Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1859-11-05
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OUR UTAH CORRESPONDENCE.
CAMP NEAR Fort LARAMIE, y. T., I
October LIST, 1859.

M Editor: We have at length reached this
point after long march of twenty-four days,
having left Salt Lake Valley on the Sth of Sep
tembcr. The distance made is about six hun
drcd miles and more barren region of coun-
try is hardly any where seen upon the face of
the globe. 1t is all sandy, desolate, and arid
except Immediately along the streams and even
they are exceedingly limited in their fcrilizng
effect There is not water enough circulating
in the soil to give it the principle of Vitality
1t lies like corpse-staring ever with the
same lIcless aspect to an Implying sky.--
Trees are but rarely seen, the country being
covered everywhere with but sparse and stunt
ed growth Of sage and grease-wood.
Although large amount of emigration has
passed through this country during the last ten
years, rendering the demand for fresh vcgeta-
blcs very great, yet at only one point between
this and Salt Lake can such an article as po!a-
toes be found and they are raised by Sioux
Indian and offered for sale at % cents per lb.-
This fact may serve to give you some idea of
the agricultural capacity Of the SOIL and of the
inviting inducements which it is likely to hold
| out to settlers. In the other direction, from
North to South, from the British possessions to
Mexico. one may travel more than a thousand
miles through very much the same sort Of coun-
trv so that there is in this region of the globe
| six hundred times a thousand square miles OF
nearly barren and useless laI d. In fact, there
is more than one million of square miles of such
land, that is, more than onc-third part of the
entire territory of the United States. And yet
how many people are there not, in Congress as
well as oAt. who fancy that railroad to the
Pacific might be built by grant of alternate
sections of the land through which the road is
TO run
The truth is, that almost all our good land is
already taken up; and the next ten years will
see the tide of emigration turn from the Wes
and set towards the South. Repeed by tht
barrenncss of this Rocky Mountain region o
the country, it will turn towards the fertile, We
comparatively unoccupcd lands of the slave
holding States. 1t is a law of political ccono
my, that land, under good government, tend
to be occupied in proportion to lis capacity 10
sustaining population; and there is not singh
slavcholding State which is not capable of sus
tanning much larger population of white la
borers, than it is of black laborers. No lan
under the liberalsing influences of the age, cal
( long remain in the possession of the few whe
needed by the many. As the serfs of Englan
and France rose to the importance of freemer
they seized upon the crown lands and the land
of the church, and soon converted them from
= comparative waste, unproductive condition,
t, elements of increased national wealth and pow
. er. The seizure of the lands from the Indian
m bv the whites-the conversion of immenS
4 hunting parks, as it were, capable of sustainin
=, :, only few into well titled fields teeming wit
millions of human beings, has never been col
sidered as any breach of the moral economy
the world, since if he is a beneiactor who maxi
two blades of grass grow where but one gre
before assuredy much greater is the bencta
l. ton of hundreds of human beings are sustain
ed on the lands that had previously sustaint
w but dozen or so.
So crowded has the population of Europe
y length become, and so difficult in consequen
or has the means of subsistence become, that tdb
is claimed by them as the last and most sacr
right. 1t is the right to earn an honest live
hood, without being driven by necessity to ac
of infamy. 1t is this right that brings tho
sands upon thousands of Europeans to o
T. shores, where they have thns far exercised thu
to right without let or hindrance. But can it
presumed that they will submit to have Il
- right questioned by African laborP Will
Il, European laborer, who can no longer find Ia
or occupation in the west, be told that he ca
- not 90 into a slave State with his work, sill
n that State is exclusively reserved for Afric
OF labor-for lower order of labor-for lat
that will support only one Negro where it wo'
' support score of white men?