Year: 1861

FROM the n. Y. World.


We fail TO make the resolute effort which
The struggle demands, because of a con-
stantly lurking inereduity respecting the
power of the rebels. Regarding il as a
struggle of twenty millions against eight,
we seem TO live in expectation that the
rebels are on the point of discovering the
hopelessness of the struggle against such
immense odds, aud that their feeble resour-
ces will speedily give out. Even II a NOR.
tifying experience were not rapidly disen-
chanting us, a very little reflection would
be sufficient to correct the error that this
is contest of twenty millions against eight.
The omission of the slaves fro m an estimate
Of the military strength of the South, fer
no better reason than that The slaves do not
bear arms, is triple error.


In the first place, no country ever arms
its whole population; The industry of the
majority who stay at home supplies mainte-
nance TO the minority who take the field.
The slaves, as laborers, are just as impor-
tant an element of military strength as the
same number of white inhabitants. We
must, accordingly, include the slaves in any
correct estimate of the military power Of
the South, making the war, on the most
superficial view, not contest of twenty
millions against eight, but of twenty mil
lions against twelve.


But we call their omission triple error,
and will now proceed to point out it's sec.
Ond 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 proportion Of
producers twice as great as in the same
number Of white inhabitants OF the North
ern States. The four millions of 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 rec
tifcation is insufficient, and we must make
q third, dependent on the proportion be-
tween production and consumption in a
slave population. 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 cbeaply as so many
animals. their net earnings, over and above
WnhI lney consumet are mucn greater Inan
the net earnings of the same number Of
white labOrers, thus furnishing basis for
maintaining proportionably larger num-
Der Of soldiers.


This is. then, no contest Of twenty mil
lions against eight, as it would seem to 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 population of the
South; nor yet a 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
number whose effective strength is larger
than sixteen millions by reason Of the fact
that slave laborers are comparative non
consumers.