VI.

THE MATERIAL CONDITION AND PROGRESS OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH COMPARED.

EXAMINED from this point of view, we shall find that slavery has occasioned the same marked contrast between the two sections of the United States as we have shown it to have produced in other respects.

It is important to bear in mind that the two systems of freelabour and slave-labour began their career at the same time in the United States. The first slaves imported into the colonies were landed on the James River, in Virginia, in 1620, from a Dutch ship. In the same year, "the Pilgrim Fathers" of New England landed on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. We may apply to this notable coincidence the remark made by Louis XVIII. to a courtier who informed him that the Duke of Wellington was born the same year as Napoleon :-“ Providence owed us such a compensation."

The area of the nine Free States enumerated in the census of 1790-the first census taken-was 169,668 square miles; of the eight slave-holding States, 300,580 square miles. The population of the former at that time was 1,968,455, of the latter, 1,961,372. But, in 1860, the former had 10,594,168, and the latter 7,414,684, inhabitants; in other words, those Free States have increased their population from 11.60 per square mile, in 1790, to 62-44 in 1860; while the Slave States referred to have increased from 6:52 to 24.66 per square mile, during the same period. No cause, other than slavery, directly and indirectly, can explain this difference in progress in favour of the Free States. For in climate, in salubrity, in abundance of natural resources, the Slave-holding States were far superior to the others. And the shore line, including bays, sounds, rivers, and islands, to the head of tide

water, was for the latter group of States only 4,480 miles against 6,560 miles for the former.1

It is very generally stated that the Southern States are so unhealthy to white labourers that negroes are necessary to cultivate the soil. This is a very grievous mis-statement. It is in opposition to the assertions of the best Southern authorities, and is contrary to the testimony of the tables of mortality for the Northern and Southern States compared.

Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, maintained that "the steady heat of our Southern summers is not so prostrating as the short, but frequent and sudden outbursts of heat of Northern summers." Dr. Cartwright, an eminent physician of New Orleans, which is supposed to be the most unhealthy city of the United States, affirms that, "In New Orleans the greater part of the hard labour-work requiring exposure to the sun, such as railway-making, street-paving, cart-driving, the digging of ditches and drains, and house-building-is performed by whites." And he says also, that the country bordering on the lower part of the Mississippi "is exempt from miasmatic fevers, and is extremely healthy." Dr. Barton of New Orleans, confirms his confrère's opinion; he thinks that the climate of the South is more favourable to health and vigour than that of the North; that the diseases most common and most fatal at the South are chiefly of a preventible nature. Professor Darby, who surveyed the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, between the years 1805 and 1815, and who was exposed, with his command, to all the accidents and privations attendant on his occupation, says that they "suffered no sickness of any kind." He adds, "that nine-tenths of the diseases of these warm climates may be prevented, I have no doubt whatever."

A Southern contributor to De Bow's "Resources of the South," vol. ii. p. 43, says, "The cotton-planters, deserting the rolling land, are fast pouring in upon the swamp lands. Indeed, the impression of the sickliness of the South generally has been rapidly losing ground among the whites for some years past, and health is now sought with as much confidence on the swamplands of the Yazoo and the Mississippi as among the hills and plains of Carolina and Virginia." 2

1 See the third Letter of Hon. R. J. Walker, on "American Finances and Resources," pp. 10, 11. London, 1863: William Ridgway.

2 Helper, Olmsted, Ellison, op. cit.

In 1850, the census report gives the rate of mortality in the seven original Free States as 1 to 68.66 of the entire population; in the six original Slave-holding States as 1 to 78:30. Of the former States, the smallest mortality was in Pennsylvania, 1 to 81.63; of the latter, the smallest was in Georgia, 1 to 91-93. In Florida the mortality was as 1 to 93-67 of the population; in Texas, as 1 to 69-79. The largest mortality in the Free States was in Massachusetts, 1 to 51.23 of the population; in the Slaveholding States, in Louisiana, 1 to 42.85,-not solely owing to the climate, but also to the overtasking of the slaves, especially during the sugar-making season. The general average mortality in all the Free States was as 1 to 73.07 of the aggregate population; in all the Slave States as 1 to 71-81. In the former, the general average was diminished by the extremely low rate in Wisconsin, 1 to 105-82 of the population of that State, and in Vermont, 1 to 100-13 of its inhabitants. Excluding these two, the mortality was lower in the Slave-holding than in the Free States. South Carolina contains more land, the cultivation of which is considered as unfavourable to health, than any other State in the Union; and yet the average mortality in South Carolina, in 1860, was as 1 to 77.22 of its population, while in Massachusetts the rate was as 1 to 60.31.

Now, if we bear in mind that more than half the population of the Slave States are regarded less as human beings (to whom life and health are as dear, and as worthy of preservation and care, as to the whites) than as so much valuable property, and that the number of immigrants, in full vigour and in the prime of youth, is annually very large to the Free States, and very small to the others, we shall be still more struck with the comparative small rate of mortality in the latter as contrasted with the former.

In every one of the Southern States the whites do carry on all sorts of work with as much impunity as the slaves. It is a great stretch of fancy to pretend that any part of that country is uninhabitable by whites. In Alabama, according to the census of 1850, there were 67,742 white males, over fifteen years of age, engaged in agricultural labour; in Mississippi, 50,028; in Georgia, 82,107; in Louisiana, 11,524; in North Carolina, 76,338; in Florida, 5,472. And there is no State at the South in which there are not non-slaveholding whites who till their

own small farms, or work for others. In Texas the best cottoncrops are produced by the German population who own no slaves, and their cotton is said to be worth a cent and a half per pound more than the slave-grown.'

Thus it is evident that the Slave-holding States are fully as salubrious as the Free States. Consequently their climate opposes no obstacle to white labourers, nor to free black in opposition to slave-labour. They contain all the natural means and aids to material prosperity-navigable streams, good harbours, fertile soils, a genial climate, mineral treasures, wealthyielding forests - all, excepting gold mines, in far greater profusion than do the Free States. We shall see the comparative use which each section has made of its respective advantages.

We venture to beg the special attention of our English readers to this portion of our argument. One of the great inducements urged upon Englishmen in favour of the Southern rebellion is that, if the South succeeds, a system of direct free-trade will be opened between it and England, which will be so lucrative and advantageous in every way to the latter party, as to far more than counterbalance any probable diminution of traffic between England and the United States. We shall prove the utter fallacy of this argument by showing the miserable condition in which the Southern population is, the small range of its necessities, owing to its low grade of civilization, and its extremely limited means of paying for even the necessities of its existence. In 1860 the population of the Free States was composed of 19,076,439 whites, and 241,306 blacks, in all, 19,317,745. The Slave-holding States contained 8,199,760 whites, 252,916 free blacks, and 3,952,702 slaves. The Free States embraced 853,953 square miles, 22.62 persons to the square mile; the Slave-holding States 846,632 square miles, 14.65 persons to the square mile.

The States now comprising the Southern Confederacy con

1 Helper, op. cit. pp. 343-348; Ellison, "Slavery and Secession in America," pp 181-184. The unhealthy portion of the South, as compared with the North, s chiefly along some parts of the coast, where fresh and salt water mingle, and produce malaria. But, excluding these lands (on which, so far as cotton is concerned, very little is grown, excepting on the sea-islands, off the coast of Carolina), we have the bottom-lands along the rivers, than which none are more fertile, or, according to Southern accounts, more salubrious, and the great range of upland country perfectly healthy and admirably adapted for cultivation, and furnishing excellent cotton lands.

tained, according to the census of 1860, 5,549,463 white inhabitants, 132,760 free blacks, and 3,520,116 slaves, in all 9,202,339 inhabitants, at an average density of 12.63 to each square mile of territory. The States remaining in the Union contained, according to the same census, 21,726,736 whites, 361,462 free blacks, and 432,586 slaves, in all 22,520,784 persons, representing an average population of 23.16 to each square mile of territory.

In addition, the United States possess of territories not yet admitted as States, but administered by territorial governments under the jurisdiction of Congress, 1,119,226 square miles, with a population of 220,195 inhabitants.1

Let us examine into the material condition of each class of the Southern population.

1. THE SLAVE-HOLDING CLASS.

The number of slaves owned by individuals varies from one to a thousand and upwards. It is stated that, in 1850-55, taking the Slave States in general, there were 68,820 whites who held each but one slave; 105,683 from one to five; 80,765 from five to ten; 54,595 from ten to twenty; 29,733 from twenty to fifty; 6,196 from fifty to one hundred; 1,479 from one hundred to two hundred; 187 from two hundred to three hundred; 56 from three hundred to five hundred; 9 from five hundred to a thousand; and 2 held two thousand slaves, or more. Mr. De Bow states that the whole number of actual owners of slaves was only 186,551; of these proprietors 2,000 were counted more than once, from the fact of their possessing plantations and slaves in different parts of the same State, or in different States; and 158,974 persons hired slaves without actually owning them. Thus the whole number of whites employing and directly profiting by slave-labour was, according to this last estimate, but 3,525. It has been a mere handful of men at the South which has governed the United States for nearly a

We have taken our statistics from the National Almanac for 1863. The results which we have given differ somewhat from those published by the Hon. R. J. Walker in his "Letters on American Finances and Resources; " but as we have not access to his authorities, we prefer adhering to our own calculations, which anyone can verify.