Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-01-03
From the N. Y. Tribune.
VIRGINIA AND VERMONT.


! While we desire to confne our structures ON Ilu.
man Slavery mainly to its aggressive aspects and
TO those phases of its existence and influence
which bring it into collision with the rights and
interests Of Free Labof, Se are continually met
with the assumption that our opposition to Slavery
and its Extension is founded in hostility or i'll will
toward the Southern States. "War upon the
South" hostility to the rights of the SOUTH" de
termination to ruin the South" are among the
phrases by which our course is misrepresented;
and there sensible and otherwise intelligent
persons who innoccntly ask why we should be so
inimieal to the prosperity and welfare Of the
South
! Is it in vain that we pile fact upon fact. proof
on proof, showing that Slavery is q blight aud
curse TO the States which cherish itP These facts
are mutitudinous the leaves Of the forest; con-
elusive the demonstrations OF geometry. No
| body attempts to refute them, but the champions
of Slavery Extension seem determined to persist
in ignoring them. Let it be understood, then,
once for all. tnat do not hate the South, war on
the South nor eek 10 ruin the South. in resisting
the Extension Of Slavery. We most earnestly be-
| lieve Human Bondage curse to the South, and to
all whom it Affects but we do not labor for ts
overthrow otherwise than through the conviction
! of the South of it's injustice and mischief Its
Extension into new Territories determnedly
resist not by any from i'll will to the South,
but under the impulse of good will to all mankind.
We believe the establishment OF slavery in Kan
sas or any ether Western Territory would proloDg
/
ing the market and increasing the price of Slaves,
and thereby increasing the profits of savebreeding
and the consequent Indictment thereto. Those
who urge that Slavery would not go into Kansas
! if permitted willuy shut their eyes to the fact
that it has qone into Missouri lying e. rcty the
same latitude, and is strongest in that north
western angle of said State, which was covertly
filched from what is now Kan s, within the last
twenty years. Even il the gr, with of Hemp, Corn
and Tobacco were not so profitable in Eastern
L ha thn Ia MT
slaves for more Southern consumption would iaev.
itably prove as lucrative there as in Virginia and
Maryland, which lie in corresponding lattudes,
and whose chief staple export to-day consists OF
negro bondmen destined tor the plantations OF
Louisiana and Mississippi, which could he sup
piled more conveniently and cheaply from Kansas
than from their present breedingpac this side of
| the Allegh enies.
Whenever we draw parallel between Northern,
and Southern production, industry, thrift, wealth,
the few who seek to parry the facts at all complain
that the instances unfairly selected-that the
commercial ascendancy of the North, with the
profits and facilities thence accruing, accounts foy
the striking preponderance of the North. In vain
we insist that Slavery is the cause ef fhis very
commercial ascendancy-that Norfolk and keh-
mond and Charleston might have been to this
country what Boston, New York and Philadelphia
now are, had not Slavery spread its pail over and
paraly yzed the energies of the South. We propose,
therefore, to draw parael-or, rather, to cite one
sermon by the Rev. Samuel Day of Bellows Falls.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Virginia and Vermon,--the
Oldest and largest of the Slave States and one of
the Youngest and smallest of the Eastern Free
States. Surely, no one can candidly urge that the
basis of this comparison IS not rs favorable can
be to Slavery.
Virginia was ,hs FIRST English Colony on this
Continent. location carefully selected the
most favorable ON the Continent, which il probably
was. In mildness of climate, fertility of soil,
ah
value of minerals, harbors, navigable rivers and
water power, she has superior the globe
She has been two hundred and fifty years settled;
with the Atlantic and the glorious Chesapeake
| Bay washing her eastern borders, and the beaut-
full Ohio on the West; her spacious territory prof.
ferng the largest variety of natural RESOURCES
She was ever the foremost Colony, and for years
the most populous and wealthy State of our
Union. Beside her own chief cities, remarkably
favored by nature, the Federal Metropolis Ia
located within her original limits, and four
of the first FIVE Presidents chosen from
among her sons. She has rarely been
without at least one voice in the Cabinet, and tho
Federal Treasury has been fairly empted upon
her sons. But for the influence of Slavery, Vir-
ginia would inevitably have been at this moment
the most populous and powerful of the States, with
I the most varied industry and the ampest CONF
merce, her sails whitening every sea and her min
j., erals and manufactures finding markets in every
r quarter oc the globe;
IS port on Lake Champlan and navigable
II river; she first began to fe settled in 1923, one
" hundred and sixteen years after the founding OF
k Virginia. aud when the latter already pow
y eriul and prosperous colony; she is barely one
sixth 50 large Virginia. 1.-THE latter having 6l,-
352 square miles Vermcnt's l0,2l2); she has Of
: course no external commerce and no considerable
" cities, her industry and trade building up marts
i outside of her borders exclusively; she was clams
ed in her infancy the possession of two rival
p Stnfa md hay NH m horr sippp
prosecutions and forays which sadly retarded her
growth; her climate is harsh and her soil rugged;
she is nearly in one corner Of the Union. out of
the track of immigraton; she has oftener been cue
of than in favor at the Capitol, which is located
hundreds of miles from her borders; she never had
one of her citizens even nominated for presidents
or Vice President; never but once, and then Tor
$ brief period, had seat in the Cabinet; and has
not received fftieth part the amOuAt of Federal
'. patronage that has been layished Virginia.
e Strike Slavery out of the calculation and Virginia
should this day have at least thrice the population
: TO the square mile of Vermont. And yet Virginia
:, had in 1850 buta fraction twenty-tbree in
y habitants to the square mile, while Vermont had
e considerably more than thirty; though very large
proportion Of Nirginia's natve-born people are to-
day on her soil only because they we'll watch
C ed aud guarded that they can find no opportunity
is to run away.
d The Census further shows that only about one in
e four hundred Of Vermont's male Inhabitants
over hiteen years Is ldie OF out OF employment;
e while the proportion of Virginia is about one in
o three Vermont, though relatively SO young. with
IS far less than fourth the population Of Virginia.
| has invested than half much as the latter
c in places of religious worship. Vermont annually
S raises and disburses more than half as much as
e Virginia for the support of public schools; and
while Virginia has 1888 free inhabitants over
twenty years of age who can neither read nor
# write, Vermont has GIG native inhabitants in the
j. like state Of ptiable ignorance. Virginia has less
than one newspaper to every 0.0O0 inhabitants;
c Vermont more than one to every 10000. And the
difference between the intelligence refinement and
0 enterprise of the mass OF Free White inhabitants
of the two States IS but family indicated by those
T statistics
D Can any one thoughtfully scan the mountains Of
evidence like ths of superior information morality
/ industry and thrift of Free or Slave States, and
lthan ssk ,xhx We resist tha Extansion and dasixa