The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

fiteraturt.

Letters from the Slave States. By James
Stirling. London : J. W. Parker and Son.
Mn. STIRLING in his excellent letters has com-
pressed into a small space a considerable
amount of valuable information, interspersed
with reflections which display candour, kind-
ness, and sagacity. The question of slavery of
course receives the greatest share of his atten-
tion, but the general subjects of democracy,
the suffrage, and the characteristics of Ameri-
can society, are each handled in turn with
sense and shrewdness.
His remarks upon slavery naturally range
themselves under the three heads of material,
religious, and political. Under the first he
treats of the comparative value of labour and
land in the Northern and Southern States,
and the probable effects of emancipation upon
American commerce. His views aro broad
and generous :
One thing seems clear to me : the time for a wholesale
deportation of the negro population has gone by. You
cannot transport a people four million strong. The
futility of such an idea is clearly proved by the ludicrously
inadequate efforts of the "American Colonisation Society.
Between 18.20 and 186, inclusive, that society sent to
Liberia 9,5(4 persons. In the same period the increase
of the slave population of the Union (supposing the
average rate to have continued during the last six years)
has been 1,999,527; so that Liberia has only absorbed the
odd thousands, leaving an increase of nearly two millions
to be disposed of. Even if practicable, colonisation
would only be justifiable with the full consent of the
negroes. They were brought hither against their will, and
should not be ser.t hence but of their own good pleasure.
Undoubtedly they have a right to be heard ill the matter.
Now, with rare exceptions, I believe negroes dislike going
to Liberia. Slaves themselves have Old me so. They
have been brought up among whites; they are accustomed
to lean on the superior race, and in many cases have a
strong attachment to them. They love the country, too,
where they were born and bred, and which contains all
their associations and old memories. For the negro,
therefore, colonisation is but a name for banishment.

•
• • • •
The time, too, for any general scheme of emancipation
and remuneration of the slaveowner is past and gone. The
interests at stake are too vast and various, opinions are too
conflicting, and feelings are too hostile, to afford the slightest
chance of combined national action for slave emancipa-
tion. The present money cost of slaves is, of itself, au
insurmountable difficulty. Major Beard, the great slave
auctioneer of New Orleans (a most competent authority),
estimates the present average value of the slaves of the
United States at 700 dollars each. Now, 4,000,000 slaves
at 700 dollars, or 1501., amounts to 800,000,0001.: equal to
three-fourths of the national debt of Great Britain : a sum
which assuredly will not be forthcoming for any scheme of
negro emancipaticn. It is not by legislative or political,
still less by philanthropic action, that this plague can be
stayed. If slavery is to cease, it must be through econo-
mical influences. The interests of the slaveowner must
free the slave, if he is to be freed at all.

* * • • •
The average value of an acre of land in the Free States
(exclusive of California) is 20.84 dollars; in the five
frontier Slave States, containing much of the most fertile
land in the Union, with easy access to the best markets,
the average value is only 12.4 V dollars. It cannot certainly
be thought extravagant to presume that a successful sub-
stitution of free for slave labour would add at least five
dollars to the value of the acre. Now, these five States
contain 58,425,223 acres, which, at five dollars, would
amount to 29:.,220,115 dollars. The direct results, then,
of a judicious system of self emancipation to those five
States may be set down as equal to an increase of half a
million of labourers, and an addition of nearly 300 millions
of dollars to the value of land.

He repeatedly deprecates the recommenda-
tion of European nostrums, observing that
although political economy can teach us clearly
enough what would be the results of emanci-
pation, if successful, it is to the national
experience alone that we must look for the
means of making it so. This is wise and can-
did. Abstinence from meddling with the
affairs of other nations does not involve the
abandonment of great principles; nor is the
maintenance of these principles promoted by
a constant and irritating demand for their
immediate adoption.
Religiously, Mr. Stirling takes up a position
less tenable perhaps than his previous ones.
He thinks that slavery is not condemned by
the New Testament, and that the abolitionists
would do well to abandon the scriptural argu-
ment. But may wo not say that upon this, as
upon other great questions, an example was
intended to be set of the manner in which all
reformations should be accomplished? At the
first origin of Christianity, its Divine author
might easily have disposed the hearts of men
to accept r” its doetpaell iit t 4011; west literal