Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 67

By referring to the report of the auditor of accounts of Louisiana, it will be seen that the a.s.sessed value of the lands of the parishes in table I amounts to $1,642,073, or $5 49 per acre; while that of table II amounts to $23,446,654, or $16 46 per acre. A population consisting of seven negro slaves to one white man, makes land three times as valuable as a population of three white men to one negro. The comparison drawn in this lesson, puts a soul in the dry bones of the facts and figures contained in the report of the auditor of public accounts, and makes them tell what it is which gives value to Southern land.

LESSON NO. 3.--Let this lesson be devoted to drawing comparisons to ascertain: "_Which pays the most taxes to the State, five parishes containing 17,524 whites with a few negroes, or five parishes containing less than half the whites (8,326) with a great many negroes?_" By referring to the report of the auditor it will be seen, that the 17,524 whites of the five parishes in table I pay the State only $25,487,93, or less than $1 50 each, while the 8,326 whites in the five parishes in table II pay the State $169,900 per annum, or upward of $20 each. The aggregate population of the parishes in table I pay only $1 06 each, while the aggregate population of the parishes in table II pay $2 66 each. Every three whites and twenty negroes pay the State $61 18. By making a calculation it will appear that it will require forty-three whites and fifteen negroes of the parishes in table I, to pay the State as much as three whites and twenty negroes pay in the parishes in table II.

COROLLARY.--Three white men with twenty negroes, financially considered, are worth as much to the State as forty-three white men with fifteen negroes.

This strange truth meets a steady explanation in the fact found in Lesson No. 2, that in those parishes where every three white inhabitants own twenty negroes, the land is more than three times as valuable as in the parishes, where every forty-three of the white population possess only fifteen negroes.

LESSON NO. 4.--In the last lesson the truth was brought out that forty-three white men and fifteen negroes are worth no more to the State, financially considered, than three white men and twenty negroes.

Let this lesson examine the question: "_Whether forty-three white men in command of fifteen negroes are worth AS MUCH to the State, agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in command of twenty negroes?_" This is a bold question and requires some calculations. In making the calculations to base the comparisons upon, sugar will be estimated at $60 per hogshead; mola.s.ses at $7 per barrel; corn at $1 per bushel, and cotton at $40 dollars per bale. At these rates the value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes, where the white population is nearly three times as great as the negro, amounts to $446,550, in a population of 17,524 whites, 6,038 negro slaves, and 343 free negroes--the aggregate population 23,905, which gives to each inhabitant $18 68.

The value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes, viz: Carroll, Concordia, Madison, Tensas, and West Feliciana, where the negro slaves are nearly seven times as numerous as the white population, amounts to $8,854,770. In other words, 55,035 negroes under the command of 8,326 whites, in an aggregate population of 63,768 (407 being added for free negroes), produced $8,854,770 worth of agricultural products in one year, estimating cotton at $40 per bale, sugar $60 per hogshead, and corn at $1 a bushel; this amount divided by the aggregate population gives each individual, black and white, old and young, $138 87. Three whites in command of twenty negroes produce $3,194 worth of agricultral products. This lesson was to solve the question whether forty-three white men in command of fifteen negroes are worth as much to the State, agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in command of twenty negroes? It has been proved that in those five parishes where the whites nearly treble the negroes, each inhabitant only produces $18 68. This would give to forty-three white and fifteen negroes only $1,081 70 as their share of the value of the agricultural productions--whereas, the share of three whites and twenty negroes, in those parishes where the negro population is nearly seven to one of the white, has been ascertained to be $3,194. The student of political economy is now prepared to solve another question: "What number of inhabitants are required in those parishes where labor is isolated or disa.s.sociated, to produce as much as three white and twenty negroes produce in those parishes where labor is a.s.sociated? The answer is 171; viz: 113 whites and 58 negroes. The question is proved to be correctly solved by multiplying 171 by $18.68 which gives $1,394 25, the exact amount and a quarter over, that twenty negroes and three whites produce in those parishes where labor is a.s.sociated, or where the slave population is nearly seven times more numerous than the white.

LESSON NO. 5.--Let two more lots of parishes be compared; one in which the white population is not quite double that of the negro slaves, and the other in which the negro slaves are not quite double the number of the whites.

TABLE III.

_Parishes where whites exceed negroes less than two to one._

Whites. Slaves. Free negroes. Val. ag. prod.' 58.

Caldwell, 2,607 1,830 8 $121,920 St. Tammany, 2,588 1,945 -- 67,170 Union, 7,191 4,154 5 691,641 Was.h.i.+ngton, 2,910 1,551 10 47,532 Jackson, 5,220 3,803 1 702,742 ------ ------ -- ---------- 20,516 13,283 24 $1,631,005

Dividing the total value of the agricultural products by the aggregate population, gives $48 22 to each individual, as the average in five parishes, where the negro slaves are somewhat more than half the whole population. This is a considerable improvement on the five parishes in table I, where the whites exceed the negroes nearly three to one, the average to each inhabitant being only $18 68, instead of $48 22.

TABLE IV.

_Parishes where negroes exceed whites less than two to one._

Whites. Slaves. Free negroes. Val. ag. prod. '58.

Claiborne, 4,618 7,003 58 $857,675 De Soto, 4,459 7,301 29 739,945 Morehouse, 3,620 5,468 14 785,370 Nachitoches, 5,987 7,939 775 1,120,718 Caddo, 4,073 5,978 44 1,056,130 Bossier, 3,646 7,195 11 1,155,010 ------ ------ --- --------- 26,403 40,784 931 5,674,848

The total value of the agricultural productions, divided by the aggregate population, 68,168, gives to each inhabitant $83 25. In table II the aggregate population was 63,768, nearly seven negroes to one white man; the value of the agricultural products divided, gave each $138 07, instead of $83 25. The parishes of table II, with an aggregate population of 63,768, seven sixths of whom were slaves, produced $8,854,770 worth of agricultural products; whereas, the parishes of table IV, containing a population of 68,168, the slaves being less than double the number of whites, produced three millions less of agricultural products than a smaller aggregate population produced in those parishes where the negroes outnumbered the whites nearly seven to one.

The report of the auditor of public accounts for the year 1859, does not contain the necessary data for making comparisons in the parishes on the lower stem of the Mississippi river, by reason of creva.s.ses and other disastrous causes. The valuable pamphlet of Edward J. Forstale, on the agricultural products of Louisiana, will supply that deficiency, though of a much older date. It appears from Mr. Forstale, that, so far back as 1844, "on well conducted estates, the average value of sugar and mola.s.ses, per slave, was $237 50, estimating sugar at 4 cents, and mola.s.ses at 15 cents," while the general average in the sugar district, per slave, was, in the year 1844, only $150 31, from which he deducted $75 for expenses. By examining his Monograph, it will be seen that the great bulk of the sugar and mola.s.ses was produced in those parishes having the heaviest negro population in proportion to the white. Thus, St. Martin's, with a total population more than three times as large as St. Charles, and with a negro population more than twice as numerous, produced, in 1844, only 5,000 hogsheads, while St. Charles produced upward of 12,000. The white population of St. Charles is only 883, while that of the slaves is 3,769. The white population of St. Martin is 6,400, and the negro population 8,200. a.s.sumption and Ascension are adjoining parishes. a.s.sumption contains more than three thousand whites, and three hundred slaves over and above the population of Ascension. It has more land than Ascension, yet it pays $2,200 less taxes on lands than Ascension, and its gross taxes are $1,500 less than Ascension. The value of its agricultural products is likewise less.

These lessons by comparison might be indefinitely extended, by dropping the report of the auditor of public accounts of Louisiana, and taking up the statistics of the churches, and the last United States census. The statistics of the American churches prove that the slaveholding States contain more Christian communicants, in proportion to the population, including black and white, than the non-slaveholding--South Carolina more than Ma.s.sachusetts, Virginia more than Pennsylvania, Kentucky more than Ohio. The report proves that in the cotton and sugar region, the white people who have few or no negroes, are poor and helpless, but when supplied with seven times their own number of negroes, they are the richest and most powerful agricultural people on the earth. The census will prove that the landed property of those who are thus supplied with from three to seven times their own number of negroes, if sold at its a.s.sessed value, and the proceeds of sales divided equally among all the inhabitants, black and white, each individual would have a larger sum than any Pennsylvanian, New Yorker, or New Englander, would have, if the land in the richest counties were sold at its a.s.sessed value, and the proceeds of sales divided equally among the inhabitants of the said county. For instance, if the land in some of the richest counties of Pennsylvania, say Adams, Berks, Centre, Chester, and Was.h.i.+ngton, were all sold, and the proceeds divided among the inhabitants, each individual would have only about half as much as each negro and white man would have, if the lands of Carroll, Madison, Concordia, and Tensas, where the negroes outnumber the whites seven to one, were all sold, and the proceeds equally divided among blacks and whites.

Comparisons, inst.i.tuted upon the data furnished by the United States census, will show that what Virginia wants _is more negroes_, and what Pennsylvania wants is _more white laborers_. In some counties in Pennsylvania, Cambria and Carbon for instance, the land, if sold and proceeds divided, would not give each inhabitant $75 a piece, the most of the land being uncultivated for want of laborers. Ohio, Wyoming, and Nicholas counties, in Virginia, with an aggregate population exceeding thirty thousand, have only 222 negro slaves. The land, if sold and divided, would not give each inhabitant one hundred dollars. In Accomac, Albemarle, York, Prince Edward, and Prince George, the negro population is about equal to the white. The land, if sold and equally divided, would give each individual from $150 to $220, which is nearly as much as the inhabitants of the best counties of Pennsylvania would have from the proceeds of sales of these lands. Land, per acre, is cheaper in Virginia than in Pennsylvania, because much the largest portion of the Virginia lands are unimproved for the want of laborers, while the largest portion of the Pennsylvania lands are under cultivation. The cotton States and Louisiana are sucking the life-blood out of Virginia by draining that n.o.ble old State of her agricultural laborers. The high price of negroes is ruining Virginia. In Suss.e.x, Southampton, Northampton, and many other counties, which send most negroes to the cotton States, the inhabitants have lost more in the fall in the price of their land, than they have gained in the high price they got for their negroes. The land, if sold and divided, would give each individual only fifty-seven dollars, less than three dollars an acre. Oxford is Great Britain's eye, or rather the telescope which is used to see afar off, to direct British policy. Mr.

Jefferson saw the importance of a university of the first cla.s.s, to be used as a telescope to look into the distance, to direct Virginia, or what ought to be the same thing, American policy, as Oxford directs British policy. Hence he devoted the latter years of his life to establis.h.i.+ng an inst.i.tution for that very purpose.

Long before the West India emanc.i.p.ation act was pa.s.sed, it was known by the learned graduates and fellows of Oxford, that negroes would not work as free laborers; and that their emanc.i.p.ation would ruin the British West Indies. British policy, however, to build up India, imperatively demanded the sacrifice to be made, as Russian policy demanded the sacrifice of Moscow. The African race furnished the only laborers, who could compete with the Mongolian race in producing the rich products of tropical agriculture. Great Britain had a hundred and fifty millions of the bronze and yellow-skin Asiatics under her command, and only wanted the black-skin Africans out of the way, to monopolize tropical agriculture. To carry out the British policy of becoming, not only mistress of the seas, but mistress of the boundless wealth of tropical and tropicoid climates, the learned graduates of Oxford and Cambridge raised a hue and cry against the inhumanity of the _middle pa.s.sage_. So little truth was there in it, that when the committee of the United States Senate, appointed to consider the causes of the mortality prevailing on emigrant s.h.i.+ps from Europe to this country, and the means for the better protection of the health of the pa.s.sengers, did me the honor in 1854 to request my views on the subject, I replied (see "_Report of the Select Committee of U. S. Senate on the Sickness and Mortality on Emigrant s.h.i.+ps_," pages 119-144--Was.h.i.+ngton, 1854), recommending certain rules to be adopted to preserve the health and ameliorate the condition of emigrants on s.h.i.+pboard, which appeared to me to be the best. But, subsequently, a little volume fell into my hands containing the rules of the African slave-traders, half a century ago, which were so much better than those I had recommended, I called the attention of the chairman of the Senate's committee, the Hon. Hamilton Fish, to them, advising him by all means to adopt the African slave-traders' rules, if he had any regard for the health and comfort of the European emigrants. In the latter part of the last century no one pretended, as now, that the negro lost any thing by exchanging slavery in Africa for the more benign system of slavery in America. But it was the imaginary sufferings on the middle pa.s.sage, which brought humanity with her eyes shut to lend to British policy a helping hand to close Africa and prevent her sable sons from exchanging their barbarous masters for civilized ones. America consented to that policy. The Southern tobacco-planters, believing they had as many negroes as the cultivation of tobacco required, had pet.i.tioned the king before the Revolution, to close the African slave trade. He did not do it. After the Revolution it was not only closed, but declared to be piracy, by the federal government. The policy which closed it may have been good policy or bad at that time. It soon gave the non-slaveholding States the ascendency in the Union. The question, whether they shall retain that ascendency, will depend very much upon whether they continue to abuse the power they acquired over the South by cutting off the supply of Southern laborers. Having ascertained that the negro would not work as a free man, the next move of British policy was, to set those free who were already in America. All parties in England, some by one artifice and some by another, were ultimately led to promote the British policy of negro abolitionism. From England it was brought over to the United States, took root and grew so rapidly as soon to become a most disturbing element in both church and state. We had no colleges at the North, and scarcely any churches which knew the advantages humanity and Christianity derived from the mutual aid the black and white races afford each other. The most of them are and were virtually European colleges located in America. This has enabled those learned men in Great Britain, who guide and direct British policy, to make a nose of wax of the great body of the educated cla.s.ses in the United States. The prominence given to the Latin language, to the neglect of the Greek and Hebrew, in our schools and colleges, has greatly tended to fill the heads of the students with monarchical ideas, and to prevent them from understanding and appreciating the inst.i.tutions of their own country.

The study of Homer and the Greek cla.s.sics favors genuine republicanism, by fostering a high-toned moral virtue, and by creating a love for nature and for political inst.i.tutions founded upon her laws; while the study of Virgil, and other Latin text-books, used in our schools and colleges, has a strong tendency to lead to a sickly sentimental admiration for nominal instead of real freedom, and for governments founded upon usurpations and artificial distinctions, as that of the Caesars was, and as that of Great Britain is. There is as much difference between Homer and Virgil as between nature and art. The Latin, being a derivative language, and of very little use, would long since have been banished from the schools, but for the aid monarchy derives from its binding men of letters, as Virgil bound the Muses, to the footstool of thrones, to flatter the frail humanity thereon with the incense of divine honors. Homer's Muses, like true Americans, pay no higher honors to the diadem on the king's head than to the gaudy plumage of the peac.o.c.k's tail. Young America would derive great advantages from an intimate acquaintance with Homer. He wrote in a language which gives to all the arts and sciences their technical terms. Hence, the previous study of the Greek makes the acquaintance of the various sciences comparatively easy to the learner. The Greek and Hebrew being original languages, can be acquired in much less time than the Latin, which is a derivative language. It is to be hoped that the great University of the South, about to be established on the cool and salubrious plateau of the c.u.mberland Mountains, if it does not banish Latin, will at least give a greater degree of prominence to the Greek and Hebrew, the two languages in which the Scriptures were originally written. By comparing "_The Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Education_, 1859, with "_Les Lois concernant les Ecoles Publique dans l'Etat de la Louisiane_, 1849," it will be perceived, that the New England system of public education is not adapted to Louisiana and the South. The laws are excellent, if the system itself was in conformity to the spirit of our political inst.i.tutions. After ten years' trial, we learn from the Report of the Superintendent, that they can not be carried out, as no laws can be, which are theoretical, burdensome, troublesome, expensive, and void of practical benefits. If a law were pa.s.sed by the State of Louisiana appropriating three hundred thousand dollars per annum to furnis.h.i.+ng every family with a loaf of bread every day, it could not be executed.

More than half the families would not accept the bread. The Report of the Superintendent of Public Education proves that more than half the families in Louisiana will not accept of the mental food the State offers to their children. Some parishes will not receive any of it.

Tensas, for instance, which is taxed $16,000 for the support of public schools, has "not a single public school," says the Report, "in it, yet nearly every planter has a school in his own house." The truth is, that government does more harm than good by interfering with the domestic concerns of our people. If let alone, they would not need governmental aid in furnis.h.i.+ng food for either the body or the mind. The South would have been far ahead in education, manufactures, and internal improvements, if the federal government had not interfered, to shut out the only kind of laborers who can labor in the cane and cotton field and live. The system of public education, all admit, has failed in the country, but, it is a.s.serted, has succeeded very well in New Orleans. If the tree be judged by its fruits it is poisonous instead of salutary, to republican inst.i.tutions, in our great cities. If the boys whom it has taught to read novels, had been put to trades, they could not have been driven away from the polls after they had grown to be men. There has been virtually no election in New Orleans, and in many of our large cities, for the last five or six years; whether from fear or indifference, it proves that the system of education is defective.

America wants a University to raise the standard of morals, manners, and learning, so high, that every individual will be as secure from personal violence at the sacred ballot-box, as at the church altar. America wants schools to raise the standard of moral virtue so high, that every American citizen, naturalized or native, may confidently rely upon government putting forth its whole power to protect him in all the rights and privileges of an American citizen, both at home and abroad.

FOOTNOTE:

[275] Report of 1857, for the land in this parish.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

BY THE EDITOR.

HAVING thus finished our labors, and embodied in this work a range of discussion on slavery, occupying the whole ground, we have a word to say to those who are engaged in fomenting these mad schemes of the abolitionists. We ask you candidly and dispa.s.sionately to compare the spirit, tone, and style of argument in the work before you, with the writings and speeches of the anti-slavery propagandists, such as Cheever, Channing, Wendell Phillips, and _Sherman's protege_. In unsparing and vituperative denunciation they certainly excel; but are they not filled with the most gross exaggerations and misrepresentations, not to say willful falsehoods. Nowhere do you find that Christian candor and fairness of argument, that should characterize the search after truth, but in their stead only positive a.s.sertions, and inflammatory appeals to the most vindictive pa.s.sions of human nature.

In this crusade of the North against the South, there is a most unwarrantable and impertinent interference with the concerns of others, that ought to be most sternly rebuked; and it is one of the encouraging signs of the times, that the Southern people are at last roused from their inaction, and are vigorously engaged in adopting means of self-protection. Many, however, in the North are engaged in this crusade in order to divert attention from their own plague-spot--AGRARIANISM. We all recollect the Patroon of Albany and the Van Rensellaer mobs,--the Fourerism and Socialism of the free States, and the ever-active antagonism of labor and capital. They are like the fleeing burglar, who, more loudly than his pursuers, cries stop thief! For the time perhaps they have succeeded in hounding on the rabble in full cry after the South, and in diverting attention from themselves. But how will they fare in the end? It is said of a certain animal, that when once it has tasted human blood it never relinquishes the chase; so when the mob shall have tasted the sweets of plunder and rapine in their raids upon the South, will they spare the h.o.a.rded millions of the money-princes and nabobs of the North? Are there not thousands of needy and thriftless adventurers, or of starving and vicious poor, in the free States and cities of the North, who look with ill-concealed envy, or with gloating rapacity, on the prosperity and wealth of the aristocrats, as they term them, of the spindle and loom, and of the counting-house? Ye capitalists, ye merchant princes, ye master manufacturers, you may excite to frenzy your Jacobin clubs, you may demoralize their minds of all ideas of right and wrong, but remember! the gullotine is suspended over your own necks!! The agrarian doctrines will ere long be applied to yourselves, for with whatsoever measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Ye who profess to be the ministers of the Prince of peace, yet are engaged in preaching Sharp's rifles, or Brown's pikes; who teach that murder is no crime, if committed by a slave upon his best friend, his master; that midnight incendiarism is meritorious; that the breach of every command in the decalogue is commendable, if perpetrated under the guise of abolition philanthropy; who claim to possess a "higher law"

than the law of G.o.d; in fine, who preach every thing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified; how shall you escape the sentence of holy writ: "If any man shall add unto these things, G.o.d shall add unto him all the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, G.o.d shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

Ye politicians, who, for the sake of place, power, and the spoils of office, are engaged in alienating the feelings of both sections of our Union; in producing division in our national councils; whose course is fast bringing about the dissolution of our Union; to whose skirts will cling the blood of the martyrs of liberty, so vainly shed?

Ye people of the North, our brothers by blood, by political a.s.sociations, by a community of interest; why will ye be led away by a cruel and misguided philanthropy, or by designing demagogues? why will ye strive to inflict the most irreparable injury upon the objects of your misplaced sympathy? reduce to ruins this fair fabric of liberty, and this happy land to desolation? Your own leaders acknowledge that, hitherto, your agitation, far from bettering the condition of the slaves, has only made it worse; and in some respects this is true. So long as you confine yourselves to making or hearing abolition speeches, or forming among yourselves anti-slavery societies; so long as you confine the agitation to yourselves, you neither injure nor benefit the slaves; your exuberant philanthropy escapes through the safety-valve in the shape of gas. But when you attempt to circulate among them incendiary doc.u.ments, intended to render them unhappy, and discontented with their lot, it becomes our duty to protect them against your machinations. This is the sole reason why most, if not all the slave States, have forbidden the slaves to be taught to read. But for your interference, most of our slaves would now have been able to read the word of G.o.d for themselves, instead of being dependent, as they now are, on that _oral_ instruction, which is now so generally afforded them.

When emissaries come among them, to give them _oral_ instruction different from that contained in the word of G.o.d, instead of abridging the privileges of the slave, we deal directly with the emissary, and justly, too; for we are acting not only in self-defense, but we are guarding this dependent race, committed by G.o.d to our care, from those malign influences which would work evil, not only to us, but to themselves, also. Could you succeed in your efforts--which you will find to be impossible--as the red republicans did in St. Domingo, or as the English abolitionists did in Jamaica and Barbadoes, so far from having bettered the condition of the blacks, you would have inflicted on them an irreparable injury. But of this you will soon have an opportunity of satisfying yourselves. We have among us a few hundred thousand of this race, who have been emanc.i.p.ated through a mistaken philanthropy, and who, though not injurious, are almost useless to us; these we have concluded to colonize among you, that your lecturers, while lauding the black man as being far superior to the white race, may never be in want of a specimen of the genuine article, to point to, as a proof of the truth of their arguments. Some of the slave States--and most, if not all of them, will pursue the same policy--have already pa.s.sed laws for the removal of the free blacks from their borders, but allowing them the option of remaining, by choosing their masters, and returning to a state of servitude; and strange as you may think it, many have already done so, in preference to going among their friends, the abolitionists. This is done, not so much because we wish to be rid of this heterogeneous element of our population, for at worst, they are, _with us_, only a kind of harmless dead weight, but because we wish to send them North as missionaries, to convert the abolitionists and free soilers. If we may judge from the census and votes in the different counties in Ohio, the experiment will be entirely successful, as those counties having the largest black population, voted, in 1859, against the anti-slavery ticket; whilst those which voted for it, possess but a meagre black population. Is this because an intimate acquaintance with the negro, convinces the community that freedom is not the normal or proper condition for him; or is it because he prefers to reside amongst those who make least pretensions of friends.h.i.+p for him? The anti-slavery men may take either horn of the dilemma.