COMPARED WITH SLAVE INDUSTRY.

57

The

is, in short, accidental and temporary, the result of the exceptional circumstances in which they are placed, and gives place to a better system as population increases and inferior soils are brought under the plough; but the superficiality and exhaustiveness of agriculture carried on by slaves are essential and unalterable qualities, rendering all cultivation impossible but that which is carried on upon the richest soils, and irremovable by the growth of population, since they are an effectual bar to this My position is, that in slave communities agriculture is substantially the sole occupation, while this single pursuit is prematurely arrested in its development, never reaching those soils of secondary quality which, under a system of free industry, would, with the growth of society, be brought under cultivation; and of this statement the industrial history of the Free and Slave States forms one continued illustration. state of Virginia, for example, is the longest settled state in the Union, and for general productive purposes, one of the most richly endowed. It possesses a fertile soil, a genial climate; it is rich in mineral productions, in iron, in copper, in coalthe coal fields of Virginia being amongst the most extensive in the world, and the coal of superior quality; it is approached by one of the noblest bays; it is watered by numerous rivers, some of them navigable for considerable distances, and most of them capable of affording abundance of water power for manufacturing purposes.† With such advantages, Virginia, a region as large as England, could not fail, in a career of two hundred and fifty years, under a system of free industry, to become a state of great wealth, population, and power. Her mineral and manufacturing, as well as her agricultural, resources would be brought into requisition; her population would increase with rapidity, and become concentrated in large towns; her agriculture would be extended over the whole surface of the country. But what is the result of the experiment under a slave régime ? After a national life of two hundred and fifty years the whole free population is still under one million souls.+ Eight-tenths of her industry are

* I do not mean to assert that there is no mechanical or manufacturing industry carried on in the Slave States. In some of the principal towns, no doubt, there is, though to a limited extent, and here it is chiefly the result of Northern enterprise. What I intend to say is, that the amount of industry of this kind is so small, that in speaking of the resources of national wealth, it need not be taken account of + Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 165, 166.

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INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE STATES

devoted to agriculture; and the progress which has been made. in this, the principal pursuit, may be estimated by the significant fact, that the average price per acre of cultivated land in Virginia is no more than eight dollars. Contrast this with the progress made in fifty years by the free state of Ohio-a state smaller in area than Virginia, and inferior in variety of resources. Ohio was admitted as a state into the Union in 1802, and in 1850 its population numbered nearly two millions.* Like Virginia it is chiefly agricultural, though not from the same causes, Ohio being from its resources and internal position adapted in a peculiar manner to agriculture, while the resources of Virginia would fit it equally for manufactures or commerce; but, while the average price of cultivated land per acre in Virginia, after an agricultural career of two hundred and fifty years, is eight dollars, the average price in Ohio, after a career of fifty years, is twenty dollars. The contrast will of course only become more striking, if, instead of a free state of fifty years' growth, we take one more nearly on a par in the duration of its career with the slave state with which it is compared. New Jersey, for example, was founded about the same time as Virginia. Its climate, Mr. Olmsted tells us, differs imperceptibly from that of Virginia, owing to its vicinity to the ocean, while its soil is decidedly less fertile; but such progress has been made in bringing that soil under cultivation that, against eight dollars per acre-the average price of land in Virginia-there is to be set in New Jersey an average of forty-four dollars. Let us take another example. New York and Massachusetts are also, in relation to Virginia, contemporary states. In agricultural resources they are greatly its inferiors, the soil of Massachusetts in particular being sterile and its climate harsh. What then has

* The actual numbers were, 1,980,329.

+ Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, p. 171. In connexion with this question Mr. Weston (Progress of Slavery) gives the following striking statistics, p. 17:—“The following were the prices per acre in the states and counties named, and the percentage of slaves in Kentucky and the counties named:

PREMATURELY ARRESTED.

59

It

been the relative progress made by these three states in bringing their respective soils under cultivation? In Virginia, 264 per cent. of her whole area had, in 1852, been brought under tillage; in New York, 41 per cent.; and in Massachusetts, 421⁄2 per cent. But these facts do not convey their full lesson till we add that, in bringing 261 per cent. of her soil under cultivation, Virginia employed eight-tenths of her industrial population, while New York and Massachusetts, in bringing under cultivation much larger proportions of their areas, employed but six and four-tenths of their respective populations.* thus appears that Virginia, with great agricultural resources and a population almost wholly devoted to agriculture, has been far outstripped in her own peculiar branch of industry by states of inferior resources, and whose industry has been largely or principally devoted to other pursuits. The same comparison might be continued throughout the other Free and Slave states with analogous results. The general truth is, that in the Free States, where external circumstances are favourable, industry is distributed over many occupations—manufactures, mining, commerce, agriculture; while in the Slave States, however various be the resources of the country, it is substantially confined to one-agriculture; and in this one is prematurely arrested, never reaching that stage of development which in countries where labour is free is early attained.

The reader is now in a position to understand the kind of economic success which slavery has achieved. It consists in the rapid extraction from the soil of a country of the most easily obtained portion of its wealth by a process which exhausts the soil, and consigns to waste all the other resources of the country where it is practised. To state the case with more particularity-by proscribing manufactures and commerce, and confining agriculture within narrow bounds, by rendering impossible the rise of a free peasantry, by checking the growth of popula tion-in a word, by blasting every germ from which national well-being and general civilization may spring-at this cost, with the further condition of encroaching, through a reckless system of culture, on the stores designed by Providence for future generations, slavery may undoubtedly for a time be made conducive to the pecuniary gain of the class who keep slaves.

* These facts are given in an "Address to the Farmers of Virginia," by the Virginia State Agricultural Society, which, after having been twice read, approved, and adopted, was finally rejected on the ground that "there were admissions in it which would feed the fanaticism of the abolitionists;" but "no one argued against it on the ground of the falsity or inaccuracy of its returns." It is quoted at length by Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, pp. 167–170.

30

CONSTITUTION OF SLAVE SOCIETY

Such is the net result of advantage which slavery, as an economic system, is capable of yielding. To the full credit of all that is involved in this admission the institution is fairly entitled.

The constitution of a slave society, it has been seen, is sufficiently simple it resolves itself into three classes, broadly distinguished from each other, and connected by no common interest-the slaves on whom devolves all the regular industry, the slave-holders who reap all its fruits, and an idle and lawless rabble who live dispersed over vast plains in a condition little removed from absolute barbarism. These form the constituent elements of the society of which the Slave Power is the political representative. What the nature of that power is,

now that we have ascertained the elements out of which it springs, we can have little difficulty in determining. When the whole wealth of a country is monopolized by a thirtieth part of its population, while the remainder are by physical or moral causes consigned to compulsory poverty and ignorance; when the persons composing the privileged thirtieth part are all engaged in pursuits of the same kind, subject to the influence of the same moral ideas, and identified with the maintenance of the same species of property-in a society so constituted political power will of necessity reside with those in whom centre the elements of such power-wealth, knowledge, and intelligence the small minority for whose exclusive benefit the system exists. The polity of such a society must thus, in essence, be an oligarchy, whatever be the particular mould in which it is cast. Nor is this all. A society so organized tends to develop with a peculiar intensity the distinctive vices of an oligarchy. In a country of free labour, whatever be the form of government to which it is subject, the pursuits of industry are various. Various interests, therefore, take root, and parties grow up which, regarding national questions from various points of view, become centres of opposition, whether against the undue pretensions of any one of their number, or against those of a single ruler. It is not so in the Slave States. That variety of interests which springs from the individual impulses of a free population does not here exist. The elements of a political opposition are wanting. There is but one party,* but one set of men who

* There is one exception to this statement. Between the breeding and working states a difference of interest has been developed which has resulted in the formation of two parties within the Slave States. But (as will hereafter be shown) this difference of interest has never been sufficient to produce any serious discordance among the politicians of the South. The sympathies which bind the breeding and working states together are far stronger than any interests which separate them; and in the main they have always acted as a single party.

ESSENTIALLY OLIGARCHICAL.

61

are capable of acting together in political concert. The rest is an undisciplined rabble. From this state of things the only possible result is that which we find-a despotism, in the last degree unscrupulous and impatient of control, wielded by the wealthy few. Now it is this power which for half a century has exercised paramount sway in the councils of the Union. It is the men educated in the ideas of this system who have filled the highest offices of State, who have been the representatives of their country to European Powers, and who, by their position and the influence they have commanded, have given the tone to the public morality of the nation. The deterioration of the institutions and of the character of the people of the United States is now very commonly taken for granted in this country. The fact may be so; so far as the South is concerned I believe, and shall endeavour to prove, that it unquestionably is so. But it is very important that we should understand to what cause this deterioration is due. There are writers who would have us believe that it is but the natural result of democratic institutions working through the Federal system; and for this view a plausible case may be easily made ont. Democratic institutions have admittedly exercised a powerful influence in forming the American character and in determining the present condition of the United States. It is only necessary, therefore, to bring this point strongly into view in close connexion with all that is most objectionable in the public morals, and all that is most discreditable in the recent history, of the Union, keeping carefully out of sight the existence in the political system of institutions the reverse of democratic and avoiding all reference to the cardinal fact, that it is these and not the democratic institutions of the North which, almost since its establishment, have been the paramount power in the Union,-to leave the impression that everything that has been made matter of reproach in transatlantic politics has been due to democracy and to democracy alone. According to this method of theorising, the abstraction of Florida, the annexation of Texas, the filibustering expeditions of Lopez and Walker, the attempts upon Cuba, have no connexion with the aggressive ambition of the Slave Power: they are only proofs of the rapacious spirit of democracy armed with the strength of a powerful federation. It is, indeed, quite astounding to observe the boldness with which this argument is sometimes handled. One would have thought that an advocate of the Southern cause would at least have shown some hesitancy in alluding to an attack made by a Southern bully, on the floor of the Senate-house, upon one of the most accomplished statesmen of the North