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

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equally beneficial to city and country. The
elements of urban wealth and prosperity are
the arts, commerce, and trade: and these
can only flourish where the intellect and the
physical energies of the whole community are
stimulated by the highest possible hopes OF
honor and recompense. If the mind is fet-
tered by ignorance and superstition, or cir
cumscribed in its sphere of action by unwise
laws, there can be little progress made in a
knowledge of Nature, and the art of applying
her laws to the uses of man. If the physical
energies are cramped by Slavery, and deprived
of the stimulant afforded by the free enjoyment
of the fruit OF ones tolls, there can be nothing
like skill displayed in mechanical labor; for
the perfection of skill implies the utmost effort
of the mind in guiding the hand, which can
only be looked for where the mind is both cul-
tiyated by education and stimulated by the
hope of reward. The inferior condition of the
arts where republican slavery or monarchical
despotism prevails is therefore a necessary re-
suit of the ignorance, constraint, and injustice,
to which the laboring masses are subjected.
Bat the country, no less than the city, is
cursed by the presence of Slavery, since there
can be no prosperous towns and cities, and
consequently no convenient markets for the
products of the soil, where Slavery prevails
and, besides, even agricultural labor is far bet
ter performed by intelligent freemen, stimula-
ted by the hope of reward, than by ignorant
slaves who are only moved by the fear of the
lash.
Our present purpose, however, is to illustrate
the effects Of Slavery upon the cities of the
South, and to show what a glorious future they
have in store, when the country which sur
rounds them is relieved from the curse of Sla-
very.
1t is to be observed that the populousness of
Southern cities bears no proportion to that of
the Southern country, if we take the free States
of the North as the criterion in this particular.
Thus, the population of the slaveholdng States
has an average density Of l.35 to the square
mile; the free States 2i.9l, or not quite double;
while the cities aud towns of the South are only
about one fourth as populous as those of the
North. The Northern cities and towns having
10000 inhabitants aud upwards, in 1850, con-
tanned an aggregate population of 2,l73, l47.
Those of the South having 10000 and upwards
amount in the aggregate, including Washing
ton, to 627 ,50S, or only little more than one
fourth the Northern aggregate 1t would be q
tedious task to enumerate the population of
smaller places, but it is we'll known that they
are in fourfold ratio more numerous in the
free than the slave States
These facts show four.fold greater urban
population in the free than in the slave States
but, because the territorial extent of the free
States is less than that of those which main
tain Slavery, the urban population to the square
mile in the former is in still greater proper
ton than that OF the latter; and hence it fol-
lows that Northern farmers have four fold adj
vantages over those of the South, for the sale
of the necessarics of life. They enjoy home
markets for whatever the soil will produce.
while Southern farmers have to pay out large
proportion of the value Of their products in
order to send them to distant markets. The
Northern cities not only furnish domestic mar
kets for the farmers, but their wealth enables
them to build railroads in a four fold proper
ton, thereby making access to market, whether
near or remote, cheaper in the same degree
1t is further to be observed of Southern cities,
that the largest of them lie Immediately on the
Northern border, where the slave population is
inconsiderable, and where labor is chiefly per-
formed by freemen. Their position also ena-
ables them to derive large part of their trade
directly from the adjacent free States This is
the case with Baltimore, Wheeling, Louisville,
and st Louis, which are as much Northern as
Southern in their characteristics. Take their
population from that of the Southern cities. and
the aggregate is reduced to half the number
stated above. New Orleans, in like manner.
draws half its trade from the free States. not
by its commercial enterprise, but in spite of
the absence of that quality, by the merely phys
zeal necessity under which the Western people
lie, of floating their heavy products down the
Mississippi to its mouth. But even this natu-
raj advantage is about to be forfeited by the
inaptitude of slaveholdng communities for
commerce, when brought into competition with
the wealth and energy Of the free North The
statistics of Western commerce show that a
large proportion of Western produce, which
has heretofore been sent to New Orleans, is
now being sent to New York, by means of the
canals and railroads which unite the
waters of the Mississippi with those of the North
ern Lakes.
The cities of the South have eminent ad
vantages for foreign commerce, and yet the
presence of Slavery renders them dependent
upon the North. They necessarily, from their
position, export all the cotton, tobacco, sugar,
and rice, amounting generally to two-thrds of
the national exports, and yet they import next
to nothing. OF above three hundred millions
of imports made during the fiscal year ending
on the lst of July, 1854, the South imported
only about twenty-five millions, or one twelfth.
This fact alone should open the eyes of South
ern merchants, and of all who feel an interest
in the growth of Southern cities. to the enor
nous pecuniary disadvantages of Slavery. If
the people of the South would look these facts
III the face, it is impossible that they could
longer persist in upbolding a system which
robs them of the richest endowments of Prov.
idence.
New Y DIRK, it may be allowed, from her po-
Sinon, from her unrivalled harbor, and her
healthy location, from natural advantages and
ARTIFICIAL advantages already achieved, in her
canals and railroads, and her immense aeon.
mutation of wealth and population, has taken
the start OF the majestic world" and there
can be no doubt that she will always retain her
superiority, and become the first city in the