Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-11-04
Tho e,re,.,h ~ me- HeheI,.


A New York paper deprecates with no
little force of argument, the Northern habit
Of undertaking the power Of the insurgents.
1t says that the census has led us into the
most fatal error in this respect. While the
population of the loyal States is put down at
twenty millions, aud that of the seeding
States at less than twelve millions, we are
accustomed to reduce the latter still further
by deducting the four. million slaves from
the effective military force. But this is a
mistake. The journal to which we refer
states the real truth in most effective man-
ner. Itsays: ri.
! We fail to make the resolute effort which
the struggle demands because of q constantly
! lurking incredulity respecting the power Of
! the rebels Regarding it as a struggle of
twenty millions against eight, we seem to
live in expectation that the rebels are on the
point of discovering the bopelessness of
struggle against such immense odds, and that
their feeble resources will speedily give out.
Even if mortifying experience were not
rapidly disseminating us, very little refiec-
tion would be sufficient to correct the error
that this is contest of twenty millions
against eight.
The omission of the slaves from an esti-
mate of the military strength OF the South,
for no better reason than that the slaves do
not bear arms, is triple error. In the first
place, no country ever armed its whole pop.
ulation; the industry of the majority who
stay at home supplies maintenance to the
minority who take the field. The slaves, as
laboreTs, are Just as important an element of
military strength as the same number of
white Inhabitants. We must accordingly,
include the slaves in any correct estimate Of
Al
war, on the most superficial view, not con-
test of twenty millions against eight, but of
twenty millions against twelve. But we
called their omission triple error, and will
now proceed to point out its second part.
In the Northern States women are seldom
productive laborers, furnishing commodities
for market, and children are kept at school.
In the South the wives and children of slaves
are regularly worked as field hands, thus
making the number Of producers twice as
great as in the same number of white inhab-
itants Of the Northern States. The four mill
lions of our Southern slaves, then, furnish
about twice as many producers as an equal
number of the white population of the North.
The four millions practically become eight,
and the contest is, in this view, equivalent to
matching twenty millions against sixteen.
But, as already intimated, even this rectifica-
ton is insufficient and we must make q
production and consumption in a slave pop.
ulstion. The ability to maintain soldiers
does not depend on the aggregate production,
but on the surplus which is not consumed by
| the laborers themselves.
Slaves being kept almost as cheaply as so
many animals, their net earnings, over aud
above what they consume, are much greater
than the net earnings OF the same number of
white laborers, thus furnishing a basis for
maintaining aproportionably larger number
of soldiers. This is, then, no contest of
twenty millions against eight, as it would
seem 10 be if we left the slaves out of the
calculation altogether; nor a contest of
twenty millions against twelve as it would
appear if we merely counted the slaves as
adding four millions to the white popul4 alton
OF the South; nor yet contest equivalent to
one of twenty millions against sixteen, as the
fact that the women and children of the
slaves are producers would make it; but a
contest of twenty millions against some mum.
Der whose effective strength is larger than
sixteen millions by reason of the fact that
slave laborers are comparatively non con-
sinners