Year: 1861




The following is the concluding portion
of an article in the London Nsws, in reply to
an article in the London Times:


The strangest notion of all is of the wealth
the South is assumed to possess now, and TO
to have the prospect of hereafter. The South
has no wealth but what is pledged for the
payment of debt. Local testimony is best;
and we will make room for few words of
it. Alabama is regarded as unsurpassed for
natural wealth--its virgin soil, its noble
rivers and excellent harbor. Here is the
conclusion arrived at by loyal son of the
soil, and published in 1855 for the good of
the State "a country in its infancy, where
fifty years ago scarce forest tree had been
felled by the ak of the pioneer, is already
exhibiting the painful signs of senility and
decay apparentin Virginia and the Carolinas
The freshness of its agricultural glory is
gone; the vigor of its youth is EXTINCT, and
the spirit of desolation seems brC oding over
it." So reports a son of Mr.. Clay, a Jealous
Shareholder. The same spectacle is presented
from State to State and we might infer as
much, if we did not know it, from the fig
uTes in which their population and produce
are reported, on governmental authority.


How are the respective sections peopled
In the slave States there were, ten years ago,
100000 Of whites, and in the free States
l3 $50, 900. The slaves have increased to
1000, ,00o, and in South Carolina the whites
have diminished in proportion to the negroes
if not in positive amount. Where's the force
which is to overrun and annex foreign terri
tories, after having put down the North2


The available military force of the entire
South is declared to be under $4,000 men,
while Massachusetts, alone has a militia,
ready for work, of $4,000. The difference
is that in the North the working-men are
the soldiery who undertake the defense of
the country, while in the South they are the
chief peril of the country, requiring more
force to coerce them than can be sent to make
conquests. The prospects of conquest are
not very brilliant, surely.


Again, the population on O square mile
averages twenty-five in the free States and
q fraction more than eleven in the slave
States and, as might be expected from this,
the produce per acre is in the more populous
section SO, to SO 30 in the South. With
fewer cultivators, the North raises 1921, ,000,-
900 more of agricultural products than the
South; and the property, exclusive of slaves,
is four times as great as that of the South.


Including slave property, at its highest
rate of value, the wealth of the slave States
is less than two thirds that of the free States.
What is more significant still, the mere in
crease of Northern property within five years
| is greater than the whole amount of that of
| the South. This is surely enough to put to
silence all boasts about the present wealth
and future prospects of the slave States
But it will be asked, why has the North
| allowed matters to come to this pass2 And
| how can the South be SO mad as to have
challenged ruin in this way2 We can only
| say that the South is mad-mad in the way
that is caused by passion acting on ignorance
and morbid selEwill. The people there
know no better than to trust to prophets
who declare their prospects to the brilliant,
| and the North likely to be q mere Rump.
There are wiser people in the South; but
they are silenced, or they are busy getting
away to the free States. They furnish the
answer as to why the North has waited thus
| long.


Six times as many persons go from the
slave States to live in the North as the re.
verse; but there are enough of Southern
wives clergymen and educators who are ma
tives of the North to make it a serious
thing--a most mournful and dreaded pro.
ceedure-to resort to war. At present the
alarmed Shareholders from the North are
Fastening to their native States at any sacri
fee; while the immigrant Southerners il
the free States show no desire to move. They
deserted the sinking vessel long ago, and az
not going back to it now.


1t is bad enough to witness the madness o
rebellion and treason from afar. We cal
not have it here and the proposition that
barbaric slaveholding community has pros
pect of splendor and wealth, in virtue of it
barbarism, while free and thriving peop
will become mere rump of the Republic
because it is free, is treason to political prin
ciple in any civilized country in the world