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قراءة كتاب Address to the Non-Slaveholders of the South on the Social and Political Evils of Slavery

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Address to the Non-Slaveholders of the South
on the Social and Political Evils of Slavery

Address to the Non-Slaveholders of the South on the Social and Political Evils of Slavery

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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Of these, there are in the free States, 432,173 " " slave States, 35,580

Ohio alone has 51,812 such scholars,—more than are to be found in the 13 slave States! Her neighbor Kentucky has 429!! Let us compare in this particular the largest and the smallest State in the Union.

Virginia has scholars at public charge 9,791
Rhode Island 10,912 [5]

[5] See American Almanac for 1842, page 226.

But we have some official confessions, which give a still more deplorable account of Southern ignorance. In 1837, Governor Clarke, in his message to the Kentucky Legislature, remarked, "By the computation of those most familiar with the subject, one third of the adult population of the state are unable to write their names."

Governor Campbell reported to the Virginia Legislature, that from the returns of 98 clerks, it appeared that of 4614 applications for marriage licenses in 1837, no less than 1047 were made by men unable to write.

These details will enable you to estimate the impudence of the following plea in behalf of slavery:

"It is by the existence of slavery, exempting so large a portion of our citizens from the necessity of bodily labor, that we have leisure for intellectual pursuits, and the means of attaining a liberal education."—Chancellor Harper of South Carolina on Slavery.Southern Literary Messenger, Oct. 1838.

Whatever may be the leisure enjoyed by the slaveholders, they are careful not to afford the means of literary improvement to their fellow-citizens who are too poor to possess slaves, and who are, by their very ignorance, rendered more fit instruments for doing the will, and guarding the human property of the wealthier class.

III. INDUSTRY AND ENTERPRISE.

In a community so unenlightened as yours, it is a matter of course, that the arts and sciences must languish, and the industry and enterprise of the country be oppressed by a general torpor. Hence multitudes will be without regular and profitable employment, and be condemned to poverty and numberless privations. The very advertisements in your newspapers show that, for a vast proportion of the comforts and conveniences of life, you are dependent on Northern manufacturers and mechanics. You both know and feel that slavery has rendered labor disgraceful among you; and where this is the case, industry is necessarily discouraged. The great staple of the South is cotton; and we have no desire to undervalue its importance. It, is however, worthy of remark, that its cultivation affords a livelihood to only a small proportion of the free inhabitants; and scarcely to any of those we are now addressing. Cotton is the product of slave labor, and its profits at home are confined almost exclusively to the slaveholders. Yet on account of this article, we hear frequent vaunts of the agricultural riches of the South. With the exception of cotton, it is difficult to distinguish your agricultural products arising from slaves, and from free labor. But admitting, what we know is not the fact, that all the other productions of the soil are raised exclusively by free labor, we learn from the census, that the agricultural products of the North exceed those of the South, cotton excepted, $226,219,714. Here then we have an appalling proof of the paralyzing influence of slavery on the industry of the whites.

In every community a large portion of the inhabitants are debarred from drawing their maintenance directly from the cultivation of the earth. Other and lucrative employments are reserved for them. If the slaveholders chiefly engross the soil, let us see how you are compensated by the encouragement afforded to mechanical skill and industry.

In 1839 the Secretary of the Treasury reported to Congress, that the tonnage of vessels built in the United States was 120,988
Built in the slave States and Territories 23,600

Or less than one-fifth of the whole! But the difference is still more striking, when we take into consideration the comparative value of the shipping built in the two regions:

In the free States the value is $6,311,805
In the slave do. 704,291 [6]

[6] See American Almanac for 1843, page 153.

It would be tedious and unprofitable to compare the results of the different branches of manufacture carried on at the North and the South. It is sufficient to state that, according to the census, the value of the manufactures

In the free States are $334,139,690
In the slave State 83,935,742

Having already compared Ohio and Kentucky in reference to population and education, we will pursue the comparison as to agricultural and mechanical industry. On account of contiguity, and similarity of extent, soil and climate, no two States can perhaps be so aptly contrasted for the purpose of illustrating the influence of slavery. It should also be borne in mind that Kentucky can scarcely be called a cotton State, having in 1840 raised only 607,456 lbs. of that article. Hence the deficiency of agriculture and other products in Kentucky arises, not from a peculiar species of cultivation, but solely from the withering effects of slavery.

  Ohio. Kentucky.
Wool, 3,685,315 lbs. 1,786,842
Wheat, 16,571,661 bushels 4,803,152
Hay, 1,022,037 tons 88,306
Fulling mills, 205 5

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