tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor together."

With tears in its eyes, and truth on its lips, for the first time after an interval of twenty years, the Richmond Enquirer helps to paint the melancholy picture. In 1852, that journal thus bewailed the condition of Virginia :

irginia rgia

al of the "We have cause to feel deeply for our situation. PhilWe shadelphia herself contains a population far greater than

As

the whole free population of Eastern Virginia. The little State of Massachusetts has an aggregate wealth exceeding that of Virginia by more than $126,000,000."

Just a score of years before these words were penned, the same paper, then edited by the elder Ritchie, made a most earnest appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of Virgi nia, to adopt an effectual measure for the speedy overthrow of the damnable institution of human bondage. Here is an extract from an article which appeared in its editorial column under date of January 7th, 1832 :

"Something must be done, and it is the part of no honest man to deny it-of no free press to affect to conceal it. When this dark population is growing upon us ; when every new census is but gathering its appalling numbers upon us; when, within a period equal to that in which this Federal Constitution has been in existence, these numbers will increase to more than two millions within Virginia; when our sister States are closing their doors upon our blacks for sale, and when our whites are moving westwardly in greater numbers than we like to hear of; when this, the fairest land on all this continent, for soil, and climate, and situation, combined, might be

is t

t, and:

come a sort of garden spot, if it were worked by the hands of white men alone, can we, ought we, to sit quietly down, fold our arms, and say to each other, 'Well, well; this thing will not come to the worst in our days; we will leave it to our children, and our grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren, to take care of themselves, and to brave the storm! Is this to act like wise men? Means, sure but gradual, systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted, for reducing the mass of evil which is pressing upon the South, and will still more press upon her, the longer it is put off. We say now, in the utmost sincerity of our hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their atten tion to this subject, nor can they give it too soon."

Better abolition doctrine than this is seldom heard. Why did not the Enqurier continue to preach it? What potent influence hushed its clarion voice, just as it began to be lifted in behalf of a liberal policy and an enlightened humanity? Had Mr. Ritchie continued to press the truth home to the hearts of the people, as he should have done, Virginia, instead of being worth only $392,000,000 in 1850 -negroes and all-would have been worth at least $800,000,000 in genuine property; and if the State had emancipated her slaves at the time of the adoption of the Con stitution, the last census would no doubt have reported her wealth, and correctly, at a sum exceeding a thousand millions of dollars.

Listen now to the statement of a momentous fact. The value of all the property, real and personal, including slaves, in seven slave States, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas, is less

than the real and personal estate, which is unquestionable property, in the single State of New-York! Nay, worse; if eight entire slave States, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, and the District of Columbia-with all their hordes of human merchandize were put up at auction, New-York could buy them all, and then have one hundred and thirty-three millions of dollars left in her pocket! Such is the amazing contrast between freedom and slavery, even in a pecuniary point of view. When we come to compare the North with the South in regard to literature, general intelligence, inventive genius, moral and religious enterprises, the discoveries in medicine, and the progress in the arts and sciences, we shall, in every instance, find the contrast equally great on the side of Liberty.

It gives us no pleasure to say hard things of the Old Dominion, the mother of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and other illustrious patriots, who, as we shall prove hereafter, were genuine abolitionists; but the policy which she has pursued has been so utterly inexcusable, so unjust to the non-slaveholding whites, so cruel to the negroes, and so disregardful of the rights of humanity at large, that it becomes the duty of every one who makes allusion to her history, to expose her follies, her crimes, and her poverty, and to publish every fact, of whatever nature, that would ling a the be instrumental in determining others to eschew her bad example. She has wilfully departed from the faith of the founders of this Republic. She has not only turned a deaf ear to the counsel of wise men from other States in the Union, but she has, in like manner, ignored the teachings

have rep

et er, 'We

n our day

selves, and

ncerity

much of t

it too

s is sell

preach

ce, just

and a

I press

top

shoul

92,

orth at leas

State ..

ption

of

tous fac.

onal, in

Torth Car Terasi.

of the great warriors and statesmen who have sprung from her own soil. In a subsequent chapter, we expect to show that all, or nearly all, the distinguished Virginians, whose bodies have been consigned to the grave, but whose names have been given to history, and whose memoirs have a place in the hearts of their countrymen, were the friends and advocates of universal freedom-that they were infer ibly opposed to the extension of slavery into the Territories. devised measures for its restriction, and, with hopeful anxiety, looked forward to the time when it should be eradicated from the States themselves. With them, the rescue of our country from British domination, and the establishment of the General Government upon a firm basis, were considerations of paramount importance; they sup posed, and no doubt earnestly desired, that the States, in their sovereign capacities, would soon abolish an institution which was so palpably in conflict with the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, it would seem that, among the framers of that immortal instrument and its equally immortal sequel, the Constitu tion of the United States, there was a tacit understanding to this effect; and the Northern States, true to their implied faith, abolished it within a short period after our national independence had been secured. Not so with the South. She has pertinaciously refused to perform her duty. She has apostatized from the faith of her greatest men, and even at this very moment repudiates the sacred principle that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," among which "are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" It is evident, therefore, that

the free States are the only members of this confederacy that have established republican forms of government based upon the theories of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and other eminent statesmen of Virginia.

The great revolutionary movement which was set on foot in Charlotte, Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, on the 20th day of May, 1775, has not yet been terminated, nor will it be, until every slave in the United States is freed from the tyranny of his master. Every victim of the vile institution, whether white or black, must be reinvested with the sacred rights and privileges of which he has been deprived by an inhuman oligarchy. What our noble sires. of the revolution left unfinished it is our duty to complete. They did all that true valor and patriotism could accomplish. Not one iota did they swerve from their plighted faith; the self-sacrificing spirit which they evinced will command the applause of every succeeding age. Not in vindication of their own personal rights merely, but of the rights of humanity; not for their own generation and age simply, but for all ages to the end of time, they gave their toil, their treasure and their blood, nor deemed them all too great a price to pay for the establishment of so comprehensive and beneficent a principle. Let their posterity emulate their courage, their disinterestedness, and their zeal, and especially remember that it is the duty of every existing generation so to provide for its individual interests, as to confer superior advantages on that which is to follow. To this principle the North has adhered with the strictest fidelity. How has it been with the South? Has she imitated the praiseworthy example of our illustrious