Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1857-04-23
Equity and Expe diency OF Com
penaated Emancipation.
Montpelier, April 18th, 1857.
To the editor of tie Freeman.

der to lecture here last night, but the wealth
made it impossible to have an audience.
am obliged to leave by the first train this
morning, and cannot call upon you.
should be very glad if you would insert the
enclosed as an abstract of the lecture should
have delivered. 1t contains all the points
and brief considerations which would have
presented. If you will do this, l shall
have an audience for the Emancipation
scheme through your journal.
Yours Truly ELIHU BURRITT.
No candid man, North or South, can hes
itate to admit, that the antagonism and es-
arrangements, generated by the system Of
slavery, imperil the life Of our beloved I'm
ion far more than world of foreign foes
could do.
Fifty years of the nations experience
prove, that peace, harmony and brotherly unity
can never pervade this great continental fam
lily of States while slavery exists; but that
on the contrary, the embittering struggle will
grow more and more intense and calamitous,
until some competent measure be adopted for
the extinction of that system. -
If the Union were at war with a collation.
Of European Powers, and could only escape
subjugaton, as well as the law Of selfpres-
ervation, would fully sanction the summary
act. Both these sources of authority would
authorize the Federal Congress to take equi-
table and adequate steps for putting an end
TO the same evil, in order to vanquish do
nestle foe, more dangerous to the Union than
all the external enemies that could be ar
rayed against it.
If slavery were abolished in time of war
as national act of sclG-defGnse, the slave
holders of the South would claim and re-
ceive naturalization from the Federal Gov
eminent for the act of manumission. II
the system is to be abolished, to destroy an
internal enemy, which is sapping the very
soul of the Republic they should be equally
compensated for the emancipation Of their
slaves.
For nearly fifty years the Legislature Of
the Southern States have done all that their
acts could achieve, to legalize and sustain
slavery; to encourage the people of those
States to invest their capital in slaves They
cannot now justly turn round and treat thost
legislative acts as imoralities, and destroy
the property which they have de .tacto, ere.
ated, without compromising its present hol
ders for the loss entailed upon them. What
the Southern States cannot do by themselves
consistently with justice and equity, all the
States of the Union cannot do together
| The utter extirpation of slavery from
American soil should be achieved in a way
and in a spirit that would attach all the
members of the Confederation to each 9th
er by stronger bonds than have ever existed
between them; which should bequeath to its
numerous postcrity of States rich legacy
of precious memories, deepening and perpet
utating their sense of fraternal relationship
as co-hers of the noblest chapters of Amer
lean History.
OF all parties to this great moral struggle
the well-being of the slaves must be most
dependent upon the prevalence of a spirit Of
brotherhood and benevaence throughout the
nation at the time of their manumission
Nothing but slavery itself of the most afro
,ious stamp, could be worse for them thar
emancipation in tempest of malignant pas
sions and fierce and fiery hate.
Great as the system of slavery has grown
it may be equitably abolished, without in
creasing the taxation of the country by a
single farthing per head of its population
The public lands alone would be sufficient to
pay for the emancipation of all the slaves in
the Union, if appropriated exclusively to
that object. Without including the lands ac-
quired from Mexico by the treaty Of 1858,
this rational domain contains 1000, 900, 900
acres. At Is cents per acre, it would yield,
in the end, 81 00,000,000 Admitted $3.50
per head for the whole slave population to
be a fair average price, taking infant and
aged, sick and intirm, three millions and halt
would amount to $S75,000,000. Thus this
landed estate Of the nation would not only
cmancipate all the slaves in its borders, but
would yield large surplus for their moral
elevation and improvement.
A considerable portion of the national do
main lies in the slaves States and consequent
ly has but little demand and value. The re-
mova of slavery would create both, by the
continually increasing influx of men and cap
ital from the present free States and from
Europe. In Missouri, for example, there are
$4,000, 600 acres of the public lands unsold
and unappropriated of only nominal value,
The extinction of slavery would bring these
lands immediately into market, and at a
price which would yield sum sufficient to
pay for the emancipation of all the slaves in
the State. Thus Missouri might be freed
from the evil, without sending her a dollar
directly from the national treasury, or the
proceeds of a single acre of land lying out
side of her borders.
The pecuniary results Of emancipation in
Missouri would be immediate and immeas-
urable There would be such a rapid devel-
opement of her mineral and agricultural re-
sources; such great and sudden enhance
ment of the price of new lands, that Ken
lucky Tennessee Maryland, Delaware and
Virginia would be induced to follow her ex
ample, one after the other in comparatively
quick succession.
By lifting the incubus Of slavery from a
single State like Missouri not only power
ful precedent would be established to work
upon the remaining slave States, but great
additional wealth would accrue to the nation,
increasing its capacity to carry on the en-
terprise of general emancipation.
There is no object more national, patriotic,
or polite, to which the public lands could be
appropriated than this peaceful and gradual
extinction of slavery, State by State. They
constitute resource fully adequate to re-
move the great evil from our land, without
imposing tax, or occasioning loss which
the poorest inhabitant whould feel. Unless
q lnrnnr ateI To this nafrintic nnternriso tho,.