The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-11-13

education Of her sons and daughters, the great
State of Kentucky has not cent in the treas
ury for the same glorious purpose Our mas
tiers not only wasted the money but they burn
ed the bonds, the evidences of the debt in the
streets of the capital, as if they were cast-otf
cholera clothes bringing disease and death
upon the people, And now, when the friends
of education and liberty have aroused the pub
lie to these infamies and caused the Legislators
to restore the bonds-and when the Democrat
c Convention, to their eternal honor have put
it in the Constitution that the sinking fund shall
be held sacred for their payment-we find
contest going on between the friends of educa-
ton and a slayeholding Governor, whether these
beneficent ends shall be accomplished or not
In the free States the children of the rich and
the poor are educated in the same school and the
division Of farms and the density of the popu-
lation insure always sufficient number OF
scholars to bring down the cost of education to
the most economical rate. But here we not
only lack common school fund to Tighten in
diyldual expense, but the cooperation and JOINT
means of the rich and the labOrers.
We are not only frequently prevented from
making school at all, on account of the large
farms and shareholders, but when the slave
holders send their children to county acade-
mics or distant cities, as they do in nine cases
Of ten, the expense is increased to those who
remain. And the grand result is, that whilst
in the free States nearly the whole mass OF
native-bOrn citizens are educated, here, in all
the slave States the cost of education is about
three times as great as in the free States, and
in all the slave States of the Union, more than
one half of all the laborers, white and black
are unable to read and write
Here the educated are drones in society,
consuming without producing, whilst the great
mass of laborers are deprived of the aids Of
letters and science in production. Of course
we fail in manufactures; and without manufac-
lures, commerce also fails Thus, whilst the
South takes hold of three and one half millions
of slaves as producers, only equal to one and
three-quarters millions of men-the North, far
wiser lays hold on the winds, the waters, and
chemistry, and magnetism, and the powers Of
science. and enslayes them | estimate the
power of machinery in the free States to be
equal to be labor of forty millions of men.*
The free States, then, have" the long end of the
haadspike,D and hold US in lasting dependence,
rs simple agriculmrists-a third-rate stage of
civilization We stand as the tribes of Asia
t'f~77 ti~'t''''1' ''Grrs ago; and many Of "nr
'us.s5 -, 4 4, :" s7yT -, D.
best way of preserving lands from theiruin of
slave cultivation
These disadvantages of slavery are common
to the whole people. What we the nOn-slave-
holders lose, is not gained by the masters
for, by directing the whole power of the State
to agriculture, they tend to glut all those mar
kets where our mules, horses cattle, sheep,
hogs, hemp and tobacco go-so that the tend
ency Of prices is always towards the lowest
profit above the cost of production, and frequent
ly the sales are under the cost, and the gains
of many years lost in one unfortunate market
These arguments are addressed alike to all
but stand here rs the advocate of the non-slave-
holders Of the country and them | would
reach in manner more practical and of less |
generalization
propose to show to them how it is that the |
million of citizens have been expelled from the |
soil by inevitable and memorable laws In the |
free States, "A man upon fifty, eighty, and one
hundred acres, (which last perhaps is the aver
age of all the farms in all the free States, can
raise educate, and settle in life, large family |
Why? because he has his manufacturer and |
set down alongside of him. He sells |
nothing is lost; "many mickles
make a mucklc" says the Scottish maxim
But here in the slave States, in consequence |
Ofall our markets being distant markets, Charles
ton, New Orleans, Cincinnati, or New York,
and through them the great world, we lose all
the "odds and ends y which are saved in the
free States But the main loss is in the main
articles of production, and return consumption
For instance, the citizen of Fayette sends a
pound of beef to the city of New York there
it is sold for six cents but three cents comes
~ Pro tuttn no aJal
are therefore three cents u pound. But the
farmer living alongside of New York sells
also for six cents; but that is the nett profit |
az he has no outlay in going to market He
sells, therefore, for twice as much as we. Of
course, if he can live upon one hundred we
must have two hundred acres.
Again the articles which he gets in ex-
change cost him near one hundred per cent.
less than us or One-half of our income is lost
in consequence of the distance of our articles
of consumption. IT, then, the free farmer can
live upon one hundred acres, we must have four
hundred Any one can we'll see, then, that
if we must have four times Us much land to
live here, Ms there, we must of necessity emf
CRATE. But home market can afford manures;
and high price and personal supervision en-
courage high farming" and the lands are
continually improving Freedom gives educa-
ton, education gives science in cultivation, and
increased product-mOre leisure-more SCI
cnce-and more population. But in the slave
States the skinning system" prevails. Large
farms are necessary, in consequence of distance
of markets. Large farms cannot undergo the
manurng system. The virgin soil of centuries,
exhausted in deposite, is worn out in slOvenly,
ignorant cultivation. In Virginia and Mary
land, and North Carolina, were good plains
and fertile slopes, but slaves have turned them
into harrenness. The whites emigrated, drove
out the wild beasts and Indians cleared the
forest But once more the tide of slaves fol-
lows on; the result is the same Barrenness
follows in the wake of the slave. The broom
sedge the mullen, and the brier, pursue ever
in their footsteps Are not those who have
desolated Judea and Asia Minor, and turned
her cities and fertile wales into the abodes of
wild beasts, where I" the fox looks out at the
window and the long grass grows upon the
wallsln as criminal in the eyes of Natures
God as they who stoned the prophets, and re-
jccted Him who taught justice, mercy, and
love
In the midst of these depressing causes tlc
laborer finds yet greater oppression-the direct
competition Of capital In the free States, when
the capitalist has ono OF two hundred acres,
he wants no more land. He says to his neigh
Dor, who is educated in the common school, in
dustrious and moral, have thousand or FIVE
thousand dollars take it and invest it in man.
uiactures or commerce divide portion Of the
profits with yourself for your personal supervi-
sion, and the other portion with me for my CAPT
tai. Thus capital and labor are friends, and build
up each other; and the whole mass of society
is moving up TO Independence and wealth. But
here the slaveholding capitalist is the worst en-
envy of the laborer lie cannot invest his
money in machinery or commerce he gives no
employment to white labor lie comes then
into the land market where only the whites
can hope to live, and no invests his money at
no matter what price The consequence is,