The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1864-06-23

~ Two Is ueStitutc OF TINS lne5tImaDle
blessing. This, then, is what slavery
has done for the white homes of the South
This the social wrctchcdncss and barbar
ism we hear SO much about. There are
actually more white families broken ID.
separated. and scattered to the four winds
OF heaven in these New England States
than there arc slave families thus separ.
atcd in the Southern States. But our
present estimates arc all concerning the
white people North and South.
/. We hear incessantly Of the irrclig-
ion Of the Shareholders" and our North
ern clergy arc in the habit of praying for
the Southern people as though they were
hcathcns and without christian habits. 1t
IS not an easy matter to estimate the rc!a-
tive religious merits of people. We can
on ly take the visible evidences Of attach
ment or Of Indifference to religious insti-
tutions as our guide Let US again take
the six New England States and the five
old ''slave" States, and see in which section
We find the greatest evidence of profound
and consistent attachment to the worship
of God. We are still guided by the cen.
sus of 1850. After two centuries of relic-
ious agony New England has erected / .607
churches, while the five old ''sla9c" States
with the same population have erected g.
0Sl churches. The New England church
es accommodate 1000, ,S63 souls, while the
churches in the five slave" States accom-
MEDIATE 2,S9G, ,462 souls.
So these irrcligious ''slavc" States have
erected double the number Of churches.
and furnish the means Of grace to over Il
million more souls than the boastng phar-
isces of New England have. Onc-third
Of the population of New England
is unprovided with any place of worship,
while these "slavc" States have provided
churches for 4 million more people than
can go to church, if they wanted to, in
New England. This is the '.irreliglon OF
shareholders" Again, we all know that
the religious sentiment Of the South Is ~
most entirely free from the innumerable
isms which have demoralizcd and broken
up the churches in the North. All such
denominations as Mormonism. Millerism.
Communism, Freeioveism and Spiritual
ism, are Of Northern birth, and have never
made any Roadway in the South. The
Southern eli ,hcs have steadily resisted
all these po ane and corruptng innova-
tions upon the pure domain Of Christian
faith. 1t is the rarcst thing to see
church split to pieces by schisni. Neither
is there; comparatively, any Of the indecent
sectarian violence in the South which has
disgraced the very meme of religion in the
North.
The ministers Of the gospel in the South
rs a class, are, in Christian department,
and in manly character. far ahead Of the
clergy, as class, in the North One
reason of this, undoubtedly is, the settled.
dignitied, and tolerant character Of the
southern churches. Like people. ike
priest" is an old maxim The language
which the different sccts in the North are
in the habit of applying to each other, is
far more becoming the fish markets than
the temple Of Cod Such indecent and
profanc clerical dcmagogucs as Beecher.
Chccvcr, Tyn., and Bellows, even leaving
out their aboltionism, would not be toier-
ated in the South. With all these facts
known to Us, what intolerable impudence
for Us to talk about the '.irreli gious charac-
ter of Slave holders .'''
5. We are told that slavery" has
brought decentralization and crime upon
the South. Let us have the figures The
census of 1859 shows that the ratio of
whites III the Penitentiary Of Virginia, for
ten years, was one to twenty three thous-
and, while the ratio in Massachusetts, State
Prison was one to seven thousand five
hundred and cighty-scvcn. In the city of
New York, in 10. there were ,2:'5 con
victlonS for crime, which was more than in
all the fifteen ''slavc' States for that year
In the State Of New York. in 1850, there
were 1920 convictions for crime. In
South Carolina, in population more than
one fifth that of New York, there were only
forty-sx cases OF crime The bills Of
crime in Charleston, s. c., for that year
were six per cent less than in Boston
The same census discloscs the fact that
free negroes South are Il great deal less
addicted to crime than free negroes North
In Massachusetts, the ratio Of free negroes
in the State Prison, for ten years, was | to
30 In the Pcnitcntiary of Virginia. it,
was | to 1901. So that in the non-slavc-
holding States 250 negroes commit as much
crime annually is 5000 free negroes in the
slave States .IST white peonlc in fhp