Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-07-21
The Economy of Slavery.
BY LYDIA MARIA CHILD.

On the Battery, the other day, | met an
acquaintance from New England. He was
on his way from Virginia, where he had been
making contracts for wood at a dollar an
acre. In the true spirit of Yankee enter
prise, he buys up the produce of waste lands,
fells the trees, ships them to New York and
Boston, and finds the trade profitable.
A large emigration of substantial farmers
from Orange, Duchess, and Columbia coun
ties in this Stale, have, within a few year
emigrated to the counties of london, Cu!pe
per and Fairfax, In Virginia. They bough
up the worn out plantations for a mere song
and by judicious application of free labor,
they are "~redeeming the waste places, and
making the wilderness blossom as the rose.'
A traveller recently told me that the farms
cultivated by Quakers who employed no
slaves, formed such a striking contrast to the
other portions of Virginia, that they seemed
almost like GASES in the desert.
What a lesson this teaches concerning the
comparative effect Of slave labor and free la
Dor, on the prosperity of the State. 1t seems
strange, indeed, that enlightened self-interest
does not Danish the accused system from the
world for economists ought TO see that " it
is worse than a crime, it is a blunder," as
Napoleon once said of some error in slate
policy-butt the fact is, self-interest never can
be very much enlightened. All true vision
derives its clearness from the heart.
If ever this truth were legibly written on
the face of earth, it is inscribed on Virginia.
No State in the Union has superior advanta-
ges. Look at its spacious bays, its broad
and beautiful rivers, lraversing the country in
every direction its majestic forests, its grand
and picturesque mountains, its lovely and fer
tile valleys, and the abundance of its mineral
wealth. Words could hardly be found en-
thusiastic enough 10 express the admiration
of Europeans, who first visited this magni6-
cent region. Some say her name was given
g because the country seemed to retain the
virgin plenty and purity of the first creation,
and the people their primitive innocency of
life and manners" Wallar describes il
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 I'M
curst,
To show how all things were created FIRST"
Alas, that the shores of that beautiful State
should become the Guinea coast of the New
World our central station of slavery and
the slave tTdue vi lHe tl6CtS pIOuuCtus we
need not question abolitionists, for we learn
from the lips of her own sons. John Ran
dolph said, years ago, that he expected soon
TO see the slaves OF Virginia advertising for
runaway masters" Washington, in a letter
to Sir John Sinclair, describes the land in the
vicinity of Mount Vernon, as exhausted and
miserable. He alludes 10 the fact, that the
price of land in Pennsylvania and the free
States, then averaged more than twict as
much as land in Virginia; "because," says
he, - there are in Pennsylvania laws for the
gradual abolition of slavery, and because for
eign cmigrants are more inclined to settle in
free States"
Mr.. Curtis says, "Of the multitude of for
%eirners who daily seek an asylum and home
in the empire of liberty, how many turn their
steps to the region of the slave? None
There is a malaria in the atmosphere of those
regions, which the new conner shuns, as be-
ing delelerious TO his views and habits. See
the wide-spreading ruin, which the avarice
of our ancestral government has produced in
the South, as Witnessed in the sparse popula-
ton of freemen, deserted habitations and fields
without culture. Strange to tell, even the
wolf, driven back long since by the approach
of man, now returns, after the lapse OF a hun
dred years, to howl over the desolations of
slavery" .
The a~llGsjon to the wolf is no figure Of