The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-09-20

places south of it-with Baltimore, with Nor
folk, or with Charleston-and yet mark the diff
ference! Philadelphia contained in 1850 more
than twice the population of Baltimore, ten
times that of Charleston, and some twenty-five
or thirty times that OF Norfolk Baltimore, as
we have before said, derives half its trade and
prosperity from the Zee States, and owes the
other half to the sparseness of the slave popu-
lation around it. Norfolk and Charleston, there
fore, are the proper places of comparison with
the Northern cities, being in the midst of Sla-
very, having no interpal connection with the
free States like BALTIMORE and New Orleans,
and being as old as the commercial cities of
comparison. They owe it to Slavery, and to
Slavery alone, that their population to-day is
not numbered by hundreds of thousands, and
their wealth by hundreds of millions; and the
amount of their losses by Slavery is the meas
ures of what they may gain by emancipation.
The South has enslaved the negro, but he is
revenged by the unerring laws of political and
social economy, which are the laws of Provi-
dence, in the impoverishment Of the South.
The white man has denied education to the
slave, and Slavery renders general education
among the whites impracticable, and the cul-
tivation of literature among the most favored
classes impossible, from the suppression of that
freedom Of thought, and that uncircumscribed
aspiration for the freedom and welfare of the
human family, which are essential to the nobler
achievements of genius.
1t may be said that the slave is unfit for
freedom. Then let steps Immediately be taken
to fit him for it. Let him be taught to read
and write; let him be stimulated to acquire
property, by investing him with the legal power
to hold it; and. above all, and before all, let his
natural ties Of family, of husband and parent,
be sanctifed by law and religion, so that no
and heartless owner dare sever
them at pleasure. Let the South begin with
these reforms, and it will not be many years
before the negro will be fitted to enjoy that
freedom with which the Creator endowed him,
and of which he cannot be robbed, without in
llicting the foulest wrong and degradation
upon him, and blighting curse upon the So
ciety which infcts it.
The effect of emancipation would be to d.
versify the occupations of the people, which,
where Slavery exists, are too exclusively agri-
cultural. In this way the redundant agricul-
.ural labor would be drawn into the towns and
cities, to pursue the mechanic arts and COM
MERGE; and thus the domestic market for the
products of the soil would be enlarged, while
The redundant agricultural labor would find
other employment. There can be no doubt
hat these natural laws of political economy,
luickened by the spirit of universal Freedom,
would bring about state of prosperity and
in the South which has hitherto been
Towns and cities would spring up,
Is if by the wand of magician, while the
country, now wilderness, would in few years
be dotted over with villages, and chequered
with railroads. bringing the comforts of civil
zation and the holy influences of religion and
education to every mans door.
The position and condition of Virginia Pc
,uliarly adapt her to this great change. Her
lensity of population, in state of freedom,
would call for the existence of large CONNER
;ial and manufacturing cities, where she has
low only Indifferent towns. Her advantages
or commerce, foreign and internal, are of the
irst order. She has several harbors only sur
passed by that of New York, while her numer-
'us rivers and navigable waters penetrate in
Every direction, bringing her into direct COM
with Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
North Carolina, and making comparatively easy
Mississippi by means of canals. Her natural
ABILITIES of internal communication are unri-
Talled. The Northern States are deficient in
hese natural channels of commerce. New
England has scarcely navigable stream, ex-
,ept perhaps in Maine. New York has but one.
which is available for only one hundred and
fifty miles. Pennsylvania has but one, connect
ng her with the Atlantic, and barely touching
Ter frontier; while Virginia, lying on the At
antic, with a noble harbor in sight of it, with
several others on the james and York rivers,
superior in advantages to that of Philadelphia,
8 penetrated by the Chesapeake Bay, by the
ivers above named, by the Rappahannock, and
'ther smaller streams, is bordered by the Po-
omac, and by the Chesapeake and Ohio canal,
which terminates at Alexandria, and is con-
lected with nearly all the navigabe waters of
North Carolina by the Dismal Swamp canal.
The genius of commerce appears to have show
red advantages on Virginia, in order to dem
nstrate to the world how completely they are
brown away on a people who tolerate Slavery.
he same might be said of the mechanic and
arts. Nature has bestowed on
er, with wasteful hand, all the materials and
lements of the arts. She has mines of iron and
oal, of gold and salt, with an unlimited supply
f "water power" to move the machinery of
She has most genial climate
nd fertile soil, with beds of mari and quar-.
les of limestone to supply it with new vigor
Then exhausted. But all these blessings are
TASTED upon community which violates and
ramples on the most sacred rights of human
y. We thank God that it is so. We rejoice
hat it is inexpedient to do wrong-that the
noral law cannot be despised and trampled on
y nations, without running counter to the laws
political economy. G.
SToRMs.-A contemporary gives the following
ccount of Lieut.. Maurys plan for collecting
information, which may enable |
i'm to arrive at a knowledge of the laws of
forms:
at is proposed that the changes of tempera-
ure, the occurrence of storms, the prevalence |
f rains, and the extremity of drouth, shall be |
loosely observed by a corps of volunteer meteor |
lnrists whose nlan of oneratinns shall he q |