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began to decline in their market value, and many owners, actuated by self-interest, transported their slaves to the more southern States for better markets. Thus it will be observed that the responsibility for the evil of slavery in the southern States rests not alone upon the people of those States. If slavery be a social, political, and moral evil, which very few will at this day deny, it is so in a national, and not merely in a local sense, and the responsibility for the curses it entails upon the country is alike national. It is also believed, whatever arguments may be adduced to the contrary, that the native instincts of every candid man instruct him that if our country had never known the institution of slavery, it never would have been convulsed by this injurious and wicked rebellion which now afflicts us.

As, therefore, the responsibility of slavery, the gains of its early traffic, as well as its evil consequences, have been and are national, so the nation ought to afford an equitable equivalent for the inconveniences attending its removal.

It is believed that the most formidable difficulty which lies in the way of emancipation in most if not in all the slave States is the belief, which obtains especially among those who own no slaves, that if the negroes shall become free, they must still continue in our midst, and, so remaining after their liberation, they may in some measure be made equal to the Anglo-Saxon race. It is useless, now, to enter upon any philosophical inquiry whether nature has or has not made the negro inferior to the Caucasian. The belief is indelibly fixed upon the public mind that such inequality does exist. There are irreconcilable differences between the two races which separate them, as with a wall of fire. There is no instance afforded us in history where liberated slaves, even of the same race, have lived any considerable period in harmony with their former masters when denied equality with them in social and political privileges. But the AngloAmerican never will give his consent that the negro, no matter how free, shall be elevated to such equality. It matters not how wealthy, how intelligent, or how morally meritorious the negro may become, so long as he remains among us the recollection of the former relation of master and slave will be perpetuated by the changeless color of the Ethiop's skin, and that color will alike be perpetuated by the degrading tradition of his former bondage. Without this equality of political and social privileges, and without the hope of a home and government of their own, the emancipation of the slaves of the south will be but adding a new burden to their wretchedness by compelling them to provide for themselves and families, without setting before them scarcely a single incentive to exertion, or, if such incentive should exist, it would only be in the desperate desire that by some bloody revolution they might possibly conquer for themselves that equality which their liberators had denied them. The result of such a revolution would doubtless be their utter annihilation or re-enslavement. To appreciate and understand this difficulty, it is only necessary for one to observe that, in proportion as the legal barriers established by slavery have been removed by emancipation, the prejudice of caste becomes stronger, and public opinion more intolerant to the negro race.

To remove this obstacle is a work well worthy of the efforts of a great people anxious for their own future well-being, and moved by a spirit of humanity towards an enslaved and degraded class of their fellow beings. How, then, can the separation of the races after emancipation be accomplished? Colonization appears to be the only mode in which this can be done. The home for the African must not be within the limits of the present territory of the Union. The AngloAmerican looks upon every acre of our present domain as intended for him, and not for the negro. A home, therefore, must be sought for the African beyond our own limits and in those warmer regions to which his constitution is better adapted than to our own climate, and which doubtless the Almighty intended the colored races should inhabit and cultivate. Hayti and others of the West India islands. Central America and the upper portions of South America, and Liberia, are all interesting fields of inquiry in relation to the future of the liberated negroes of the United States. There they may be provided with homes in a climate suited to their highest physical, intellectual. and moral development, and there, under the beneficent protection and friendship of the freest and most powerful of all the governments of the world, they may enjoy true liberty with all its attendant blessings, and achieve the high destiny which the Almighty has intended man should everywhere accomplish.

If the good which would thus be effected for an oppressed people, by their removal from our midst and their settlement in other parts of the globe, were the only object to be attained by the system of colonization, that alone would be worthy the high and holy ambition of a great nation. But whilst we should confer untold blessings upon them, ours would be even a greater gain.

First among the benefits which would be felt by the removal of the slaves from any of the States would be the substitution of the system of free labor for that of slave labor. The advantages of the former over the latter have been apparent in this country to the most superficial observer for more than a century. At a very early period in the history of the colonies it did not fail to attract the attention of our fathers that those districts of country in which there were the fewest slaves increased the most rapidly in population and wealth. In some degree it might seem to be accounted for by the difference in the habits, laws, and customs of the settlers of the several provinces: but when at a subsequent day these settlers and their descendants in the peopling of the new and more fertile soil of the west intermingled with each other, the same extraordinary result was witnessed at every stage of emigration. When at last the tide of emigration, rushing from the south as well as the north, had reached that stream which the aborigines of the country had called the Beautiful River, the great superiority of free over slave labor was demonstrated with a degree of certainty which left no longer any room for doubt. To the impartial, nay even to the partial and prejudiced traveller who journeys along the banks of that majestic river, the widest and most striking distinction is observable, and has been for more than one generation, in everything that characterizes the progressive spirit

of the age. The valley which is watered by the Ohio is perhaps one of the most fertile upon the face of the globe. If there be any dif ference in the fertility of the soil and other natural advantages on either bank of that river the superiority in these respects is on the side of the people who inhabit that portion of this magnificent valley lying on the south of the river. To say that it is as rich as Kentucky is the highest praise that can be spoken of the fertility of any soil. The State of Kentucky lying upon the left bank of the Ohio was admitted as a State into the Union several years before the State of Ohio, which lies upon the right bank. The area of the two States is nearly equal. Kentucky was admitted into the Union almost before the sound of the axe of the white man had ever disturbed the idle dreams of the native children of the forest. In less than thirty years, however, from the admission of Ohio into the Union her population had exceeded that of Kentucky by more than a quarter of a million. In forty years that excess was over three-quarters of a million; in ten years more it was about one million, and the census of 1860 shows that the population of Ohio is now more than double that of Kentucky. Ohio now contains 2,339,599 and Kentucky only 1,155,713 people.

The difference is equally marked in the comparative wealth of the two States, not less so in their works of public improvement and in the advancement and diffusion of education and general intelligence among the people.

If a similar comparison of the progress of any one of the old free States with any one of the old slave States be instituted, as New York with Virginia, or Massachusetts with South Carolina, it will be seen that while the slave States enjoy a superiority in almost all the natural advantages of soil, climate, mineral and forest products, the free States have by their system of free labor wrought out for themselves a superiority in almost everything that can tend to elevate a State or community in the scale of progressive civilization. Or if the investigation should be narrowed to the limits of even the very smallest of all the slave States in the Union, the State of Delaware, and an exhibit made as to the comparative wealth, progress, and thrift of the several counties, it will appear that in the upper county, bordering on the free State of Pennsylvania, and where there is but one slave for every two hundred freemen, with less than one-half the extent of territory embraced in the lower county, where there are ten times the number of slaves in proportion to the free people, or one slave for every score of free persons, has far outstripped the latter county in the increase of population, and in that wealth and material prosperity which are the sure rewards of labor and industry. In New Castle, the upper county, the population is nearly 60,000; in Sussex, the lower county, it is less than 30,000. In New Castle the population has doubled in the last thirty years; in Sussex it has increased less, about 10 per cent. in the last thirty years. In New Castle the aggregate assessed value of the real estate is $18,000,000; in Sussex it is only about $4,000,000. In New Castle the aggregate H. Rep. Com. 148-2

of both real and personal estate is $28,000,000; in Sussex it is less than $6,000,000. In New Castle there is one inhabitant for every five acres of land; in Sussex there is only one inhabitant for every 22 acres. In New Castle the average assessed value of land is $67 per acre; in Sussex it is $6 per acre. In New Castle the white farm hand commands for his services an average of $13 per month and board; in Sussex he can scarcely command $9. In New Castle the average product of the farm land per acre is at least 36 bushels of Indian corn and 18 bushels of wheat per acre; in Sussex the average is not exceeding 12 bushels of corn and six bushels of wheat per acre. If we make the most liberal allowance for the supposed advantages of position, works of public improvement, and other and every other conceivable advantage that can be thrown into the account in favor of the upper or non-slaveholding county, and attribute to them onehalf its superiority over the lower or slaveholding county, the disparity between them is so startling that it cannot fail to enlist the attention of every one who is candidly searching after the truth in reference to the paralyzing effects of the institution of slavery upor the growth and prosperity of the community in which it is tolerated. The gain to be derived from its removal is equally apparent and wonderful. Let us suppose that by the action of the legislature of Delaware the slaves could all be liberated by some gradual system of emancipation, and that it should have no other effect than to increase the value of the land in the slaveholding county of Sussex from its present value, $6, to $12 per acre, and then estimate the difference between the loss occasioned by reason of emancipation, supposing that the owners were not compensated at all, or were compensated out of the treasury of the State. The estimate is a short and simple

one.

There are now in Sussex county less than 1,000 slaves, but taking the number at 1,000, and their value on the average to be $500. which is nearly double their true worth at the prices they could command in the State, and we have the whole value of the slaves to be $500,000. This is the item of loss. Now for the item of profit. There are in the county of Sussex 635,520 acres of land, at present valued at six dollars per acre. If that value should be increased, as it doubtless would, to $12 per acre, we have an increment in the aggregate value of the land of $3,813, 120, from which if we subtract the loss on slaves by freeing them, we have a net gain to the county of $3,313,120, or if we only admit the appreciation in the value of land to be $2 per acre, we still find the county to be the gainer by $1,104.373.

To make them equal in their future career in prosperity requires but the substitution of honorable free white labor for the degrading system of negro slave labor. And what is true of the least is true of the largest and of all the States in which the institution of slavery now exists.

COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES OF COLONIZATION IN THE AMERICAN TROPICS.

The commercial aspect which the proposed plan of colonization presents claims especial attention at this time beyond that which under ordinary circumstances would attach to it; and instead of being deterred from embracing, by apprehension of entailing additional burdens upon the nation, it can be made to appear that it is essential to the speedy restoration of commercial prosperity, and the only mode of indemnity for the losses and destruction of property inflicted by the war. At its close it will be found that the market for the product of our factories and farms at the south will have fallen off to a vast extent. The channels into which our industry has been diverted by the war will also be closed by the re-establishment of peace, and we shall find ourselves with a large debt, diminished resources, and the market for the products of labor, which at one time made a large part of our prosperity, closed to us, in great measure, from sheer inability to purchase by the people of the south. Such circumstances impose a necessity for measures to revive our commercial and industrial prosperity, so that our people may be enabled to bear the bur den of taxation entailed upon them by the struggle to preserve the government. Economy in the public expenditure is not the only means to which we shall be compelled to resort. The interest on the public debt alone will absorb that which has heretofore been considered an ample revenue; and to maintain the government which we have preserved, will, for some years, at least, require military and naval establishments costing more perhaps than the whole expendi ture of the government in former years. Enterprise and the extension of the business of the country must therefore come to our aid, as well as frugality. We must make new markets for the products of the skill and industry of our people. How shall we find, or how create them? If we inquire what is the foundation of the wealth. and power of Great Britain-what enables her people to endure such an enormous load of debt and maintain such expensive civil, military, and naval establishments, the answer will furnish a solution for our own difficulties. The very corner-stone of her prosperity consists in her colonial system, by which she furnishes markets for her manufactures, and swells her commercial importance by the interchange of their product for that of the soil of that vast portion of the habitable globe which acknowledges her sway. By this system she has built up an empire greater than the Roman, and rules a portion of every race of mankind; making them contribute to her wealth and power, and imparting to them what is of equal value, her free institutions and the blessings of a stable government. But for the employments thus secured for her people in the factories and workshops which furnish her vast and distant colonies with almost every manufactured article used in civilized and semi-barbarous communities, and in the countless fleets which transport these fabrics and the products which they purchase, the empire of Great Britain would shrink in an hour, and its seat become an appendage of that neighboring power of which she has so long been the peer.

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