The Whig standard. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1843-1844, 1844-04-27
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We should be gladto have SOME one explain
| to us how large amount of our wealth and popu-
lation is to be transferred to Texas without some
| thing like an equivalent loss to those older re-
| glons of the country from which these resources
have been drawn. We have all heard of that
bird that pierces its own breast to feed its young
but it never before occurred to that the n-other
pelican must not grow somewhat emaciated, if
| her brood is to be fattened in that way alone.
| Experiments have been attempted, too, in re-
invigoraling the bodies of old people, by trans
! fusing into them the fresh and healthy vital fluid
of the young-a process soon found, we believe,
to be no help to either party Here, however, is
still wilder proposition-to transfuse from the
only half-filed veins of the old into those OF the
young, with no loss-nay, with benefit to the
former.
Texas offers habitabe surface probably equal
to full one fourth of the Union as now peoped.
To bring it rapidly into settlement and improve
ment, there must then be something like pro-
portionate transfer of capital and population in
other Words the reduction of these, throughout
the present States at large, must approach to
| something like the rate of 25 per cent
Such, however, it is easy to see, will not be
the effect in all quarters alike the depletion will
be but slight from certain quarters of the coun-
try, and it may be almost total from others. The
Northern and Free States will, in general but
send forth thther few casual wanderers or adj
venturers from the ireer track of Westward mi
grafton, now to be left them by the diversion Of
the great stream flowing out of Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia; while the main and
direct drain must be from the Slave States, the
inhabitants of which alone are fitted, by climate,
pursuits and institutions, to the new region SO
that the exhaustion in question must be almost
entirely confined to them, and must operate, of
course, upon only about one-thrd of the Union,
whose entire population will therefore only ex-
coed what Texas will swallow up by about the
ratio which a third bears to fourth 1t is clear,
therefore, that the ebb of population from the
Slave States to unexhausted soil, and climate
far more propitous for the employment of the
African laborer, must be very great, and that the
Slave States generally must be large losers in
the value of the property which migration will
leave them.
One step further, however. The process in
question will act unequally supon the Slave
States themselves, according slave-labor is
now profitable or Improbable amongst them
Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama,
may somewhat vie, in climate and soil, with Tex
as, and will therefore be less nuriousy affected ;
while the employment of servile labor must be
| absolutely annihilated in Delaware, Maryland,
| Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia,
Tennessee, and Kentucky. These contain near
two millions of slaves it is difficult to imagine
how any part of them shonld be kept from leav-
ing them. We make little doubt that the entire
black population will be carried off. Of these,
ne-half may be sold and leave their price behind
them the rest will probably migrate with their
owners. 1t is not difficult to calculate the value
of million of slaves. With them it is safe to
say that full million of the whites will aban-
don their native seats, carrying with them at
least property enough TO purchase and to fit fer
cultivation the lands to which they are to go
We pretend not to estimate the amount of wealth
which will be thus transferred !; but it can hardly
| fail to rise to something like the sum represent
| ed by the slaves removed, not sold.
Of magnitude something like this must be-
to the deserted region, this loss of property, sti
Inulaled as it will be by not only the charm which
| the last ncW-found Hespera, the latest Land of
Promise, has for our people, but by individual and
public embarrassments, by debt and heavy taxa
ton. The spectacle will, we have little doubt,
approach to that bold figure by which the histori-
ans of the day describe the throng that marched
to the Crusades, when it was strikingIy said that
it seemed as if Europe, loosened from it's founda-
tons, was about to fling itself upon Asia. Little
short of that scene will the Atlantic Slave States
| present
! So much for the outward operation. But is
| THIS all What becomes of the value of lands,
when you take away those who cultivate them
1t becomes imaginary or speculative only. More
Than half the lands IF The region in question
must evidently go al once out Of cuAivation
Even what continues to be occupied must great
| ly deprecate, and probably sink to not more than
the Government price of frontier lands, SO as to
attract an influx of Northern cutivators. BY this
| process alone must the South then repair its dc
| population but not then without visiting in turn,
| upon the colder States from which it will draw,
| repetition of the evil which has laid it waste.
Such-supposing what we can in no manner
bring ourselves to suppose-a peaceful occupa-
ton of our worthy obtained acquisition, will be
its benefits to the States said to seek this fatal
boon. Ofthe sugar and cotton lands of Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Alabama, it will probably reduce
the value half and it will annihilale that of
the rest for slave labor altogether.
Nor must we neglect to advert to another Geo.
nomcal effect: it will certainly deprive the Gov
ernment of nearly all revenue from the land sales
If Texas is TO be filled up, and the vast breach of
continuity in Southern population TO be repaired,
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