The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1861-01-29
READ AND REFLECT.


ests of the South Unit.
When in charge of the national census Office,
several years SINCE found that il had been stated
by an Abolition Senator from his seat, that the
number of shareholders at the South did not ex-
coed 900. Convinced that it a gross mis-
representation of the facts, caused careful ex
animation of the returns to be made, which fixed
the actual number at 347 ,255. | communicated
the information, by note, to Senator Cass, who
read it in the Senate. first called attention to the
fact that the number embraced slaveholding fam-
lies, and that to arrive at the actual number OF
shareholders, it would be necessary to multiply by
the proportion of persons which the census showed
to family. When this was done, the number
swelled to about 1000, 900.
Since these results made public have
had reason to think that the separation of the
schedules of the slave and the free calculated
to lead to omissions of the single properties, and
that on this account it would be safe to put the
number of families at 375 600, and the number of
actual shareholders at about two millions quarter.
Assuming the published returns however to be
correct, it will appear that third of the popua
ton of the entire South are shareholders. The
average number of slaves is nine to each holder,
and half of the whole number of holders are in
possession of less than FIVE slaves.
1t will thus appear that the shareholders of the
South, so far from constituting numerically in
significant portion Of its people, has been malig-
nantly alledged, make up an aggregate greater
In relative proportion than the holders of every
other species of property whatever, in any part of
the world; and that of no other property it be
said with equal truthfulness that it is an interest
of the whole community
Whilst in the Southern States every third fami-
ly shareholders, but every three and half
families in Maine. n Hampshire, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut, holders Of agricultural land and in
European States the proportion is almost infinitely
less The proportion which the shareholders of
the South bear to the entire population is greater
than that of the of land, houses, agricutur
al stock, State, bank other corporation secnri-
ties anywhere else. No political economist will
deny this. Nor is that all. Even in the States
which are among the largest slaveholdng, South
Carolina, GeOry ia and Tennessee the land prOprie
tors out-number nearly two to in relative pro-
portion the owners of the property in Maine,
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and if the average
number Of slaves held by each family throu ghout
the South be but nine, and if one half Of the
whole number of save-owners under five
slaves, it will be seen how preposterOus is the allie
cation of our enemies, that the saveholding class
is an organized wealthy ariztocracy THE poormen
Of the South are the holders Of one tn fire STAGES,
and 1t aeould be equally consistent ,ciM truth amt
justice to say that they represent, III reotity, its
slaueholding interest.
The fact being conceded that there is very
large class of persons in the saveholding States
who have direct ownership in that property, it
may be we'll asked, upon what principle greater
antagonsm be presumed between them and
their fellow-citizens than there exists among the
larger interests there? If conflict of interest
exists in one instance, it does in the other; and if
patriotism and public spirit to be measured upon
so low a standard this; the social fabric at the
North is in far greater danger of dissolution than
it is here.
Though protest against the false and degrad-
ing standard to which Northern orators and states
men have reduced the measures of patriotism
which is to be expected from free and enlight-
ened people, and in the name of the nonslave-
holders of the South fling back the insolent
charge that they are only bound to their country
by the consideration of its " loaves and fishes"
and would be found direlect in honor and princi-
pie and public virtue in proportion that they
need In circumstances, think it but easy to
show that the interest of the poorest non-slave-
holder among us is to make common cause with
and die in the last trenches In defence of the
slave property of his more favored neighbor
The non-slaveholders Of the South may be
classed as either such desire and are incapable
of purchasing slaves, or such as have the means
to purchase and do not because of the absence of
the motive to do SO, preferrng to hire employ
cheaper white labor A class cOnscientiously ob-
jecting to the ownership of this property does not
exist the South, for all such scrupes have long
since been silenced by the profound and un-
answerable arguments to which Yankee contro-
'versy has driven statesmen popular orators and
clergy. Upon the sure testimony of Gods holy
Book, and upon the principle of universal polity
they have defended and justified the institution.
As the competition of free labor with slave labor
is the gist of the argument used by the opponents
of slavery, and it is upon this they rely in sup
port of future social conflict in midst, it is
clear that in cases where the competition cannot
possibly exist, the argument, whatever weight it
might otherwise have, must fall to the ground.
Now, from what can such competition be argued
in our cities? Are not all the interest of the
chant and those whom he employs of necessity
upon the side of the shareholders? The products
which he buys, the commodities which he sells,
the profits which he realizes, the hopes which sus-
tain him of future fortune, all spring from this
source, and from no other. The cities towns and
villages of the South, but many agencies
for converting the products of slave labor into the
products of other labor obtained from abroad, and,
as in every other agency the interest of the agent
is that the principal shall have much possible
to SELL and be enabled as much possible to buy.
In the absence of every other source of wealth at
the South its mercantile interests inter-
woven with slave labor as to be almost identic Il.
What is true of the merchant is true of the clerk,
the drayman, the laborer whom he employs
the mechanic who builds his houses the lawyer
who argues his causes, the physician who heals,