ruined country, and renewing the work of destruction on the fertile lands of the far West."'*

North Carolina is rich in lands, undrained and uncultivated, while coal and iron ore abound. Her area is greater than that of Ireland, and yet her population is but 868,000-having increased but 130,000 in twenty years. In South Carolina, the course of things has been precisely the same with that described in reference to Virginia; yet the State, says Governor Seabrook, has "millions of uncleared acres of unsurpassed fertility, which seem to solicit a trial of their powers from the people of the plantation States."***"In her borders," as he continues, "there is scarcely a vegetable product essential to the human race that cannot be furnished." Marl and lime abound, millions of acres of rich meadow-land remain in a state of nature, and "the sea-shore parishes," he adds, "possess unfailing supplies of salt mud, salt grass, and shell-lime." So great, nevertheless, has been the tendency to the abandonment of the land, that, in the decade from 1830 to 1840, the white population increased but 1000 and the black but 12,000; whereas the natural increase alone would have given at least 150,000.

Allowing Virginia, at the close of the Revolution, 600,000 people, she should now have-excluding all allowance for immigration-4,000,000, or one to every ten acres; and no one at all familiar with the vast advantages of the State, can doubt her capability of supporting more than thrice that number.† Nevertheless, the total population, in 1850, was but 1,424,000-the increase in twenty years having been but 200,000; when it should have been 1,200,000. Seeking to know what has become of all these people, the reader may find them among the millions now inhabiting Alabama and Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Desiring next to know why they are there, the answer to the question may be given in the words: "They borrowed from the earth, but they did not repay, and she expelled them."

When men come together and combine their efforts, they are enabled to bring into activity all the vast and various powers of the earth-the more they come together, the greater being the * RUFFIN: Essay on Manures.

+ The superficial area of the State is 64,000 square miles-being greater than that of England, and double that of Ireland.

VOL. III.-7

value of land and the demand for labor

the higher their prices and the greater the freedom of man. When, on the contrary, they fly apart, the greater is the tendency to a decline in the value of land, the less is the value of labor, and the less the freedom of man. Desiring, then, to ascertain the ultimate cause of the existence of the domestic slave-trade, it would seem to be necessary only to ascertain the causes of the exhaustion of the land. Seeking to discover these, we find in the works of British writers that "the mode of agriculture usually coincident with the employment of slave labor is essentially exhaustive”— slavery thus being given, as the cause of declining agriculture. As usual, however, cause and effect are here inverted-a declining agriculture being the cause of slavery extension. In proof of this, we need only look to Ireland, Turkey, Portugal, or any other country in which diversity of employments has not arisen, or in which it has ceased to exist, as a consequence of a system tending towards the separation of the consumer from the producer. In all such countries- the circulation being necessarily slow-it is as entirely impossible that there should be physical health, as it would be in a human body similarly situated. The more rapid the circulation, the higher will always be found the health of both.

It is not slavery that produces exhaustion of the soil, but exhaustion of the soil that causes slavery to continue. The people of England rose from slavery to freedom as the land was made productive-larger numbers being thus enabled to obtain subsistence from similar surfaces; and it was precisely as land acquired value that they were freed. Such, too, has been the case with every people that has been enabled to pay its debts to mother earth, because of having a market near at hand. On the contrary, there is no country in the world, in which men have been deprived of the power to improve their land, in which slavery has not been maintained-becoming aggravated in intensity as the land became more and more exhausted. It is to this perpetual separation from each other that the poverty and weakness of the Southern portion of the Union are due.

At the close of the Revolution, the now slave States contained 1,600,000 people, scattered over 120,000,000 of acres -giving an average of about eighty acres to each. In 1850, their numbers had grown to 8,500,000, with an area

of more than 1,000,000,000—giving to each more than one hundred acres. Circulation being, therefore, languid to a degree that is almost inconceivable, production is trivial in its amount, as is shown by an estimate for 1850, furnished by a Southern journal of undoubted reputation :

as the total production of eight millions and a half of people, or $35 each. Taking, now, the total production of the Union at $3,600,000,000, we have for 14,500,000 of Northern people $3,000,000,000-being nearly seven times as much per head. In the one-all being limited to the work of exhausting the land, and all living by the sale of the soil- the circulation is slow, and labor is wasted.

what more rapid

In the other the circulation being somelabor is, in some degree, economised.

The slower the circulation, the more is the tendency towards slavery; and hence it is, that slavery so much advances.

That

it may become otherwise, the planter must be compelled to pay his debts to the land; and that he cannot be, while obliged to resort to the distant market. Obvious as is this truth, distinguished Englishmen congratulate their countrymen on the working of the free-trade system, in destroying the domestic manufactures of Carolina and other Southern States, and thus compelling the export of cotton in its rudest state. But a few years since, Georgia promised to become a principal seat of the cotton manufacture for the world. Now, she exports her people so rapidly, that, with every natural advantage, her population has grown, in the last five years, but three per cent. Hence the existence of a domestic slave-trade that shocks the feelings of Christian men; and hence, too, the discord between the Northern and Southern portions of the Union.

*De Bow's Review.

That the slave-trade, with its accompanying violation of the rights of parents and children, and with its natural tendency towards a total forgetfulness of the sanctity of the marriage tie, has its origin in the exhaustion of the land, there can be no doubt. That that, in its turn, has its origin in the necessity for a dependence on distant markets, is quite as certain. The man who must go to a distance with his products, cannot raise potatoes, hay, or turnips. He must raise the less bulky articles, wheat or cotton-taking from his land all the elements of which they are composed, and then abandoning it.* Forced, thus, to stake his existence on the success of a single crop, he finds himself wholly deprived of the power of associating with his fellowman, for purposes of drainage, or for in any manner securing himself against the risks attendant upon changes of the weather. Being himself but the slave of nature, it is as a necessary consequence that the laborer is everywhere the slave of his fellow-man.

The more the planter is forced to depend upon foreign markets, the greater must be the tendency to decline of quantity, and diminution in the price of what is produced-and the greater that towards exhaustion of the soil, expulsion of the people, and further diminution in the rapidity of circulation.

The state of facts above presented in reference to the Southern States is generally true throughout the Union. At the commencement of the century, their total population was 5,300,000-giving 6.47 per square mile. Half a century later, their numbers had quadrupled-having risen to 23,190,000. The territory, however, having increased almost in like proportion, the density of population was but little changed-standing at only 7.90 per mile. In the first period, the territory occupied extended but little beyond the Allegheny ridge—the territory

* Western New York has probably the best wheat lands of the world; and yet the question is there discussed, as to the possibility of being forced to abandon the wheat culture. The difficulty results from the incessant ravages of the weevil and the Hessian fly. That, in its turn, results from weakness of the plant, caused by the absence of its appropriate food. That food-ammonia-being largely contained in clover, pears, beans, beets, artichokes, lupines, and other vegetables, their cultivation is recommended as furnishing a cure for the now rapidly growing evil; but, unfortunately, the market is distant, and commodities of which the earth yields largely will not bear transportation. Make a market on the land, and both the weevil and the fly will disappear-the power of man over nature always growing with the growth of the power of combination.

-

totally unoccupied, bearing to it a proportion not widely different from that of the present day. Making allowance for any difference that may exist, the density of population is certainly not one-half greater than it was half a century since. The theory of the governmental policy being that of the exportation of raw products exhaustion of the soil-diffusion of populationdiminution of the power of association-and growing dependence on ships, wagons, railroad cars and engines-its results are seen in the facts, that the rural population of a State like New York, with all its immense advantages, is now declining; that its land is becoming more and more consolidated; that the power to maintain schools and churches is regularly diminishing—centralization growing steadily, with constant diminution in the rapidity of the societary circulation, and equally constant increase of pauperism and of crime. Such are the necessary consequences of a system that forbids the growth of the mechanic arts, and thus prevents development of the powers of the land, and of the man by whom it is tilled. Ohio, a State, that half a century since, was a wilderness, is following rapidly in the same direction; and for the reason, that, with all the vast abundance of coal and ore within her limits, her people are compelled to go abroad for cloth and iron-paying for them by the sale of all the elements of which their rude products are composed.

§ 11. With every step in the progress of dispersion, the dependence of the people upon the trader becomes more and more complete, and the larger, necessarily, is the proportion borne by the capital which is movable to that which is fixed. The tendencies of the system of the United States being all in that direction, the population becomes from year to year more nomadic; and hence it is, that the movable capital bears to the whole mass, as has been already shown, a larger proportion than is to be found among any people of the world, claiming to be considered civilized. In that direction lie sluggish circulation, demoralization, slavery, and barbarism. That the circulation may be rapid, men must come more nearly together-the land must be improved - and the fertile soils must be subjected to cultivation; but that these things may be done, there must be that diversity of employments which tends to the development