No. 12. 



Value of Land. 



381 



ditiire of capital in the formation of roads 

 and canals leading from the lakes to market, 

 but they are in many cases dearer, fertile as 

 they are, at that price, than lands in Penn- 

 sylvania or New York at $60 to $100 per 

 acre. Clear and enclose them, and give 

 them roads and canals, and they will gradu- 

 ally acquire farther value, rismg with the 

 growth of wealth and population, but never 

 equal in amount to that of the labour that 

 has been expended tipon them— a. fact uni- 

 versally true, and carrying with it abundant 

 evidence that land owes all its value to the 

 labour applied to its improvements.* 



Men who are willing to work seek 1111 

 nois, Wisconsin and Iowa, and each takes a 

 piece of land that he is to render valuable 

 by means of his labour, and that constitutes 

 a sort of little savings box, in which he de 

 posits all his wages over and above what is 

 absolutely necessary for the support of him 

 self and his family, as well as all the spare 

 hours and half hours that would otherwise 

 be unemployed. Every additional deposit 

 therein tends, as with children who have 

 penny-boxes, to increase his desire of accu- 

 mulation, and to increase the habit of indus- 

 try and economy. With the growth of pop- 

 ulation, the number of these little savings 

 banks is steadily increasing, and by degrees 

 a wealthy community arises, the members 

 of which, by combining their means, are en- 

 abled to create money-shops, at which poor 

 but honest and industrious men can obtain 

 loans, while applying other portions of those 

 means to the construction of turnpike roads, 

 and ultimately railroads or canals. Wealth 

 attracts wealth; and every new house, or 

 town, or city, or road, whether of stone or 

 of iron, tends to bring new labourers and to 

 produce new divisions of land, new houses, 

 and new savings boxes, and to cause the 

 construction of new roads and canals. In 

 the South these little savings boxes have no 

 existence. The labourer has no property, 

 and has no inducement to exertion, and his 

 master has no economy. The land is ex- 

 hausted, and deteriorates in value until at 



* The United States are the largest landholders in 

 the world, and they obtain their land on the lowest 

 terms. Nevertheless, they would be ruined by the 

 ownership were it not for their entire exemption from 

 contributions, in the form of taxes, toward the im- 

 provement of their own property. They sell the best 

 lands, and the purchasers pay the taxes thereon for 

 making roads and building courthouses, while making 

 private contributions for churches, &;c., &c., and thus 

 the second, and third, and fourth qualities gradually 

 acquire value equal to $1 25 per acre, and are sold. 

 But for this, the public lands would bankrupt the Trea- 

 sury, although obtained originally for almost nothing. 



length both labourer and employer are com- 

 pelled, if they would continue to live, to run 

 away from it. In the first case we see the 

 attractive power of wealth, while the second 

 exhibits the repulsive power of constantly 

 increasing poverty. Population diminishes, 

 and land loses the little value it once pos- 

 sessed. 



The people of the South burn the candle 

 at both ends. They offer no inducement to 

 economy or exertion on the part of those 

 who labour, and they despise labour too much 

 to acquire, themselves, the habit of employ- 

 ment, by aid of which they would become 

 economical. In New England, all work and 

 all spend liberally in proportion to their 

 means; but there is very little waste of ei- 

 ther labour or capital. The results of these 

 different modes of action are widely different. 

 The Southern planter is like the elephant, 

 who leaves behind him scarcely any record 

 of his existence ; while the Yankee resem- 

 bles the coral insect, whose labours and hab- 

 its of association are attested by the form- 

 ation of extensive islands destined, perhaps, 

 at some future time to be combined, by the 

 farther labours of these industrious creatures, 

 into a vast southern continent. Were the 

 people, white and black, of South Carolina 

 swept away, what would remain to give 

 value to the lands'? Almost nothing ! Com- 

 pare, I pray you, the condition in which their 

 successors would stand, with that of an equal 

 number coming at once into possession of 

 Massachusetts, with its towns and cities, its 

 factories and ships, its turnpikes and rail- 

 roads, and then answer for yourself the ques- 

 tion " Why it is that land in the South is so 

 nearly worthless"!" 



Mr. Calhoun holds that South Carolina 

 exhibits to the world a model of society the 

 most perfect that exists. If other people 

 thought so, there would be an influx of popu- 

 lation and of wealth. If his countrymen 

 thought so themselves they would not run 

 away from it as they do. If it were really 

 so, there would be a gradual diminution in 

 the size of farms or plantations, and an in- 

 crease in the number and quality of houses, 

 whereas the present tendency is directly the 

 reverse. If they wish to continue their so- 

 ciety in its present state of perfection, they 

 must resign themselves to constantly in- 

 creasing depopulation and poverty. If, on 

 the contrary, they desire their lands to be- 

 come valuable, they must make it the inte- 

 rest of the labourer to work and to econo- 

 mize, by securing to him the enjoyment of 

 the results. They must teach the people 

 to make saving funds by aid of which, even- 

 tually, railroads and canals will be construct- 

 ed ; and nothing will be done to render pro- 



