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Compensation Essential to Peace and Civilization.
IN WHICH IT IS MADE APPARENT THAT THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY ARE THREE-FOLD GREATER THAN THE EMERGENCY, WHICH WILL CALL FOR LITTLE, IF ANY, ADDITIONAL TAXATION.
By
DANIEL R. GOODLOE, OF NORTH CAROLINA.
“If civil war come, if insurrection come, is this beleagued Capital, is this besieged Government to see millions of its subjects in arms, and have no right to break the fetters which they are forging into swords? No! The war power of the Government can sweep this institution into the Gulf.”—
John Quincy Adams.
INTRODUCTION.
The author of this essay is less ambitious of submitting a specific plan for the abolition of Slavery, than of showing its necessity to the restoration of peace and union,—and that these can only be made permanent and genuine by awarding liberal compensation to the slaveholders. It is argued that the amelioration of the black race can only be effected through the agency of the whites,—and, to secure this, fair compensation must be made for the deprivation of what Southern men regard as their property. It is maintained further, that the issue of Government stocks to the Southern proprietors, to the extent of a thousand or twelve hundred millions, while insuring perfect peace and good will between the North and South, and between the white and black races, would at the same time stimulate industry in both sections beyond all precedent; and the North, in this way, would be repaid for its share in the public burden. Northern agriculture, manufactures and commerce would receive a new and unprecedented impulse from the augmented demands of their full-handed Southern customers. The South would retain every productive resource of land and labor it possessed before the revolt, and the cash value of the slaves besides; and the result would be an amount of imports and exports, of profits and prosperity, never before known, and a public revenue adequate to the demands upon the treasury, with little it any additional taxation. It is urged that the attempt to abolish Slavery without compensation would embitter and prolong the war, perhaps for years, and thus cost more than the value of the slaves; while success would leave the South prostrated in resources and burning with implacable resentments. It is proposed to begin the work of emancipation by submitting to the loyal Slave States the purpose of the Government with reference to the rebels, accompanied with the offer of compensation, at a specific valuation of their slaves. The insignificance of the public debt which this scheme involves, compared with the resources of the country, are demonstrated by showing the three-fold greater burdens which the people of Great Britain sustained forty years ago.
Washington.
Aug. 26, 1861.
THE NECESSITY OF EMANCIPATION.
It is the hope and the prayer of the most humane and enlightened part of the American people, that the civil war which has rent the country in twain will only terminate in the extinction of the cause of it. The idea gains ground daily, that in some way, Slavery must be abolished before we can have a return of peace and prosperity. Wise and good men and women see, in the events by which we are surrounded, the hand of Providence stretched forth to break every yoke, while sagacious observers of the world's affairs see no solution of the problem but in the total overthrow of Slavery.
Prior to the commencement of hostilities by the audacious attack on the National flag at Fort Sumter, there was an indefinable feeling pervading
In the formation of the Constitutional Union under which we live, the conservation of “liberty to ourselves and our posterity” was the leading motive. Slavery was exceptional; it was regarded as an evil, a curse and a wrong, and the framers of the Constitution were so much ashamed of it, that they would not suffer the odious terms, slave and Slavery, to find a place in that noble chart of freedom. They had no power to abolish it, while in the act of forming a Union of equal (though not sovereign) States, but they stamped the mark of reprobation upon it by refusing to name it in the bond of Union—by describing the foul thing in terms of circumlocution, as one would allude to places not to be mentioned “to ears polite.” Shall it be said, then, that this exceptional institution, of which our fathers were ashamed—the very name of which was avoided in drafting the chart of our liberties—shall it be said that this recognized wrong—this unrecognized claim of right—shall now rear its hideous front in menacing attitude against the Constitution, and be spared by the guardians of our liberties? That it is the sole cause of the rebellion, not a human being on either side of the controversy will pretend to deny, and that its overthrow would forever put an end to the strife, is equally clear. It is as generally conceded that there can be no real peace and concord while Slavery lasts. The conflict is irrepressible, and the struggle between Freedom and Slavery is to the death.
There are four or five Slave States and parts of States which are still loyal to the Union, but the fact is well known that they contain large elements of secession. If we were to recognize the independence of the revolted States, and retain these Border Slave States in the Union, what guarantee should we have of their continued loyalty? They might become dissatisfied with their Northern associates, and long for union with the slaveholding Confederacy. The result of an election might any day give the ascendancy to the secession party, and the General Government would find itself in the unpleasant predicament of holding half-a-dozen disloyal States in enforced obedience to the Constitution, making it necessary to keep up a large standing army. To gratify these slaveholding members of the Union it would at the same time be necessary to have an international Fugitive Slave law. It is bad enough now, with the odious and cruel statute on the records of our domestic legislation, but to be constrained by the handful of slaveholders in the Border States to enter into a treaty with a foreign nation, in violation of the great recognized law of nations, which is universal freedom, would be humiliating to the last degree. But with such a dishonoring treaty, there would be no guarantee of the permanent loyalty of the Border States, and the result would be, after a few years' experience, that we should find it convenient to abandon them, and with them the Capital of the Union.
There can never be peace and good will between the North and South while Slavery lasts. The Southern people will never be loyal to the General Government while Slavery is tolerated. We may overrun them, and disperse their military forces, but we must maintain a large standing army for an indefinite period, to preserve order and repress revolt. The alternatives presented to us, therefore, are, surrender to the rebels, the abandonment of our Union-loving friends of the Border Slave States, the surrender of the National Capital, and the dishonor of the National Flag, on the one hand, or the abolition of Slavery on the other. But, how can Slavery be abolished? Will not the attempt to interfere with Slavery by the General Government increase the disaffection which prevails in the Slave States, and convert even the loyal men of the Border States into rebels? These difficulties meet us at the very
There is something appalling to the minds of most men in the idea of a National debt of one thousand five hundred millions. But I have shown that a three or four years' war would entail upon us a debt nearly or quite as great as that here proposed, with the necessity of keeping up large standing Armies and Navies, the expense of which, for a generation, would be equal to the assumption of a debt of a thousand millions more. Supposing that within a year the National troubles can be settled on the terms here suggested, there would be an immense saving of indebtedness by its adoption, in preference to the present plan, which is to suppress the rebellion, and at the same time to maintain Slavery. How this plan is likely to succeed may be judged of by statements such as the following, which we frequently see copied from Southern newspapers. The Chicago
Tribune
publishes an extract from the letter of a lady residing in Southern Virginia to a friend in that city, from which I extract as follows:
“—, August 10, 1861.
It seems to me that this war is hurting the North much more than the South, but I suppose I have only a one-sided view. Everything seems to be prospering swimmingly down here. Money is easy; crops of all kinds are in overwhelming abundance. We think we have this advantage of the North: while all our men are taken for the war, the blacks who are left at home carry on the agricultural pursuits, and raise all that we at home and our men in the army need to live. I do not see but we raise as much with our men away as we did with them at home, and our women are so fired with patriotism, that some of us go right into the field and take the management of the slaves. * *Though our white population is much smaller than yours, yet with the blacks to work for us, we can keep as many men in the field as you can.”
I will not stop to controvert the not very logical reasoning of this letter. It is sufficient to say that nine millions in the South cannot be made equal to twenty-three millions in the loyal States, by the fact that nearly half of the former are black slaves; and it is evident that the loyal States might send two soldiers to the war, for one from the South, and still have twice as many to stay at home and work. But that is not the point of the letter to which I propose to call attention. It is the boast that the slaves are permitted to remain quietly at work in the fields while the war rages around them, and that, as a consequence, the Southern people and armies are in no need of the means of subsistence. That the rebels enjoy this advantage is entirely owing to the forbearance of the General Government, no one will dispute; and that they will be enabled by this forbearance to prolong the war, perhaps for years, must be evident. Never before was a war conducted on the principle of shielding the enemy from injury in his weakest point, and that in a particular which is essential to his very existence.
THE CONSEQUENCES.
There can be no question that the attempt to abolish Slavery throughout the South, by an edict of Congress, or the President, or both, and without compensation, would arouse every energy of the people, and combine all classes in the firm purpose of resistance. If the act of abolition were confined in terms to the States in open rebellion, its effects upon the institution in the loyal States would be equally fatal, since it would be impossible for Slavery to exist in the Border States, after its destruction in those further South. Before striking at Slavery in the rebel States, therefore, good faith and wise policy alike demand that we should consult the welfare of the loyal slave-holders. We should come forward with a fair and liberal proposition of compensation, and ask them to submit the question to a popular vote. If the State Constitutions stand in the way, this era of Conventions will be quite equal to the emergency. Let the compensation offered be liberal, with the assurance that it is tendered as an act of good faith to loyal States, and as a necessary measure for the protection of their peculiar interests, while waging a vigorous war against the common enemy. Let it be distinctly proclaimed that State necessity has constrained the Government to abolish Slavery in the rebellious States, as the readiest, least bloody and least expensive method of quelling the revolt, and the only method of securing lasting peace. A large portion of the people of the loyal Slave States would gladly accept emancipation on the terms here suggested, as an independent proposition unaccompanied by the imperative reasons furnished in the abolition of Slavery in the revolted States; and in view of that necessary measure none could hesitate about accepting the proffered compensation. The great body of slaveholders themselves would joyfully accept such liberal terms of escape from the peril
which now environs the bulk of their property. But the abolition of Slavery in these States would render it impossible to maintain the system among the rebels. They would be constrained, with or without compensation, to set their slaves free. In another part of this essay I propose to show that policy and humanity alike require that the terms of compensation offered by the Government should be extended to the rebel States as well as the loyal, but here I will merely point out the effect of offering such conditions to the slaveholders in undermining the rebel leaders, and predisposing their constituency to abandon them. The effect of such an offer in reconciling the rebels to the idea of submission, cannot be overrated. It would take away much of the sting of humiliated pride, and awaken new hopes of prosperity and happiness, on the ruin which secession has wrought in their social condition. The moderate men who have been dragged into a position of hostility to the Government against their judgments and inclinations would have a rallying point, and would begin to talk of conciliation and peace; and much of the intense bitterness of the
THE COST OF EMANCIPATION IN THE BORDER STATES.
The abolition of Slavery in the loyal States, on a liberal scale of compensation, would cost the country considerably less than half the estimated expenses of, or the actual appropriations for the current fiscal year! Yet, who does not feel conscious that it would be the death-blow to the whole system in the South, and to treason and rebellion? If Slavery were abolished in Kentucky and Missouri, that species of property would not be worth holding in the adjoining States of Tennessee and Arkansas; and if Maryland, Delaware and Western Virginia were emancipated, the maintenance of the system in Eastern Virginia would be impossible.
I propose to show, in two or three brief and simple tabular statements, the population of the border Slave States, the number of slaves, and the cost of emancipation at two liberal estimates of
per capita
valuation.
* The boundaries of Western Virginia being yet undefined, I have estimated its population.
It is seen in this table, that of the eight and a half millions of free population in the Slave States, three millions, wanting a fraction, reside in the Border Slave States, and that these three millions can be firmly and irrevocably attached to the Union by compensating them for the emancipation of little more than one-tenth of the slaves of the South. To attain this important end, therefore, looking at the matter merely in an economical point of view, and having reference to the expenses of the war, we can afford to be liberal.
A few years ago, when slaves were constantly rising in price, it was the fashion to estimate them at a thousand dollars per head; but this was never anything more than an extravagant boast of the breeders and propagandists, and their average value never exceeded five or six hundred dollars. At the present time they have no definite price, since no one is desirous of investing in a species of property so precarious. But I suppose that slaves are still worth half the prices which were paid for them two years ago, and have based my estimates on the two prices, $250 and $300. To insure the favorable reception of the offer of compensation by the people of the Border States, I would favor the more liberal terms proposed, although the more moderate sum would be a bargain for slaves at the present time, and especially in view of the fact that the country is to be rid of the evil, and enter on the brilliant career of prosperity which ever attends freedom. The following table presents the subject in a nutshell:
* Western Virginia estimated.
It is seen that at the highest valuation the cost of emancipation in these loyal States would be only $136,332,300, and at the lowest, $113,610,250. In order to bring the matter to the intelligent comprehension of such readers as are repelled by the sight of great numbers, I will here compare these sums with the receipts and expenditures of the Government on its present war footing. The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report to Congress upon the financial resources and necessities of the Government, estimated the expenditures of the current fiscal year, commencing with the 1st of July last past, at $320,000,000, and the appropriation was made accordingly. This sum is considerably more than double the highest value set upon the slaves of the Border States, and nearly three times more than the lowest valuation. Who will doubt if $120,000,000 of this appropriation had been offered to those States for their slaves, that the remaining $200,000,000 would have gone further toward the suppression of rebellion than the whole sum will effect under present circumstances?
I foresee that even among the loyal friends of the Union in the Slave States, the prejudices to be overcome, in introducing any plan of emancipation, are very great. It is not that Slavery is regarded as an unmixed blessing or a blessing mixed with some evils—there is such a feeling; but it would not weigh a feather in competition with any plan of ridding the South of its present difficulties—but for the obstacle which lies in the apprehended evils of a mixed population of whites and negroes, associated upon terms of political equality.
OBJECTIONS—A MIXED POPULATION.
Allowing such an admixture of incongruous races to be an evil, I will proceed to show, briefly,—first, that the extent of it, as a result of emancipation in the Border States, is very greatly exaggerated in the public mind; and, secondly, that it is not without remedy.
The brief abstract of the census of 1860 which has appeared lumps the free population together, without discriminating between the free colored and the white. But the rate of increase of the two classes is well known, and we have no difficulty in stating with substantial accuracy the respective numbers. In Delaware and Maryland the numbers of free persons of color are considerable. In Western Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, as in other Western States, they constitute but small fractions of the population. Their ratio of increase is small, amounting on an average to little more than one-third of that of the whites. In Delaware the free colored population was, in 1850, 18,073, and of slaves there were only 2,290. By the recent census the slaves had decreased in number, and if they were liberated
In 1858 a strong effort was made by the Pro-Slavery demagogues of the lower counties to drive the free people of color out of the State. It is well known that their real object was to rob these oppressed people of their property by confiscation, but they disguised their cowardly rapacity under the specious profession of a regard to the safety and welfare of the State. They pretended that there could be no safety for Slavery, nor for the peace of society, while the free negroes were permitted to remain, and they at length got up a State Convention which, it was proclaimed, would compel the State authorities to act on the subject. But, in the meantime, counter meetings were held by the honest and humane portion of the people; the cruel injustice of the attempt to expel the free colored people was exposed, and the value of the labor of that class to the white race, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, was set forth in such strong colors, that the wicked scheme was universally condemned by public opinion; and the very Convention which assembled with a view to drive the free negroes out of the State, decided that it was unjust and unwise, and, in a word, not to be thought of.
Here then we have a stand point. We see that the white people of Maryland have eight free negroes on every square mile of their territory, and yet regard the evil as very tolerable. Nay, they will not hear to the idea of removing it, for the double reason that they regard the proposition as unjust, and the end to be attained pernicious. The Athenians rejected the proposition to burn the fleet of their powerful allies, simply because it was unjust, although it might be, as they were assured, the most advantageous thing in the world; but the Marylanders reject the proposition to expel the free negroes, as both unjust and undesirable in itself.
Kentucky embraces an area of 45,000 square miles, a slave population of 225,490, and a free negro population of about 12,000. So that the total negro population is about 237,000, or a fraction over five to the square mile. We have already seen that Maryland has now eight free negroes to the square mile, or three more than Kentucky would have if she were to liberate her whole slave population.
Missouri has about 70,000 square miles of territory, 114,965 slaves, and about 3,000 free negroes. If her slaves were liberated, there would be, say, 118,000 free negroes, or 1⅔ to the square mile. Maryland has, therefore, five times as many free negroes as Missouri has slaves and free negroes combined to the square mile, and yet the white people of the former think the grievance quite bearable. Indeed, the only argument which any one has ever urged for the expulsion of the free negroes from Maryland, was the allegation that they rendered slaves dissatisfied, and caused them to run off. This argument would, of course, cease to have force if Slavery were abolished.
The State of “Western Virginia” is so indefinite in its boundaries that no precise statement can be given as to the number of negroes, free and slave, which it contains; but if the whole valley, together with the country beyond the Alleghany range, were included in it, there would not be two negroes to the square mile. In the district west of the Alleghany alone the number of negroes is less than the number of square miles. In the whole of Virginia the negro population, slave and free, only amounts to 8½ to the square mile, or a fraction more than the free negro population alone in Maryland.
It may be shown, in like manner, that the abolition of Slavery in North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas would still leave those States with fewer free negroes to the square mile than Maryland contained in 1860. Thus North Carolina, with 365,000 negroes, slave and free, has an area of 51,000 square miles, or only seven to one. Tennessee, with 283,000 negroes, has about 46,000 square miles, or one to six, and Arkansas, with about 50,000 square miles, has 111,000 negroes, or a fraction over two to one.
These figures are sufficient to show that the abolition of Slavery in all the Border and Middle Slave States, down to the borders of South Carolina and the Gulf States, would be unattended by those formidable social evils which the imaginations of Southern men are prone to conjure up. It is seen that Maryland already bears up patiently under a greater amount of this evil than would follow the abolition of Slavery in the greater portion of the Southern country, and that the only serious complaints against the free colored people of this State have proceeded from the slaveholders, from real or affected apprehensions of danger to the safety of their slave property. There may be other objections to the presence of the colored people, but this has been the principal one, not only in Maryland, but in all the Southern States, and this would, of course, cease to have an existence with Slavery itself.
But allowing the evil of a large admixture of colored population to be real, there cannot be a doubt that the general abolition of Slavery would tend to its removal from all the more Northern Slave States, even if no legislative stimulants were provided to that end. If there be any portion of this country suitable to the physical constitution of the negro, it is the extreme South—it is the lower and more Southern portions of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, together with the whole of Florida and Louisiana. Southern men have asserted that the labor of the field cannot be performed in these low latitudes by white men, and they urge this fact as conclusive in favor of maintaining Slavery, and recruiting the institution from Africa. These champions of Slavery are correct, as to the peculiar adaptation of the negro to the lowlands of the South, and in the main as to the non-adaptation of the white race. On these points there is no dispute in any quarter. White labor, it is true, will risk health and life, in the pursuit
It must be evident that the general abolition of Slavery would destroy all these obstacles to the migration of the negro race southwesterly. South Carolina, Florida, Southern Georgia, Louisiana and other States in the same latitude, would at once become the Eldorado of the negro, and the demands of the sugar and cotton culture would be far better supplied by the voluntary migration of the emancipated slaves, than heretofore by their sale as chattels at one thousand dollars per head. The exodus of the blacks from the Northern Slave States would be the signal for a rush of white immigration to take their places, and the result would, in a few years, be a complete transformation of the greater part of the South into a land of Caucasian freedom, intelligence and prosperity.
There is ample room in the now uninhabitable swamp lands of the Southern States to support ten times the number of negroes in this country. It is well ascertained that every foot of these lands is susceptible of drainage, and that their soils are, like those of Egypt, literally inexhaustible. Large portions of the best lands in Holland lie lower than the surface of the ocean, and have been reclaimed from the dominion of the waters by building dykes around them, and pumping off the water. But these American swamps are, almost without exception, higher than the sea level, and can be drained simply by cutting canals and ditches. And even the Dutch methods is perfectly practicable, and will be resorted to whenever the demands of an increasing population shall call for it.
It was formerly the fashion with political economists to assume that in the progress of occupying, or, as we say, “settling,” a new country, the best lands are first taken up and cultivated; and that when these become exhausted, those of less fertility are resorted to. But our American
Carey,
in his original work on that hackneyed subject, has demonstrated the reverse of this proposition to be true, viz.: that the lighter lands are first occupied, and that with the increase of wealth and population, the richer soils are reclaimed and reduced to cultivation. No part of the world, perhaps, affords such complete illustration of this truth as the Southern States. The people now there, who are but pioneers, have settled upon the high lands, the cultivation of which is practicable without any considerable outlay of capital and labor, and have left it to future times, when labor and capital become more abundant, to reclaim the swamps and “hammacks,” the marshes and everglades, which in the aggregate make up an area ten times greater than that of Egypt, and not less fertile. The reclamation of these rich soils by the labor of the emancipated blacks, under the guidance, and with the aid of the capital of the white race, might constitute a grand field of enterprise for generations, and an inexhaustible source of wealth. These swamp-lands belong to the States, and the negro could be stimulated and encouraged to labor by the assurance of a fee simple grant of a dozen or twenty acres of land, as well as by daily wages.
It was the remark of
De Tocqueville,
that the Gulf region of the United States was destined to be the permanent habitation and possession of the black race. Under Slavery, that race has gradually been marshaling its hosts on the shores of the Gulf and in the semi-tropical regions continguous to it. Its liberation will but accelerate the movement, and consummate the prediction of the French philosopher.
OBJECTIONS TO COMPENSATION.
There are two classes of objections to compensated emancipation, which I now propose to consider. The first proceeds from those conscientious opponents of Slavery, who regard it as sinful to recognize the right of slave-holding, which, they contend, would be done by implication in the act of buying slaves. I am happy to quote some very high authorities on this point, which will have more weight than anything I could say on the subject. In an address to the people of New-York, delivered the 9th of May, 1855, “on the Anti-Slavery enterprise,” Mr.
Sumner
said:
“Shrinking instinctively from any recognition of
rights founded on wrongs,
I find myself shrinking also from any austere verdict which shall deny the means necessary to the great consummation we seek. Our fathers, under Washington, did not hesitate, by acts of Congress, to appropriate largely for the ransom of white fellow-citizens enslaved by Algerine Corsairs; and following this example, I am disposed to consider the question of compensation as one of expediency, to be determined by the exigency of the hour, and the constitutional power of the Government; though such is my desire to see the foul fiend of slavery in flight, that I could not hesitate to build even a bridge of gold, if necessary, to promote his escape.”
Other eminent Abolitionists, who are regarded as even more radical than Mr.
Sumner,
have taken ground in favor of compensation to slaveholders for their claim of property in their fellow-beings. Of this number are Messrs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Phillips,
and
Gerritt Smith.
I am not able to cite their language, but it is on record, and so far as the two last-named gentlemen are concerned, of very recent date. It is within six or eight weeks that each of them, in letters or speeches, have expressed their willingness to see the slaveholders compensated for their claim of property—while Mr.
Emerson,
in a lecture some seven years ago, took a similar position, and has probably repeated it often. The authority of these four representative men will of itself be sufficient to meet the objection to compensated emancipation, which is founded in the supposition that the rightfulness of Slavery would be thereby recognized.
But there is another class of objectors to the compensation of slaveholders whom it will, perhaps, be more difficult to reconcile to the proposition. I assume that this class of men have
To the class, now large and increasing daily, which insists that Slavery should be abolished, and that no compensation should be paid to the rebel slaveholders, I would briefly suggest, that whether the object be to promote the general welfare of the country, or the special welfare of the slave, in either case it will become necessary to conciliate the ruling class of the South—the white race, and especially the slaveholders, and as far as possible to reconcile them to the new order of things, which the Government will have imposed by a State necessity. This can only be done by compensating them with a degree of liberality for the loss of their slaves. The rebels of the South now embrace the great body of the people in the districts over which they have military control. They number millions—Slaveholders and Non-Slaveholders—and they are far too numerous either to exterminate or to exile. Not Russia, nor Austria, nor Imperial France in the days of greatest Absolutism, wielded the axe of proscription with wholesale destruction; and if we seek for such examples we shall be forced to follow the march of those fell destroyers,
Attilla, Zenghis Khan,
and
Tamerlane.
It is needless to say that such barbarities are not to be thought of in our day and country; and that whatever punishment may be meted out by the Government to a few scores or hundreds of rebel leaders, the great mass will be forgiven, and restored to citizenship on the easy condition of laying down their arms and taking the oath of allegiance. The Government of the United States cannot be more cruel to the Southern rebels than Austria was to Hungary, or Russia to Poland.
We must therefore make up our minds to a dissolution of the Union, or to a restoration of the great body of the rebels to the rights and immunities of citizenship. We may make them the perpetual and implacable foes of the North, and of the General Government; or we may attach them to both, as by hooks of steel. We may cause the abolition of Slavery to be the inauguration of a long era of social strife and animosity between the white and black races; or we may make the former the kind benefactors, educators and civilizers of the latter. We may destroy the prosperity of the South for generations, or perhaps forever; or we may awaken a degree of enterprise, industry and progress never before known in that slave-blighted region. By the one line of policy we shall cut off the best market which the North enjoys for its manufactures and agriculture, and the best field of its commercial enterprise. By the other we shall stimulate all these energies beyond all precedent, and repay tenfold the share of expense which would fall to the North, on the most liberal scale of compensation to the slaveholders.
COST OF GENERAL EMANCIPATION.
I have shown what the compensation to the Border States would be at two different rates of payment
per capita
for the slaves, and it will have been seen that I have favored the more liberal scale. I now proceed to show what would be the cost of redeeming the whole slave population of the Union at the same rates.
By the census of last year there were 3,952,801 slaves in the United States and territories. I have already shown that 454,441, which belonged to the Border States, would be worth, at $250 each, $113,610,250, and at $300 each, $136,332,300. There remains to be disposed of, therefore, 3,498,360 slaves embraced in the country subject to the rebels, but including, of course, large numbers belonging to friends of the Union, who have been constrained into obedience to the rebel authorities against their wills. At the lowest estimated average value of $250, these slaves of the rebels would be worth $874,590,000, and adding the compensation to the Border States on the same terms, the aggregate cost to the Government would be $988,200,250. At the higher rate of $300, the slaves in the rebel States would be worth $1,049,508,000; and adding the cost of compensation to the Border States, at the same rate, the aggregate expense of emancipation would be $1,185,840,300. Or for the convenience of round numbers, the cost of emancipation would be, at $250 per head, one thousand million dollars, ($1,000,000,000;) and at $300 per head, the cost would be twelve hundred millions, ($1,200,000,000.)
These are enormous sums, and it remains to be seen where the ways and means are to come from. The plan of compensation suggested of course contemplates the issue of Government stocks. There would be no necessity for borrowing; and the whole difficulty would be presented in the necessity of meeting the annual interest, and at the same time defraying the ordinary expenses of Government.
But before undertaking to show the feasibility of the scheme, it is proper, as far as possible, to divest it of incumbrances which properly belong to the war, and at the same time to give it credit for whatever warlike expenditures it may dispense with, by bringing the controversy to a speedy termination. It is in the first place obvious that in the prosecution of the war many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of slaves belonging to loyalists will become free; and if it should become necessary to abolish Slavery entirely, the whole body of loyalists in the Border States, and in East Tennessee, would have what the world would regard as an equitable claim to compensation. Whatever the slaves of these loyalists may be worth—and the value may be a hundred millions—should therefore be deducted from the cost of this scheme of emancipation. It would be a debt of honor under any circumstances, and must be paid, on the plain principle which governs in such cases. In the prosecution of war the Government may seize the property of citizens in order to employ it against the enemy, but it must give receipts for the same, and compensate the owner for his loss.
In the second place, the abolition of Slavery
In the third place, the effect of the abolition of Slavery, accompanied by the offer of liberal compensation to the slave-owners, would tend to hasten the war to a close, and if the contest should be shortened in duration by one or two years, the saving of expenditure would be counted by hundreds of millions. Three years is not long for a war. The revolutionary struggle lasted seven years. The war of 1812 with England lasted two years and a-half. That with Mexico lasted three years. If, therefore, the present war shall last as long as that with the weak and imbecile Mexicans, it will cost at least one thousand millions of dollars; and if by the abolition of Slavery, accompanied by liberal compensation, we can terminate the war in one year, there will be a saving of two years' war expenses, amounting to six hundred and fifty millions dollars.
There seems, therefore to be no escape from a great National debt, whatever policy be pursued. If we prolong the contest by the Quixotic attempt to maintain Slavery, or by the sanguinary attempt to abolish it without offering compensation to the owners of that species of property, we shall in either case run up a debt nearly, or quite equal to that which would be incurred by the purchase of every slave at a fair price; and we shall at the same time entail upon the country the necessity of keeping up a large standing Army, the support of which will be as burdensome as a debt of a thousand millions. On the other hand, if we assume the responsibility of paying for the slaves, we shall know precisely the amount of debt we incur, and we can fix the rate of interest to suit ourselves. We shall be under no necessity of borrowing at seven and three-tenths per cent. to avoid the mortification of seeing the Government Stocks below par; and, best of all, the whole country would enjoy unwonted prosperity, as well from the cordial and permanent peace which would be secured, as by the immense money capital which would be put into the hands of the Southern proprietors. In the one case, the taxes must be drawn from a country exhausted and impoverished by civil war; in the other, from a country firmly united, free and prosperous.
ANNUAL INTEREST AND EXPENDITURES, AND SINKING FUND.
I now proceed to consider the probable annual expenses of the Government, on the basis of compensation at the rate of $300 per head for each slave. As shown on a preceding page, the total value of the slaves at this rate would be one thousand two hundred millions ($1,200,000,000.) Let us suppose that United States Stocks to this amount, bearing five per cent. interest, are placed in the hands of the slaveholders, directly, or through the agency of the State Governments. This would involve an annual tax amounting to sixty millions of dollars. But supposing further, that it will require a year to put the plan in operation, and that in the meantime, the present war expenditure is to continue, we may reasonably expect the accumulation of an additional debt of two hundred millions, and including that now existing, of three hundred millions, the interest on two-thirds of which will be seven and three-tenths per cent., and on one-third six per cent. The interest on this debt will therefore be about twenty millions; and added to that which will be due on the bonds issued to the slaveholders, there will be an aggregate annual burden of eighty millions, to be raised by taxation, and the whole National debt will amount to one thousand five hundred millions of dollars.
The total expenditure for the year ending June 30, 1861, was $ 84,577,258 60. But of this sum $23,218,350 16 was paid in redemption of Treasury Notes, and the payment of principal and interest of the public debt. The current expenditure, exclusive of this sum, was therefore $61,358,908 44 during a fiscal year, three quarters of which was marked by corruption, prodigality and treason, and the fourth quarter by preparations for a formidable war. But allowing corruption and prodigality to be the ordinary incidents of administration, it is still necessary to deduct the extraordinary expenses of the War and Navy Departments during the fourth quarter, to arrive at the disbursement of a year of peace. The expenses of the War Department during the first three quarters of the year were $12,872,365 85, and the average was therefore $4,290,788 61, while the fourth quarter alone, owing to the warlike operations, amounted to $10,108,784 59. Substituting this average in place of the actual outlay, and we have a reduction of expenditure amounting to $5,817,995 98. But it is known that the defensive operations of the Government commenced in the third quarter, and we accordingly find the expenditure of the third nearly double that of the second, though not quite equal to the first. In the Navy Department the expenditure of the fourth quarter was equal to that of the two first, and $1,983,528 67 above the average of the three first. This sum also should therefore be deducted, in order to arrive at the true expenditure of a year of peace. Putting it with the extraordinary disbursement of the War Department during the same quarter, and we have an aggregate of $7,801,524 65 to deduct from the actual cost of Government during the last fiscal year, supposing that the peace had not been disturbed by rebellion. The actual expenditure as above stated was $61,358,908 44. Subtracting this war item, and we have $53,557,383 79 as the cost of the peace establishment, with a corrupt, reckless and traitorous Administration in power for three quarters of the year.
If the abolition of Slavery were effected by the plan here suggested, there can be no doubt that we should have a guarantee for peace at home and abroad which the country has never heretofore possessed. The restless, noisy and disaffected slaveholders converted into bondholders, and dependent upon the National faith and honor for the payment of interest and principal, would become the most loyal and fraternal citizens. They would become tenfold better customers of the
Putting this sum with the eighty millions which will be necessary to meet the interest of the National debt, and we have a total of $133,557,383 79 to provide for by taxation, to say nothing of a sinking fund, which should be formed on a liberal scale.
For the convenience of round numbers, let the sum necessary to be raised annually be one hundred and thirty-four millions; and suppose that sixteen millions be added for a sinking fund. This would be about one per cent. upon the debt, supposing that the stocks upon which six and seven per cent. interest is to be paid, were converted into an equivalent value of five per cent. The whole sum to be raised annually would then be one hundred and fifty millions; and the sinking fund, if rigidly adhered to, would redeem the principal in about 37 years.
NATIONAL RESOURCES OF REVENUE.
Secretary
Chase
thinks that the additions proposed by him to the list of dutiable goods, together with the higher rates of duty on other articles recommended, would raise a revenue from customs, if peace were restored, of more than eighty millions. This estimate merely supposes a return to the state of things which existed prior to the rebellion. But if that perfect harmony and unity were given to the country which can alone be secured by the abolition of Slavery, accompanied with compensation, it must be obvious that the importations would be immensely augmented. The South would have all the land and labor, and all the stimulants to enterprise it now possesses, together with twelve hundred millions of active cash capital, paying a good rate of interest. The consequence would be, great activity in all branches of enterprise, with a most liberal scale of expenditure, and these would encourage Northern commerce and manufactures to a degree wholly unprecedented and incalculable. It is not improbable that the importations, in consequence of this state of industrial enterprise and activity, would be increased fifty per cent. higher than they have hitherto reached, thus securing, upon the basis of the existing tariff, which is substantially the one recommended by the Secretary of the Treasury, a corresponding advance upon his estimates of revenue. Thus, if the existing tariff will, in an ordinary time of peace, produce eighty millions of revenue, it would, with fifty per cent. additional importations, produce one hundred and twenty millions of revenue! The present tariff is considered in some respects high, and if the duties were lowered on many articles, the revenue would be greater. Here, then, we secure four-fifths of the immense revenue needed under the proposed act of emancipation, merely by a continuance of existing duties upon tea and coffee, and a reduction of duties upon certain articles which are to a degree prohibited by the existing rates.
I think that no man conversant with the industrial progress of nations will regard the above speculation as to the effect of compensated emancipation, in stimulating trade and commerce, as extravagant; and if its correctness be conceded, the increase in the revenue from customs is simply a matter of course, unless a very unwise system of prohibitory duties be resorted to. There would remain, then, of the one hundred and fifty million, only thirty, to be raised by direct and internal taxes. The laws passed at the late Session propose to raise nearly or quite this sum, and if the perfect peace here contemplated were restored, it is probable they would be amply sufficient to meet the emergency, without additional legislation. The object of the framers of the internal tax-bills was to raise about twenty millions upon two-thirds of the people, in a time of war, when incomes and consumption are reduced to the lowest point. What then would not these taxes produce upon the whole country in a time of peace and unexampled prosperity?
But it is easy to show that the internal taxes thus far imposed are insignificant in comparison with what the country could sustain—that in fact they furnish little more than a tithe of the possible revenue from such sources. Mr.
Chase,
in his annual report, tells us that according to the census of 1860, the real and personal property of the people of the United States was sixteen thousand one hundred and two millions—or more accurately, $16,102,924,116! The fourth of one per cent. on this value, would be about forty millions, and the half of one per cent. eighty millions.
A COMPARISON OF OUR RESOURCES WITH THOSE OF GREAT BRITAIN.
But the best test of what is possible, as it regards the raising of revenue, is to show what has been done by another people in circumstances of trial, and to this end I propose to compare the resources of this country with those of England, forty to fifty years ago, and to show what the people of that country have done amid dangers and difficulties no greater than those which environ us at the present moment, and calling for no greater sacrifices.
I have stated above what is the value of real and personal estate in this country. I can only approximate that of England, or, more properly, of Great Britain, at the period of her greatest trials and greatest burdens—1812 to 1815.
Porter,
in his
Progress of the Nation,
informs us that the real estate of Great Britain, estimated upon incomes above £150, amounted in 1842 to £2,382,112,425. He gives no clue to the valuation of the smaller properties, but let us suppose that they would run up the sum total to £2,500,000,000. In 1841 the personal estate was valued at £2,000,000,000; so that the total of real and personal property twenty years ago, was about £4,500,000,000. Reducing this sum to dollars, by multiplying by 5, and $22,500,000,000 will represent the worth of that country in 1841, or $6,250,000,000 more than the United States was worth last year. It is probable, however, that the English valuation is higher and less accurate than ours, since it is a mere estimate besed on incomes, including salaries, fees and profits, while ours is what it purports to be. But
Porter
states that comparing this period, 1841–2, with preceding times, there had been a duplication of property in forty years. The year 1814, which
BRITISH REVENUES.
The following table will exhibit at a glance the fiscal achievements of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, commencing in 1792, and coming down to a recent period. It will be seen that her greatest exertion of power was at the period when her resources of wealth were about equal to those of this country.
Extracts from Porter's Tables, showing the Income from Taxes and Loans and the Population of the United Kingdom.
* There is a discrepancy here of just £3,000,000—a typographical error probably.
A pound sterling being a trifle less than $5, it conveys a sufficiently accurate idea of the value of these large sums of English money to multiply them by five. Taking, for instance, the largest amount of revenue raised in any one year—viz., £72,210,512—and multiplying by five, and we have $361,052,560. This would be some eight millions more than the true value, reduced to dollars and cents. But, as a general rule, the approximation will be sufficiently close to form an idea of the amount.
The population of the United Kingdom at this period of greatest taxation, as is seen in the last column of the table, was less than twenty millions; but its wealth, as estimated upon the data furnished by
Porter,
was about equal to that of the United States in 1860. The immense sum raised by taxation in 1815, ($353,000,000,) exceeds the amount called for by Secretary
Chase
by thirty-three millions, three-fourths of which he proposed, and Congress consented to raise by loans. Of course this extraordinary instance of British taxation is introduced, not as an example for imitation, there being no necessity for it, but as an illustration of the fact stated in the outset of this essay, viz.: That the taxable resources of this country are barely touched by the recent legislation of Congress, and that they are capable of carrying far greater burdens than would be incurred by the abolition of Slavery on the most liberal scale of compensation.
For a series of eight years, commencing with 1809, the Government of Great Britain raised by taxation annually more than double the amount of revenue necessary to meet the interest of such a debt as this country would incur in abolishing Slavery, together with the ordinary expenses of administration, in all its branches. I have shown that our annual expenditure, under such a burthen would be one hundred and fifty millions dollars. The British revenue from taxation in 1809, was about three hundred and twelve millions; in 1810, three hundred and thirty millions; in 1811, three hundred and twenty millions; in 1812, the same; in 1813, above three hundred and thirty-five millions; in 1814, three hundred and fifty millions; in 1815, three hundred and fifty-three millions; in 1816, the year in which the war closed, and in which a large amount of taxes were repealed, three hundred and ten millions. In the two years of greatest effort the British Government raised sums by taxation exceeding by above two hundred millions of dollars the amount of revenue which I have shown to be sufficient to meet the expenditures of this Government under the proposed system of compensation.
It may be thought that the customs duties upon the immense commerce of England is the chief source of her incomparable revenues, but this is by no means the case, as will appear from the following tables, the first of which I derive from
Porter
and
McCulloch,
and the second from the English Annual Register.
Table showing the amount of Annual Imports and Exports of the United Kingdom to Foreign Countries and Colonial Possessions for several years.
The customs duties which yield a revenue are levied exclusively on imports. There may be an export duty on grain, but if such is the case, it has for generations been useless. The greatest amount of imports during any year of the above levies was £37,613,294, in 1810. This would be equal to about $184,000,000, and is scarcely two-thirds of the annual importations into this country for some years past. In the years yielding the greatest aggregate revenue, viz.: 1814 and 1815, the English imports were only equal to about half of ours, prior to the present war.
The following statement of the revenue of Great Britain is exclusive of Ireland, and includes sums raised by the various forms of taxation alone:
GROSS REVENUE OF GREAT BRITAIN FOR THE YEAR ENDING JAN. 5, 1816.
Ordinary Revenue.
Customs
Excise
Stamps
Land and assessed taxes
Post-office
Pensions and 1s. in the pound
Salaries 6d. in the pound
Hackney coaches
Hawkers and peddlers
Total ordinary duties
Extraordinary Revenue.
WAR TAXES.
Customs
Excise
Property tax
Lottery tax
Surplus fees of regulated offices
Total amount of war taxes
Under the head of “small branches of the hereditary revenue,” there are:
Alienation fines Port fines Seizures Compositions and proffers Crown lands Total
Putting these sums together and we have a total of £77,470,433 4s. 0½d. of gross revenue from taxes in Great Britain during the year ending Jan. 5, 1816. The cost of collection was £6,782,369 0s. 8½d., leaving a net revenue of £70,688,064 3s. 4d.
Of the gross revenue the customs produced only £14,648,728 13s. 7¾d., and the various internal taxes produced £62,821,704 10s. 4½d. So that the customs which constitute the chief source of revenue to our General Government, in Great Britain produces less than a fifth of the whole National income. It is not unworthy of mention in this connection that the cost of collecting the customs duties is in the proportion of about four to one greater than that of the internal taxes,—thus, of the £6,782,369 0s. 8½d., which was the difference of gross and net revenue, £3,297,539 2s. 4¾d. was expended in the collection of the customs duties.
I have thus far exhibited the National revenue of Great Britain, and it might be shown that the local taxes and expenditures are fully equal to those borne by the people of this country, if we except the cases in which States have made bad investments in railroads. The following figures show the local or county and parochial taxes of England at different periods, chiefly for the support of the poor. I have not been able to find a statement of the municipal taxation, but the aggregate must be enormous:
LOCAL TAXATION—FROM PORTER. COUNTY AND PAROCHIAL TAXATION.
Years.
1803
1812
1820
1825
1830
1835
1840
1845
In 1812, it is seen that these county and parochial taxes amounted to forty millions of our money; and if the municipal taxes could be added, the sum total would be at least $80,000,000. Indeed, it is not improbable that the cost of the city Governments of England, where cities and towns are so numerous and so large, is double that of the county and parochial taxes. The City Government of New-York costs at least double that of the State, and, no doubt, largely exceeds all the county Governments. These facts are sufficient to show that there is nothing exceptional in the circumstances of the United States Government, which has the same unlimited right of taxation that the English Government has; while the field of taxation is as much preoccupied in one country as the other, by the necessities of local administration.
COMPARISON OF NATIONAL DEBTS.
To those who are apalled at the idea of a National debt of $1,500,000,000, it will be a relief to consider the condition of the British Government, at several periods of its history, and to this end I subjoin a table, showing the population and indebtedness of the United Kingdom, and the money applied to its reduction. But it is to be remarked, that a sinking fund can be of no practical benefit during a period of borrowing; and that, up to 1816, although millions of the Government stocks were redeemed, tens of millions were added to the debt, and the effect of the sinking fund, under such circumstances, was merely to pay old debts by making new ones. A sinking fund should be based on a revenue greater than the expenditure, including the interest of the debt:
Table showing the National Debt, Sinking Fund and Population of the United Kingdom at several periods:
It will be seen that, seventy-five years ago, just after the close of the war with these colonies, the debt of Great Britain was £239,693,900. This reduced to our currency would be about one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight millions dollars, ($1,168,000,000.) In 1797, the debt of that country amounted to about one thousand seven hundred and thirty millions of our money, or two hundred and thirty millions more than the debt here contemplated as a consequence of emancipation. In 1816, the National debt of the United Kingdom was £816,311,940, or about $3,980,000,000! This debt, which Great Britain and Ireland owed forty-five years ago, is two and two-thirds times greater than that which the Government of the United States would incur in the year 1861, by paying a liberal compensation for every slave, and thus forever riding the country of that stupendous evil.
CONCLUSION.
Who, in view of these indisputable facts, can pretend that the proposed scheme of emancipation is either impossible or visionary? If it be visionary, it is because American statesmen lack the virtue and the courage to meet the great occasion, and prefer rather to drift on with the popular current, without chart or compass or hope of a safe haven. There is nothing new in the idea of liberating a servile race by a pecuniary compensation to those who claim to own it as property. Great Britain set us an example in this respect a quarter of a century ago, under no pressure of State necessity, but simply in obedience to the dictates of the public conscience. Half a million of men were made free by an act of Parliament in 1834, for which the Government paid the colonial proprietors nearly a hundred millions of dollars. The experiment was made in that case under circumstances far less favorable than those by which we are surrounded, and yet not one of the sinister predictions of insubordination by which the lives and property of the handful of whites would be exposed
If the industrial fruits of emancipation in those islands have been less creditable to the liberated blacks than was fondly hoped by their benevolent friends prior to that grand act of national justice, the moral and social progress which has been made will a thousand times atone for short crops of sugar and coffee. The negroes prefer living on little farms of their own, and producing the necessaries and comforts of life for their families, to working at a shilling a day in order to swell the list of exports to England of tropical luxuries. Many thousand families have, by their industry, economy and thrift, thus made for themselves permanent and happy homes, who, under the slave system, were no more regarded than the cattle or machinery of the plantation. Marriage has succeeded to general concubinage, and the germs of education and religion to imbruted ignorance, oppression and misery. These are fruits which no man with a tincture of Christianity or justice in his bosom will be ready to exchange for the large exports, the fiendish cruelty and the beastly ignorance and shame of Slavery.
But before closing this long essay I will briefly point out the wide difference which exists between the moral and intellectual condition of the negroes of the Southern States, and those of the West Indies, and the cause of it. The negroes of this country, except on a few large plantations, have for generations been reared among white men. There is a popular error in the Free States which invests every Southern man with a large plantation and hundreds of slaves. But a reference to the census returns will dissipate this delusion at a glance. For instance, there were in the whole South in 1850 but 1,733 slaveholders who owned as many as one hundred slaves, and less than eight thousand who owned as many as fifty; while more than nine-tenths of the whole number owned only ten slaves and under. The necessary consequence of this state of things has been a daily and hourly contact of the white and black races far generations, the interchange of thoughts and feelings, and the approximation to a common level of intelligence and civilization. We witness accordingly, among the negroes of the South, a great majority of whom belong to the small proprietors a degree of general intelligence not a whit below that of the poor whites in the same region, with a knowledge of the practical arts of life, and a degree of skill in the labors of the farm and the workshop far above them. In the West Indies, where every proprietor, under the slave system, owned his own sugar-mill, and where there was literally no class corresponding to our small slave proprietors, the negroes were owned in large numbers. They were worked in gangs, superintended by heartless and brutal overseers, like galley slaves, and with rare opportunities of conversation with white men, their condition in point of civilization, was little elevated above that of the native African. We have in the South and Southwest, it is true, a class corresponding to these West Indian slave-holders, but their supplies of slaves have been purchased up from the smaller proprietors of the older States, and the result is that they are far more intelligent and civilized than the West Indian negro. All accounts of the condition of West Indian slaves, whether in the British Islands prior to emancipation, or in the others at the present day, agree in representing them as being in a state of deplorable barbarism, mouthing a gibberish scarcely intelligible to Europeans or Americans, and seeming to be merely African savages broken in spirit by cruelty and hard usage, rather than civilized American negroes. Though born and reared in the South, and never residing further North than Washington, I can say without exaggeration, that I have rarely ever seen negroes so low in the scale of civilization as all accounts concur in placing the mass of West Indian slaves.
The American slaves, therefore, would receive the boon of freedom under circumstances immeasurably more favorable to their intellectual, social and industrial progress than those which surrounded the British West India negroes twenty-five years ago, and to confound the two cases as parallel, implies a total ignorance of the interior conditions of the two countries.