more expensive than profitable. The proceeds arising from the sale of the tobacco they produce, are all absorbed in the purchase of meat and bread for home consumption, and when the crop is stunted by drought, frost, or otherwise cut short, one of the negroes must be sold to raise funds for the support of the others. Such are the agricultural achievements of slave labor; such are the results of “ "the sum of all villainies." The diabolical institution subsists on its own flesh. At one time children are sold to procure food for the parents, at another, parents are sold to procure food for the children. Within its pestilential atmosphere, nothing succeeds; progress and prosperity are unknown; inanition and slothfulness ensue; everything becomes dull, dismal and unprofitable; wretchedness and desolation run riot throughout the land; an aspect of most melancholy inactivity and dilapidation broods over every city and town; ignorance and prejudice sit enthroned over the minds of the people; usurping despots wield the sceptre of power; everywhere, and in everything, between Delaware Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, are the multitudin ous evils of slavery apparent.

The soil itself soon sickens and dies beneath the unnatural tread of the slave. Hear what the Hon. C. C. Clay, of Alabama, has to say upon the subject. His testimony is eminently suggestive, well-timed, and truthful; and we heartily commend it to the careful consideration of every spirited Southron who loves his country, and desires to see it rescued from the fatal grasp of " the mother of harlots" Says he :

I can show you, with sorrow, in the olden portions of

The proceeds arising duce, are all absorie

r home consumpt
ght, frost, or ot
st be sold to raise f

ch are the agri are the results of ical institution su

ildren are sold t

her, parents are si

ithin its pestilentia ess and prosperity,

ss ensue; every

le; wretchedness
nd; an aspect d
ion broods over e
judice sit ent
ng despots wield a
everything, betwe

,are the multit

beneath the Hon. C. C. Clay

His testimoni truthful; and deration of eve

y, and desires h

he mother of ha

57

Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad
memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton.
Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands,
unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are
going further West and South, in search of other virgin
lands, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in
like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means
and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbors,
extending their plantations, and adding to their slave
force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller
profits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are thus
pushing off the many who are merely independent. Of the
$20,000,000 annually realized from the sales of the cotton
crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting
the producers, is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus
the white population has decreased and the slave increas-
ed almost pari passu in several counties of our State. In-
1825, Madison county cast about 3,000 votes; now,
she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing that
county, one will discover numerous farm-houses, once the
abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occu-
pied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted and dilapidated; he
will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, abandoned,
and covered with those evil harbingers, fox-tail and broom-
sedge; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering
walls of once thrifty villages, and will find one only mas-
ter grasps the whole domain,' that once furnished happy
homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country
in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree
had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhi-

olden portions d

biting the painful signs of senility and decay, apparent in
Virginia and the Carolinas."

Some one has said that "an honest confession is good for the soul," and if the adage be true, as we have no doubt it is, we think Mr. C. C. Clay is entitled to a quiet conscience on one score at least. In the extract quoted above, he gives us a graphic description of the ruinous operations and influences of slavery in the Southwest; and we, as a native of Carolina, and a traveler through Vir ginia, are ready to bear testimony to the fitness of his remarks when he referred to those States as examples of senility and decay. With equal propriety, however, he might have stopped nearer home for a subject of compa rison. Either of the States bordering upon Alabama, or, indeed, any other slave States, would have answered his purpose quite as well as Virginia and the Carolinas. Wherever slavery exists there he may find parallels to the destruction that is sweeping with such deadly influence over his own unfortunate State.

As for examples of vigorous, industrious and thrifty communities, they can be found anywhere beyond the Upas-shadow of slavery-nowhere else. New-York and Massachusetts, which, by nature, are confessedly far inferior to Virginia and the Carolinas, have, by the more liberal and equitable policy which they have pursued, in substituting liberty for slavery, attained a degree of eminence and prosperity altogether unknown in the slave States.

Amidst all the hyperbole and cajolery of slave-driving politicians, who, as we have already seen, are 'the books, the

arts, the academies, that show, contain, and govern all the South,' we are rejoiced to see that Mr. Clay, Mr. Cameron, and a few others, have had the boldness and honesty to step forward and proclaim the truth. All such frank admissions are to be hailed as good omens for the South. Nothing good can come from any attempt to conceal the unconcealable evidences of poverty and desolation everywhere trailing in the wake of slavery. Let the truth be told on all occasions, of the North as well as of the South, and the people will soon begin to discover the egregiousness of their errors, to draw just comparisons, to inquire into cause and effect, and to adopt the more utile measures, manners and customs of their wiser cotemporaries.

In wilfully traducing and decrying everything North of Mason and Dixon's line, and in excessively magnifying the importance of everything South of it, the oligarchy have, in the eyes of all liberal and intelligent men, only made an exhibition of their uncommon folly and dishonesty. For a long time, it is true, they have succeeded in deceiving the people, in keeping them humbled in the murky sloughs of poverty and ignorance, and in instilling into their untutored minds passions and prejudices expressly calculated to strengthen and protect the accursed institution of slavery; but, thanks to heaven, their inglorious reign is fast drawing to a close; with irresistible brilliancy, and in spite of the interdict of tyrants, light from the pure fountain of knowledge is now streaming over the dark places of our land, and, ere long-mark our words-there will ascend from Delaware, and from Texas, and from all the intermediate States, a huzza for Freedom and for Equal Rights,

that will utterly confound the friends of despotism, set at defiance the authority of usurpers, and carry consternation to the heart of every slavery-propagandist.

To undeceive the people of the South, to bring them to a knowledge of the inferior and disreputable position which they occupy as a component part of the Union, and to give prominence and popularity to those plans which, if adopted, will elevate us to an equality, socially, morally, intellectu ally, industrially, politically, and financially, with the most flourishing and refined nation in the world, and, if possible, to place us in the van of even that, is the object of this work. Slaveholders, either from ignorance or from a wilful disposition to propagate error, contend that the South has nothing to be ashamed of, that slavery has proved a blessing to her, and that her superiority over the North in an agricultural point of view makes amends for all her shortcomings in other respects. On the other hand, we contend that many years of continual blushing and severe penance would not suffice to cancel or annul the shame and disgrace that justly attaches to the South in consequence of slavery -the direst evil that e'er befell the land-that the South bears nothing like even a respectable approximation to the North in navigation, commerce, or manufactures, and that, contrary to the opinion entertained by ninety-nine hundredths of her people, she is far behind the free States in the only thing of which she has ever dared to boast--agriculture. We submit the question to the arbitration of figures, which, it is said, do not lie. With regard to the bushel-measure products of the soil, of which we have already taken an inventory, we have seen that there is a