The Barbarism of Slavery

11 Among educational establishments, one of the most efficient is the Press ; and here again all things testify for Freedom. The Free^ States excel in the number of newspapers and periodicals published, whether daily, semi-weekly, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, or quarterly; and whatever their character, whether literary, neutral, political, religious, or scientific. The whole aggregate circulation in the Free States is 334,146,281; in the Slave States, 81,038,693. In Free Michigan, 3,247,736 ; in Slave Arkansas, 377,000. In Free Ohio, 30,473,407 ; in Slave Kentucky, 6,582,838. In Slave South Carolina, 7,145,930 ; in Free Massachusetts, 64,820,564—a larger number than in the ten Slave States, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, combined. This enormous disproportion in the aggregate is also preserved in the details. In the Slave States, political newspapers find more favor than any others; but even of these they publish only 47,243,209 copies, while the Free States publish 163,583,668. Of neutral newspapers, the Slave States publish 8,812,620 ; the Free States, 79,156,738. Of religious newspapers, the Slave States publish 4,364,832; the Free States, 29,280,652. Of literary journals, the Slave States publish 20,245,360 ; the Free States, 57,478,768. And of scientific journals, the Slave States publish 372,672 ; the Free States, 4,521,260. Of these latter, the number of copies published in Massachusetts alone is 2,033,260—more than five times the number in the whole land of Slavery. Thus, in contributions to science, literature, religion, and even politics, as attested by the activity of the peri- | odical press, do the Slave States miserably fail, while darkness gathers over them. And this seems to be increasing with time. According to the census of 1810, the disproportion in this respect between the two regions was only as two to one. It is now more than five to one, and is still going on. The same disproportion appears with regard to persons connected with the Press. In the Free States, the number of printers was 11,822, of whom 1,229 were in Massachusetts; in the slave States there were 2,895, of whom South Carolina had only 141. In the Free States, the number of publishers was 331; in the Slave States, 24. Of these, Massachusetts had 59, or more than twice as many as all the Slave States; while South Carolina had none. In the Free States, the authors were 73; in the Slave States, 9—of whom Massachusetts had 17, and South Carolina 2. These suggestive illustrations are all derived from the last official census. But if we go to other sources, the contrast is still the same. Of the authors mentioned in Duyckink’s Cyclopedia of American Literature, 403 are of the Free States, and only 87 of the Slave States. Of the poets mentioned in Griswold’s Poets and Poetry of America, 123 are of the Free States, and only 17 of the Slave States. Of the poets, whose place of birth appears in Reed’s Female Poets of America, 73 are of the Free States, and only 11 of the Slave States. And if we try authors by weight or quality, it is the same as when we try them by numbers. Out of the Free States have come all whose works have taken a place in the permanent literature of the country—Irving, Prescott, Sparks, Bancroft, Emerson, Motley, Hildreth, and Hawthorne; also, Bryant, Longfellow, Dana, Halleck, Whittier, and Lowell—and I might add indefinitely to the list. But what name from the Slave States could find a place there ? A similar disproportion appears in the number of Patents, attesting the inventive industry of the contrasted regions, issued during the last three years, 1857, 1858, and 1859. In the Free States there were 9,560; in the Slave States, 1,449—making a difference of 8,111 in favor of Freedom. The number in Free Massachusetts was 972 ; in Slave South Carolina, 39. The number in Free Connecticut, small in territory and population, was 628 ; in Slave Virginia, large in territory and population, 184. From all these things we might infer the ignorance prevalent in the Slave States; but this shows itself in specific results of a deplorable character, authenticated by the official census. It appears that in the Slave States there were 493,026 native white persons over twenty years of age who cannot read and write, while in the Free States, with double the white population, there were but 248,725 native whites over twenty years of age in this unhappy predicament. In the Slave States the proportion was 1 to 12 ; in the Free States it was 1 to 53. The number in Free Massachusetts, with a population of nearly a million, was 1,005, or 1 in 517”; the number in Slave South Carolina, with a population under three hundred thousand, was 15,580, or 1 in 7. The number in Free Connecticut was 1 in 277 ; in Slave Virginia, 1 in 5 ; in free New Hampshire 1 in 201, and in Slave North Carolina, 1 in 3. Before closing this picture of Slavery, where the dismal colors all come from official figures, there are two other aspects in which for a moment it may be regarded: 1. The first is the influence which it has on emigration. It is stated in the official compendium of the census, (page 115,) that those persons living in Slave States who are natives of Free States are more numerous than those living in Free States who are natives of Slave States. This is an egregious error. Just the contrary is true. The census of 1850 found 609,371 in the Free States who were born in the Slave States, while only 206,638 born in the Free States were in the Slave States. And since the white population of the Free States is double that of the Slave States, it appears that the proportion of whites moving from Slavery is six times greater than that of whites moving into slavery. In this simple fact is disclosed some-

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