Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1848-06-08
10 be C0ntinued.)
TIE ECONOMY OF SLAVERY.
BY LYDIA MARIA CHILD.


On THE Battery, the other day, met an ac-
quaintance from New England. He was on his
way from Virginia, where he had been making
contracts for wood at dollar an acre In the true
spirit Of Yankee enterprise, he buys up the pre-
duce Of waste lands, fells the trees, ships them
to New York and Boston, and finds the trade
profitable.
A large number of substantial farmers from
Orange, Duchess, and Columbia counties in this
State, have, within few years, emigratcd to the
counties of London, Cul pepper and Fairfax, in
Virginia. They bought up the WORKOUT planta-
tons for mere song, and, by judcious applca-
ton Of lree-labor, they are "redeeming the waste
places, aud making the wilderness blossom as
the rose" A traveller recently told me that the
farms cultivated by Quakers, who employ no
slaves, formed such Il striking contrast to other
portions Of Virginia that they seemed almost like
GASES in the desert
What lesson this teaches concerning the
comparative effect of slave labor and free labor,
on the prosperity Of a State 1t seems strange,
indeed, that enlightened selfinterests does not
Danish the accused system from the world; for
economists ought to see that it sis worse than
crime it is a bunder,' as Napoleon once said
VI oIiiIC ClIOI III SldlC pOllCy Oul Tie ldCl Is,
sell-interest never can be very much enlightened
All true vision derives its clearness from the
heart
If ever this truth was legibly written on the
face Of the earth, it is inscribed on Virginia.
No State in the Union has superior advantages
Look at its spacious bays, its broad and beauti-
full rivers, traversing the country in every d.
rection, its majestic forests, its grand and pic
turesque mountains, its lovely and fertile valleys,
and the abundance Of its mineral wealth. Words
could hardly be found enthusiastic enough to
express the admiration Of Europeans who first
visited this magnificent region. Some say her
name was given "because the country seems to
retain the virgin plenty and purity of the first
creation, and the primitive nnocency of life and
manners"
Walter describes it thus;
$50 sweet the air, so moderate the cline,
None sickly lives or dies before his time
Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst,
To show how all things were created first"
Alas, that the shores of that beautiful State
should be the Guinea coast of the New World!
our central place of slavery and the slave-trade.
Ofthe effects produced, we need not question
abolitionists, for we learn from tie lips of her
own sons. John Randolph said, years ago that
he expected soon to see the slaves of Virginia
advertising for runaway masters" Washington,
in letter to Sir John Sinclair, describes the
land in the neighborhood of Mount Vernon, as
exhausted aud miserable. lie alludes to the
fact, that the price of lands in Pennsylvania and
the free States, then averaged more than twice
as much as land in Virginia; because" says
he, "there are in Pennsylvania laws for the grad
ual abolition of slavery and because foreign en-
igrants are more inclined to settle in tree States"
Mr. Gusts says, "Of the multitude of foreign
ers who daily seek an asylum and home in the
empire Of liberty, how many turn their s.eps to
the region of the Slave? None. There is ma
larla in the atmosphere of those regions, which
the new conner shuns, as being deeterious to
his views and habits See the wide-spreading
ruin, which the avarice of onr ancestral govern
ment has produced IN the South, as witnessed in
sparse population Of freemem, deserted habta.
tons and fields without culture. Strange to tell,
even the wolf driven back long since by the APP
proach of man, now returns, after the lapse of
hundred years, to howl over the desolation of
slavery