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contend, therefore, in view of all the circumstances detailed, that the advocates and retainers of slavery, have, to all intents and purposes, defrauded our family out of this last-mentioned sum. In like manner, and on the same basis of deduction, we contend that almost every nonslaveholder, who either is or has been the owner of real estate in the South, would, in a court of strict justice, be entitled to damages-the amount in all cases to be determined with reference to the quality of the land in question. We say this because, in violation of every principle of expediency, justice, and humanity, and in direct opposition to our solemn protests, slavery was foisted upon us, and has been thus far perpetuated, by and through the diabolical intrigues of the oligarchs, and by them alone; and furthermore, because the very best agricultural lands in the Northern States being worth from one hundred to one hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre, there is no possible reason, except slavery, why the more fertile and congenial soil of the South should not be worth at least as much. If, on this principle, we could ascertain, in the matter of real estate, the total indebtedness of the slaveholders to the non-slaveholders, we should doubtless find the sum quite equivalent to the amount estimated on a preceding page-$7,544,148,825.

We have recently conversed with two gentlemen who, to save themselves from the poverty and disgrace of slavery, left North Carolina six or seven years ago, and who are now residing in the territory of Minnesota, where they have accumulated handsome fortunes. One of them had traveled extensively in Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio,

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Indiana, and other adjoining States; and, according to his account, and we know him to be a man of veracity, it is almost impossible for persons at a distance, to form a proper conception of the magnitude of the difference be tween the current value of lands in the Free and the Slave States of the West. On one occasion, embarking at Wheeling, he sailed down the Ohio; Virgina and Kentucky on the one side, Ohio and Indiana on the other. He stopped at several places along the river, first on the right bank, then on the left, and so on, until he arrived at Evansville; continuing his trip, he sailed down to Cairo, thence up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Des Moines; having tarried at different points along the route, sometimes in Missouri, sometimes in Illinois. Wherever he landed on free soil, he found it from one to two hundred per cent. more valuable than the slave soil on the opposite bank. If, for instance, the maximum price of land was eight dol lars in Kentucky, the minimum price was sixteen in Ohio; if it was seven dollars in Missouri, it was fourteen in Illinois. Furthermore, he assured us, that, so far as he could learn, two years ago, when he traveled through the States of which we speak, the range of prices of agricultural lands, in Kentucky, was from three to eight dollars per in Ohio, from sixteen to forty; in Missouri, from two to seven; in Illinois, from fourteen to thirty; in Arkansas, from one to four; in Iowa, from six to fifteen.

In all the old slave States, as is well known, there are vast bodies of land that can be bought for the merest trifle. We know an enterprising capitalist in Philadel phia, who owns in his individual name, in the State of

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Virginia, one hundred and thirty thousand acres, for which he paid only thirty-seven and a half cents per acre! Some years ago, in certain parts of North Carolina, several large tracts were purchased at the rate of twenty-five cents per acre!

Hiram Berdan, the distinguished inventor, who has frequently seen freedom and slavery side by side, and who is, therefore, well qualified to form an opinion of their relative influence upon society, says:

"Many comparisons might be drawn between the free and the slave States, either of which should be sufficient to satisfy any man that slavery is not only ruinous to free labor and enterprise, but injurious to morals, and blighting to the soil where it exists. The comparison between the States of Michigan and Arkansas, which were admitted into the Union at the same time, will fairly illustrate the difference and value of free and slave labor, as well as the difference of moral and intellectual progress in a free and in a slave State.

In 1836 these young Stars were admitted into the constellation of the Union. Michigan, with one-half the extent of territory of Arkansas, challenged her sister State for a twenty years' race, and named as her rider, ' Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tolerated in this State.' Arkansas accepted the challenge, and named as her rider, 'The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners.' Thus mounted, these two States, the one free and the other slave, started together twenty years ago, and now, having arrived at the end of the proposed race, let us review and mark the progress of each. Michigan comes out in 1856 with three times the population of slave Arkansas, with five times the assessed value of farms, farming implements and machinery, and with eight times the number of public schools."

In the foregoing part of our work, we have drawn com

parisons between the old free States and the old slave States, and between the new free States and the new slave States; had we sufficient time and space, we might with the most significant results, change this method of comparison, by contrasting the new free States with the old slave States. Can the slavocrats compare Ohio with Virginia, Illinois with Georgia, or Indiana with South Carolina, without experiencing the agony of inexpressible shame? If they can, then indeed has slavery debased them to a lower deep than we care to contemplate. Herewith we present a brief contrast, as drawn by a Maryland abolitionist, between the most important old slave State and the most important new free State:

"Virginia was a State, wealthy and prosperous, when Ohio was a wilderness belonging to her. She gave that territory away, and what is the result? Ohio supports a population of two million souls, and the mother contains but one and a half millions; yet Virginia is one-third larger than the Buckeye State. Virginia contains 61,000 square miles, Ohio but 40,000. The latter sustains 50 persons to the square mile, while Virginia gives employment to but 25 to the square mile. Notwithstanding Virginia's superiority in years and in soil-for she grows tobacco, as well as corn and wheat-notwithstanding her immense coal-fields, and her splendid Atlantic ports, Ohio, the infant State, had 21 representatives in Congress in 1850, while Virginia had but 13-the latter having commenced in the Union with 10 Congressmen. Compare the progress of these States, and then say, what is it but Free Labor that has advanced Ohio? and to what, except slavery, can we attribute the non-progression of the Old Dominion ?"

As a striking illustration of the selfish and debasing influences which slavery exercises over the hearts and minds of slaveholders themselves, we will here state the

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fact that, when we, the non-slaveholders, remonstrate
against the continuance of such a manifest wrong and in-
humanity--a system of usurpation and outrage so obvi-
ously detrimental to our interests-they fly into a terrible
passion, exclaiming, among all sorts of horrible threats,
which are not unfrequently executed, "It's none of your
business !"-meaning to say thereby that their slaves do
not annoy us, that slavery affects no one except the mas-
ters and their chattels personal, and that we should give
ourselves no concern about it, whatever! To every man of
common sense and honesty of purpose the preposterous-
ness of this assumption is so evident, that any studied.
attempt to refute it would be a positive insult. Would it
be none of our business, if they were to bring the small-pox
into the neighborhood, and, with premeditated design, let
"foul contagion spread?" Or, if they were to throw a
pound of strychnine into a public spring, would that be
none of our business? Were they to turn a pack of mad
dogs loose on the community, would we be performing the
part of good citizens by closing ourselves within doors
for the space of nine days, saying nothing to anybody?
Small-pox is a nuisance; strychnine is a nuisance; mad
dogs are a nuisance; slavery is a nuisance; slaveholders
are a nuisance, and so are slave-breeders; it is our
business, nay, it is our imperative duty, to abate nui-
sances; we propose, therefore, with the exception of
strychnine, which is the least of all these nuisances, to
exterminate this catalogue from beginning to end.

We mean precisely what our words express, when we say we believe thieves are, as a general rule, less amena

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