Address to the Non-Slaveholders of the South Part 1

Address to the Non-Slaveholders of the South.

by Lewis Tappan.

FELLOW-CITIZENS:

We ask your attention to the injuries inflicted upon you and your children, by an inst.i.tution which lives by your sufferance, and will die at your mandate. Slavery is maintained by _you_ whom it impoverishes and degrades, not by those upon whom it confers wealth and influence. These a.s.sertions will be received by you and others with surprise and incredulity. Before you condemn them, ponder the following considerations and statistics.

We all know that the sugar and cotton cultivation of the South is conducted, not like the agriculture of the North, on small farms and with few hands, but on vast plantations and with large gangs of negroes, technically called "the force." In the breeding States, men, women and children form the great staple for exportation; and like other stock, require capital on the part of those who follow the business of rearing them. It is also a matter of notoriety, that the price of slaves has been and still is such as to confine their possession almost exclusively to the rich. We might as well talk of poor men owning herds of cattle and studs of horses, as gangs of negroes. When an infant will bring one hundred, and a man from four hundred to a thousand dollars in the market, slaves are not commodities to be found in the cabins of the poor. You are moreover aware that the great capitalists of the South have their wealth chiefly invested in plantations and slaves, and not as with us in commerce and manufactures.

It has been repeatedly stated that Mr. Carroll, of Baltimore, the former president of the Colonization Society, was the owner of 1,000 slaves.

The newspapers, in announcing the death of Mr. Pollock, of North Carolina, remarked that he had left 1,500 slaves. In the account of Mr.

Madison's funeral, it was mentioned that he was followed to the grave by 100 of his slaves, and it is probable that the women and children were not included. The following article, from the _Gospel Messenger_ for August, 1842, gives us some idea of the feudal va.s.salage prevailing on the estates of some of your lordly planters. "A n.o.bLE DEED.--Dr. Mercer, of Adams county, Mississippi, has lately erected, at his own expense, and for the advantage of his _vast_ plantation, and the people on his lands, a neat church and parsonage house, at the cost of over $30,000.

He pays the salary of the minister, $1,200 a year, besides his meat and bread. On Bishop Otey's late visit to that congregation, he and Mr.

Deacon, the inc.u.mbent, baptized in one day _one hundred and eight_ children and _ten_ adults, all belonging to the plantation."

At the North a farmer hires as many _men_ as his work requires; at the South the laborers cannot be separated from the _women_ and _children_.

These are _property_, and must be owned by somebody. Now when we take this last circ.u.mstance into consideration, and at the same time recollect that the very value of the slaves debars the poor from owning them--and connect these two facts with the character of the cultivation in which slave labor is employed; we must be ready to admit that those who do employ this species of labor, cannot on an average hold less than _ten slaves_, including able-bodied men, their wives and children. It appears by the census, that of the slave population, the two s.e.xes are almost exactly equal in number; and that there are two children under ten years of age, for every male slave over that age. Hence, if a planter employs only three men, we may take it for granted that his slave family consists of at least 12 souls, viz.: 3 men, 3 women, and 6 children. We of course estimate the number of children too low, since there will be some over ten years of age. It thus appears that the average number of slaves we a.s.sign to each slaveholder is probably far below the truth; but we purposely avoid even the approach to exaggeration. Now the number of slaves in the United States by the last census, was 2,487,113; of course according to our estimate of ten slaves to one master, there can be only 248,711 slaveholders.

The number of _white males over 20 years of age_ in the slave states and territories was 1,016,307 Deduct Slaveholders, viz. 248,711 --------- And we have the number we are now addressing 767,596

We are not forgetful that our enumeration must embrace some who are the _sons_ of slaveholders, and who are therefore interested in upholding the system,--but we are fully convinced that our estimate of the number of slaveholders is far beyond the truth, and that we may therefore safely throw out of account the very moderate number of slaveholders'

sons above 20 years of age, and not themselves possessing slaves.

Here then, fellow-citizens, you see your strength. You have a majority of 518,885 over the slaveholders; and now we repeat, that with a numerical majority of more than half a million, slavery lives or dies at _your_ behest.

We know that this result is so startling and unexpected, that you will scarcely credit the testimony of figures themselves. It is so commonly taken for granted, that every white man at the South is a slaveholder, that many will doubtingly inquire, where are these non-slaveholding citizens to be found? We answer, everywhere. Is poverty of rare occurrence in any country? Has it ever happened that the ma.s.s of any people were rich enough to keep, for their own convenience, such expensive laborers--as southern slaves? Slavery moreover is monopolizing in its tendency, and leads to the acc.u.mulation of property in few hands.

It is also to be observed, that the high price of slaves, and the character of the cultivation in which they are employed, both conspire to concentrate this cla.s.s of laborers on particular spots, and in the hands of large proprietors. Now the census shows that in some districts the slaves are collected in vast numbers, while in others they are necessarily few. Thus, for instance, in Georgetown district, S. Carolina, there are about 7.5 slaves to every white man, woman and child, in the district. Now if from the white population in this district we exclude all but the slaveholders themselves, the average number of slaves held by them would probably exceed one hundred. On the other hand, we find all through the slave States, many districts where the slaves bear a very small proportion to the whites, and where, of course, the non-slaveholders must form a vast and overwhelming majority.

A few instances must suffice.

The whites are to the slaves in Brook Co., Va., as 85 to 1 " " " Yancy Co., N. Car., 22 to 1 " " " Union Co., Ga., 35 to 1 " " " De Kalb Co., Ala., 16 to 1 " " " Fentress Co., Tenn., 43 to 1 " " " Morgan Co., Ky.,[1] 74 to 1 " " " Taney Co., Mo., 80 to 1 " " " Searcy Co., Ark., 311 to 1

[1] Mr. Nicholas, in a speech in the Kentucky Legislature in 1837, objected to calling a convention to alter the Const.i.tution, because in such a convention he believed the abolition of slavery would be agitated; and he reminded the house, that in the State "the slaveholders do not stand in the ratio of more than one to six or seven." Of course slavery is maintained in Kentucky, through the consent of the non-slaveholders.

There is not a State or Territory in the Union in which you, fellow-citizens, have not an overwhelming majority over the slaveholders; and the majority is probably the greatest in those in which the slaves are the most numerous, because in such they are chiefly concentrated on large plantations.

It has been the policy of the slaveholders to keep entirely out of sight their own numerical inferiority, and to speak and act as if _their_ interests were those of the whole community. They are the n.o.bility of the south, and they find it expedient to forget that there are any commoners. Hence with them slavery is the INSt.i.tUTION of the SOUTH, while it is in fact the inst.i.tution of only a portion of the people of the south. It is their craft to magnify and extol the importance and advantages of _their_ inst.i.tution; and hence we are told by Gov.

McDuffie, that slavery "is the CORNER STONE of our republican inst.i.tutions." To defend this corner stone from the a.s.saults of truth and reason, he audaciously proposed to the legislature, that abolitionists should be punished "with death without benefit of clergy."

This gentleman, like most demagogues, while professing great zeal for the PEOPLE, whose interests were for the most part adverse to slavery, was in fact looking to his own aggrandizement. He was, at the very time he uttered these absurd and murderous sentiments, a great planter, and his large "force" was said to have raised in 1836, no less than 122,500 lbs. of cotton.[2] In the same spirit, and with the same design, the Report of a Committee of the South Carolina Legislature, made in 1842, speaks of slavery "as an ancient domestic inst.i.tution, _cherished in the hearts of the people at the south_, the eradication of which would demolish our whole system of policy, domestic, social, and political."

[2] See the newspapers of the day.

The slaveholders form a powerful landed aristocracy, banded together for the preservation of their own privileges, and ever endeavoring, for obvious reasons, to identify their private interests with the public welfare. Thus have the landed proprietors of England declaimed loudly on the blessings of dear bread, because the corn laws keep up rents and the price of land. The wealth and influence of your aristocracy, together with your own poverty, have led you to look up to them with a reverence bordering on that which is paid to a feudal n.o.bility by their hereditary dependents. Hence it is, that, unconscious of your own power, you have permitted them to a.s.sume, as of right, the whole legislation and government of your respective States. We now propose to call your attention to the practical results of that control over _your_ interests, which, by your sufferance, they have so long exercised. We ask you to join us in the inquiry how far you have been benefitted by the care of your guardians, when compared with the people of the North, who have been left to govern themselves. We will pursue this inquiry in the following order:

1. Increase of Population.

2. State of Education.

3. State of Industry and Enterprise.

4. Feeling towards the Laboring Cla.s.ses.

5. State of Religion.

6. State of Morals.

7. Disregard for Human Life.

8. Disregard for Const.i.tutional Obligations.

9. Liberty of Speech.

10. Liberty of the Press.

11. Military Weakness.

I. INCREASE OF POPULATION.

The ratio of increase of population, especially in this country, is one of the surest tests of public prosperity. Let us then again listen to the impartial testimony of the late census. From this we learn that the increase of population in the free States from 1830 to 1840, was at the rate of 38 per cent., while the increase of the _free_ population in the slave States was only 23 per cent. Why this difference of 15 in the two ratios? No other cause can be a.s.signed than slavery, which drives from your borders many of the virtuous and enterprising, and at the same time deters emigrants from other States and from foreign countries from settling among you.

The influence of slavery on population is strikingly ill.u.s.trated by a comparison between Kentucky and Ohio. These two States are of nearly equal areas, Kentucky however having about 3000 square miles more than the other.[3] They are separated only by a river, and are both remarkable for the fertility of their soil; but one has, from the beginning, been cursed with slavery, and the other blessed with freedom.

Now mark their respective careers.

[3] American Almanac for 1843, p. 206.

In 1792, Kentucky was erected into a State, and Ohio in 1802.

Free population of Kentucky. Free population of Ohio.

1790 61,227, a wilderness.

1800 180,612, 45,365 1810 325,950, 230,760 1820 437,585, 581,434 1830 522,704, 937,903 1840 597,570, 1,519,467

The representation of the two States in Congress, has been as follows:

1802, Kentucky 6, Ohio 1, 1812, " 9, " 6, 1822, " 12, " 14, 1832, " 13, " 19, 1842, " 10, " 21,

The value of land, other things being equal, is in proportion to the density of the population. Now the population of Ohio is 38.8 to a square mile, while the free population of Kentucky is but 14.2 to a square mile--and probably the price of land in the two States is much in the same proportion. You are told, much of the wealth is invested in negroes--yet it obviously is a wealth that impoverishes; and no stronger evidence of the truth of this a.s.sertion is needed, than the comparative price of land in the free and slave States. The two princ.i.p.al cities of Kentucky and Ohio are Louisville and Cincinnati; the former with a population of 21,210, the latter with a population of 46,338. Why this difference? The question is answered by the _Louisville Journal_. The editor, speaking of the two rival cities, remarks, "The most potent cause of the more rapid advancement of Cincinnati than Louisville is the ABSENCE OF SLAVERY. The same influences which made Ohio the young giant of the West, and is advancing Indiana to a grade higher than Kentucky, have operated in the _Queen_ City. They have no _dead weight to carry_, and consequently have the advantage in the race."

In 1840, Mr. C. M. Clay, a member of the Kentucky Legislature, published a pamphlet against the repeal of the law prohibiting the importation of slaves from the other States. We extract the following:

"The world is teeming with improved machinery, the combined development of science and art. _To us it is all lost; we are comparatively living in centuries that are gone; we cannot make it, we cannot use it when made._ Ohio is many years younger, and possessed of fewer advantages than our State. Cincinnati has manufactories to sustain her; last year she put up one thousand houses. Louisville, with superior natural advantages, as all the world knows, wrote 'to rent,' upon many of her houses. OHIO IS A FREE STATE, KENTUCKY A SLAVE STATE."

Mr. Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, in a pamphlet published the same year, and on the same subject, draws the following comparison between Virginia and New York:

"In 1790, Virginia, with 70,000 square miles of territory, contained a population of 749,308. New York, upon a surface of 45,658 square miles, contained a population of 344,120. This statement exhibits in favor of Virginia a difference of 24,242 square miles of territory, and 408,188 in population, which is the _double_ of New York, and 68,600 more. In 1830, after a race of forty years, Virginia is found to contain 1,211,405 souls, and New York 1,918,608, which exhibits a difference in favor of New York of 607,203. The increase on the part of Virginia will be perceived to be 463,187, starting from a basis more than double as large as that of New York. The increase of New York, upon a basis of 340,120, has been 1,578,391 human beings.

Virginia has increased in a ratio of 61 per cent., and New York in that of 566 per cent.

"The total amount of property in Virginia under the a.s.sessment of 1838, was $211,930,508. The aggregate value of real and personal property in New York, in 1839, was $654,000,000, exhibiting an excess in New York over Virginia of capital of $442,069,492.

"Statesmen may differ about policy, or the means to be employed in the promotion of the public good, but surely they ought to be agreed as to what prosperity means. I think there can be no dispute that New York is a greater, richer, a more prosperous and powerful State than Virginia. What has occasioned the difference?... There is but one explanation of the facts I have shown. The clog that has stayed the march of her people, the incubus that has weighed down her enterprise, strangled her commerce, kept sealed her exhaustless fountains of mineral wealth, and paralyzed her arts, manufactures and improvement, is NEGRO SLAVERY."

These statements were made before the results of the last census were known. By the census of 1840, it appears that in the ten preceding years,

The population of Virginia has increased 28,392 In the same time the population of N. Y. increased 710,413 The rate of increase in Virginia was 2.3 per cent.