The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-02-28

above, says that Sc all orerSeeys aoho haze er-
perience IN the matter, gioe the decided prefer
eilce to blacks as operatives" Mr. Montgomery,
in his treatise on the Cotton Manufactures of
the United States Compared rith Great Brit
ain," states that "hsere are several cotton fac
tories IN Tennessee, operated entirely by Stare Ia
Dor, there not being tcltite man in the mill bit
the superintendent" The employment of slaves
is common everywhere at the South, in facto-
ries and mining. The author of :" The Future
of the South T" Ode BOWS Review, vol. 10,
page l46) says that 'the blacks are equally
serriceabl ~. factories as in fields"
A writer in the .Mississippiaa says:
"Will not our slaves make tanners? And can
they not, when supplied with materials make peg
and other shoes? Cannot our slaves make ploughs
and harrows &C.? The New England States cannot
make and send us brick and frame houses and there
fore we have learned that our slaves make and
lay bricks and perform the work of house joiners
and carpenters. In fact, we know that in mechani-
cal pursuits, and manufacturing cotton and woolen
goods they are fine laborers"
The statesman, like Gov. Hammond, looking
at the matter from a statesman's point of view,
may recommend, as he does, the employment of
poor whites in factories, as being upon the
whole, although Immediately less cheap, more
| for the general good of the community. Men
are not governed in matters of business by any
such consideration as this. II slave labor is
adapted to factories, as it would seem to be,
| and is cheaper than white labor, as it would
also seem to be, it will be employed, be the
| consequences TO the community ever so dis
astrous. And where it is employed at all, it
| will be employed exclusively, as in the Ten
nessee factories, from the insuperable repug-
nance of whites to labor side by side and on an
| equality with black slaves.
The difficulty in the case is invncible The
property-holders of the South own vigorous
and serviceable body of black laborers, who can
be fed for $40 per annum, and clothed for $40
per annum who can be kept industrious and
preserved from facilitating vices by coercion,
by no means inapt in the simpler arts, natural
ly docile. and, under any tolerable treatment,
% fat and sleek )" such is the terrible, the over
whelming, the irresistible competition, to which
the non Improperly holding three quarters of the
whites at the South are subjected, when they
come into the market with their labor
Ii is not wonderful that they seek escape from
the nightmare which broods over them, and
fly by thousands to the refuge OF the free States
The census of 1850 found Cos, 37I persons liv-
ing in the free States who Were born in the
slave States, while only 2O6,6 3S persons born
in the free States were living in the slave States
The numbers of emigrants from free to slave
States, and from slave to free States, living in
1850, have been carefully collected from Table
CXX, found on the | 10th page of the Com
pendulum Of the Census of 1850. That Table
gives the nativity of the "acliite and free colored
population" without distinguishing the two
classes; but the Sc free colored population - is
too small, and its movement too slight, TO affect
the substantial accuracy of the calculation. On
the 18th page of this Compendium is found
the following statement:
"Thcre are now, 726, 450 persons living in slave
holding States who natives of non slav eholdng
States, and 1892 persons living in
States who are natives of slavcholding States"
This is manifest error, and supposed at
first that there was a transpostiOn of the num-
bers, but, upon calculation, find the true num-
bers to be as given in the text. 1t is to be OBJ
served that the white population of the free
States is double that of the slave States, so that
the per centage of Southern whites moving
North is six times greater than that of Northern
whites moving South.
1t is to be observed also, in reference to what
little emigration there is from the free TO the
slave States, that il results from the fact that
the domestic institutions of the latter do not
encourage the development of mercantile enter
prise, mechanical skill, and general business
capacity, and that the deficiency in those re-
spects is necessarily supplied from abroad. OF
mere labor, there is absolutely no movement
from the free to the slave States
OF the persons who have emigrated from the
border slave States, and who were living in
other States in 1850, the following table will
show the numbers living in free and slave
States, respectively: