The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-06-09

wealth. Even as it is, the South teens with
wealth and enjoyment.
IdIeness is catching The slave sees his
master idle, and he thinks him happy in his
idleness Freedom means, with him. idleness,
and his heaven is place where no taskmaster
bids him work He thinks with Dogenes, that
the highest happiness consists
"In baskng, unhindered, in the SUM-
And, permit me to add the significant fact
that the Negroes labor is almost all merchan-
disc, and exported. Very little of it stays about
home, to multiply upon itself, and to create
comforts for man and beast. How different
with us! The greater part of our labor re-
mains with us. 1t embellishes our cities, it
creates public improvements. The slaves labor
consists principally, Of "moueabie" property.
Much of ours sinks into the "immoueabie"
Follow kind friends, this idea out, and it will
solve, in its dccumutdttons, many political and
social problem may not follow it as such a
discussion might lead me into fields which are
forbidden fruit here Much Of our accumula-
ted wealth consists in those things which as
SCISSORS are not very apt to reach and which
short-sighted political economists overlook as
value lost. | cannot calculate in dollars and
cents, how much is annually laid up in Ohio,
in family comforts but this ! do know, that
the rant of such accumuations creates an air
OF desolateness about Southern farms.
IT. therefore, the present physical and mental
| condition of the negro in America seems in any
wise to contradict the laws Of migration, which
| have heretofore maintained, it springs FROM
extraneous and superadded causes, and not
from natural results.
We Northerners hardly ever approach this
subject with the right kind Of feelings. We
are ever ready with odious comparisons be-
tween ourselves and the Southern people and
what is most astonishing to me, is the fact that
those who espouse the Negroes cause are the
ones who most depreciate the wealth of the
South and, through it, the negros productive
ness Our rapid increase of population COM
pared with that of the South, as well as the
thrifty condition of our homes, are paraded,
with a peculiar self-complacency, alongside of
commercial and manufacturing statistics, all
intended to prove our superiority, and that of
our white faces, our climate, and freer institu-
| TONS
Are we not giving ourselves up to few de-
lusions upon this subject
The Southern States had in 1890,
white population of 1872, O32
In 1910, they had -2942,l37
The New England States had, in
1890 992, ISl
In 1910 = 2,2l2l65
This is an increase of whites in the South of
over $50 per cent, while in New England it
don't come up to that ratio. Both portions of
the Union were alike affected by immigration
and emigration. The late census shows that
1886 600 of the white population Of Virginia,
about % per cent have found homes outside
of it, and that an equal per centage has left
! Vermont. North Carolina has lost still more
it lost 81 per cent. of its native population.
The South has not fallen behind New Eng
land in population, its natural increase is great
err The South has fallen behind the Middle
States of the Union, and especially the Western,
on account of the emigration just referred to
and much of our increase must be attributed to
immigration.
A very close calculator in the American al
manac estimates the immigration to the Uni
ted States to have been, in the ten years pre-