Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1864-07-15
FREMONT. SANDUSKY COUNTY OHIO JULY l5 1864
can WE PAY OUR NATIONAL DEBT,


The population of the United Kingdom is
about the same as that of the United States
| The national debt of Great Britain is about four
| thousand millions, and ours about one thousand 4
seven hundred millions. Can we support our
debt without ruinous taxation? Can we BEAR
that is to say, much less than half of what Eng
lishmen bear without suffering?
Supposing that the circumstances of the two
nations were alike, no American of spirit would |
doubt that we can support as heavy burden as
| our English cOusins-let alone one far lighter
But our circumstances are not alike: they have
| a country thickly settled soil exhausted to 4
great extent of its fertility, system of land ten
ure extremely wasteful, an organization of soci-
ETY. which represses instead of encouraging in |
dividusl energy and enterprise. We have vir- /
gin soil, inexhaustible mineral wealth, system
of land tenure, at least in the free states, which
conduces to the highest prosperity of the great
| est number, and condition of society in which
individual enterprise is encouraged and fostered.
Il With these and other advantages, we must grow
in wealth much more rapidly than the English
and the measure of national wealth is the meas
ure Of strength to support the burden ola ma
tional debt. 4
Mr.. Robert j. Walker sets this question in a
clear light by some statistics which he has re-
II Gently printed in London. He shows that our
i national wealth was increased in the ten years
/ from 1850 to 1860 over one hundred and twenty
six per cent, while that of England from 1851 to
1861 increased but thirty-seven per cent. He
shows from the census tables that the ratio OF
increase in our national wealth has been con-
stant and always in excest of the increase of the
population. Thus from 1890 to 1890 our wealth
increased forty y-One per cent; from 1880 to lS4O
forty two per cent. from 1840 to 1850 sixty -four
per cent; and from 1850 to 1860 l2645 per cent.
81 If we go on the same rate for another decade
the result will be in 1870 an increase of over two
/ hundred and fifty per cent.
Il But, he adds if the product per head ofthe
population of the slave states had been the same
in 1859 that it in the free states that would
f have added to the national wealth an additional
j value produced of 1851 ,63l 900, according to
,, official census returns Now, the way to make
t the southern states as rich and productive the
: northern and even more 50, as Mr. James Brooks
: ljustly observed more than thirty years ago, dur
) ing journey in the South, is TO abolish slavery.
Substitute skillful, intelligent interested free
a labor for Gnskilled ignorant and hninterested
slave labor, and, as he remarked, South Carolina
would be the wealthiest state in the Union.
II Now, we are going to have the assistance of
e | this added and hitherto undeveloped wealth to
s pay not only the interest but the principal OF
our national debt. With "sman farms and di-
lvided labor taking the place of the feudsl sys-
|. Item" as Mr.. Brooks says, all the immense un-
b developed natural resources of the southern
AsGtJcS VIII lhOtCoSC OuA hdItOnaA NCoAeh
At and prosperity. With slavery abolished free
l. IwOrkingmen will pour by hundreds of thousands
J. from all parts of Europe into region to which
Of mild climate sparse population and high re-
wards for labor will tempt them, but from which
IS they have been hitherto excluded by the fatal
r competition ofunpaid slave labor against those
te who must have "a fair days wages for fail
= days work" Emigration, astOnishingly
l. great during the last three years in the midst
,! war will increase still more when the area open
70 ed to free wOrkingmen IS more than doubled
d and Mr.. walker does not overshoot the mari
l. when he estimates the increase in our nationa
Of wealth from the substitution of free for slave
ID labor in the South in ten years. at the great
IS Iof over seventeen thousand millions Of dollars
r Inearly ten times our present national debt
sa Thus the mere addition shall make to our ma
f. tional wealth in ten years. by abolishing the sin
er stitution" which has been so long curse and
ed source of dissension to us, would many time
C. over pay our national debt.
ol But to show in another way what are our pros
poets, Mr.. Walker compares thefuture wealth G
, Great Britain and the United States, supposin
yh THAT each increases in the same ratio durin
n the ten years for which in each case we have th
A latest census returns. 1t win be remembere
ch that the increase in the United States from 185
C. to 1860 was l26 As per cent, and in Great Brit
he ain from 1851 to 1861, 81 per cent Assumin
n. these ratios-which, however, are unfair toward
ly Ius-the result would be as follows: