“Of my neighbors, friends and kindred, nearly one-half have left the State since I was old enough to remember. Many is the time I have stood by the loaded emigrant wagon, and given the parting hand to those whose faces I was never to look upon again. They were going to seek homes in the free West, knowing, as they did, that free and slave labor could not both exist and prosper in the same community. If any one thinks that I speak without knowledge, let him refer to the last census. He will there find that in 1850 there were fifty-eight thousand native North Carolinians living in the free States of the West—thirty-three-thousand in Indiana alone. There were, at the same time, one hundred and eighty thousand Virginians living in the free States. Now, if these people were so much in love with the ‘institution,’ why did they not remain where they could enjoy its blessings?“From my knowledge of the people of North Carolina, I believe that the majority of them who will go to Kansas during the next five years, would prefer that it should be a free State. I am sure that if I were to go there I should vote to exclude slavery.”
“Of my neighbors, friends and kindred, nearly one-half have left the State since I was old enough to remember. Many is the time I have stood by the loaded emigrant wagon, and given the parting hand to those whose faces I was never to look upon again. They were going to seek homes in the free West, knowing, as they did, that free and slave labor could not both exist and prosper in the same community. If any one thinks that I speak without knowledge, let him refer to the last census. He will there find that in 1850 there were fifty-eight thousand native North Carolinians living in the free States of the West—thirty-three-thousand in Indiana alone. There were, at the same time, one hundred and eighty thousand Virginians living in the free States. Now, if these people were so much in love with the ‘institution,’ why did they not remain where they could enjoy its blessings?
“From my knowledge of the people of North Carolina, I believe that the majority of them who will go to Kansas during the next five years, would prefer that it should be a free State. I am sure that if I were to go there I should vote to exclude slavery.”
For daring to have political opinions of his own, and because he did not deem it his duty to conceal the factthat he loved liberty better than slavery, the gallant author of the extract above quoted was peremptorily dismissed from his post of analytical and agricultural chemist in the University of North Carolina, ignominiously subjected to the indignities of a mob, and then savagely driven beyond the borders of his native State. His villainous persecutors, if not called to settle their accounts in another world within the next ten years, will probably survive to repent of the enormity of their pro-slavery folly.
TABLE NO. LVIII.
VALUE OF THE SLAVES AT $400 PER HEAD.—1850.[6]
Tables34 and 35 show that, on account of the pitiable poverty and ignorance of slavery, the mails were transported throughout the Southern States, during the year1855, at an extra cost to the General Government of more than six hundred thousand dollars! In the free States, postages were received to the amount of more than two millions of dollars over and above the cost of transportation.
To Dr. G. Bailey, editor of theNational Era, Washington city, D. C., we are indebted for the following useful and interesting statistics, to which some of our readers will doubtless have frequent occasion to refer:—
PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
At the close of the term for which Mr. Buchanan is elected,it will have been seventy-two years since the organization of the present Government.
In that period, there have been eighteen elections for President, the candidates chosen in twelve of them being Southern men and slaveholders, in six of them Northern men and non-slaveholders.
No Northern man has ever been re-elected, but five Southern men have been thus honored.
Gen. Harrison, of Ohio, died one month after his inauguration. Gen. Taylor, of Louisiana, about four months after his inauguration. In the former case, John Tyler, of Virginia, became acting President, in the latter, Millard Fillmore, of New York.
Of the seventy-two years, closing with Mr. Buchanan’s term, should he live it out, Southern men and slaveholders have occupied the Presidential chair forty-eight years and three months, or a little more than two-thirds of the time.
THE SUPREME COURT.
The judicial districts are organized so as to give five judges to the slave States, and four to the free, although the population, wealth, and business of the latter are far in advance of those of the former. The arrangement affords, however, an excuse for constituting the Supreme Court, with a majority of judges from the slaveholding States.
MEMBERS.
SECRETARIES OF STATE.
The highest office in the Cabinet is that of Secretary of State, who has under his charge the foreign relations of the country. Since the year 1789, there have been twenty-two appointments to the office—fourteen from slave States, eight from free. Or, counting by years, the post has been filled by Southern men and slaveholders very nearly forty years out of sixty-seven, as follows:
PRESIDENTS PRO TEM. OF THE SENATE.
Since the year 1809, every Presidentpro tem.of the Senate of the United States has been a Southern man and slaveholder, with the exception of Samuel L. Southard, of New Jersey, who held the office for a very short time, and Mr. Bright, of Indiana, who has held it for one or two sessions, we believe, having been elected,however, as a known adherent of the slave interest, believed to be interested in slave “property.”
SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
POSTMASTERS-GENERAL.
Sectionalism does not seem to have had much to do with this Department or with that of the Interior, created in 1848-’49.
SECRETARIES OF THE INTERIOR.
ATTORNEYS-GENERAL.
SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY.
The post of Secretary of the Treasury, although one of great importance, requires financial abilities of a high order, which are more frequently found in the North than in the South, and affords little opportunity for influencing general politics, or the questions springing out of Slavery. We need not therefore be surprised to learn that Northern men have been allowed to discharge its duties some forty-eight years out of sixty-seven, as follows:
SECRETARIES OF WAR AND THE NAVY.
The Slaveholders since March 8th, 1841, a period of nearly sixteen years, have taken almost exclusive supervision of the Navy. Northern men having occupied the Secretaryship only twoyears. Nor has any Northern man been Secretary of War since 1849. Considering that nearly all the shipping belongs to the free States, which also supply the seamen, it does seem remarkable that Slaveholders should have monopolized for the last sixteen years the control of the Navy.
SECRETARIES OF WAR.
SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY.
RECAPITULATION.
Presidency.—Southern men and Slaveholders, 48 years 3 months; Northern men, 23 years 9 months.
Pro. Tem. Presidency of the Senate.—Since 1809, held by Southern men and Slaveholders, except for three or four sessions by Northern men.
Speakership of the House.—Filled by Southern men and Slaveholders forty-three years, Northern men, twenty-five.
Supreme Court.—A majority of the Judges, including Chief Justice, Southern men and Slaveholders.
Secretaryship of State.—Filled by Southern men and Slaveholders forty years, Northern, twenty-seven.
Attorney Generalship.—Filled by Southern men and Slaveholders forty-two years, Northern men, twenty-five.
War and Navy.—Secretaryship of the Navy, Southern men and Slaveholders, the last sixteen years, with an interval of two years.
William Henry Hurlbut, of South Carolina, a gentleman of enviable literary attainments, and one from whom we may expect a continuation of good service in the eminently holy crusade now going on against slavery and the devil, furnished not long since, to theEdinburgh Review, in the course of a long and highly interesting article, the following summary of oligarchal usurpations—showing that slaveholders have occupied the principal posts of the Government nearly two-thirds of the time:—
As a matter of general interest, and as showing that, while there have been but 11 non-slaveholders directly before the people as candidates for the Presidency, there have beenat least16 slaveholders who were willing to serve their country in the capacity of chief magistrate, the following table may be here introduced:—
RESULT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES FROM1796TO 1856.
AID FOR KANSAS.
As a sort of accompaniment to tables, 50, 51, 52 and 53, we will here introduce a few items which will more fully illustrate the liberality of Freedom and the niggardliness of Slavery.
From an editorial article that appeared in the Richmond (Va.,)Dispatch, in July, 1856, bewailing the close-fistedness of slavery, we make the following extract:—
“Gerrit Smith, the Abolitionist, has just pledged himself to give $1,500 a month for the next twelve months to aid in establishing Freedom in Kansas. He gave, but a short time since, at the Kansas relief meeting in Albany, $3,000. Prior to that, he had sent about $1,000 to the Boston Emigrant Committee. Out of his own funds, he subsequently equipped a Madison county company, of one hundred picked men, and paid their expenses to Kansas. At Syracuse he subscribed $10,000 for Abolition purposes, so that his entire contributions amount to at least $40,000.”
An Eastern paper says:—
“The sum of $500 was contributed at a meeting at New Bedford on Monday evening, to make Kansas free. The following sums have been contributed for the same purpose: $2,000 in Taunton: $600 in Raynham: $800 in Clinton: $300 in Danbury, Ct. In Wisconsin, $2,500 at Janesville: $500 at Dalton: $500 at the Women’s Aid Meeting in Chicago: $2,000 in Rockford, Ill.”
A telegraphic dispatch, dated Boston, January 2, 1857, informs us that—
“The Secretary of the Kansas Aid Committee acknowledges the receipt of $42,678.”
Exclusive of the amounts above, the readers of theNew-YorkTribunehave contributed about $30,000 for the purpose of securing Kansas to Freedom; and, with the same object in view, other individuals and societies have, from time to time, made large contributions, of which we have failed to keep a memorandum. The legislature of Vermont has appropriated $20,000; and other free State legislatures are prepared to appropriate millions, if necessary. Free men have determined that Kansas shall be free, and free it soon shall be, and ever so remain. Harmoniously the work proceeds.
Now let us see how slavery has rewarded the poor, ignorant, deluded, and degraded mortals—swaggering lickspittles—who have labored so hard to gain for it “a local habitation and a name” in the disputed territory. One D. B. Atchison, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Border Ruffians, shall tell us all about it. Over date of October 13th, 1856, he says:
“Up to this moment, from all the States except Missouri, we have only received the following sums, and through the following persons:—A. W. Jones, Houston, Miss.,$152H. D. Clayton, Eufala, Ala.,500Capt. Deedrick, South Carolina,500$1,152.”
“Up to this moment, from all the States except Missouri, we have only received the following sums, and through the following persons:—
On this subject, further comment is unnecessary.
Numerous other contrasts, equally disproportionate, might be drawn between the vigor and munificence of freedom and the impotence and stinginess of slavery. We will, however, in addition to the above, advert to only a single instance. During the latter part of the summer of1855, the citizens of the niggervilles of Norfolk and Portsmouth, in Virginia, were sorely plagued with yellow fever. Many of them fell victims to the disease, and most of those who survived, and who were not too unwell to travel, left their homes, horror-stricken and dejected. To the horror of mankind in general, and to the glory of freemen in particular, contributions in money, provisions, clothing, and other valuable supplies, poured in from all parts of the country, for the relief of the sufferers. Portsmouth alone, according to the report of her relief association, received $42,547 in cash from the free States, and only $12,182 in cash from all the slave States, exclusive of Virginia, within whose borders the malady prevailed. Including Virginia, the sum total of all the slave State contributions amounted to only $33,398. Well did the RichmondExaminerremark at the time—“we fear that generosity of Virginians is but a figure of speech.” Slavery! thy name is shame!
In connection with tables 44 and 45 on page 292, it will be well to examine the following statistics of Congressional representation, which we transcribe from Reynold’s Political Map of the United States;—
UNITED STATES SENATE.
16 free States, with a white population of 13,238,670, have 32 Senators.15 slave States, with a white population of 6,186,477, have 30 Senators.So that 413,708 free men of the North enjoy but the same political privileges in the U. S. Senate as is given to 206,215 slave propagandists.
16 free States, with a white population of 13,238,670, have 32 Senators.
15 slave States, with a white population of 6,186,477, have 30 Senators.
So that 413,708 free men of the North enjoy but the same political privileges in the U. S. Senate as is given to 206,215 slave propagandists.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
The free States have a total of 144 members.The slave States have a total of 90 members.One free State Representative represents 91,935 white men and women.One slave State Representative represents 68,725 white men and women.Slave Representation gives to slavery an advantage over freedom of 30 votes in the House of Representatives.
The free States have a total of 144 members.
The slave States have a total of 90 members.
One free State Representative represents 91,935 white men and women.
One slave State Representative represents 68,725 white men and women.
Slave Representation gives to slavery an advantage over freedom of 30 votes in the House of Representatives.
CUSTOM-HOUSE RECEIPTS.—1854.
A contrast quite distinguishable!
That the apologists of slavery cannot excuse the shame and the shabbiness of themselves and their country, as we have frequently heard them attempt to do, by falsely asserting that the North has enjoyed over the South the advantages of priority of settlement, will fully appear from the following table:—
FREE STATES.
SLAVE STATES.
In the course of an exceedingly interesting article on the early settlements in America, R. K. Browne, formerly editor and proprietor of the San FranciscoEvening Journal, says:—