 
 already become one of the Great Powers of the world, 
 with the duties and privileges incumbent upon such a 
 glorious rank. .We, the people, have labored together 
 this long time for a common destiny, in spite of pohtical 
 disturbances. The world has learned to know American 
 industry, American commerce, American art, American 
 civilization. We have perceived more clearly from day 
 to day that we have a common destiny, a common mission 
 to ourselves, to America, and to the world. And such 
 a united growth has, in spite of the invectives and mis- 
 representations of political parties, laid the foundation for 
 a solid Love of the Union, which needs but a moment of 
 unbiased self-consciousness to rouse it to unheard-of deeds 
 of patriotic valor. 
 
 Now, such thoughts will bear upon the minds of the 
 people in all parts of our common land, and forebode a bet- 
 ter future. But, in view of these undeniable facts, the 
 country will also wake up to a true sense of its responsibili- 
 ties. For we may, in the end, reach our common object, 
 pointed out to us by Nature ; but wavering coimsels and 
 lack of decision may make us pass through years of unne- 
 cessary suffering and misfortune. It is the best policy to 
 face at once the whole danger. There is more at stake 
 than the welfare of the Negro Slave. A nationality, a 
 republic, a Great Power of the world, American civiliza- 
 tion, the progress of the whole world, are in question, and 
 the United States can not allow herself to be spUt or give 
 up any part of her territory which is positively necessary 
 for the accomplishment of her fundamental plan and the 
 realization of the original idea which called her into 
 being. 
 
144 "^HS AM£KIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 IV.— INTEGRITY OF THE UNION. 
 There are certain parts of a nation's territory which are 
 positively necessary for the nation's existence. These may 
 be called its integral parts. Other districts, provinces, or 
 states may be less necessary, and the nation's destiny may 
 be reached without them. Now, no integral part can be 
 allowed to secede if the nation is true to itself, to its 
 original plan, and to its mission. No failure, be it from 
 lack of patriotism or from downi-ight treason, can ever 
 alter this political axiom. 
 
 The only question will, then, be : What are to be regard- 
 ed as integral parts of the United States? Under this 
 name we must first comprise all national property — viz., 
 property held by the United States for the purpose of 
 protecting and defending itself against any encroachments, 
 political or commercial. Such are all national " forts, 
 magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful build- 
 ings," thus specified in the Constitution. They are neces- 
 sary for two purposes — namely, for repelling the attacks 
 of a hostile power, and for collecting the rovt'nne. And 
 they will remain to be necessary, whatever the policy of 
 the United States may be during the long internal process 
 of secession. We say " long," because actual and total 
 secession is not the work of an Oidiuance ; it would take 
 a State months, and probably years, to l>rcak entirely 
 loose from the Union and reconstruct a separate and in- 
 dependent government. 
 
 Especially must those forts and buildings and magazines 
 be kept (during that whole process) which protect tha 
 United States botmdariea. For if certain States should 
 even be allowed to secede, and should actually secede, the 
 
THE CRISIS. J45 
 
 United States •would, by such separation, receive a new 
 boundary line, and this boundary line would be entirely 
 exposed. In case of war, she would be entirely unguard- 
 ed on that whole line, and be open there to any surprise ; 
 and even in peace she could not protect her commercial 
 policy against smuggling and other foreign encroachments. 
 There could thus, even in case of a yieldiag policy, not be 
 the faintest doubt about the right and duty and present 
 policy of the United States in regard to her national prop- 
 erty. She would be obliged to keep her old forts and posts 
 of revenue, whatever her final policy in regard to secession 
 might be, until a new cordon of fortifications and custom- 
 houses could be established along the new boundary, and 
 all other national works, made necessary by a separation 
 of States, could be completed. She must keep them, de- 
 fend them, and in case of treason or defeat, retake them. 
 Anything short of this would be cowardice and treason, 
 and would bring the curses of the nation and of the world 
 on the head of the Execntive. 
 
 Let us now examine the character of the States them- 
 selves that think of secession, or have passed secession 
 ordinances. We begin with Texas. 
 
 Without entering into the political history of that State, 
 it wiU need no argimient to prove that its annexation was 
 entirely unnecessary for the preservation, or growth, or 
 position, or power of the United States. Its' conquest 
 may have been a necessity by reason of Balance of Power, 
 but neither its climate nor its soil, neither its geograph- 
 ical position nor its people, made its annexation a neces- 
 sity for the Union as such. To be sure, it cost us heavy 
 sacrifices of blood and money. But Texas would not be 
 
 Y - 
 
146 THE AMBEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 ■worth, a civil war, for tlie Union can and would stand 
 without it. Texas may, therefore, be allowed to " slide 
 off" South, East, or West, and become an independent 
 State or a joint member of others. 
 
 We must, once for aU, dismiss the common popular 
 belief that we can prosper only by spreading over a larger 
 area. We have enough territory, or rather more than is 
 needed for centuries to come. We have no superfluous 
 force to send off into foreign states or lands. We have 
 plenty to do in what is already ours. There is yet an 
 immense amount of our own land to be settled, cultivated, 
 and watched over. We have not now, nor had we ever 
 need of any part of Mexico, foreign to us in everything. 
 We have no force to spare for its colonization. What we 
 did in that regard, we did at the cost of our own peace 
 and prosperity, without any benefit to us. As a Nation, 
 we have no need of Mexico. As a Great Power of the 
 world, the duty of guarding her does not devolve upon 
 us alone. An American policy, strictly American, with 
 the United States as Supreme Judge over all matters con- 
 cerning the continent of America, is an anachronism and 
 an absurdity. The world is no longer disconnected or 
 inaccessible in its different parts. There are Great Powers 
 of the world to whose surveillance no quarter of the 
 globe is a stranger. And t/iey have as much right here as 
 anywhere else, and we have as much right anywhere else 
 as here, or would have, if our narrow foreign policy 
 allowed us to see our true position in Ihe world.* 
 
 To Caxifoenia the same reasoning would apply as to 
 
 « This ■will be tlie subject of a ■work by tbe author, no^w in course 
 of preparation. Title: "The Five Great Powers of Europe and the 
 United States of America." 
 
THE CEISIS. 14/7 
 
 Texas, were it not for its gold. But this exception is, after 
 all, but imaginary. We needed California just as little as 
 we needed Texas. The same amount of labor and capital 
 invested in any one of our older States or Territories 
 would have done much more to increase the wealth and to 
 consolidate the power of the United States. We were 
 spreading over our older lands with a. speed greater than 
 was beneficial to us individually or as a nation, and terri- 
 ble were, and are stUl, the sufferings of those thrown to 
 the outskirts of the inhabited and civilized part of our 
 empire. They pass through years of misery and famine 
 before they attain the most necessary comforts of a civil- 
 ized life. Imaginary cities and paper railroads allure the 
 weary laborer, eager to obtain a free homestead. The com- 
 mercial policy of the nation and political speculations con- 
 spire with each other to send new crowds of emigrants to 
 the West. And, indeed, the sparse lands of the first pio- 
 neers could be aided in no other way than by sending out 
 new men and new money : otherwise they would have per- 
 ished. The only difficulty was, and is yet, that, though 
 Europe sends annually hundreds and hundreds of thousands 
 to aid the spreading of cultivation and the extending of our 
 area of active power, stUl the flood is too feeble, the num- 
 ber of immigrants too small ; for speculation is ever paving 
 a new West, whose end seems never to be reached. 
 
 While, then, this process of wasting dispersion was 
 going on in the older part of our empire, a dispersion 
 which only the superhuman exertion of the emigrants from 
 the East and from Europe could keep from becoming an 
 entire dissolution, California, on the extremest point of our 
 national surface, was, with golden cords, violently drawn 
 into the same system of diverging. Still more distant, 
 
148 THE AMEEICA^f QUESTIOH. 
 
 and less connected with the older part of the nation, it 
 reqnired new waste of labor and capital to keep np a com- 
 mercial and political connectioiL It once retarded a finan- 
 cial crisis, bnt it could not prevent it. ^e imported firom 
 Europe, at a £ibulous rate, the fabrics of foreign labor ; 
 we paid with the agricultural products of the South and of 
 the West ; we spread oyer new lands to wrest from our Tir- 
 gin soil new products for foreign exports ; we sent stocks 
 of every description and name, public and private, to our 
 creditors beyond the ocean ; but all our exertions to keep 
 up some show of balance were in vain ; we needed the 
 costly erection of a fer-off workshop in the mines of CaK- 
 fomia, to delay the final crash. The chance of gaining 
 wealth with little labor, to be sure, gave an extraordinary 
 impulse to human adventure ; and life, labor, and capital 
 were recklessly thrown away to feed the Giolden Calf 
 But, had we kept our hands and capital at home, had we 
 built up our own industry, melted onr own iron ore, and 
 fabricated our cloth, we woTild now be less dependent 
 upon our own and foreign merchant princes ; we would be 
 richer, and stronger, and happier, and more civilized, 
 though we had never known of the gold mountains of 
 Califomia. Gold is a product like others. It can not be 
 obtained without labor. Labor is the measure of its value 
 as it is the measure of the value of any other product. 
 Xor is it a more necessary article of wealth than doth or 
 iron. There is no need of gold as a drculating medium. 
 The world could at least have done without CaHfomia or 
 Australia. Then, as an article of manufacture, it is a 
 luxury, and has its substitutes. 
 
 Still we have California, and we must do our duty 
 toward her. " The Pacific coast woxild naturally have been 
 
THE CEISIS. ^49 
 
 the last of all the lands of the United States to be drawn 
 into a common national life. The commerce with Asia 
 would scarcely have necessitated an exceptional course. 
 A Pacific Railroad, to have benefited at once the whole 
 empire, must have led through a chain of settled lands. 
 But the extraordinary history of California requires ex- 
 traordinary meafiures, and therefore the Road is a na- 
 tion^ necessity. However, should California wish to se- 
 cede, the nation would save new expenses, and probably 
 new struggles, and soon recover from a momentary dis- 
 turbance of its commercial and iadnstrial life. But the 
 Gold State knows its advantages too well to desire 
 secession. 
 
 Our relations with Louisiana are fer different. The 
 whole old territory of Louisiana was bought from France. 
 It was bought by the "Dnited States, not by one particular 
 State, or for one State, but by the whole and for the 
 whole — ^for a common national purpose. It was bought, 
 not for its people alone, but especially for its land and its 
 river. In the earliest days of our republic, the Missis- 
 sippi, down to its very mouth, was considered as neces- 
 sary for the development of our Western Territories. The 
 Western people, even in those early times, saw plainly that 
 they could not do without a permanent and undisturbed 
 right of freely navigating the Mississippi Such a right, 
 however, could be " undisturbed and permanent" only 
 when the whole river was in their possession. They knew 
 this; it was a general Western thought — nay, more, a 
 common national thought, shared by all people and all 
 statesmen. The Western people, therefore, laid plans for 
 adzing Xew Orleans, even while it was yet Spanish. No 
 wonder, indeed, that Jefferson used such decided language 
 
150 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 about its acquisition, and that Bonaparte, from whom it 
 "was at last purchased, said : " This accession of territory 
 strengthens forever the power of the United States." 
 
 The Mississippi Valley, drained by the Mississippi and 
 its tributaries, contains an area of over a million square 
 miles. It is nearly as large as the slopes of the Pacific 
 and the Atlantic together, and one third larger than the 
 whole domain of the republic upon the adoption of the 
 present Constitution. (Census, 1860.) In future centuries 
 it may be a great republic by itself — the Great Repubhc 
 of the Valley of the Mississippi, a friendly sister of a 
 Great Pacific and of a Great Atlantic Repubhc. But at 
 present, and probably for some centuries to come, such 
 a separation wOl not be necessitated by any demands 
 of self-interest, of executive expediency, or of economy. 
 
 Kow, the mouth of the Mississippi is to the West, and 
 thus to the United States, the same as the mouth of the 
 Thames is to England, or that of the Rhone to France, or 
 that of the Volga to Russia, and it wUl be claimed as a 
 national river, and be defended as such. 
 
 Therefore, we must expect many and earnest efforts on 
 the part of the United States to keep the extensive terri- 
 tory of old Louisiana and the present State in harmonious 
 connection with the main body. It is, beyond the faintest 
 doubt, an integral part of the Union, and will regard itself 
 as such, and be so regarded. Patriotic counsels and com- 
 mon interests wiH tend to suppress undue excitement and 
 re-estabUsh peace and harmony. 
 
 "We now come to the Boebek Slave States. Looking 
 at their position between the number-filled North and the 
 more thinly-settled South, we might conclude d. prion 
 that their greatest attraction Hes Northward. The force 
 
THE 0EISI8. 15J 
 
 of attraction is in proportion to the force of production, 
 and this again is so much the greater as the population is 
 the larger. 
 
 This theory is proved by practice. The principal ex- 
 changes of the Border States are \nth the States north of 
 them. Moreover, the chief product of their Southern 
 neighbors is not carried to them directly. It is taken to 
 the far-off seaports, and then it is shipped to Europe, and 
 thence again to their Northern neighbors, until at last, 
 after a long and costly circumambulation, it arrives at 
 their homes from the side exactly opposite the one from 
 which it started. (And this is probably the way which 
 cotton is to go for a long period of years, whether there 
 be secession or not.) Thus this very Southern staple rivets 
 still closer the Border States to their Northern friends. 
 
 Their population, too, and their whole progress show, in 
 spite of Slavery, immistakable signs of sympathy with the 
 North. (See Tables on page 118.) 
 
 Under the segis of a common nationality, the white 
 population gradually pressed down into the Border Slave 
 States, which were thus — we repeat — slowly and peace- 
 ably being transformed into Free States. Had it not been 
 for poUtical disturbances, this process would have gone on 
 stiU more rapidly. It is the way prescribed by nature for 
 freeing States, and the work is done unconsciously on the 
 part of the immigrants from Europe and the North, but it 
 is none the less surely done. There was thus a living 
 and lasting tie forming between the Border Slave States 
 and the Free North, and all boundary lines were vanishing. 
 
 And this was tmdoubtedly the cause of the steady in- 
 crease of free colored persons in those States. In 1850, 
 one seventh of their total colored population was free. 
 
252 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 This peaceable progress of Freedom may also be seen 
 in. the number of manumissions. The Border States suffer 
 the most from, the loss of fugitive slaves ; stiU, in them 
 the number of manumissions is far larger than the number 
 of fugitives. 
 
 The Border States seem thus to be very intimately con- 
 nected with their Northern neighbors. Their commerce, 
 their population, their history, their geographical position, 
 and their whole progress point to the North and to Union. 
 Ambitious politicians may, perhaps, for a while misguide 
 the people of some of those States, but they can not bUnd 
 them, for any considerable time, to their real interests. 
 They know, too, that should they remain in the Union, 
 the greatest delicacy would be shown to them. As Slave 
 States they would then be in a small minority ; but this 
 very fact would obliterate Slavery as a basis of party dis- 
 tinction. There would be one common country, and all 
 its parts would faithfully do their duty toward one another, 
 in strict conformance to the dictates of the Constitution. 
 
 There are then the States of Tenkessbe and Aekansas. 
 They show in everything their close connection with 
 Kentucky and Missouri, and with the great Valley of 
 the Mississippi, whose fate they must share. The free 
 West and two flourishing Border States on their North, 
 Louisiana, with its increasing white population, on their 
 South, and the unbroken Mississippi, will, we hope, be 
 fetters strong enough to keep those two States also from 
 violently leaving the Union. 
 
 And now there are six States left, the two Caeolinas 
 and the Easteen Gulf States ! Why should they wish 
 to secede ? Are there not in their history additional 
 reasons which should make them both wise and grateful ? 
 
THE 0EISI8. 153 
 
 Has it not been demonstrated over and over again that 
 the South, both in peace and in war, has ever derived the 
 greatest material advantages from being in the Union ? 
 What is the injury which they have now received at the 
 hands of the North ? The election of a Republican Presi- 
 dent ? No ; this accidental occasion, selected for seces- 
 sion, can not be called even the near cause. It is of im- 
 portance only insomuch as it fixes the date of the event. 
 The President-elect has repeatedly declared himself in 
 favor of a strict adherence to a constitutional Fugitive 
 Slave Law. He has gone still further, and frankly ex- 
 pressed his opinion to be that the United States, as such, 
 has nothing to do with Slavery where it exists. He, then, 
 stands on a platform which contains not the faintest whis- 
 per of AboKtion sentiments. He is the standard-bearer 
 of a party which — ^in order to show the South that they 
 were no Abolitionists — committed the indelicacy of di-ag- 
 ging JoHx Beowx, who had duly been caught, tried, 
 sentenced, hung, and buried, from an " honorable" soli- 
 tude into a pubUc platform. The only crime of the Presi- 
 dent-elect is that he does not subscribe to a policy which 
 would perpetuate civil war on the outskirts of our empire, 
 and drench every new inch of ground, gained for civiliza- 
 tion, with the blood of murdered citizens. And as for his 
 party, it has not the ascendancy in Congress, nor in the 
 Supreme Court of the United States. What hurt could 
 it do, even if it wished to do hurt ? Or has it not as much 
 right to extend Freedom as other parties have to extend 
 Slavery ? But is it not ready to submit to all the demands 
 of the Constitution ? Or if this displeasure with the Re- 
 pubKcan party is a mere pretext, is the South angry be- 
 cause she can no longer keep up the abnormal balance be" 
 
154 THE AMEEIOAN QUESTION. 
 
 tween Slavery and Freedom ? What power can check the 
 natural and constitutional growth of the latter ? Are the 
 Border States worse off on account of the increase of their 
 free population ? No ; this whole question of Freedom 
 and Slavery has its warlike features only through political 
 interference. Let the policy of the United States in re- 
 spect to it be once firmly settled, then an enlightened and 
 dispassionate South will no more growl because of the 
 fruits of Freedom. It wiU imderstand that the very power 
 of the United States which it now tries to overthrow, is 
 the guardian of its peaceable development. 
 
 v.— PROGNOSTIC OF A. SOUTHEEN HEXAROHT. 
 
 To secede and to recede are the self-same thing. 
 Slavery can no longer continue the struggle against Free- 
 dom. It leaves the battle-field, and its arms are hence- 
 forth turned no more against the Korth, but against its 
 own self. For secession is a suicidal pohcy. Where 
 is the wealth, where the labor, to buUd up a separate 
 Confederacy ? Where are their bread and their clothes ? 
 Who will work in their manufactories? Who will be 
 their sailors ? White laborers will shun their land. The 
 free colored people wiH flee from fear of being enslaved. 
 And what an industrial independence that would be ! 
 They have cotton and some minor products to exchange ; 
 but woe to a nation that raises but one principal product! 
 It win be Free in nothing, and Slave in everything. Still, 
 these things might gradually be changed ; but where and 
 who are the men who will make this change under a sep- 
 arate empire ? 
 
 We will add a few tables. 
 
THE OEISIS. 
 
 155 
 
 TABLE XXVni. — POPUJ-ATIOif OF THE TWO OAEOLINAS AND 
 OP THE EASTEEJf GULP STATES IN 1850. 
 
 States. Whites. Free Colored. Slaves. Total Colored. Total. 
 
 N.Carolina.. 553,000 27,400 288,500 315,90a 869,000 
 
 S. CaroUna... 274,500 8,900 384,900 393,800 668,500 
 
 Georgia 521,500 2,900 381,600 384,500 906,100 
 
 Florida 47,200 900 39,300 40,200 87,400 
 
 Alabama.... 426,500 2,200 342,800 345,000 771,600 
 
 Mississippi... 295,700 900 309,800 410,700 606,300 
 
 Total 2,118,600 43,200 1,746,900 1,790,100 3,908,000 
 
 TABLE XXIX. ^PEOPOKTION OF "WHITE TO TOTAL POPULA- 
 TION', (in PEE CENTS.) 
 
 States. 1T90. 1800. 1810. 1820. 1880. 1840. 1850. 
 
 North Carolina. .. . 73.19 70.65 67.76 65.62 64.07 64.36 63.64 
 
 South Cai-olina. . . . 56.28 56.79 51.60 47.33 44.37 43.59 41.07 
 
 Georgia 64.07 62.73 57.60 55.59 57.43 58.97 57.56 
 
 Florida _ _ _ _ 52.93 51.29 53.98 
 
 Alabama _ _ _ 66.81 61.52 56.74 55.27 
 
 Mississippi — 58.52 57.06 55.90 51.56 47.67 48.76 
 
 TABLE XXX. PBOPOETION OF FREE COLOEED TO TOTAL 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 States. 1790. 1800. 1810. 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 
 
 North Carolina .. 1.26 1.47 1.85 2.29 2.65 3.01 3.16 
 
 South Carolina. . . 0.72 0.92 1.10 1.36 1.36 1.39 1.34 
 
 Georgia 0.48 0.68 0.71 0.51 48 0.40 0.32 
 
 Florida _ _ _ _ 2.43 1.50 1.07 
 
 Alabama _ _ _ 0.45 0.51 0.34 0.29 
 
 Mississippi — 2.06 0.59 0.61 0.38 0.36 0.15 
 
 TABLE XXXI. — ^MANUMITTED AND FUGITVT! SLAVES IN 1850. 
 
 States. Slaves. Manumitted. 
 
 North Carolina 288,500 2 .... 
 
 South CaroUna. 384,400 2 
 
 Georgia 381,600 19 . . . . 
 
 Florida 39,300 22 
 
 Alabama 342,800 29 
 
 ^ 309,800 6 .... 
 
 Fngitives. 
 ...64 
 ...16 
 ...89 
 ,..18 
 
 .. 16 
 ...41 
 
 1,746,900 
 
 67 
 
 257 
 
 These tables show that the six States together had, in 
 1850, a population about equal in number to that of the 
 United States when they were first founded. The inge- 
 nious Superintendent of the Census of 1850 makes the 
 whole Gulf States a rather dubious compliment when he 
 
156 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 says, " that ■while the Atlantic StatesJiave increased more 
 than threefold since 1790, the Gulf States, which had then 
 scarcely any existence, have now a population of nearly 
 one half as great as the population of aU the States together 
 at that time." But that " whole population of aU the States 
 at that time" was indeed very small, and one half of that 
 is scarcely large enough to build up a separate nation. 
 
 The rate of increase, too, is not so very favorable. The 
 Gulf, east of the Mississippi, increased, on the whole, only 
 6.1 per cent., while the Atlantic Slope increased 54.8 
 per cent., and the Mississippi Valley 37.2 per cent. If 
 we add to the Gulf States, east of the Mississippi, the two 
 Carolinas, the proportions will change but little. For the 
 ratio of the decennial increase steadily and rapidly dimin- 
 ished in North Carolina from 21.42 per cent, in 1800 to 
 15.35 in 1850 ; and in South Carolina, from 38. V5 per cent, 
 in 1800 to 12.47 in 1850. Now, should those six States 
 even grow at the same ratio as they have done heretofore, 
 and the colored people be counted as regular population, 
 it would take them at least six times as long as it did the 
 Valley of the Mississippi and the Atlantic Slope to grow 
 to their number and strength. They would thus reach, in 
 about 300 or 400 years, the present power of the United 
 States, of which they are now already a part, and whose 
 influence, and glory, and position in the world they now 
 share as coequal members. To say the least, secession on 
 their part is exceedingly impoUtic. They would at once 
 sink from being a great power in the world to a fourth- 
 rate little State, with no voice or influence in the Mfe of 
 nations. 
 
 But there is another aspect to these tables. It appears 
 that the proportion of the white population in these States 
 
THE OEISIS. 157 
 
 is continually growing smaller, a phenomenon very differ- 
 ent from what was seen in the Border States. 
 
 From the first year of computation to 1850 that propor- 
 tion decreased in 
 
 K. Carolina. S. Carolina. Georgia. ^Florida. Alabama. MississippL 
 
 9.65 per cent. 15.21 6.51 (incr.) 1.05 11.54. 9.76 
 
 The mean decrease of the proportion of white to total 
 population in the six States together is thus 8.43 per cent. 
 The proportion of free colored persons to total population 
 is also steadily decreasing, except in North Carolina ; nor 
 are there any manumissions worth mentioning. The slaves 
 will thus be in a majority long before the Confederacy 
 reaches any considerable power in the world. And what 
 wiU he the result of such an increase ? 
 
 The news of a separation from the original republic of 
 the United States can not even now be kept a secret from 
 the slave population. It has reached them through the 
 patriotic speeches of indignant Southerners, through the 
 misrepresentations of an enraged party press, through the 
 whispers of their free colored brethren. Though they are 
 at present but partially informed, they would soon better 
 appreciate their position. The United States would be to 
 them, a second England. ISTo fugitive slave law would 
 help the slaveholder of a Southern republic to obtain his 
 runaway Negroes from the then foreign soil of the United 
 States. Nor would the loss of Negroes be their only 
 disadvantage. The slaves would soon awaken to a con- 
 sciousness of their power, and break out in open rebellion. 
 No United States would then be the guardian of the slave 
 power. No United States posse would be found to subdue 
 the insurrection. 
 
 And should this be false prophecy, and the Negroes 
 
158 THE AMEEICAir QTTESTIOir. 
 
 remain peaceable, and increase in number, what will the 
 South do with that increased number ? There would be 
 no more new territory for the slave power to conquer and 
 colonize. The United States, England, and France would 
 then go hand in hand, and no Walkke would ever again 
 dare to think of putting Slavery where formerly Freedom 
 was. The world has hitherto appreciated the difficult 
 position of the United States, and its committal to Slavery. 
 The world has been forced to respect the United States as 
 a Great Power, and has feared its strength. The world en- 
 dured much from it, in order to avoid collisions detri- 
 mental to aU. But things would look differently in case 
 of a permanent secession. The Great Powers of the 
 world, and especially England and the United States, 
 would then be united, and jointly watch over the fortunes 
 of races and nations. 
 
 But a Southern Confederacy would not so long exist, 
 even should it be joined by several more or by all the 
 Slave States. Fe. List's words would soon be applicable to 
 them : " The debt which so greatly oppresses them is the 
 result of a series of excessive exertions to maintain their 
 independence, and it is ia the nature of things that the 
 evil should reach a point where it may be intolerable, 
 and when their incorporation into a greater nationahty 
 would appear as acceptable as it will be necessary." 
 Troubles from within and troubles from without would 
 soon prove to them the fatality of secession. The poeti- 
 cal excitement of the first days would soon pass away, 
 and prosy misery take its place. Long before a di-eaded 
 slave insurrection would strike horror into the breast 
 of the South and of the whole world — ^long before the 
 Southern republic would wage war against a world in 
 
THE CEI8I8. J59 
 
 arms — ^parties would arise within their own precincts, and 
 the ciy of Union, no more fearing to be choked as treason, 
 would be again heard from 4;he Gulf of Mexico to the 
 borders of Old Virginia, from the Mississippi to the 
 mighty oceans ; and the glorious Republic of the United 
 States of America would be one again and forever. 
 
 VI.— A NEW PEOPOSAL FOE A COMPEOMISE. 
 
 Experiments of Disunion with their different contin- 
 gencies are costly and unfortunate. They bring distress 
 on all sections. It would take years to recover from such 
 a violent disrupture of a country — of its industry, of its 
 commerce, and of its government. But stUl, in the end, 
 the South would lose the most ; for there is, even in the 
 worst case of secession — a secession of aU the Slave States 
 — more wealth and more productive labor, more strength 
 and more power to rely upon in the Xorth than in the 
 South. 
 
 TABLE XXXH. PEOGEESS OF POPTTLATION. 
 
 SLAVE STATES. 
 
 1790 1,271,500 
 
 1800 1.703,000 
 
 1810 2;208,800 
 
 1820 2,831,600 
 
 1830 3,662,600 
 
 1840 4,634,500 
 
 1850 6,222,400 
 
 FREE STATES. 
 
 1790 1,901,000 
 
 1800 2,601,500 
 
 1810 3,653,200 
 
 1820 5,030,400 
 
 1830 6,874,800 
 
 1840 9,561,200 
 
 1850 13,330,600 
 
 The difference between the numbers of whites in the 
 Slave and in the Free States was thus about 700,000 in 
 1790. The difference in 1850 was about 7,000,000, and 
 it must be stiU greater in 1860; for the rate of increase 
 of the Slave States was in the last decade 34.26 per cent. ; 
 of the Free States 39.42. Thus the whites in the South 
 will number, in 1860, about 8,338,000, and those in the 
 
IQQ THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 
 
 North about 18,629,500. Moreover, in case of Disunion, that 
 gradual and peaceable pressing down into the Southern 
 States would cease ; the North would keep its fuU num- 
 bers and spread on its own soil, and thus increase at a stiE 
 higher ratio, while aU emancipation would at once stop, 
 and be replaced by violent insurrection. 
 
 "We confined ourselves in our last reasonings, about pop- 
 ulation to white men ; for in case of Disunion there would 
 but Httle reUance be placed on the colored persons, be it in 
 peace or in war. 
 
 But we think so highly of the Union, we are so well 
 aware of the advantages accruing from it to the whole 
 country and to the world, we feel so keenly the evils 
 from Disunion (though it be but partial and momentary), 
 that, should our old Constitution not suffice, we would be 
 willing, at any time, to submit to a new compromise. 
 Nay, further, we would be. ready, for the sake of union 
 and peace, to yield our whole point respecting Slavery, and 
 to look henceforth at the slave, politically, or rather inter- 
 nationally, as a mere beast or other property, such as an 
 ass or horse is. But, in subscribing thus to the opinions 
 of the South, we would ask in return for a riffid adherence 
 to this Southern principle in all its logical consequences. 
 We would therefore propose the following amendment to 
 the Constitution, short, simple, and radical : 
 
 Whereas, The present provisions in the Constitution, as 
 far as they refer to slaves, viz., " persons bound to serv- 
 ice," have, during an experience of seventy years, proved 
 to be inadequate for preventing dissension and violence 
 consequent on the question of Slavery in these United 
 States ; 
 
 Whereas, Those provisions even now prove insufficient 
 
THE CEISI8. 161 
 
 longer to satisfy the North and the Sonth in such manner 
 as that they may remain united ; 
 
 Resolved, That, in Art. I., Sec. 2, T[ 3, beginning thus : 
 "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
 among the several States which may be included within 
 this Union, according to their respective numbers," the 
 following words be stricken out, namely : " which shall 
 be determined by adding to the whole number of free 
 persons, including those bound to service for a term of 
 years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all 
 other persons." 
 
 Mesolved, That, Art. IV., Sec. 2, T" 3, reading thus : 
 " No person held to service or labor in one State, under 
 the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in conse- 
 quence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
 from such service or labor, but shall be dehvered up on 
 claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be 
 due," be likewise stricken out. 
 
 jResolved, That in lieu of the last-named paragraph 
 (namely. Art. IV., Sec. 2, % 3), the following be substi- 
 tuted : 
 
 " *[ 3. Whatever is regarded as property under the laws 
 of one State, shall also be regarded as such in aU the 
 other States." 
 
 This would be in perfect accordance with Mr. Davis' 
 resolutions in the Senate Committee of Thirteen. 
 
 " Mr. Davis offered the following resolution, which lies over with 
 the others : 
 
 " That it shaU be declared by amendment of the Constitution that 
 property in slaves, recognized as such by the local law of any of the 
 States of the Union, shall stand upon the same footing in all consti- 
 tutional and federal relations as any other species of property so 
 recognized ; and, like other property, shall not be subject to be 
 
162 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
 
 divested or impaired by the local law of any other State either in 
 escape thereto, or by the transit or sojourn of the owner therein. 
 And in no case whatever shall such property be subject to be divested 
 or impaired by any legislative act of the United States, or any of the 
 territories thereof." 
 
 The Fugitive Slave Law, which is based on Art. IV., 
 Sec. 2, T 3, would then be invalid. The North would no 
 more be called upon to fulfiU the unpleasant duty of catch- 
 ing fugitive slaves. The owner alone would be responsible 
 for aU possible losses of horses, asses, or slaves. 
 
 The Southerner, on the other side, might henceforth, 
 undisturbed by any Personal Liberty BiU or " erroneous" 
 interpretation of the Constitution, go with his property — 
 ass, horse, or slave — wherever he chose — to any State or 
 Territory, settled or unsettled. But he himself must hence- 
 forth take care of his property. If it be stolen or injured, 
 he can apply to the proper authorities ; but if it runs away, 
 from its own free wish and wiQ, he himself must run after 
 it, and catch it, and drive it home again. His neighbors 
 may lend him kind assistance if they choose, but they will 
 not legally or constitutionally be bound to do it. 
 
 The number of Southern representatives to Congress 
 would also be somewhat diminished by carrying out the 
 Southern doctrine in aU its logical consequences. This 
 would be unpleasant ; but there would be no help for it. 
 Other deductions might be made from the same principle ; 
 but as they would chiefly refer to the internal affairs of 
 each State, they are omitted in this general compromise. 
 
 Nor would it be to the disadvantage of the Negro slave ; 
 for the chances of freedom would be, by far, greater for 
 him in the Free States than in the Slave States. This po- 
 litical nationalization of Slavery would even hasten the 
 work of emancipation ; for the influence of the free white 
 
THE 0EISI8. Igg 
 
 population woiild thereby become more direct. Suppose 
 the State of 'New York should in such a way receive some 
 10,000 slaves. They would certainly be prepared for 
 freedom and become free in a shorter time here than if 
 they had remained in South Carolina. 
 
 Nor would this dispersion of slaves over the whole 
 national territory add anything to our disgrace, if such it 
 be to own slaves. We have the same responsibility, and 
 deserve the same epithets, whether our Slavery is in six- 
 teen States only or in thirty-four : for we are one common 
 nation. The question is only, how we can best secure its 
 gradual aboUtion. 
 
 CONCLUSIOK 
 
 So much for compromises. But until it is decided 
 whether the original Constitution or the amended one 
 shall henceforth be the Supreme Law of the land, the 
 proper policy of the United States Government is as 
 clear and distinct as its right and duty. 
 
 Whatever the future may bring, peace or war, the 
 United States must — 
 
 1. Keep, defend, and in case of treason or defeat, retake, 
 at any cost, all national fortifications necessary for the pro- 
 tection of all her old boundaries, and for common national 
 safety. 
 
 2. She must keep, defend, and, in case of necessity, retake, 
 at any cost, the Mississippi from its source to its mouth. 
 
 3. She must, in all other respects, leave the States un- 
 disturbed in their internal process of secession, unless they 
 attack national property. 
 
 4. She must give the secessionary States time to recover 
 from their excitement, and leave to them the same initiatory 
 
164 THE AMEEIOAN QTJEBTIOST. 
 
 Step in returning to the Union that they assumed in 
 seceding from it. 
 
 This must he the present course of action on the part 
 of the United States. It follows from the constitutional 
 principle of IVotection to National Interest and Non- 
 interference with local Matters, and -will probahly cover 
 aU future contingencies. 
 
 Should, however, the present force of the United States 
 army,' from any reason, be inadequate to the above task, 
 there would be enough patriotism left in the land to call, 
 at the shortest notice, a million of men to arms, who, 
 without distinction of party, would be ready to fight for 
 this common country, and rout the rebels, from whatever 
 section they might come. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 i