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OUR COUNTRY AFTER THE REVOLUTION.

tween fifteen and sixty years of age was a hunter. The larger and smaller rivers, as yet unobstructed by the dams and wheels of the cotton-spinner and power-loom weaver, abounded in excellent fish, and at seasons fairly swarmed with them. The potato, usually planted in the vegetable mold left by recently exterminated forests, yielded its edible tubers with a bounteous profusion unknown to the husbandry of our day. Hills the most granitic and apparently sterile, from which the wood was burned one season, would, the next year, produce any grain in ample measure, and at a moderate cost of labor and care. Almost every farmer's house was a hive, wherein the 'great wheel' and the 'little wheel' -the former kept in motion by the hands and feet of all the daughters ten years old and upward, the latter plied by their not less industrious mother-hummed and whirled from morning till night. In the back room, or some convenient appendage, the loom responded day by day to the movements of the busy shuttle, whereby the fleeces of the farmer's flock and the flax of his field were slowly but steadily converted into substantial though homely cloth, sufficient for the annual wear of the family, and often with something over to exchange at the neighboring

"Vagabonds, without visible property or vocation, are placed in workhouses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor. Nearly the same method of providing for the poor prevails through all the States; and, from Savannah to Portsmouth, you will seldom meet a beggar. In the larger towns, indeed, they sometimes present themselves. These are usually foreigners who have never obtained a settlement in any parish. I never saw a native American begging in the streets or highways. A subsistence is easily gained here: and if, by misfortunes, they are thrown on the charities of the world, those provided by their own country

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merchant's for his groceries and wares. A few bushels of corn, a few sheep, a fattened steer, with, perhaps, a few saw-logs, or loads of hoop-poles, made up the annual surplus of the husbandman's products, helping to square accounts with the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the minister, and the lawyer, if the farmer were so unfortunate as to have any dealings with the latter personage. His life, during peace, was passed in a narrower round than ours, and may well seem to us tame, limited, monotonous; but the sun which warmed him was identical with ours; the breezes which refreshed him were like those we gladly welcome; and, while his road to mill and to meeting was longer and rougher than those we daily traverse, he doubtless passed them unvexed by apprehensions of a snorting locomotive, at least as contented as we, and with small suspicion of his ill-fortune in having been born in the Eighteenth instead of the Nineteenth Century.'

The illusion that the times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages. Yet a passionately earnest assertion, which many of us have heard from the lips of the old men of thirty to fifty years ago, that the days of their youth were sweeter and happier than those we have known, will doubtless justify

are so comfortable and so certain, that they never think of relinquishing them to become strolling beggars. Their situation, too, when sick, in the family of a good farmer, where every member is anxious to do them kind offices, where they are visited by all the neighbors, who bring them little rarities which their sickly appetites may crave, and who take by rotation the nightly watch over them, when their condition requires it, is, without comparison, better than in a general hospital, where the sick, the dying, and the dead, are crammed together in the same rooms, and often in the same beds."-Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, p. 196.

us in believing that they were by no | live stock, and nearly two hundred

means intolerable. It is not too much to assume that the men by whose valor and virtue American independence was achieved, and who lived to enjoy, for half a century thereafter, the gratitude of their country, and the honest pride of their children, saw wealth as fairly distributed, and the labor of freemen as adequately rewarded, as those of almost any other country or of any previous generation.

Eighty years had not passed since the acknowledgment of our independence, when the returns of the Eighth Decennial Census afforded us the means of measuring our country's growth and physical progress during nearly its whole national history. The retrospect and the prospect might well minister to the pride (though that were needless) of a patriotic apostle of 'manifest destiny.' During those eighty years, or within the memory of many still living, the area of our country had been expanded, by successive and, in good part, peaceful acquisitions, from Eight Hundred Thousand to about Three Millions of square miles. Its population, excluding the Aboriginal savages, had increased from Three to more than Thirty Millions. Of its two thousand millions of acres of dry land, about five hundred millions had been divided into farms; leaving three-fourths of its surface as yet unimproved, though but in part unappropriated. Its farms were officially

estimated as worth six thousand six hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and were doubtless actually worth not less than Ten Thousand Millions of dollars. On these farms were over eleven hundred millions' worth of

Of

and fifty millions' worth of implements and machinery. The value of animals annually slaughtered was returned at over two hundred millions of dollars. The annual product of Wheat was more than one hundred and seventy millions of bushels, with an equal quantity of Oats, and more than eight hundred millions of bushels of Indian Corn. Of Tobacco, our annual product was more than four hundred millions of pounds; and of Rice, nearly two millions. Of Wool, our annual clip was over sixty millions of pounds, and our consumption probably double that amount. ginned Cotton, ready for market, our product was about one million of tuns, or more than Five Millions of bales of four hundred pounds each. Four hundred and sixty millions of pounds of Butter, and one hundred and five millions of pounds of Cheese, were likewise returned as our aggregate product for the year 1859. We made in that year three hundred and forty millions of pounds of Sugar, and more than twenty-five millions of gallons of Molasses. And, beside consuming all this, with twenty-five millions of pounds of home-made Honey, we imported from abroad to the value of over thirty-six millions of dollars. We dragged from our forests, not including fuel, Timber valued at more than Ninety-three Millions of dollars. We made Flour to the value of Two Hundred Millions. We manufactured over fifty

five millions' worth of Cotton into fabrics, worth one hundred and fifteen millions of dollars, beside importing largely from abroad. We fabricated over eighty millions of pounds of Wool, costing forty mil

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OUR COUNTRY IN 1859-60.

lions of dollars, into sixty-eight millions' worth of goods, though importing nearly all our finer woolen fabrics. We produced sixty-three millions' worth of Leather; eight hundred and seventy-five thousand tuns of Pig Iron, worth twenty millions of dollars; four hundred thousand tuns of Wrought Iron, worth twenty-one millions; and Agricultural Implements to the value of millions. The grand total of Manufactures, returned by this Census, amounted in value to One Thousand Nine Hundred Millions-an increase of forty-five per cent. within ten years. Our Exports, for the year ending in 1860, amounted to a little more than Four Hundred Millions of dollars, whereof all but Twenty-seven Millions were of domestic production. Our Imports were a little over Three Hundred and Sixty Millions. Of Gold and Silver, we exported, in that year, nearly fifty-seven millions of dollars, and imported about eight millions and a half; indicating that ours had become one of the great gold-producing countries on earth, if not the very greatest. The number of ocean voyages terminating in our ports during the year ending June 30, 1861, was Twenty-two Thousand, less forty; their aggregate tunnage a little more than seven millions two hundred and forty thousand-more than two-thirds of it American. About fifty thousand churches, with forty thousand clergymen; two hundred and thirty-nine Colleges, having one thousand six hundred and seventy-eight teachers and twenty-seven thousand eight hundred and twentyone pupils; six thousand and eightyfive Academies and Private Schools,

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with twelve thousand two hundred and sixty teachers and two hundred and sixty-three thousand and ninetysix pupils; eighty thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight Common Schools, with three millions three hundred and fifty-four thousand and eleven pupils; three hundred and eighty-six Daily Newspapers, circulating in the aggregate one million four hundred and seventy-eight thousand four hundred and thirty-five copies; one hundred and forty-six TriWeekly and Semi-Weekly, and three thousand one hundred and fifty-three Weekly journals, circulating seven millions five hundred and sixty-four thousand three hundred and fourteen copies; with nineteen Quarterlies, five hundred and twenty-one Literary, and two hundred and seventy-one Religious periodicals, mainly issued weekly, sufficiently attest that our progress had not been purely physical, but intellectual and moral as well.

The temptation to increase these citations from the Census is one hard to resist. Yet any multiplication of details would tend rather to confuse than to deepen their impression on the mind of the general reader. Let it suffice, then, in conclusion, that the Real and Personal Estate of our people, which in 1850 was returned as of the aggregate value of a little over Seven Thousand Millions of dollars, was, in 1860, returned as worth over Sixteen Thousand Millions-an increase in ten years of more than one hundred and twentyfive per cent. It is quite probable that both these aggregates are largely under the truth; but, conceding their accuracy, it is perfectly safe to assume that Fifteen of the Six

teen Thousand Millions of property | world by the industry, enterprise, returned in 1860 had been created and thrift of our people during the and added to the wealth of the eighty preceding years.

II.

SLAVERY BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.

VICE, whether individual or general, is ever conceived in darkness and cradled in obscurity. It challenges observation only in its hardy maturity and conscious strength. Slavery is older than Civilization-older than History. Its origin is commonly reerred to warto the captivity of the vanquished, and to the thrift and clemency of the victor, who learns by experience that the gratification of killing his prisoner is transient, while the profit of sparing him for servitude is enduring; and thus, in rude ages, not merely the vanquished warriors, but their wives and children, their dependents and subjects, were accounted legitimate "spoils of victory," along with the lands, houses, flocks and herds, the goods and chattels of the conquered people. "Woe to the conquered!" is the primary rule of savage and of barbarian warfare; and the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, the destruction by Rome of Capua, of Carthage, and of other cities and peoples which had provoked her special enmity, prove that nations which regarded themselves as far advanced in civilization, were hardly more merciful than savages, when maddened by fear and hate. War wastes and devastates. The earth, plowed however deeply with cannon-wheels, yields uncertain

harvests; yet armies and their dependents must be fed. Rapacity, as well as destruction, seems almost inseparable from war. The soldier, impelled to destroy for his chief's or his country's sake, soon learns to save and appropriate for his own. The natural and necessary distinction between 'mine' and 'thine' becomes in his mind confused, if not obliterated. The right of every one to the product of his own labor is one which his vocation incites, and even compels, him to disregard. To enslave those whom, whether combatants or otherwise, he might justifiably kill, appears to him rather an act of humanity than of injustice and wrong. Hence, the warlike, conquering, dominating races of antiquity almost universally rejoiced, when at their acme of power and greatness, in the possession of innumerable slaves.

Slavery of a mild and gentle type may very well have grown up insensibly, even in the absence of war. war. The patriarch has shelter and food, with employment for various capacities; and his stronghold, if he be stationary, or his tents, if he be nomadic, become the refuge of the unfortunate and the destitute from the region around him. The abandoned wife, the unwedded mother, the crippled or infirm of either sex,

SLAVERY AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

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hend that it was cheaper to buy the beef he required in the grass-market at Glasgow than to obtain it without price, by harrying the lowland farms. So the first man who ever imbibed or conceived the fatal delusion that it was more advantageous to him, or to any human being, to procure whatever his necessities or his appetites required by address and scheming than by honest work—by the unrequited rather than the fairly and faithfully recompensed toil of his fellow-creatures-was, in essence and in heart, a slaveholder, and only awaited opportunity to become one in deed and practice. And this sin

the tender orphan, and the out-worn, seedy prodigal, betake themselves to his lodge, and humbly solicit his permission to earn bread and shelter by tending his flocks and herds, or by any other service to which their capacities are adequate. Some are accepted from motives of thrift; others under the impulse of charity; and the greater portion of either class, exulting in their escape from hunger, cold, and nakedness, gladly remain through life. Marriages are formed among them and children are born, who grow up adepts in the labor the patriarch requires of them, contented with their station, and ignorant of the world outside of his posses-gle truth, operating upon the infinite sions. If his circumstances require a military force, he organizes it of 'servants born in his household.' His possessions steadily increase, and he becomes in time a feudal chieftain, ruling over vassals proud of his eminence and docile to his will. Thus it has been justly remarked that the condition of Slavery has ever preceded the laws by which it is ultimately regulated; and it is not without plausibility that its champions have contended for it as a natural form of society-a normal development of the necessary association of Capital with Labor in Man's progress from rude ignorance and want to abundance, refinement, and luxury.

But Slavery, primarily considered, has still another aspect-that of a natural relation of simplicity to cunning, of ignorance to knowledge, of weakness to power. Thomas Carlyle,' before his melancholy decline and fall into devil-worship, truly observed, that the capital mistake of Rob Roy was his failure to compre

varieties of human capacity and cul-
ture, suffices to account for the uni-
versality of slaveholding in the ante-
Christian ages, for its tenacity of life,
and for the extreme difficulty of
even its partial eradication. The an-
cients, while they apprehended, per-
haps adequately, the bitterness of
bondage, which many of them had
experienced, do not seem to have
perceived so vividly the correspond-
ing evils of slaveholding. They saw
that end of the chain which encircled
the ankle of the bondman; they do
not seem to have so clearly perceived
that the other lay heavily across the
throat of even his sleeping master,
Homer-if we may take Pope's word
for it-observed that

"Jove fixed it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away;"

but that the slaveholding relation ef-
fected an equal discount on the value
of the master appears to have escaped
him. It is none the less true, how-
ever, that ancient civilization, in its

1 In a letter on Copyright.

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