The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-07-14
THE NATIONAL ERA: WASHINGTON b. c. JULY H. 1850

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But the Southern Democracy voted ranks
solid against all reform; and it ID the Southern
wing of that party, as all the world knows, which
controls its policy. The opposition of the slave
| holding aristocracy to homesteads and pre-emp-
tions is an indubitable fact and it is a fixed
| fact because it is founded upon interests which
are interchangeable. Homestead laws and pre-
emption laws, securing quarter sections of one
| hundred and sixty acres to actual cultivators,
ingenuity could eysde, and which no Supreme
| Court could nullify. The oligarchy understood
it WELL and hence it is that their opposition will
| be implacable and eternal.
| One Southern Democratic Senator, Mr.. johnson
| of Tennessee, and a few Southern Democratic
| Representatives, voted on these questions with
the Republicans, but this proves, not that there
| is any division of opinion among the oligarchs,
| but that there are portions of the South which
the olgarchs cannot fully control The great
body OF the white people of the South nom
| shareholders, and are just as much interested in
homesteads and presumption laws as the people
of the free States In some districts, these
questions have been canvassed and are under
stood, and the Representatives of these districts
are compelled to vote on the side of free labor.
la fact, there is no better weapon with which
Rspublicanism can assail the oligarchy in their
| own homes, than this weapon Of pre- emptions
| and homesteads. In fighting that battle the
| oligarchs will lose the advantage of the preju-
dices of the poor whites against the negroes and
the Abolitionists. The homestead question is a
| white mans question.
| Tbe opposition of the oligarchs to pre-emptions
| and homesteads being fixed and immovable, be-
cause based upon personal and political interests
| which cannot be changed, it results that the
friends of land reform, of hatever political opin
| ions in other respects, must unite to put down
this oligarchy, and the Democratic party which
is controlled by it. Whoever supports a party,
| supports its measures, whatever his own individ-
ual opinions about those measures may be, and
the measures of party are dictated by the in
fuence which predominates in it. That there are
vast numbers of persons who habitualy vote
what is called the Democratic ticket, who are in
| favor of preserving the public domain for actual
settlers is certainly true. But it is not the less
| true, that such persons help to keep in power a
national party, which, from the essential nature
| of its composition, and from the fixed purposes
| of the power which dominates over it, must for
ever oppose policy which seeks to cut up the
| public domain into small freeholds.
| 1t is in vain, therefore, for the Dougases and
! Brights of the West to point to their own ndi-
vidual votes in favor of homesteads and pre-emp-
| tons. If the men of this stamp be admitted to
be ever sincere and ever so reliable in those
respects, it is sufficient that they nextricably
mixed mp and allied with power at the South
which is implacably hostile to prescriptions and
homesteads. Land reform is impossible until that
power is put down to put it down, the Democratic
party, falsely so called must be put down. The
logic which points to that conclusion is invncible.
SHAREHOLDERS TAKE NoTICE.-The follow
ing paragraph from the New Orleans Crescent
has peculiar interest for shareholders. The
Crescent, in its zeal for Slavery, proposes to re-
| I,,ao h r Al L
thirty-five to forty-fve per cent 1t says:
About three years ago, the energetic armed
interference of Great Britain compelled the Gov
eminent of Brazil to practically recognise treaty
stipulations providing for the suppression of
the African slave trade, and it then became ex-
ceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to land
cargoes on Brazilian territory, and few if any
slaves have since been imported, the authorities
no longer winking at evasions of law. A friend
who has Just returned from three years civil
engineering sejourn in the empire, gives US some
interesting information as to the eff ct of the
suppression of the trade in slave property in
that country. From prices ranging from $500
to 5000 for good hands, the quotations have
gone up to about the same rates that rule in
this country, within less than three years. This
| fact gives US some data from which to reason
the results of reopening and vigorous prose
Africa, supposng that it ever should be.
thirty-fve to forty-fve per cent. reduction in the
cost of slaves might be reasonably calculated
on, and this would place negro labor within the
means of thousands of small agriculturists,
or would-be agriculturists, who cannot now
command it, and the consequence would be an
incalculable development of the productive
availability of the South, a checking to the ten
dency to monopoly of slave labor by planters Of
capital, with whom the small producer cannot
compete, and the resulting of that equalization
of property which is the very basis as well as
fact of a sterling and immutable Democracy"
The POPULATION OF ILLINOIs.-You had in
your paper yesterday article from the Chica
go Times, stating that the population of Illinois
in 1855 was l,305,3T6, and that it would in
1860 probably come up to 100000 This
estimate is perhaps rather low. The popula-
ton of our State in 1850 was 85l, 470, of which
the amount for 1855 is greater by 533 per cent
Now, there seems to be no good reason why our
increase since that time should be any less
than it was during the first five years of this
decade. On the contrary, the population of
the West has thus far increased in a magnified
ratio of the time. Adding, then, 53a per cent
to the population of 1885, we will next year
have not less than 100000. If this should be
CONSIDERED TOO mucn, IL Is safe at least TO take
the population of 1910 and 1855 for founda-
ton, and to estimate the population as increas-
ing in a geometrcal ratio, with the same ex-
ponent Of increase every year. Calculating
that way, the average annual increase from
1910 to 1855, i. e., from 476, 1873 to l,305,576,
is 695 per cent, and if the series be extend |
ed with the same annual increase till 1860, |
it will reach l,827,300. If we say that the
population of Illinois next year will be only |
l, 100000, the yearly increase from 1855 would |
be only per cent, as we had between 1910
and 1850, whilst the yearly increase from 1850
to 1855 was nearly 8 per cent. 1t is hardly |
possible that the increase Of the population has |
run down so low. Taking all this into consid |
Grafton and making the above calculation by |
logarithmic formulas the undersigned would |
venture the prophecy that Illinois aoiU nert
year Shoto a population Of tacO milioRs.-COr
III. State Journal.
A CIRCAssIAN BEAUTY.-A letter from Treb |
izond Of the 18th ult., in the Levant Herald, |
saws
"a party of Circassian dealers arrived here |
lately, having among their stock young |
ho,tri some fourteen years old. In proof of her |
unusual beauty, may at once mention that the |
price set upon her was, and is, two hundred
thousand piastres. Some days after the land
ing of the owners of this Circassisn gem, rela-
ton of hers arrived and ella lined her from her
possessors, who, it seems, had stolen her from
her home. He claimed her restoration to him
SELF but, need hardly say, in vain; the own
ers of so valuable piece of merchandise were
not the men to give it up through any senti-