USA > Georgia > The bench and bar of Georgia: memoirs and sketches. With an appendix, containing a court roll from 1790-1857, etc., volume II > Part 48
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15,000
6. New Jersey
7,600
7. Pennsylvania
10,000
8. Delaware
9,000
9. Maryland
80,000
10. Virginia ..
165,000
11. North Carolina.
75,000
12. South Carolina.
110,000
13. Georgia ...
16,000
Total number of slaves in 1776. 502,102
African slavery would have existed to this day in the Northern States, had it been sufficiently profitable; but, as the climate was too cold for cotton, rice, and sugar, slave-labor was discarded : it did not pay.
If concession be a merit, the South set an early example. She yielded two-fifths of her slaves in 1787, in apportioning Representatives; whilst the North retained every person of color within her limits as a basis of power in Congress. This fact is an admission of property. What else could have induced the South to assent to this classification, or the North to claim the abatement, in the number of Representatives under the Federal Constitution? The subject produced much feeling between the two sections, and led to the first compromise in our political system.
As to the propriety of slave-labor the North has no right to judge. She may cherish manufactures, run ships, cultivate orchards, or do what- ever else she pleases within her own sphere, and the South says not a word; but when she turns champion of a false and misguided humanity, and takes upon herself the guardianship of the South, well may we resist the usurpation. For the last fifteen years we have protested in vain. From a few crazy memorials to Congress, Abolition has swelled to its pre- sent hideous bulk.
With Louisiana, we acquired from France in 1803 that immense region extending from the Mississippi to the Rio Grande, then a slave-country. When Missouri applied for admission into the Union in 1820, the North objected because she recognised slavery in her Constitution. This drew the line of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes to quiet the troubled waters, and was the first exercise by Congress of the power to legislate on slavery under the Constitution. After the treaty of 1819 with Spain, our Western limits were greatly contracted. Beginning where Virginia and North Carolina connect on the Atlantic coast, and thence westward to the 110th degree of longitude, the Missouri parallel, crossing twenty-five degrees, formed the barrier to slavery in all States north of it and west of the Mississippi River. Since then we have added twenty-two degrees to the Pacific, making about three thousand five hundred miles from ocean to ocean.
For comparison, I submit a statement showing the relative strength of the North and South in extent and population :-
400
APPENDIX.
FREE STATES.
SLAVE STATES.
Square Miles.
Pop.
1. Michigan
56,243
212,267
2. Illinois
55,405
476,183
2. Missouri. 67,380
383,702
3. Wisconsin .. 53,924
30,945
3. Virginia 61,352 1,239,797
. Iowa
50,914
43,112
4. Florida. 59,268
54,477
5. Pennsylvania
47,000 1,724,033
5. Georgia 58,000
691,392
6. New York
46,000 2,128,921
7. Ohio ..
39,964 1,519,467
7. Alabama ..
50,722
590,756
8. Mainc.
35,000
501,793
8. Mississippi 47,147
375,651
9. Indiana.
33,809
685,866
9. Louisiana 46,431
373,306
10. New Hampshire ...
8,030
284,574
10. North Carolina ... 45,509
753,419
11. Vermont.
8,000
291,948
12. Massachusetts 7,250
737,699
12. Kentucky.
37,680
779,828
13. New Jersey
6,851
375,651
13. South Carolina
28,000
594,398
14. Connecticut
4,750
352,411
14. Maryland.
11,000
470,019
15. Rhode Island
1,200
108,830
Total. 454,340 9,783,710
Total 536,327 7,311,614
These tables include all persons whatever, white and black. Of the number in the South, 2,486,226 are slaves, according to the census of 1840. An enumeration is now in progress which we presume will show an increase of about thirty per cent. in the entire population.
Whilst conferring together on the blessings of the Union, let us briefly glance at our resources, that our adversary may take warning as well from what he will lose as from what we shall continue to possess in the event of dissolution.
The cotton-crop of the United States for the last ten years has averaged 2,100,000 bales. To raise this quantity, let 500 pounds in seed to the acre, five bales to the hand, 450 pounds to the balc, and seven cents per lb., be assumed in the estimate. We then have
7,560, 000 acres in cultivation, worth $10 $ 75,600,000
420, 000 slaves in cotton-fields, " $600 252,000,000
Capital invested in cotton $327,600,000
With the land and force here stated, the South is able to export annu- ally 2,100,000 bales, worth $66,500,000, an interest of nearly twenty per cent. Out of this, however, expenses of every kind have to be paid, re- ducing the actual gain probably to eight per cent. This we think is about the medium of the cotton-growing States. Perhaps it may slide as low as five per cent. Of course there are exceptions; some planters realizing more and others less, according to their skill and opportunity. Besides the choice hands assigned to cotton, the remaining 2,000,000 of slaves in the South may be averaged at $400, making a total of $800,000,000 of that kind of property employed otherwise. The cotton-mills, rail- roads, merchandise, and shipping of the North may be more productive, but are not equal in magnitude of value, or more essential to her well- being. In addition to cotton, two other important articles produced ex- clusively by slave-labor ought to be mentioned,-sugar and rice. Thesc crops are of the annual value probably of $20,000,000,-to say nothing of tobacco worth $15,000,000 more, raised in slave States. Thus we have upward of $100,000,000 annually produced by slave-labor for market, exclusive of provisions. For nearly all this stupendous yield and its multiplied exchanges the North is the carrier and commission-merchant, levying enormous profits on the South. In case the Union is dissolved,
1. Texas ..
Square Miles. 325,520
Pop.
15. Delaware
2,120
78,085
11. Tennessee
44,000
829,210
6. Arkansas
52,198
97,574
401
SPEECHI ON THE SOUTHERN QUESTION.
Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans will be the importing marts for the South, instead of New York and Boston. Manufactories are already established and still rapidly advancing in the South. Our neigh- boring city of Columbus is the future Lowell. As a mere question of profit and loss, which party will suffer most by disunion ?
To say that the North is jealous of our prosperity, or that she envies the ease in which she imagines we live, would perhaps be unjust. There may be some leaven of the kind fermenting the lump of abolition; but a majority of the Northern people have no such feeling. True, nearly all of them condemn slavery as an evil and desire its overthrow; yet they have sense enough to avoid interfering with it in the States where it exists. It has been reserved to fanatics and mock humanitarians to make themselves ridiculous by shedding tears for the poor African, of whose condition they know nothing. Could they behold the truth, the practical operation of slavery, they would at once admit that the Southern slave is happier, and far less tempted by his necessities, than the Northern white man who has to perform menial services for his daily bread. A just picture of the two classes would make even rabid Abolitionists blush for its absurdity.
Claiming for the South what is her due, let us render justice to the North. Her industry is beyond example, and worthy of all imitation. With streams locked in ice half the year, and a soil naturally rugged and barren, the five New England States, (exclusive of Maine,) not containing in the aggregate as many square miles as Georgia, are in a condition of great prosperity. Look at their public schools, their gigantic cities, manufactories, railroads, and navigation-interests ! Would that we of the South had more of their energy and thrift, to realize the destiny within our reach ! We are, nevertheless, doing sufficiently well to ask non- intervention with our affairs. When despairing to manage for ourselves, we will apprize the North of our extremity, and solicit its direction.
I now approach the main cause of excitement. The North aims to exclude the South from any share whatever in our acquisitions from Mexico. All the States have equal rights to this property, as they all contributed to obtain it. The fact is historical that the South did more than the North for the prosecution of the war; yet the South is pro- scribed,-not an inch of territory is left for her to set foot upon ! Should this be so? Is it just ?- or, rather, is it not robbery? Why not let us participate on equal terms ? The North has madly vowed that we shall not, and it remains for the South to reply. The course most advisable for us to pursue under the circumstances is what we have met to consult upon.
There is a difference of opinion among our statesmen as to the fact whether slavery was abolished in the Territory at the time it was ceded by Mexico to our Government. Decrees have been referred to in support of the affirmative. Under the administration of usurpers, (for the Mexi- can Republic has rarely had any other sort of rulers,) various orders and decrees were made abolishing the form of slavery as it exists in the Southern States. Of the system of peonage-a much worse servitude, which they adopted-it is unnecessary to speak. It is far more abject and hopeless than its rival institution. For a small debt, a man is held all his life in bondage, toiling in vain to extinguish the tenure by which his liberty has been transferred by some heartless alcalde to a still more heartless creditor.
VOL. II .- 26
402
APPENDIX.
Let us notice the extent of country which forms the bone of contention between the North and the South. By a preceding statement is shown the area of the States. I now proceed to the Territories yet to be organized :--
SQUARE MILES.
California and New Mexico.
321,695 Nebraska
190,505
Northwestern
723,248
Total 1,235,448
The whole of this vast region lies north of 36° 30', except a fragment between Arkansas and Santa Fe, and about two-thirds of New Mexico and one-third of California, making in all some 200,000 square miles south of the Missouri Compromise. Were this the partition-line between slavery and non-slavery, the Free-Soilers, already having 341,463 square miles in Oregon, would possess 1,576,000 square miles of the public domain, (against 200,000 open to slaveholders,) an area equal to the whole thirty States of the Union ! Is not this magnificent sea-room for the Free-Soil party to ride in under full canvass ? In a path of a mile wide, it would belt the globe fifty times. To bring the comparison nearer home, the public territory north of 36° 30' is equal to twenty-three States of the size of Georgia, while that south of the line would form only three and a half such States! Here is seven to one in the distribution of common property between the North and the South ! Even this share seems not to satisfy the North. She must have all. In the face of such pretensions, how shall the South act? Shall we submit quietly, shorn of our rights, or dissolve the Union in blood by the effort to maintain them ? The issue must be decided wisely by Congress, or it will continue to disturb the harmony-nay, to jeopard the very existence-of the Union.
To prevent the charge of omitting the deficiency of soil in the free States, contrasted with the quantity in the slave States, as set forth in a previous table, I put the whole matter in a nutshell.
Account-current between the North and South.
ACRES.
Free soil in fifteen States.
290,477,600
Free soil north of 36° 30' in the Territories. 880,640,000
Total free soil 1,171,117,600
Slave soil in fifteen States .. 599,243,520
Slave soil south of 36° 30' 128,000,000
727,243,520
Excess of free soil. 443,874,080
Proportion of free soil to each person in the United States .... 58
Proportion of slave soil. 36
Excess of free soil for each person in the United States .. .22
This calculation assumes that all south of 36° 30' in the Territories is slave soil. The fact, however, is not so. With the exception of about 40,000,000 acres between Arkansas and Texas, held under the Missouri Compromise, there is not an inch of slave soil in the public Territories. Within the States proper the proportion is about fourteen acres of free soil and thirty acres of slave soil, (including all Texas,) a total of forty- four acres to each person in the Union.
403
SPEECH ON THE SOUTHERN QUESTION.
Of the plans submitted to Congress to adjust this sectional difficulty, that of the Senate, from the Committee of Thirteen, has acquired most notoriety. It embraces five distinct propositions :- 1. To admit Cali- fornia with her Constitution inhibiting slavery, and with her pretended limits and rights of domain. 2. To establish Territorial Governments in Utah and New Mexico, without recognising or disavowing slavery. 3. To purchase from Texas her claim to a certain tract of 124,000 square miles, known as the Santa Fe country, in order to prevent all controversy as to title between Texas and the United States. 4. To amend the law respecting the delivery of slaves who have escaped to other States. 5. To abolish the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.
I shall not pretend to discuss the merits of this scheme in detail. It was no doubt intended to satisfy all parties, by offering a basis on which suitable legislation might be engrafted. As a peace measure, it had my approbation from the time it was reported. The non-intervention prin- ciple was clearly observed, as an index from the committee that Congress had no power to legislate on the subject of slavery in the Territories, --- leaving the decrees of Mexico to abide a judicial test. I regret that the plan was not early adopted, with an amendment protecting whatever might be carried as property from the States where such property is recog- nised by law, and also reserving the vacant lands to the United States. The several features of the plan have been discussed with an ability and perseverance never exceeded in Congress. I have not time to dwell on them here, even were I qualified to do so to the advantage of my audience.
I object to the Missouri line because it admits the power of Congress to legislate on slavery, and in this view I deem it unconstitutional ; yet, for the sake of peace, I am willing to accept it. The South is abundantly able to do without favors from any quarter, and even without justice from her abolition tormentors. She has made sacrifices for the Union, and will make them again. She has cotton-fields that furnish more than half in value of all the exports of the Union. Five or six little States, between parallels 30° and 35° north latitude, embracing about 230,000 square miles, control the money-markets of the world. The people of every nation in Europe are clothed by our staple. The South has a monopoly of the production, and she will continue to hold it to the end of time. The prosperity of the North is based on our cotton. Stop her spindles and she at once dwindles. The laboring poor will starve or feed them- selves by pillage. We desire no such catastrophe to our Northern people,-I had almost said friends. We have all a common country,-a great and glorious country,-established in freedom by patriotic ancestors, who fought side by side at Bunker Hill and at Yorktown, at Saratoga and at Eutaw. The North has wronged us, but we love the Union; the North persecutes us, but we cling to the Union ; the North is deluded and excites our compassion. When the clouds of fanaticism shall pass away from the Northern mind-when reason shall resume its healthy action -- we may expect tranquillity. In the mean time let us prepare for the worst. Since this war of aggression commenced on our rights, we have argued, we have remonstrated, we have appealed in every form, to let the bitter cup pass from us. If they will force it to our lips, let us not say a word. Action to the emergency will be our response. I am tired of words. Speeches enough to make a hundred volumes have been let off in and out of Congress on this question. They do very little good. The North is sealed up in its error.
404
APPENDIX.
May it not be worthy of consideration whether the South is not released from her contract of Union by the flagrant breach of that contract on the part of the North ? The South as yet has committed no breach. The North has. Will a proper tribunal hold the South to an engagement which has been violated by her partner ? Courts of law recognise no such doctrine in the common transactions of men. There must be good faith observed by the party seeking to enforce a contract before he will be pro- tected. May not a case in point be made in the Supreme Court of the United States to settle the question ? A Southern man carries his slave to Utah and loses him by desertion or by some process of the territorial courts. In a suit to recover his property, the record will come up to the Supreme Court at Washington, where the validity of the Mexican decrees and the constitutionality of the act of Congress prohibiting slavery in the Territories may be tested after ample argument. Such a case is prac- ticable, and would give repose to the country. If aggrieved by the decision, the South would yield without a murmur, because it would be the regular and final issue to establish, or rather to ascertain, a principle in our Government.
In the present aspect of things, are we without remedy under the Con- stitution ? When we formed a partnership with the North for mutual benefits, the specific power was agreed upon that should govern. All free persons and three-fifths of the slaves were to form the basis of representa- tion in Congress. This is in the bond. The Northern Shylock is whet- ting his knife and preparing his scales for the pound of flesh nearest the heart of the South. Like honest Antonio, we abide the bond. May not some good judge yet arise to award payment in terms which startled the fiendish Jew and caused him to throw down his knife in despair ? The non-slaveholding States have a majority of about fifty in the House of Representatives. In the Senate the two interests are equal. This equilibrium, however, will soon be destroyed by the admission of Cali- fornia into the Union, and then we shall be forever at the mercy of the Free-Soilers. If they press us to the wall, they must answer the conse- quences.
When a young and rising general, Napoleon, dissolved the Council of Five Hundred in France, and took all power into his own hands, there was a beginning, and in fifteen years there was an end. If we dissolve the Council of Three Hundred at Washington, there will also be a begin- ning; but who can imagine the result? Europe bled, as nation fought nation, in the campaigns of Napoleon. Monarchs were exiled and lackeys enthroned; but in America what shall be the sorrows of a people whose republic was shivered by fraternal hands ! From such perils may Heaven speedily deliver us !
Merely a word in conclusion. The Compromise of the Senate has been rejected. It may be that the non-intervention policy of the late President will be sustained by Congress, leaving the people of Utah and New Mexico to follow the example of California and apply at once for admission as States without territorial organization. In such event, of course the South will be excluded by the republican form of Government which will be presented to Congress. Although objecting to the irregularity with which our acquisitions from Mexico have been appropriated, and sincerely con- vinced that the Missouri line, as a partition of territory, is unjust to the South, yet for the sake of a higher good-this glorious Union-let us accept of 36° 30'. Should Congress adjourn without making some adjust-
405
LABOR ESSENTIAL TO HAPPINESS.
ment, we of the South, rising above party, should take counsel together for our own preservation. Of the form of proceeding, and the necessity for action, in the last resort, the next Southern Convention will probably give some outline. The Union is large enough and strong enough for the whole North and for the whole South, and for our posterity in all time to come. We glory in the Union; we desire the Union to last forever. We will defend it at every hazard against foreign enemies. But we have a Constitution which guarantees equality of rights at home,-equality between the North and the South. It is our bond of Union. That CONSTITUTION is our shield. "With it, or upon it," is a Spartan motto, worthy of Southern adoption after the argument shall have been exhausted.
VII .- LABOR ESSENTIAL TO HAPPINESS. (From the Southern Democrat, June 5, 1852.) INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,
Delivered before the Oglethorpe Lyceum, at the Academy, on Tuesday evening, June 1, 1852, by STEPHEN F. MILLER, Esq., President of the Lyceum.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :- To begin is half the difficulty of any enter- prise. Whatever the toil or vexation, some good influence, advantage in some form, will result. Our lives, to be wisely directed, must be in con- stant progression, not to the tomb,-for that is fate itself,-but in acts which shall count to society and cause us to be remembered with satis- faction by our survivors. Our abilities and condition may restrict us to an humble sphere ; our names may never descend to posterity ; the voice of Fame may never echo our exploits; still, we should exert ourselves and aim as nobly as if angels were looking on to pass judgment on our actions. In solitude or before the public eye, we should be guided by the same pervading principle, a desire to promote the happiness of others. This is the true foundation of character. In serving our fellow-men as our means and opportunity may allow, we best promote our own enjoyments. Cold and selfish must be that nature which has no sympathies,-no delight in doing good. The sweetest memories of the heart are those connected with some act of kindness, some effort to promote the welfare of others.
In this desire, and for this object, the Oglethorpe Lyceum had its origin. As an humble member, it has fallen on me to open its public exercises. I shall not occupy your time with apologies of unfitness for the task. This you will perceive soon enough, without being alarmed in advance. I have no stores of learning or flowers of fancy to offer you. The only claim I have to your favor as an audience is, that I am a graduate,-yea, actually a GRADUATE,-not of any college, or even of an academy,-but of a school in which fools learn wisdom, the hard and useful school of Experience. If this institution ever conferred degrecs, I should be nothing less than an LL. D.,-Learning Lessons in Drudgery. The dreams of youthful ambi- tion have fled unrealized, the vigor of life with me has passed. My blood no longer flows in channels of flame. It creeps quietly along, as if in silent gratitude for the privilege. With such preparation, and no other, do I come before you this evening to deliver what, in formal phrase, might be called the Introductory Lecture ; but really it will prove no lecture at all, if rhetoric or science is expected. A few plain thoughts in familiar style will constitute my address.
406
APPENDIX.
I attack, first, a very common opinion, -that labor is a hardship. I once thought it was, in my young, novel-reading days, when I felt and sighed with the heroes of imagination. But, thank Heaven, the error has vanished with the dream. Stern necessity has been my teacher. . I was forced to labor or perish. The consequence is, that a frail body has been preserved, and a new prospect opened to my view. I love to stand side by side with men of action. The very atmosphere they breathe energizes me. I go forth braced for the discharge of duty. We read of triumphs in war, and we envy the hero. History has taken him in charge, and he figures well on paper. We can do better still : our triumphs shall be bloodless, and our history more gratifying in the field of labor. Man is . naturally inclined to take his ease. Hc must be driven from his couch, or he will take a little more sleep, and then a little more slumber, and then a little more folding of the hands to sleep, until, good sleeping soul, the first thing he knows, poverty (of intellect or estate) has come upon him like an armed man, and he is doomcd.
Such is the picture from inspired authority. Do we not see it every day ? Look at yonder moping figurc, with just life enough to crecp from one plaec of idleness to another. He is one of the sleepers: the armed man has him in custody. Rouse, dear captive, and escape. You are drifting into the whirlpool, and must soon go down. Already you are in the circle; one more round and you are lost. Now in the darkness I hold a light and reach out my hand to save you. Strike for the shore ; let me lift you on the rock of Labor. You seize my hand; you are safe. My soul rejoices. Now look on the peril from which you have been delivered. Behold your neighbor, friend, son, brother, dashing round with folded hands in the contracting circles of the maelstrom, taking just a little more slumber on the verge of destruction. Poor slecpers ! I pity you. I onec belonged to your fraternity, and felt the sands give way under my feet as I approached the whirlpool. Long did feeble health plead for a still further ride on the waves, for a little more sleep; it was necessary; the morning air was hurtful, and so was exertion of any kind. Down I floated, until John Foster picked me up. His Essay on the Decision of Character opened my eyes and saved mc.
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