THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



183 



Sugar, tobacco, and other products are also mainly 

 drawn from the South; while most of the European 

 and other supplies are received throut;h the Northern 

 ports. The disruption occurs at a most inauspicious 

 time for the Federal Government, whose finances are 

 deranged, and its credit not of the best, although its 

 debt is trivial and its resources ample. Still any with- 

 drawal of Customs revenue and other taxes, will prove 

 injurious; and with present difficulty in placing even 

 its treasury bonds, any loans for war purposes, in in- 

 creasing naval and military forces, would be still more 

 injurious. 



Kcsuming the statistical inquiries we lately com- 

 menced, we find that the fifteen slave States comprise 

 a population, according to the latest accounts, of up- 

 wards of 12,000,000, being an increase since 1840 of 

 nearly 5,000,000, and of these nearly 4,000,000 are 

 slaves. Tlie whole of the Republic contains an area o' 

 nearly 3,000,000 square miles, of which Louisiana, 

 Florida, aiid Texas alone make up nearly half. The 

 entire population, of which a census has recently been 

 taken, probably amounts now to 3G, 000,000, or an in- 

 crease of more than one-third since the last decennial 

 census. The revenue last year of the Republic was 

 £10,-200,000, and the national debt about £12,000,000 

 but the States individually have also absolute debts 

 amounting to £39,000,000, and contingent debts to 

 £l 1,500,000 ; of these debts the slave States owe about 

 £22,000,000 ; Virginia, Maryland, North and South 

 Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee have 

 the largest liabilities. 



The slave States possess the two large seaports of New 

 Orleans and Baltimore; and another great town, St. 

 Louis, is rapidly springing up on the Mississippi. New 

 Orleans has a population of about 150,000, Baltimore 

 210,000, St. Louis 100,000, Charleston 41,000, and 

 Mobile 21,000. 



There is one fact which requires to be noticedj and 

 that is — the rapid natural increase of the slaves, 

 without any aid from immigration or foreign slave 

 traffic, which is in striking conti«ast to the almost sta- 

 tionary condition of the free negroes. This furnishes, 

 it is true, no moral justification of the institution of 

 slavery, but it does give a decided denial to the stories 

 of general cruelty and degradation among the slaves, 

 for no race could thrive and multiply thus steadily 

 and rapidly under a general system of cruelty. The 

 number of slaves in 1830 were 2,000,000, in 1850 a 

 little over 3,000,000, and is now estimated to be nearly 

 4,000,000. 



The ratio of decennial increase of the free negro 

 population has materially declined in the northern 

 States; but there ha? been and continues to be a steady 

 increase among this class in the slave States, and this in 

 spite of the civil and social disabilities and the antago- 

 nism of races, which is more marked there than at the 

 North. Although each of the slave States has laws 

 forbidding absolutely the introduction of free negroes 

 from other States, their numbers multiply there in a 

 ratio exceeding that of most of the free States, which 

 are the refuge of fugitives, and whose laws are the 



most indidgent to the coloured race. The free negroes 

 are now more numerous in the slave than in the free 

 States — a result not to be easily credited or compre- 

 hended, when we think of the opposite institutions 

 and tastes that exist in the two divisions of the Con- 

 federacy. It must be referred partly to the more fa- 

 vourable climate of the South, and partly to a natural 

 inclination in a portion of the race to submit to the 

 degraded condition of their ancestors rather than un- 

 dergo the hazards so often attendant upon higher civil 

 standing in the more Northern States. 



The business in the slave ports hitherto has been 

 chiefly in exporting produce, their imports being com- 

 paratively small. The following shows the propor- 

 tionate value of imports and exports in round 

 numbers : — 



1851. 1858. 



Imports — Free States . . 

 Imports— Slave States. . 



Exports — Free States . . 

 Exports— Slave States.. 



..£40,000,000 

 , . 5,000,000 



.. 22,400,000 

 , . 23,000,000 



£50,250,000 

 0,300,000 



33,000,000 

 32,000,000 



Taking the returns of the year 1850, for comparison, 

 we find tkat the following were the agricultural pro- 

 ducts of each division : — 



SLAVE. 



84,332 



Improved land, square 1 



miles J 



Wool, tons 5,580 



Hay „ 1,117,470 



Butter „ 29,205 



Cheese „ 579 



Wheat, qrs 3,908,205 



Indian-corn, qrs 42,930,357 



Hemp, tons 67,254 



Tobacco „ 82,443 



Cotton , 431,834 



Su:.'ar „ 143,741 



FREE. 



89,191 



17,735 



12,470,819 



109,007 



45,411 



9,107,507 



30,234,005 



7,987 



6,605 



13 717 



The quantity of rice grown was about 37,000 tons. 

 The Indian-corn crop, chiefly centring in the South- 

 ern and Western States, is a greater and more valuable 

 staple than cotton. The cotton may be worth 

 £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 ; but the maize crop is 

 worth £60,000,000 or more than double, and of this 

 about £12,000,000 is annually exported. In Western 

 Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, 

 and Missouri, there were raised in 1850 about 350 mil- 

 lion bushels, or nearly two-thirds of the whole amount 

 grown in the States, and last year probably about 500 

 million bushels. 



In 1851 the value of the productions of the Southern 

 States was about £33,000,000, of which cotton stood 

 for £27,060,000, sugar for £3,100,000, tobacco 

 about £2,000,000, rice £400,000, and naval stores 

 (that is wood, turpentine, &c.) £200,000. The last 

 three items are the exports only, and not the whole 

 production, of which there is no accurate record. Our 

 chief purpose in placing these few figures before our 

 readers is to diffuse authentic information as to the 

 position and resources of the Slave States, with which 

 British commerce and manufactures arc so closely 

 identified. 



