Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1856-10-04

FALLAcIes ExPosRD.-A number of the most
eminent citizens of New York of the mercantile
and legal professions, having invited Samuel b.
Rnggles, Esq, to expose some of the fallacies of
Speaker Banks in his Merchants Exchange
apeech,-that gentleman responds in letter to
the Commercial Advertiser, full of such argu-
ments as these
The Speaker asserts that of the 600 millions
produced by agriculture, the fifteen slave States
contribute but 10 per cent. How this assertion
is proved does not appear, but DC true II docs
not show the slave States TO fall short of their
Just proportir~ for they have less than forty per
cent. of the to- population and only Twenty-Five
ucr cent Of tbs white population? Why then
should their agriculture be required TO produce
even forty-five per cent:
But the truth of your statement must DC more
than doubtful. The sun Of the South, so uniav-
orablc to white labor as to make black popn-
lation necessary, is peculiarly favorable to agri-
cultural development. Time iswanting to COM
Dute the comparative product even of cereals-but
If flocLs and herds form part of nations wealth,
and mankind has held them to be things ofvalue
since the days Of abraham, then the South i'll
this important element very far exceeds the
North.
The census show nine millions ofcattle stand
ing south of the Potomac, belonging to six mil
lions of white men, and only eight millions north
Of it belonging to fourteen millions of whites
and what statesman, entitled for an instant to
the epithet, does not perceive the rapid increase
of the corn? 1t may he true, as the speaker
ventures to assert, that the men of the South
abandon agriculture in quest of Office, but the
official statistical tables do not show it
But again, Mr.. Banks was addressing and af-
fecting to instruct a body of merchants COM
mercial community from the steps of their own
ESchangc-why ON such an occasion and with
4 10, ~ tn 81. fl,f.
Epective proportions which the agriculture Of
the South and of the North, contributed to the
commerce that whitened the seas? Did lie not
know that of the 1000 millions produced by
agriculture, at least 200 millions arc consumed
on the spot and never reach the sea at all? For
how much Of the hundreds Of millions estima-
ted as the value of the hay, and cattle, andpoul-
try. and milk, and eggs, which help to swell
the aggregate, is carried at all in the vessels Of
the merchant princes? How much even of the
three hundred millions of Indian corn goes to
scar
And above all, does not Mr.. Banks know. and
do not the New York merchants know, that Of
every 100 millions of Southern cotton, at lcat 90
go to sea, and IA out every 90 millions of South
ern tobacco? While Of the total product of
Northern agriculture, estimated by Mr.. Banks
At $50 millions less than 40 millions are export.
ed either to foreign countries or coastwise?
Docs he not see, and do not all Of us, wheth-
er merchant, banker, landowner or mechanic,
see and feel that the agriculture Of the South
thus disparaged furnishes the very foundation
Of our commercial posperitvY And can this
great trading, navigating city be induced by
ssny pompous and idle parade of imaginary
thousands Of millions, to dissolve their fraternal
and national connection with the whole magnifi-
cent domain spread out South CT the Potomac
1.-The very Lsaies Of the American republic, and
aid Mr.. Banks and his associates in excluding
that grand division ofthe Union from all partic-
patton in honors and cnoiuments of the govern
mont