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Ig~i fin I                        Mm


THE
QUEEN OF ISLANDS,
AND THE
KING OF RIVERS.


WITH A CHART OF OUR SLAVE AND FREE SOIL TERRITORY.
r >, IUM A. f- >h.-. El. ON TS
LThese Chapters of a forthcoming work, entitled "Our Mother Land," are published
in advance, with the consent ut the Author, by the friends of Cuba and the Union.]
NEW-YORK:
CHARLES WOOD, 82 NASSAU STREET.
WM. AlYAM, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C.
1850.
E


NA[MM";I '








r HE
QUEEN OF ISLANDS,
AND THE
KING OF RIVERS.
LThese Chapters of a forthcoming work, entitled " Our Mother Land," are published
in advance, with the consent of the Author, by the friends of Cuba and the Union.1
NEW-YORK:
CHARLES WOOD, 82 NASSAU STREET.
WM. ADAM, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C.
1850.




i
I
I
I




THE"'
CUBA AND HER DESTINY.
AN oppressed nation stands in the gates of our confederation and pleads with God and man for liberty.  Borne
down by foreign soldiers, for whose support she is taxed,
until almost the necessaries of life are doubled in price;
deprived of freedom of speech, of press, and of conscience;
forbid to discuss or even petition for relief, and overwhelmed by importations of slaves from Africa, whose presence
she does not desire, but who are held upon her disarmed
citizens in perpetual threat, Cuba has reached that point of
suffering in which it becomes suicide and crime to remain
passive.  Cuba belongs to the Cubans, and they have a
right higher than human conventions-a right directly from
the throne of Divine Justice-to govern themselves on the
soil they give to civilization by their intelligence, and to
utility by their toil.  Not to admit this axiom is heresy to
our republican creed, and we are false to the faith of'our
revolutionary sires if we deny to others the truths which
they bled to leave us in sure heritage.  If Washington
acted right and Jefferson reasoned well, Cuba cannot be
wrong in following their example.
Most of the Creoles of the Island are republicans at heart,
and the press and institutions of the Union are the object




4


and theme of many secret meetings and midnight prayers.
Exile, imprisonment, ruin and death, await the hardy apostles of freedom; but still they offer themselves freely to
the work, and their number, courage, influence and combination disturbs the rest of the 'governors of Cuba, who in
vain seek to stifle them with new oppressions. On one occasion a party of these determined revolutionists conveyed
to the woods a small printing press, such a one as Franklin
used and "Common Sense" was printed on, and there in
silence of night they worked off their revolutionary appeals.
This and every other effort was pressed too close by the
military and police, and some friends of Cuba, connected
with the New-York press, encouraged the idea of establishing an Anglo-Spanish paper at a convenient point beyond
the reach of the Governor-General, from whence the truth
and light could be cast into Cuba, and her popular thought
moulded into some form of general organization. La Verdad
(The Truth) was thus called into existence, and its plan
may be useful to other revolutionists who cannot print the
truth at home.  The paper is-and has been two yearsissued at New-York, and circulated gratuitously in the
Island of Cuba and Porto Rico, and all along the margin of
the Mexican Gulf, from whence the aroma of its sentiments
penetrates to its destined mark.  The talent and money of
the Cubans support it so ably and liberally that the leading
personages of the Spanish government are bounteously supplied with valuable information concerning their own couduct and affairs through this medium, and not loss have the
American journals found in its columns their most copious
and reliable accounts of the situation of Cuba. The Island
press is not allowed to speak of public affairs except in
such terms as the royal censors direct; and the world at
large mainly learns through it and by fragments from private letters-also written under dread of a strict post-office




5


inquisition-what Cuba thinks and suffers.  Under the
counsels of " Verdad" committee of exiles, and in union
with her phalanx of resolute sons at home, Cuba is organizing for revolt; and perhaps even as I write the sword is
flashing from the scabbard: but whether the effort of to-day
is successful, or temporarily quenchcd in blood, the seed is
sown and the harvest near.  Spain may lot be richer for
the fruits of Cuban industry in 1850; and what American
would put forth his hand to aid in riveting the fetters of a
people who bravely strike at kingly oppressions, and risk
all for the enfranchisement of their country and children?
" Cuba has the power, as well as the will and wisdom, to
be free. She cannot be kept forever in bonds, endowed as
she is with a population of 1,200,000; with a revenue of
twenty millions; with the intercourse and light attending
sixty millions of outward and inward trade; with a territory equal to some of our noblest States; with a soil teeming
with the choicest productions; with her forests of the most
precious woods; with her magnificent and commanding
harbors; with her unmatched position as the warder of' the
Mexican Gulf, and the guardian of the communication with
the Pacific. Cuba the peerless-Cuba the desired-Cuba
the Queen of the American Islands-will not consent to re.
main always a manacled slave at our threshold; and when
her chains do break, the echo will vibrate, whether we
choose or not, strongly on our interests. The United States
can no more say, " Cuba is nought to us," than Cuba can
detach herself from her anchorage in the portals of our
American sea, or her sentinelship over against the entrance
of the thousand armed Mississippi.
When the inevitable day arrives in which the key of the
Gulf falls from the hand of its European master, it must
take one of these three positions; and either of them will
involve grave considerations for this republic:



6


1. Cuba, by itself or with Porto Rico, may sustain an independent attitude.
2. United to St. Domingo and other islands under the
protection of England, she may head a " Republic of Antilla," subject to a preponderant negro population, and obedient to the British policy of creating a colored empire in
the lap of the twin continent of America.
3. Cuba annexed to this Confederation may make another
pillar in our temple of Union, and another balance-wheel
to the Confederation.
Tile fate of Cuba, with her million souls and boundless
hereafter, may be submitted to the verdict of our people before 1850 has run its last sands, and a just, wise and magnanimous nation would not willingly meet unprepared this
momentous question.
Calmly, soberly, and dispassionately, like true and loving
children of the Union, reverencing and guarding in filial
love our mighty nursing mother; like republicans and like
Christians, ready to admit and perform our whole duty to
man, let us candidly examine our future relations with
Cuba.
It is more than idle to build upon the conservation of the
statu quo, for even those who affect to preach it must see
that it cannot be maintained amid the reeling powers and
crushing thrones of Europe with which it is entangled, and
whenever or however the change comes, it must result in
Cuba annexed, or Cuba independent.
The comparative value to the Union, of Cuba as a part of
ourselves, or Cuba subject to foreign, if not hostile influences, has a threefold bearing on our interests. It affects us
as citizens of individual States-as a nation in the face of
other nations-and as a race in relation with the other races
of the earth.  In weighing, as we ought, each separate
consideration by its own merits, it is desirable to avoid per



7


plexing theories, and bring each phase in succession to the
test of solid facts and indisputable arithmetic.
WILL THE ANNEXATION OF CUBA BENEFIT THE
DOMESTIC INTERESTS OF THE UNION?
Cuba seems placed, by the finger of a kindly Providence,
between the Atlantic and the Mexican seas, at the crossing
point of all the great lines of our immense coasting trade,
to serve as the centre of exchange for a domestic commerce
as extensive as our territory, and as fiee as our institutions.
It is only after a careful study of the incredible extent and
variety of the products of our thirty States, with all their
grades of climate, and in the whole circumference of their
natural and manufactured wealth, and then only with the
map of North America distinctly before the eye, that the
importance of Cuba, as a point of reception and distribution,
can be fairly understood.  If her matchless harbors were
not locked up by foreign jealousies, and our ships could but
find themselves always at home for shelter, water, and refreshment, at this commodious halting place, it would be
worth a round purchase sum to our traders, independent of
the safe keeping of the Gulf, and the command of her precious staples.
From her central throne she sees our long line of coast
break away in numerous links of diverse interests and productions, which must yet intercommunicate past her doors
to come to market and value. To the northward she glances along the two thousand miles of seaboard and deep
harbors of the "' Old Thirteen," all turned toward her to receive her sugar and coffee, and supply her with bread and
clothing, even though under the limits and disadvantages of
the restrictions of her Spanish masters.




8


Towards the West, beginning with Florida, which is almost within touch, lies another two thousand miles of bay
and inlet, bordering the States on the Mississippi and Gulf
of Mexico, those magnificent later acquisitions which have
doubled the wealth, power, and domain of the Union, and
whose cotton bales have been more efficacious teachers to
manufacturing Europe than cannon balls. Opposite, she
looks up the arteries of the mighty king of rivers, who embraces in his far-reaching arms an imperial family of
sovereignties, before he comes with the tributes of many
climates to seek a reservoir for his ten thousand miles of
steam navigation.
No one State of the Union is so accessible to all the
others as Cuba.  Neither does any State command, like
her, every direct avenue to our territories on the Pacific.
She stands almost midway in the line of transit between the
Eastern cities and California, whether we go by the Isthmus of Panama, by Lake Nicaragua, by the near but
strangely neglected Isthmus of Cortez, or by the shortest
overland route on our own soil, via Texas and the Paso del
Norte.  It is the invaluable resting-place and point of interchange for all our steamers to the Gulf coast, to the
West India Islands, to the various Isthmus routes, and to
South America.   Under all the vexations and expenses of
a foreign and unfriendly system, our merchants can so badly dispense with Cuba for a place of rest, refreshment and
exchange, that they submit in silence to many illegal exactions, and conceal from the American public many indignities to our flag-as in the cases of the HIecla and Childe
Harold-rather than forego access to the port of Havana.
If Cuba was fully and freely our own, we would as soon
think of casting New-York out of our calculations of com.
mercial wealth, as this splendid and necessary mart for all
our coasts.  As an outpost, vital to American trade and




9


defence, and as a centre of transit and exchange, Cuba
must grow in importance to the whole family of the Confederation, in even measure with the growth of the States
on the Pacific, and the rising tide of Oriental business
which our free and fortunate stars are about to lead from
Asia across the Isthmus.  She lies exactly in the track of
the golden current, and none of the States are, like her, in
a position to watch and defend every inlet and outlet;
In the circle of production, essential to a home supply,
always sure, and independent of foreign interference, Cuba
can fill nobly the remaining gap, with her coffee, cocoa and
tropical fruits. In this, too, she would serve all lher sisters
of the Union, for she would sell to every one and buy of
every one, which is not true of the special product of any
other State. She would also add as much as the Union really needs of sugar lands, and would maket hat henceforth
a strong and distinct feature in the national balance of interests.  A new sectional interest always implies another
mediator in the councils of the Confederation-a proved
truth in favor of the permanent equilibrium of the Republic
whicl the opponents of annexation refuse to take fairly into
account. The manufacturing East, the wheat and cattleraising West, the commercial Middle States, the cottongrowing South-West, the rice and sugar planting Sonth,
and, last and latest, the new-born and gigantic mineral
power starting up on the great northern lakes and seaming
the continent, down to the far Pacific, with a broad zone,
have, each and every one, their independent sectional weight
and representation, as well as a diffused reciprocal dependence on each other, and on the Uunion as a whole. In the
perpetually recurring-but under these balance checks never faital-State opposition, every distinct interest is a distinct
guarantee for the general equity of adjustment.  We have
seen in the slavery discussions how far sectional bitterness
1*




10


can go, when the whole Union is reduced to two parties,
with no disinterested and intermediate powers between them,
to urge peace and teach conciliation. Yet even in this
stress we shall find at last, that the counsels which open
the way, and the votes that compel moderation and compromise, will come from almost a third interest.-The Middle States, those that lay along the line of division, and those
that are themselves in transition from slave-holding to emancipation, will come to the rescue and forbid extreme measures. Cuba may suffer from the dispute between the free
and slave cultivated States; but apart from tils, she would
come into the Union without offence to any, and to the ab.
solute profit of every partner in the Confederation.  In
bringing to the commonwealth a class of luxuries which
every State largely demands and consumes, and which are
not produced in our present limits, she also brings to the
Union fresh elements of mediation, harmony, and stable
equipoise.
The money value of this circulation of natural products
would be more conspicuously evident if Cuba could trade
with us on family terms, unembarrassed by tile heavy and
wasteful hindrance of the Spanish tariffs. Official documents
show that out of the 20 or 22 millions of dollars of annual
exportations into Cuba, fifteen millions are in provisiohs,
fabrics, lumber, and meterials which one or the other of the
United States could better supply than any other country;
but through the multitude of taxes and restrictions imposed
by European policy, not more than a third of it comes from
our fields and factories. Our industrial classes lose by this
system the stimulus of ten millions a year-sufficient to employ and support forty thousand laborers-while the Cubans
only obtain, under these exorbitant imposts, about one half
as much for their money as they would get of us in a free,
fair market.




11


Lines of steamers and sailing vessels would doubtless be
established from all our leading sea-ports, from Havana to
Matanzas, the year they could be assured of freedom, security, and permanency, under our flag, since, under many
vexations and uncertainties, we now employ in the Cuban
trade a large tonnage. The custom-houses of Cuba report
the clearance of not far from one thousand American vessels in a year-from the summer of 1848 to the summer of
1849-and the table of imports and exports proves that this
handsome mercantile fleet would be doubled, if purchase
and supply were relieved from the multifarious trammels
of the Spanish tariff. The Cubans import $20,000,000 a
year of such commodities as the United States produce, and
could readily supply her on better terms than the Islands
can buy of distant Europe, if we were permitted to compete
in open market; and then these commodities would be conveyed to her in our own ships.
Of the $60,000,000 of annual imports and exports of this
fertile and extensive Island, three-fourths ought, and would
be managed by our merchant marine, if it were embraced
by our government.
By reason of this system of preventions our shipping interest can only employ 476,000 tons in a year in this trade,
for which it pays $1.50 a ton duty to Spain, while it would
find advantageous service at once for a million of tons if the
ports of the islknd were free to our country.  This brief
outline of the domestic and pecuniary inducements to annexation are based on official data, and it is kept within the
mark for the convenience of using round numbers; but from
it we can deduce whether the States would gain or lose by
the accession of Cuba.
In 1846, a fiaction more than one fourth of the entire
imports of Cuba were from the United States, and if the
same ratio holds good, as is probable, we send to Cuba the




12


current year about $8,000,000 in American productions.
Meanwhile something more than $10,000,000 of similar articles of commerce are brought in from Europe, to the heavy disadvantage of the Cubans, by a stringent system of
protection for Spanish products. To specify:-Flour from
Spain pays a duty of only $2. 50 the barrel, but from this
country, and in American ships, it pays $10.50. Thus, to
compel the Cubans to eat the inferior Spanish flour, injured
by a sea voyage of 4,000 miles, this enormous tax is laid
on an essential article of daily use, though, for the sake of
revenue, $2.50 is also laid on the article from the mother
country. These duties, freight, and other expenses, raise
the cost to the consumer to $18 or $20 a barrel, and limit,
of necessity, the luxury of good bread to the wealthier classes. Set aside these impediments, and instead of the 300,000 barrels now entered, and chiefly from Spain, a million
barrels would be annually demanded by the 1,200,000 inhabitants of Cuba. The climate and soil of Cuba is not
adapted to the profitable cultivation of the kinJs of provisions which the habits of the day call for; but she produces
exactly what will most acceptably pay for them where they
are best, nearest, and most abundant-in the United States.
If Cuba wants flour, fish, cured meats, and other provisions,
to the amount of $10,000,000, which she could, in unshackled
trade, buy of us better than anywhere else; if she requires
in articles for house and field, in fabrics of raiment, necessity or luxury, to the amount of $10,000,000 more, so, too,
do the United States import 150,000;000 Ibs. of coffee, at
$S,000,000, and sugar to the amount of $9,000,000, which,
under the impetus of freedom, and the encouragement of a
profitable reciprocity, Cuba could very well supply.  It
must be borne in mind, that a vast amount of rich coffee and
sugar land lies waste and untouched on that Island, which
would bloom into a garden, under the genial breath of liber



13


al institutions, as her own\staticians estimate but one-ninth
of the soil enclosed.
The Upper Mississippi and the Ohio States are the chief
losers by the flour exclusion; for Cuba, fronting, as she does,
the outlet of the mighty valley, is very accessible to that
trade; but all the grain States share in the loss, for they all
buy sugar and coffee, and could all undersell Europe in the
ports of Cuba. The mineral region is also a larger'loser than
at the first glance would be thought possible. The staples
of Cuba are raised at a considerable expenditure of implements and machinery, in which iron and copper hold a conspicuous share. That class of imports, nearly all of which
are manufactured in this country, but are discouraged from
seeking a market in Cuba by an average impost of 35 per
cent. are brought in to the amount of $2,000,000 annually,
and with a steady increase of demand. This should, of
right, almost entirely be paid to the forges and workshops
of Pennsylvania, and the States west of her, who construct
the articles in question, such as ploughs, hoes, spades, boilers, and all the et-ceteras of Southern husbandry, and sell
them in all the markets in our Gulf and Atlantic States, from
80 to 200 per cent. less than the over-tariffed Cuban pays
for the like.  Consider the effect of these exorbitant
charges on provisions and implements on the net receipts of
production.
New England is not less concerned in unbinding this
trade, for besides the nine millions which should be paid to
our farmers, and the two millions in metals, implements
and machinery, which of right should float to her from down
the Ohio and Mississippi, Cuba annually requires cotton
and woolen fabrics and ready-made furniture and apparel
to the invoice value of three millions more, all of which
the Yankee looms and mechanics should create. Fifteen
millions are therefore imported into Cuba which our citizens




14


in the mining, manufacturing, and agricultural States should
supply, and which the ships of the commercial sections
should convey, and this mass of needful food, raiment, furniture, and implements for house and land, when broken up
in detail and overwhelmed at each step with fresh impositions, do not cost the Cubans less than thirty millions of
dollars.
Nothing escapes those excessive contributions, and they
are always to the disadvantage of American industry.Carts, carriages, and furniture, pay about 100 per cent.;
yet, on account of bulk and distance, Spain leaves to us the
principal supply, even under this liberal protection. The
Eastern and Middle States send about $1,000,000 a year,
at a rough estimate, for there is no reliable date at hand, of
those conveniences; but still the Island is scantily supplied.
Cotton and woolen goods range from 27 to 33- per cent.
duty by the letter of the tariff; but under their system of
re-appraisal they pay more, and the official returns show
upwards of $3,000,000 in description of goods manufactured
in the New England States, and sold in our retail markets,
all over the Union, at from 30 to 100 per cent. less than
in Cuba, whose producers in this way lose one-third or onehalf the benefits of their income. A careful revision of the
charges on imports corresponding to our list of American
fabrics and productions, with the invoice prices, and the
usual rates paid by the consumer, will convince the simplest understanding that is willing to be candid, that $20,000,000 of the $30,000,000 (keeping to round and approximate
numbers) of annual imports into Cuba, ought, if the interests
and convenience of the direct producers and purchasers
were consulted, to come to the industrial classes of the Union. Not only would the fostering dew of $20,000,000 support in comfort many thousand families now landing on our
shores, in search of homes and employment, but it would




15


bring to the tables of all our people the delicate fruits of the
torrid zone, in which Cuba abounds, at prices far below
anything we have ever known. The rapid steam intercommunication between sister States, and the splendid geographical position of the " Key of the Gulf," would bring
Havana as near St. Louis and New York, as they are to
each other, or to New Orleans, and in more prompt interchange with all the cities of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts,
than those coasts can be with each other.
As an open, safe, and reliable haven of rest, aid, and supply. beyond any fear of foreign hostility or interference,
standing midway as she does on the path from the Atlantic
to the Gulf, fromnthe Atlantic to tle Pacific, by the way
of either Isthmus, and most particularly by the Isthmus of
Cortes, the slortcst though most overlooked of all of them,
and commanding the ingress and egress to the Gulf, and all
the coast of Mexico, the control of this Island is of immense,
of incomputable importance to the dignity and independence
of our coast commerce. It even stands interferingly in the
way between the Atlantic ports and the Gulf terminus of
the short land route to California, on our own soil, now in
course of survey by United States' Engineers, and which
a pioneer merchant train of 80 wagons is now traversing
under General W. L. Cazneau, with a view to penetrate to
the markets of Northern Mexico by the new and direct line
from the Gulf. It is the priceless jewel that clasps into one
magnificent unbroken chain, the vast circle of our Pacific,
Gulf, and Atlantic trade.  We only require this one link to
belt 5,X00 miles of sea-board in close and continuous mart
and commercial unity, presenting, on every side, a well
connected defence against the pretensions of rival or enemy.
Whenever the trembling, restless Seal of the Gulf drops from
the nerveless finger of Spain, there will be some envy in
Europe, but little open resistance made to its passing into




16


the grasp of our Eagle. When this republic assumes the
charge, Europe will retire from this continent, and thenceforth on all our coasts we will ask nothing but our steam
marine, and the splendor of our flag, to command the respect of the world for our commerce.
WILL THE ANNEXATION OF CUBA ADD TO OUR
STRENGTH AS A NATION?
The reply is written on the map of North America, and
in the last ten years of her history. The elements of our
outward strength and defence-like the points and possibilities of foreign annoyance-are visible to any capacity that
has received the free, broad training of American thought.
With our vast and varied territory and our self-dependent
habits, more than to any other nation, it is desirable to us
to maintain the freedom of our coast trade beyond every
fear of insult or embarrassment.
It is desirable that a foreign nation should no longer
boast that it can at any time " cut in two the trade between
the Gulf and the Atlantic States, and break up at pleasure
the sea communication between New-Orleans and NewYork."
It is desirable that we should ourselves command the outlets and inlets of our own inland seas, and hold open in our
own hands the best avenues to our territories and trade on
the Pacific.
It is desirable, for the integrity of the Confederation, to
protect thoroughly the sea door to the shortest overland route
to California on our own soil, which is accessible to the
greatest number of States, and also opens to them the not
less important though unexplored mineral regions of CEntralia.




17


It is desirable that a negro empire should not be consolidated by a hostile power within a few days sail, by steam,
of fifteen hundred or two thousand miles range of our seaboerd, and held in leash to cast its ferocious hordes upon
that long defenceless line of towns and settlements to burn
and slaughter until exterminated.
It is desirable also to be more independent of standing
armies, with their train of military burthens and privileges
above the law, and it is not less desirable to escape the charges and bad example of a costly and unrepublican navy,
and create in its stead a powerful and self-supporting steam
marine.
If on the accession of Cuba turns the gain or loss of all
this, it will not be denied that its purchase would be an
economy, and its admission a rich gain to our republican
strength and majesty.
Without recurring to the importance of Cuba as a Mart
of Exchange, at the most accessible crossing-point, to all
the thirty partners in our confederation of trade and production; or to her value as a buyer and seller in all our markets, and the cheap supplier of the tropical productions not
yet included in our home list; or to her weight as the
employer of our ships and mariners the amount of twenty,
or, under the impetus of freedom, thirty millions a year,
she would be a tower of strength and a rock of defence to
all our coasts.  Her whole seven hundred miles of length
is one mighty fortress: each one of her hundred hill-crowned bays is a haven of shelter to our adventurous ships, and
an outpost to sentinel every movement of offence and bar
out every act of hostile import. Standing like a proud and
faithful warder in the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, yet
stretching far to the east, so as to overlook and intercept
any unfriendly demonstration upon either of the great
thoroughfares to South America or the Pacific, she is in a




18


position to overawe the islands around her, and watch and
defend the outside approaches to all the Isthmus routes to
the Pacific, while she guards the portals of our vast inland
sea, the reservoir of the Mississippi and Mexican trade, the
rendezvous of California transit, and, what has not yet been
duly heeded, the outlet of an immense, though new-born,
mineral wealth, which is yet to control the metal markets
of Christendom.
Half a dozen steamers would bridge with their cannon
the narrow straits between Yucatan and the west point of
Cuba on the west, and between Florida and Matanzas on
the north, and seal hermetically to every aggressive stranger tle entire coast circle of the American Mediterranean.
This simple geographical fact constitutes Cuba the key of
the Gulf, and it would be felt if it passed into the grasp of
a strong and jealous rival.  England, firmly resting on
Cuba, and with Jamaica and Bahamas to flank her steam
operations, would have full retreat and succor for her fleets,
and would be able at need to concentrate the force of an
empire against our coasting trade. With such a firm and
convenient cover as that island, with its self-defended coast
and secure harbors, she could face, Janus-like, in every direction. With Canada and the Bermudas-raised for that
purpose into a strong naval station-opposite our centre on
the Atlantic, and half-way between those strong extremes,
she would present a dangerous front to our northern coasts,
while she executed the bold threat of her Minister, to " shut
up the Gulf of Mexico, cut in twain the commerce between
it and the Atlantic States, and close the mouth of the Mississippi and its hundred tributaries to the trade and assistance of the shipping and manufacturing States."  But
strike Cuba-its central and noblest jewel-from this diadem of power, and her broken circlet of American strongholds is no longer worth the wearing.




19


England-controlling Cuba on the north, as she claims
the Mosquito shore on the south, and mistress of Balize on
the west, as she is of Jamaica on the east-would be the
arbitress of the Caribbean sea-even now almost her own,
and well guarded by her long array of Leeward and Windward Islands from other intrusion.
The same steam fleets that watch, and the same Island
Key that locks and unlocks the Gulfof Mexico, with our
long chain of Rivers and States dependent on it, also watch.
es the inlets of the Caribbean and locks and unlocks the
gates of the Pacific. Cuba, the Queen of the Antilles, unrolls her long barrier exactly in the path to the Pacific,
whether by the Gulf or Isthmus; and whoever holds her,
commands the great highway to Mexico and South America, to Oregon and California, and the Pacific. If it were
ours, we would soon cut asunder the narrow bar of land
that parts the oceans, and turn the revolutionized trade of
the world into our own inland sea, where we should know
well how to defend its treasures.
The command of the shortest route by sea and by land
to our distant territories, is a national necessity only to be
computed by our estimation of the value of the safety, harmony and progress to the Union. The omission to secure
the right of way across the Isthmus of Cortes to Tehuantepec, and to carry our southern boundary so far south as
was needful to open a fair and practicable land route on
our own soil to the Pacific, was an inexpiable and disgraceful lapse in those who signed a peace with Mexico. The
only remedy for this dereliction, is in guarding for the future such communications as we do possess between the
remote members of the Family Compact, from future chances of hostile interference.
The shortest land routes from the older States to California, Oregon, and the immense but faintly known mineral




20


regions of the great central basin, runs through Texas and
touches the Gulf at Corpus Christi; and all the practicable
land routes to the Pacific abut eastwardly on the Mississippi,
if not on the Gulf, and are all included in the imperial ring
of seaboard to which Cuba is the closing diamond.  If it
comes to the Atlantic States to decide who shall hold this
door to the Gulf, to the Pacific, to the mines of California,
to Oregon and the whale fisheries, to the East India tradetrebled by the use of steam and the Isthmus,-to China, in
whose markets our merchants will soon turn to profit a
doubled and quadrupled capital by monopolising, through
the shortened distance, the sale of our cottons and the purchase of her teas and silks; will they refuse the fifty millions a year which it will pour upon their exhilarated industry, in their fields, factories and shipyards?
At this moment England commands two-thirds of the
most valuable commerce of Asia; but the United States
gains rapidly upon her, and the entire change in the course
of trade, by conducting it across the lower line of North
America, instead of around Africa, will transfer to this republic the sceptre of commerce-if not of manufacturewithin ten years. Let our manufacturing and trading capitalists estimate if they can the value of Cuba to their interests, as a centre of intelligence and exchange, and an
advanced post of guard and defence. With Cuba for our
watch-tower, the merchant and mail steamers which must
naturally be employed in the enormously increasing traffic
and emigration that circulates past and around her, would
be the cheap and sufficient defence of our coasts. No nation would dream of wresting such a well-fortified possession
from the vigorous grasp of the Union; and too powerful to
fear, and too just, it is to be hoped, to make aggressions, we
could trust the protection of our flag to its known greatness.
We could displace fearlessly our unpopular sailing navy




21


for a steam mail marine, useful and self-supporting in peace,
yet capable of becoming, at the shortest warning, a formidable element of war.
When Cuba passes into our constellation, we may dismiss
two-thirds of our standing army, and turn three-fourths of
our expensive fortifications into Houses of Instruction and
Refuge; for England, against whose threats and pretensions they are chiefly maintained, will depart from this continent when the cannon of Moro Castle thunders a republican welcome to the Stars of the Confederation. That salvo
will destroy her last dream of supremacy on this side of the
Atlantic, and at its voice she will abandon the shattered remains of her splendid chain of colonies to be gathered in
their ripeness to the embrace of the Union.
In 1845, when the independent press had roused the
people, and urged our laggard government into some energy
of action, her power and possessions enfolded us on every
side like the coil of a serpent. Her Northern Provinces
were linked by her steam-ships in an unbroken circle, with
the Bermudas, Jamaica, the Belize, the Mosquito Shore,
and across the Isthmus, which she controlled, to California,
at which she aimed, and Oregon, which she partly held,
until the bands met again, and thus completed a line of circumvallation around our territory. We broke forever her
closer and stricter circle, and tore from her three precious
points, when we annexed Texas, obtained California, and
removed her Oregon claims far north of Columbia River.
That decisive blow expelled her influence from our Southwestern border, while we improved our boundaries, and,
Cuba excepted, had nothing left to interfere with us in the
Gulf. The exclusive acquisition of this noble extent of territory on our Southern line, widened and weakened the
vaunted cordon of British. power around the Union; but
while the hope of Cuba remained, she had still a brilliant




22


and potent line of reserve. She still stretches across the
continent on our Northern border, shares with us the empire of the lakes, domineers over our highway to the Pacific, and stands midway in the path of our coast communication. Cuba is the precious clasp that joins or disjoins the
Gulf and Pacific with the Atlantic lines, and ruinously
opens or nobly closes the disconnected parts of her magnificent American plan.  If it falls into our chain, and closes
the circle for us, and against her, the matchless band is
broken, the fragments become so, and whether Canada or
the Islands, without cost or conquest, our confederation will
absorb British America, and make the ocean her boundary,
and its waves our army of border defence.
HOW   WILL CUBA INFLUENCE SLAVERY?
It is difficult to steer truly and justly between the Scylla
and Charybdis of Northern and Southern prejudices, but
we may safely aver this much: If England settles the destiny of Cuba, her lot is prefigured in the story of Jamaica,
Hayti and Martinico.
If she becomes really independent, the whites, who are
but little inferior in numbers to the blacks, will maintain
the ascendency by their superior intelligence, and slavery
will probably be abolished by slow degrees.
If the United States receive her, humanity will at least
rejoice over the suppression of the slave trade, and a mitigation of the horrors of the Spanish system of servitude,
that " deepest hell of cruelty," as an indignant Creole of
the island terms it.- The Spanish conquerors, as merciless
as they were avaricious, enslaved and scourged to utter
extinction the gentle and confiding Ciboneyes whom they
found on the soil, and now annually destroy, by brutal




23


treatment, more slaves, including free-born Mexicans entrapped into servitude, than all the plantations in all our
slave States put together.  Their own staticians calmly
account for the horrid mortality among the slaves by " the
severity of their labors and insufficient food," but never
hint at redress or remedy.  The supply is kept up by an
energetic importation from Africa, under the patronage of
Queen Christina, who employs in the slave-trade much of
the $25,000 a month which she draws from the revenues
of Cuba.  In the last twenty years, and since President
Adams prevented the independence of Cuba, which would
have shut out this undesirable accession, more than 160,000
negroes have been brought in from Africa-430 slave ships
having entered Havana alone, without counting the other
ports of the island.  The fees of the Captain-General, at
three doubloons a-head on these importations, are no inconsiderable item in his perquisites.  England has a right, by
solemn treaty with Spain in 1817, and re-sealed in 1820,
to end this infamous traffic, yet it proceeds vigorously under her eyes. Is it that even by this means she is willing
to increase the negro majority, while she awaits the hour
in which Cuba can be added to the black empire she is fostering within striking distance of our Southern States, and
which she can at any moment hurl, with the force and precision of steam, upon our coasts?
Not only is this open protection lent to the African slavetrade, while white immigration is as openly discouraged,
but large bodies of Indians are inveigled out from Yucatan
and MeXico, and reduced to slavery. These men are sunk
into the slave-gangs, where they are lashed, pilloried, and
chained without pity, under the sanction of the Governor,
who has conferred this authority on the masters by a formal
decree.
The admission of Cuba would at least set these freemen




24


at liberty, and stop the importation of 8000 slaves every
year from Africa, and this would be something saved to
humanity and the character of American population. It is
scarcely open to discussion, whether, in a comprehensive
view, the colored race would gain or lose by Cuba coming
within the range of our institutions; but there can be no
doubt whatever that the condition of the white half of her
population would be infinitely softened, elevated and improved.  It is not the fashion of the day to think of the
good or evil resulting to the eighteen millions of white Americans, when a measure touching the supposed interests of
our three millions of blacks is in agitation, and still less
where races are so nearly balanced as in Cuba, and although
the abrupt supremacy of the blacks would drive to ruin, or
exile the half million of whites on the island, we are not
permitted to reserve any anxieties for them.
In Hayti the negroes have had unlimited power-as in
Jamaica they have had unlimited equality-and what advance have they made in happiness or civilization?  In
the plenitude of their undisputed sway, they have murdered, insulted, and driven out the whites in St. Domingo, and
no authority prevented; they have governed themselves,
and no man has said them nay; yet in the mad, unchecked
animality of their untaught, untamed masses, they have
heaped upon each other more sufferings, more bloodshed,
more tortures, and, even in that beauteous island of plenty,
more downright want and misery among their population of
780,0100, than could be inflicted on our thrice that number
of slaves, in the presence of a white community. This is
proved by their own official statements of murders, riots,
outrages, and military punishments. It does not prove that
slavery is a good, or that the race is incapable of better
things; but it does prove by the conclusive evidence of experiment, that hasty emancipation has its evils for the un



;5)


prepared Africans themselves, even though we refuse to
count for anything what befalls the whites.
To those who argue that emancipation is too slow in the
States, I will not reply that it can move no faster, but I appeal to the chart of the Union to prove that much has been
done-and well done-for the race, in freedom, in instruction, and in colonization.  In the British, and more lately
in the French West Indies, unbounded means of improvement are enjoyed by the blacks, for there the presence and
cultivation, and helpful example of the whites, who are in
a minority of one-seventh, are made conspicuously subservient to the colored race, yet it is undeniable that their two
millions are far worse fed, clad, and taught, than the two
millions of the same lineage now living, slave and free, in
the " Old Thirteen" States.
This parent band of the Federal compact were all of
tlem slave-holding when tlhey joined hands at the altar of
Independence, and some of' theml-Rhode Island and Massachusetts in particular-were deeply engaged in the slave
trade.  Seven of them are now free soil, and two more,
Delaware and Maryland, within a step of it; and to this
number of emancipating States have been added eight more,
that never were in effect slave-holding.  The aggregate of
this fiee soil territory, whiei:h includes all the States north
of the Ohio-the splendid gift of slave-holding Virginiacomprises a larger area than the whole original thirteen
States, and has unquestionably the preponderance in the
national councils.
Our acquisitions of slave territory have failed to increase
the comparative number and weight of the slave States, because they only served to drain that class of labor towards
the Soutly, and, as it receded, it set fiee at the North more
States and large divisions of the colored classes.  Fifteen
States are already fiee, and five more-Delaware, Mary2




26


land, Virginia, Kentucky, and Mississippi-are in transition,
ready to pass over to the side of free labor whenever the
reference of such questions to the territories immediately
concerned is established as a fixed principle, and they can
abandon their posts, beside their slave-holding sisters, honorably and without danger to the equipoise of the Union.
All the territory now held in common-sufficient in area to
make forty of the largest States-must inevitably come in
free, with or without the interference of Congress, as the
climate and character of production will make slave labor
unprofitable.  To balance this wide domain of free soil,
there is but a comparatively small band of States along the
extreme South, and to which the Island of Cuba can make
no frightful addition.
Our immigration from Europe in a single year amounts
to as much as the whole total of the slave inhabitants of
Cuba, and after that last fragment of thraldom is brought
within the pale of light and freedom, there can be no farther
additions. The eighteen millions of whites will enlarge their
ranks by emigration as well as births, and make stronger
every year the disproportion of numbers, but the blacks and
African servitude can draw no recruits from abroad. While
State after State supplants and drives out unprofitable slave
labor by the low wages of sound, mature, and intelligent
white industry, hereditary servitude must contract its limits.
until it is compressed into those regions of hot, unhealthy
marsh in which negroes thrive, but which the constitution
of the white man is unequal to the charge of redeeming
from jungle and morass-and there slavery will end its mission and depart forever.
The non-slaveholding States would show a most ungenerous sectional spirit if they object to the addition of Cuba to
the political weight of tile South, for her vote will not give
the South an even, mtuch less a controlling voice. Besides




27


the majority in the House of Representatives, and an equal
vote in the Senate, the fifteen Free Soil States are confident
of taking, before 1860, five States more from the opposite
scale, and thus changing the present imperfect equilibrium,
to an advantage on their side of twenty States to ten. Add
to this the certainty that six new States-California, Oregon,
Minesota, New Mexico, and Nebrasca-will complete their
non-age during this period, and must beyond peradventure
take their places in the national councils among the nonslaveholders, while but two slave States from Texas, and
possibly Cuba, are all that can be hoped for by the diminishing slave minority.  Twenty-six free soil to thirteen
slave States is the number and proportion that by every antecedent we may expect to sit in the thirty-fifth Congress.
If, as is possible, the number of States exceeds that calculation, still the ratio of one free to two slave States will not
vary much, and with this assurance before us, it is nonsense,
if it is not hypocricy, to reject Cuba under the plea of giving "too much power to the South."
For the individual States, for thd Nation, and for the ultimate good of the races, it seems wisest and kindest to invite Cuba into the Compact of Union, and subject the crude
and undeveloped negro family to the crucible of gradual 
emancipation. The interests of the human family demand
that it should not be made the nucleus of a negro empire
watching a European nod to foray our coast villages, while
our domestic and foreign policy equally cautions us to win
as promptly as we may the key of the Gulf, and hold with
firm sovereignty the gates of the Pacific.




I




T H E


TIE Mississippi is mighty in his imperial dignity, but
more mighty in his lessons of unity and confederation. That
matchless tide is the magic cestus which ensures the harmony
of the sovereign sisters of the Union, and no peevish eruption
of unsisterly jealousy can dispart the silver zone that so firmly and graciously binds their varied climes and products into
one common interest. The Mississippi is the most persuasive mediator, the most energetic arbiter, and the most vigilant defender of the federal compact, linking into one chain of
co:munication fourteen powerful states, and nearly half our
entire population.  Gathering to one outlet uncomputed
thousands of miles of navigable waters; holding in a condition of facile interchange a vast series of diverse, yet mutually dependent, agricultural, manufacturing, mining and
commercial interests, there is no fraction of the wide territory enfolded in the embrace of the hundred armed river,
that could cut itself from the rest of the body, without destroying the growth and vigor of its own fair proportions.
Free-soil Iowa and Illinois may chide the heresies of slaveholding Kentucky and Louisiana, but not the less must wheatgrowing and lead-producing Iowa and Illinois vend their
wares, and buy their sugar and cotton, in the markets of their
southern sisters, while their highway river holds open invitation to come and go in unrestrained profit and good will,
and rebukes the intemperate folly of sectional aggression.




3()


In ascending the Mississippi, you pass through all the climates of the temperate zone, through a countless variety of
production, through infinite changes of scenery, and through
every phase of sectional prejudice. Leaving behind, on tile
fertile, but hot and unhealthy sugar plains, the darkest and
most tenacious shades of Afiican servitude, the tints lighten
step by step, and state by state, up to the lofty, health-inspiring shores of genial Kentucky and adventurous Missouri,
where slavery visibly relaxes its grasp; and onward, to the
romantic and enchanting heights of Iowa and Wisconsin,
where it never had a hold, until finally, at Minesota, the
beautiful cradle of this marvellous stream, and two thousand
miles above your starting point, where you saw its waves
salute the sea in sullen grandeur, you hear the brief and
proud declaration of territorial freedom:  "Every state
must, and every territory ought, decide for itself, and by itself, whether it will admit or exclude slavery."
In the month of June, 1849, I stood on the island that
cleaves asunder the wild chaos of amber-hued waters, forming the cataract of St. Anthony, that second Niagara, whose
overwhelming sublimity silences the mortal beholder; and
before that heaven-reared altar, with its veil of diamonds,
and its rainbow crown, I almost vainly essayed to remember there was another world outside of this stupendous whirl
of elemental warfare-a world of petty efforts and pigmy
human strifes. Yet there, with nature ringing her high eternal anthem in cadence with the plaint, a daughter of ihe
Dacotas detailed the wrongs of the red race, and completed a
lesson which I had half-learned at the other extremity of that
far-reaching river.
" Here the torrent is colored with the tears of the red man,
for the red man's tear is blood," she said, as she extended
her graceful arm towards a rift in the falls where a clear
column gleamed coral bright through the parted drapery of




:51


pearl-white spray. ' Far away, where our snow-hills are
forgotten under a burning sky, these waters wear another
stain-the stain of the blt ck man's tears of dust and sweat."
A sad truth is shrouded in the Indian girl's wild poetry.
Minesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, grieve over the woes of the
African slave a thousand miles off, while, with every art of
diplomacy and war, they clase the poor Indian beyond their
border, and take counsel, openly, how to despoil him of his
hunting grounds, and exile him forever fiom the graves of
his ancestors, and the dear haunts of his boyish sport and
manly daring.
Louisiana and Mississippi thrill with indignation at the
sufferings of the Indian, as lie recedes before the eager march
of civilization, or dies in her embrace; but they look calmly
on the bondage of the African. Each compassionates largely the sin that is not of its own neighborhood, and reconciles
itself to the pressure of the evil at home, until conscience and
convenience can meet to adjust a settlement, and agree upon the remedy.
The older states hunted down the red men, and enslaved
the black ones, until the land was all in white hands, and free
servants became more profitable than purchased ones, and
then conscience immediately opened her slumbering eyes
and raised her head from her gold embroidered pillow to
pray for the repose of the slaughtered Indians, and emancipate her useless Africans.
Those states which hllve thoroughly exterminated and dispossessed the Indilns, and who have no large Native American land reserves to bar the speed of the axe and the plough
within their limits, are tranquil and tender-hearted on Indian
matters, just as those who have escaped from the cares and
incumbrances of a redundant negro population, are at leisure to censure those still yoked to the burthen.
In those border states, where they are even now receiving




3*2


their baptism of blood and fire in Indian forays, and where
every white person counts for tl;e fu1l \ orth and value of a
human being in the muster-roll oi' civilization, they do not
dwell so heavily on a red man sh'ot, or a black one overtasked, but they turn pale with horror when they read of the
stern serfdom of chain and lash in which sailors are crushed
in our commercial cities, or the hard servitude of poverty
which binds thousands of young maidens to the ha.rsh hours
and tasks of our eastern factories.  States like Kentucky,
that have no troublesome Indians in their household-that
have drained off their superfluous Africans, and are about
exchanging slave labor for more economical hired service,
and who are making encouraging advances in mines and
manufactures, contemplate with serene indulgence all the
prosperous and legalized forms of servitude that flourish in
their bounds; but their indulgent moderation aims, nevertheless, at future amendments. They lead the van from
their position in the career of amelioration; but it is only
by this favored position they are enabled to be such clear
exemplars, and so far ahead in the school of fraternity. In
time, the dwellers in more ungenial latitudes will come up
to the point these leaders now occupy, for fieedom and light
are urging all their children on the upward course. In the
glance backward over the path they have travelled, the foremost pretenders to supreme humanity must confess the lesson taught by the desert-born, but educated daughter of the
Dacota chief at St. Anthony's Falls.
Oppressors and oppressed dwell everywhere; but it is only the unfamiliar form that moves general and active abhorrence. This impulse against African servitude which agitates the northern states —to whom it is unknown-and exasperates in its defence the south, who declares it a stringent necessity of self-preservation to the whites, is-at least
with the masses-but a geographical morality. A human



ity of latitude and longitude, modified by climate, relaxing
under the moist heats of the south, and intensifying in the
cold winters of New-EnCrgland.
In three short weeks I had touched the extremes of southern and northern oppression. On the same river, under the
same religion, government and language, I had seen the African in hereditary bondage, hopeless of freedom for himself
or children, and daily driven to his task by bodily fear, yet
careless and content in his glossy well-fed health, and making the sunny plains resound with his songs, until the most
resolute abolitionists doubted whether this cliild of an undeveloped race, still in the imbecility of its unprepared animal
dependence, did not require the social polity that gives him
a master to tend his wants and compel him to learn the use
of his hands and mind.
On the upper waters of tihe river I saw the home of Black
Hawk and his braves in the occupation of the whites, and
heard the broken-hearted remnant of his tribe relate in a
cold despair, too depc for tears and complaints, that the barren desert assigned themn by ta Iocking treaty was whitening with tle- bones of 1halftheir wovmen and children. They
did not lament —but they did not smile-when they told that
beside every lodge was a grave. I saw the Dacotas, who
have of their kindred many educated persons of mixed blood
intermarried witli tlhir plunderers, yielding up in stern and
silent gloom their chosen hunting grounds, and their sacred
altar stones, hallowed by immemorial tradition of martial
rites and Dacota glory; and none could look upon this de.
caying race, and upon the stony, joyless composure with
which they face the path of exile and death, and say as we
do of the laughing, dancing slaves, " This is a happy race."
The dweller on the Upper Mississippi puts his foot on the neck
of the expiring Indian, as he exclaims, " Behold the cruelty of
the slave-holder." 'The dweller on the Iower Mississippi




34


raises the lash over the African, and retorts, " Behold the
injustice of the Indian-oppressor."  iis souri and lentucky,
who have tasted both evils and yielded to both templt'ations,
turn to the north and to the south, and say, "Juldge ye
gently one of the other, for ye kInow not thli wei-lit of your
brother's cross."
THE LAND OF THE SUGAR-CANE.
Louisiana is the sugar plantation of the Union, a.,nd io soil
in its limits yields a more generou:-s return to the cultivator,
but in entering the state from th- gulf it gives no such promise of wealth and fertility.  We left the bright and lovely
banks of Corpus Chritsi, 'where tlhe flowers never cea;se to
bloom, and the fresh breeze never forgets to play in the fairy
groves that dot, like emeralds of deeper tint, the green savannas, and it was a chilling contrast to meet at the mouth
of the river the dreary wavste of turbid waters cuttii (, liceir
sullen way through the still more dreary expt:ans.t of bla.ck
mud. All the southern border of Louisiana is a lakvrinth
of wide shallow lakes, interlaced bvy slutristl Layvous, and
surrounded by interminable marshes, seamed at intervals
with veins of higher land along the water-cou;ses.  Forts
Jackson and St. Philip stand on tlie dividing line, between
the domain of man and reptiles, for it is just at the head of
the vast peninsula of mud, cre ated by the river sediment, l.nd
not yet solid enough to bear trees in whlicll the wvid.e current
divides itself and seeks the sea by several channels.  Above,
cultivation begins to be possible; below, only the alligators
can find a home. An isolated pilot village-an anchorage
of handsome white houses-has started up at the Balize, and
greets the eye like a cluster of lilies in a dlark marsh; but
that is a commercial, not an agr'iltu.;.!.growtl.




35


After passing the forts, the "coast" soon becomes radiant
with verdure and beauty.  The voices of busy men come
from the field, the plantation houses glance brightly out of
their bowers of foliage, and every sight and sound is redolent
of luxuriant fertility. This "coast" is nevertheless a proverb of fear to the slave.  Its sugar plantations accept for
their severe toil the stupid, vicious and refractory slave
drainage of all the States, and here exists the harshest discipline and the least kindly bonds between slave and master.
Yet the negro population thrives more gaily under even these
disadvantages than in the mildest of the free States. They
have no heed for the future, and are not loaded with the
cares of self-goverement. Let it be understood that I touch
not the justice or injustice of slavery. I deal simply with
the facts within my sphere of observation, and leave what
is above my handling to divines and philosophers. The
slave population of Louisiana seems to be in that primary
stage of developement iln whlich the animal nature predominates; and if the animal wants are satisfied, and the feebler
mental capacities not overtaxed, they are happy.  This
whole region is so noxious to white constitutions that it would
lie undrained and useless; and we should have to resign
altogether the production of sugar and rice, until we had
reared in starving poverty a Paria caste of whites miserable
enough to undertake it, if we had not a race of African laborers to whom it is more genial. The redemption of five
millions of acres, now subject to overflow, but capable of rich
returns in rice and sugar, will add immensely to the health
and beauty of Louisiana, as well as to the productive wealth
of the Union; but under existing circumstances it could
only be done by whites at an outlay of life and suffering far
beyond all the blacks endure. The acquisition, in 1803, of
the Mississippi Valley and its noble highway, doubled the
territory of the States, and greatly increased the power and




36


standing of the nation, by giving it the control of the cotton
supply in the markets of Europe. This sudden and gigantic step in annexation struck terror into the hearts of all the
timid patriots in the Union. They predicted the disruption
of such an unwieldly, overgrown republic, and declared it
to be impossible to govern and defend such an extent of thinly populated territory. Above all, the anti-slavery men,
who were not then a sectional party, but scattered lightly
all over the country, north and south, inquired anxiously
how the accession of a new twentieth to the number of slaves
was to affect the course of emancipation.  Time has answered all these questions.
In 1800, the immense valley watered by fhe King of Rivers and his tributaries, had less than four hundred thousand
civilized inhabitants-about one-fourteenth part of the population-now it has seven millions, and counts one-third of
the votes of the Union. Then the colored population made
one-fifth of the whole, now it is reduced to a seventh, and
the white preponderance is increased every year by emigration from Europe.
Of the states formed out of this territory, five are free-soil
and six are slave-holding; but of the latter, two are preparing to emancipate before 1860, and anothcr-Minesotawill come in a free-soil state, so that this region, at the present rate of progress, will number, in a very short time,
eight free stales to four that are slave-holding, and this early result I impute chiefly to the extension of slave limits.
The introduction of a new and enormously profitable cultivation, whicl, from the peculiar nature of the soil and climate, was unwholesome for the whites, created a rapid demand for negroes on the sugar-cane fields of Louisiana, and
raised the price of slaves throughout the Union. Tobacco
was still a highly encouraging crop, and cotton was about
to become one of our most precious staples, so that the older




37


southern states had a home demand that aided to enhance
the rising value of slaves, and, in a parallel degree, the wages of free labor. The northern states felt the advance in
the wages of their hired servants, and the corresponding
high standard of dress, food and comforts for their slaves,
which public opinion and the example of white laborers enforced on the masters.  The rearing and maintenance of
slaves became, on the average, more than their services
were worth, and the most robust workers were gradually
sent towards the south, which also became the punishment
of the heavy-headed and unmanageable. Their place was
supplied by emigrants from Europe, who were attracted by
the large wages and cheap lands of the young republic even
before they learned to appreciate its institutions. The character of the colored population in the northern states, thus
purified of its roughest dross, soon attained the level of selfgovernment. Emigration more than filled the blank left by
the retiring blacks, and labor kept its balance with capital.
If there had been no addition to our cotton lands, and if sugar had not come to demand new laborers at any price, wages would have crept up more slowly, and there would have
been less inducement for foreigners to come to this country.
The impetus from the cane-brakes of Louisiana vibrated to
the shores of Ireland. The long file of toilers that marched
into the fertile but fever-reeking plains of the Mississippi was
not broken, until, at New-York, the last departing rank saw
itself crowded away, and its place taken by a sturdier and
more intelligent European band. The servitude of wages
had supplanted the servitude of purchase. It is not a palatable truth, but it is a truth, nevertheless.  No state has
emancipated until the colored population was inferior in
numbers to the laboring class of whites, and at that point
slavery becomes a burthen, and it is gently put to death.
Thus the apparent gain to slavery of a vast territory really




38


set free as many states at the north, and even the addition
of resident slaves it made at one extremity of the Union was
more than balanced by the number emancipated at the other. In the great valley itself, the call of slaves towards the
south opened a speedier day of entire freedom, by diluting
and thinning that class of servants, and inviting in, with the
temptation of ready work and wages, a higher order of white
service. Slaves never were profitable in New-England, because the quality and quantity of clothing, bedding and housing, required in their long, cold winters, was an over-balancing item. There is so much care, thrift, and intelligence
demanded in the usual routine of labor in that hard-featured
land, that a heedless and improvident race was rather a burden than a profit-taken, as slaves must be, from the cradle
to the grave-and New-England generally sold to milder
latitudes the Africans her ships brought to America. She
was an importer, not an employer of negroes; and when
the slave trade was abolished she forthwitl washed her hands
of the whole business, ahd sot down conscii nce-clean to lee.c
tur; hi-; nciLIbors o.l th ir slo;w- paced morality.
THE CRESCENT CITY.
In ascending the Mississippi, it is well to pause and observe, in its very citadel, the workings of slavery. It is the
fashion to say, that the mere presence of slavery stagnates
the flow of industry, and impedes ruinously the prosperous
advance of any country; and there is a certain amount of
truth in this-as there is in all popular errors; for they
must have a little breath of vitality to live-but it is a partial and distorted truth.
It is true, that educated and self-governing industrial
classes are the ablest supporters of the state, but all producers have their value.




39


Of all the cities in the Union, New-Orleans is the only
one that doubled its population in two successive census decades, ending in 1840, though Cincinnati, St. Louis, and
Louisville, did nearly the same thing.  In each case this
miraculous prosperity has the same magnificent source-a
free water transit by river, lake and canal, of well nigh twenty thousand miles. The character and resources of the country in tribute to the respective cities will, if studied with other local causes, explain perfectly the variations in their present and future career, independent of the question, whether the bone and sinew expended there were strained under
the urgings of hunger or of the lash. With a free commerce,
at home and abroad, and the natural mart of the fifteen degrees of climate and latitude, for which the Mississippi is the
conductor of trade, New-Orleans must be rich and powerful.
Her straight, well-paved, nobly built streets, with their colonnades of beautiful trees, her stately edifices, her splendid
charities, her river embankments of almost fabulous cost,
her railroads, her canals, her suburb towns, that are themselves fair and prosperous cities, were all redeemed from a
pestilential morass; and-like the capitol of Rome and the
temples of Greece-it is the labor of slave hands. The slave
markets of those illustrious republics stood in the midst of
their forums and palaces, while one taught and the other conquered the world; but it is not a necessary sequence that the
lords of ancient civilization were sinless in forgetting the
rights of toil, any more than the modern planter or manu.
facturer who imitates their oversight. The noblest men and
the proudest nations of all ages have been more or less
thralled in defective systems, and only the Supremely Wise,
who sees all the antecedents and all the environments of the
case, can decide how far they are the masters, and how far
the victims of their lot. The majestic steamers that border
the Crescent City like a forest, seem full of life and power,




40


but they can only move on the element on which they find
themselves, and blindly obey the small and simple wheel
that appears so insignificant in the general mass.  Man's
interest is the governing wheel, and circumstances, born before he saw the light, compose the elements of his action.
Almost divine must be the nature that can altogether shape
these influences to his aspirations.
The progress of the amelioration of the African family is
witnessed at New-Orleans with more distinctness than anywhere else. Leaving aside those of mixed blood, the blacks
who have been four or five descents in contact with civilization, and who have been taught, though by the rude apprenticeship of slavery, to exert their energies, have unfolded
into a much higher people than the original Africans. The
developement of moral and intellectual powers has strikingly improved the form and expression of their features; and
from a hideous tribe, capable only of animal incentives,
gratifications and attachments, they have been brought up
to the standard of moral capability.  From this vantage
ground, the race among us will go rapidly forward, under
the impetus of white example, whether in freedom or servitude. With the intrinsic elevation of the colored population, and with the introduction of white servants, who mark
out the pattern, custom is commanding for them a system
of kinder treatment and more generous indulgences from
their masters. It is a generally conceded fact, that the laboring classes of Europe are not so well fed and clothed, nor
so lightly tasked, as the southern slaves; nor is there in
most countries of the old world more attention paid to peasent instruction than in Louisiana and Mississippi, who liave
the worst and most uncouth colored population in the Union; and, what is an interesting collateral fact, it is also the
most indifferent to freedom. I have known many instances
of slave mothers-of the better order too-such as hair-dress



41


ers, lady's maids, marchandes (those who go about to'sell
goods,) and seamstresses, refuse to make very moderate sacrifices to purchase their own and their children's freedom.
Whoever has lived much in southern cities is aware that
large numbers of the brightest slaves hire their time of their
masters, at a fixed pirice, and worh out at their trades to great
advantage for themselves. Almost any of these could buy
their freedom by practising, for a few years, the industry
and economy which a free-born man of the north must practise all his life, to win a decent independence; yet it seldom
happens that one of them will make the necessary self-denial. There are noble exceptions, but they are rare. The
race is not yet cultivated up to the point at which intellectual aspirations overcome animal propensities; and it is a
question with some, whether that point can possibly be attained in slavery. The whites have attained it in other countries, under equal or greater disadvantages, and the yoke of
serfdom fell from their necks.  Let us hope everything
therefore for the blacks.
The northern states, when lightened of the guardianship
of a numerous class, aliens to them by prejudice and striking physical differences, provided liberally for the education
of the colored children still remaining among them, and in
those branches of study which require memory and imitation,
rather than research and laborious comparison, they have
succeeded precisely as well as the whites. In the full and
continued developement of the race still higher results will
follow. The same results, though more imperfect and partial in their scope, are visible at New-Orleans, and more
particularly in the mixed bloods. That class are polite and
graceful imitators of the most polished examples they see;
they all sing and dance with a certain proficiency, and observe and learn whatever falls within the limits of the senses,
but they eschew vigorous mental effort. They are develop



42


ing under rough tuition, but it so far suits their necessities
that the improvement is perceptible. The white foreigners,
employed in offices one shade above them, are their aptest
and most efficient teachers; and this description of persons
are flowing rapidly into all the cities of the South. When
I last landed at New-Orleans, a white hackman conveyed
us to the St. Charles, the white porter of that princely establishment received the baggage, and white chambermaids attended me in my apartment. These are the avant couriers
of emancipation. Slavery has spread over so large a surface that its weakened ranks cannot shut out competition,
and white competition is the grave of slave labor. Whenever and wherever the white man begins to contend for employment with the African, he does not fail to draw reinforcements from the crowded armies of his kindred, who
await his call; but the negro cannot recruit on this continent. He can only thin the States that are drawing close
their lines for emancipation, and hasten for them the day
that must eventually dawn for every State that 6pens its
gates to emigration.
THE TRANSITION    STATES.
After passing the land of sugar and rice, and almost the
land of cotton, we come upon the debateable ground which
separates the sunny slave-cultivated plains of the South
from the wheat fields and free labor of the Upper Mississippi. Kentucky and Missouri have not yet escaped from
the pressure of a surplus colored population, and therefore
have not attained the pure and unrelenting anti-slavery feeling of the exempted States; but the tide of emigration from
Europe and the North is rolling on, and negro servitude
must retire before it. A varied and complicated system of




43


production in mines, factories, and a subdivided agriculture,
presents itself in these States, and demands a higher and more
intelligent class of laborers. The Old World is pouring in
its thousands and tens of thousands of artisans and farmers to
fill this demand, on such economical terms as will displace
slavery. From Missouri eastward, a zone of five States is
trembling in the balance of transition. A reluctance-natural to their position and honorable to their good faith-to
abandon their old allies, the slave-holders, not to mention the
embarrassment of disposing of a large colored population,
retards decisive action, but the struggle is closing upon them,
and can only end in one way. Slavery has been driven
from the whole area of the fifteen free States as an unprofitable burden; for it is a solemn truth, that no State cast it off
while it was thought profitable-and its death-knell would
now be ringing in all this broad sweep of transition States,
from Delaware and Maryland, tlrough Virginia, Kentucky
and Missouri, on and on, to the Pacific, if, besides the check
of sectional agitation, there did not rise on either side a wall
of obstruction against the drainage of their superfluous
blacks. On the South, the slave States resolutely shut their
doors, in self-defence, against the admission of free colored
persons. They have already more than they know what to
do with, and but for higher considerations of humanity, their
interests would counsel a general expulsion of the whole
class from the slave borders. On the North, there is almost
as much discouragement. Some States absolutely refuse
them an asylum, and in the remainder there is but cold welcome and scant employment for uninstructed blacks among
the swarming thousands of white emigrants. It is not the
least curious feature of our geographical morality, that it
has never occurred to but one or two States in the Union to
apply the abstract benevolence which they are so enthusiastic in teaching to others, to the short-comings of their own




44


position. Some States will not grant a shelter at all to the
colored race, and few, indeed, have allowed them even a limited franchise; but most of them are willing to make up for
this cold protection at home, by excessively warm lectures
to the South in their behalf. This is well; for, in time, their
impressive rhetoric on equity and equality may produce its
fruits, and they may enter in very truth into all the blessings, social and political, of amalgamation.  Heaven may
deign, at last, to smile upon their sublime and unwearied efforts to this deserved fruition, but thus far such are not the
signs of promise. A deep antipathy is rising and strengthening against these unfortunate aliens throughout the land.
Any careful observer may read, in the firmament, clouds of
retaliation and expulsion that will fall upon the race whose
presence caused our domestic broils, whenever the storm
breaks and the sky clears. The emancipation of this belt
of transition States, wlich must ensue from the natural and
uncontrollable laws of population, immediately that sectional opposition relaxes, will be the signal for vast and energetic
measures for the transportation of the Africans to the original seat of their race.
The presence of a people with whom they do not think it
well or wise to intermarry, is a light thing in Maine, New
Hampshire or Vermont, where the colored persons-besides
being of a caste infinitely superior to those of the South, by
education and admixture of blood-are only as one in three
hundred to the whites, or even in Massachusetts, where they
count about one in a hundred; but it is more serious when,
as in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, they make one third
of the whole population. The third, it must not be forgot.
ten, which, from its moral and intellectual unpreparedness,
is certain to be burthensome to the State. In Missouri and
Kentucky, immigration has probably by this time-the eve
of 1850-reduced the black population nearer a fourth of




45


their entire population; but still the grave question is before
them, " What is to be done with this mass of 150,000 souls
of African descent?"
This is a question which European philosophy finds so
simple at three thousand miles distance. It replies, " Open
to them your ballot-boxes and your family relations." But
this side the Atlantic we have an invincible prejudice against
this benevolent proposal of mixing to the Quadroon.tint half
of the States of the Confederation, or giving to the African
suffrages the balance of power. Ungenerous, and unreasonable too, as it seems to people three thousand miles off,
not one of the " Transition States" would consent to this arrangement, and however liberal the theories and wishes of
the Northern negrophilos may be, none have spoken of enforcing their practical adoption at the point of the bayonet.
Missouri and Kentucky will not pause, however, in their
career of emancipation. In the last ten years they have
more than trebled their white laborers of the class in immediate competition with the colored producers.  This has
crowded the latter out of many branches of industry, and
diminished the profits of slave-owning in a corresponding
degree.  To speak with more precision, white labor has
underbid black, though both are well repaid in those favored
States, and hire is becoming more safe and satisfactory to
the employer than the risk and outlay of purchase. The
same causes have swept steadily southward from the beginning of our nationality, and the march has never been
swerved by any moral consideration from its chart of latitude.  Slavery has receded before the climate and white
laborers of the fifteen most ungenial States, and is only
allowed a temporary halt in five more, who are flanked in
prospective by two new ones in the Far West.  Californa
and Deseret continue the line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across the fairest portion of the continent.  On and




46


above this transition line are mines adequate to the supply
of the world in valuable metals, water power to manufacture for the world, land to subsist in luxury a hundred millions, and means of intercommunication which the world
may well envy. With this guarantee of twenty-four free
soil States by 1860-for Minesota and Oregon will come
into the ranks with the transition States-leaving of the
present muster-roll but ten slave-holding States, who could
be so weak as to fear the addition of one, two, or three slave
States? Who does not see that the harmony and balance
of the Union could not be endangered if all the continent
south of the transition line down to the Isthmus were added
to the slave-holding power?  It would still be in the minority in territory, in population, and in States.  If the
slave force were diluted by spreading it over a. larger surface, it would only invite more early and more urgently the
presence and competition of free labor, and quicken the day
of its final extinction. The map of the United States and
the tables of emigration refute, in brief and irresistible logic,
the fear, if there is really any one who entertains it, of the
extension or preponderance of the slave influence.
THE NECESSARY ULTIMATE OF SLAVERY.
It is conceded that slavery cannot retrograde to the realms
it has left behind, nor can it ever obtain any effective foothold westward or northward of its present limits, however it
might be tolerated by law. The whole nature of the country and its productions, and the increasing momentum of
the emigrant power, join to forbid the possibility. We have
in this vast domain space for forty of the largest states, and
we have emigrants landing on our shores at a rate to settle
half a dozen of them in a year. If those laboring foreigners




47


do not instantly urge before them into the unsettled territories the population requisite to entitle those territories to a
name and place among the sovereignties of the Confederation,
they remain in the older states to crowd forward our nativeborn masses to higher aims in newer fields, and to hurry away the lingering obstacle of slave preponderance in the
transition states.
Already in the three-quarters just closed, of this'year of
1849, it is computed that 300,000 strangers have come to
our soil for fortune or refuge; and if this number were evenly divided among five territories demanding admittance to the
national councils, they could not be refused-if the constitution is valid. It is not an act of condescension and free-grace
in Congress to accept a state when it presents itself under the
conditions prescribed by the constitution-it is an imperative
duty. It is for the state, in the attributes of her sovereign
power, of which she cannot divest herself, and which cannot
be bartered away in her territorial minority, to arrange her
own provisoes, and govern, like all her peers, her own domestic institutions, in her own independent manner.  Yet
there is, every year, less and less possibility of creating slave
states, for the simple and definite lack of slave material.
The map of this union of states offers a cooling balm to
whoever has a feverish dread of " extending slavery." It
proves this "extension" a distinct impossibility, unless we
borrow a new population from Afiica to people the new states.
When our Revolutionary sires swore to the Federal compact
on the altar they had reared to Liberty, they and the states
they represented were all slave-holding.  There was not a
spot of free-soil in Christian possession on this continent when
they proclaimed the Charter of Independence and Confederation. Then all the great powers of Christendom were slavetraders, and endless were the disputes and diplomacy between
Most Catholic Spain, and Christian France, and England,




48


" the example of nations," for a monopoly of its honors and
profits.  They claimed it between them and wrangled for
the largest share, as they had divided and monopolized this
continent. American colonies received the slave-trafficking
vices with the language and laws of their mother-country;
yet the Old Thirteen, of their own free-will and judgment,
estopped the importation of slaves, though their wide extent
of sparsely-settled territory cried aloud for more laborers.
Of the brave Old Thirteen, seven of the states (for Delaware
is on the fence) have withdrawn from slavery, and far more
than half of the population and of the acquired territory is
with them; and half the area and people of the remaining
states are preparing to follow this illustrious example.
-Iow can a statesman so trifle with his reputation for sagacity as to speak of apprehensions of the "extension of
slavery," when he knows the very children of this land of
light can prove their fallacy by a reference to a chart of the
republic-that true and noble guide in which they are
rarely uninstructed.  The first sprightly boy of twelve he
meets from our public schools, will run his finger up Delaware Bay, along the south line of Pennsylvania, then down
the Ohio and up the Mississippi, until he touches the north
line of Missouri, and again along that line and down the
western limits of that state and Arkansas, to the Red River,
and this child will tell him that all these fifteen largest
states of the Union north and west of this line, and all the
immense domain beyond them, and all their eleven or twelve
millions of inhabitants, are non-slaveholding; and every
one of them, from old Massachusetts to young Iowa, by
their unbiassed act, for no pre-engagements-if they existed-could bind the will of an independent state.  If the
grave statesman doubts, this child will also assure him that
every one of the forty states yet to arise in this outside domain must inherit the same rights of sovereignty, yet from




49


the circumstances of latitude and production, every one of
them will step into Congress a non-slaveholder, as one after
the other they receive baptism and confirmation in the congregation of republics.
Again, this youthful finger, anxious to re-assure the old
man who is afraid to trust the Republic and her children,
will trace the south line of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
Kentucky, and Missouri-those states now visibly moving
from slave to free cultivation, and who have been, and
are, the bulwarks and nursing mothers of the younger
states-and then this stripling of twelve, full of the confidence and enthusiasm of a nursling of the Union, will say,
"When, in 1860, I cast my first vote, all these states will
have passed through their transition trials, and this whole
area, three times as large as all New-England, and even
now having a greater population, will be free-soil and belted with other free-soil states not yet marked out or named
in the maps of civilization, besides Nebrasca and Minesota.:'
The eloquent politician takes counsel with his fears, and
perchance with his ambition, how to retain an excuse for
his resounding lamentations on the " immoral and destructive extension of slave limits;" but he cannot impress themt
on the boy of the common schools, for there he has been
taught to understand the map, the history, and the constitution of his mother-land, and nothing can shake his loving
faith in her wisdom and equity. For all reply to the vehement declarations of the graybeard, that she is slow, false,
corrupt, imperfect, and unsatisfactory-the hopeful and
trusting boy will turn to the second class of transition states,
and dashing along the south margin of North Carolina,
Tennessee, and Arkansas, and on until he is lost in the unexplored Centralia of the west, he will add, " In 1860 there
will be in those states more free white emigrants than slaves;
and in ten years, or less, throughout the whole Union, if




50


foreign emigration remains but at its present rate, the entire
black population, free and slave, will be outnumbered by
the Europeans who come here for work, and then all this
region will be engaged in dismissing their slaves. These
facts are taught in our schools; are they deceitful, sir? '
The statesman still hesitates to believe in the advancement
and integrity of the Confederation, and he asks: " Where,
then, do you children of to-day, who are to be men and
voters in 1860, expect to find the limits and proportions of
the positively slave-holding states, when a little later you
shall come to the active guardianship of the Republic? "
" It will be confined to South Carolina and Georgia of the
original thirteen, and the five states on the Gulf of Mexico-to less than an eighth of the territory, and less than a
sixth of the population of the United States."
Well might the rebuked declaimer against the repose
and existing policy of the Union pause to inquire why he
would arrest the mighty wheel of progress, and endanger
the noble machinery of the Confederation, to brush away a
speck of dust that clings to its band of wisdom-tempered
steel.
4b.


WRIGHT, Printer, 74 Fulton, cor. Gold st.




BRITISH AMERICA.


FRtEE.9t1 L.


'/.
TRANSITION.
2D. TRANSITION.


I. T.


SLAVE STATES.


Q   F M6.o.
GoF M.




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