The whole territory described, which forms a compact and con-
tiguous body, contained in 1850, a population of 1,105,313, of
whom 101,079, or 9 per cent. only, were slaves. We have not the
returns, by counties, for 1860, but the rate of increase of the white
population for the past ten years must have been equal to 20 per
cent., while that of slaves must have remained very nearly station-
ary. At the present moment this great district must have a popu-
lation of 1,300,000, of whom not over eight per cent., or 104,000,
are slaves. It has an excellent climate, probably the best in the
United States. Much of it is elevated from 2,000 to 3,000 feet
above the sea, and is admirably adapted to grazing and the cultiva-
tion of the grains, while beneath the soil is the greatest profusion
of the most valuable minerals. Upon no portion of it can cotton be
successfully cultivated, nor the slaves profitably employed. Though
at present thinly settled, it is capable of a much denser population
than any portions of the States of which it forms a part, and is only
wanting in means of inter-communication, which are now being
supplied, to render it the most attractive field for emigration and
industry in the United States. Its people, in their habits, ideas
and interests, as well as in the physical features of their country,
present contrasts to the cotton districts as striking as exists between
these and the North. They control the Secession movement in
Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and would control it in
Georgia and Alabama could they have been permitted to vote upon

it, as were those of Tennessee and North Carolina. They will no more submit to the dictation of the Montgomery oligarchs than New York or Pennsylvania. Their interests are more directly opposed than those between the Cotton States and the extreme North, because the wide distance that separates the latter renders them independent of each other, while the Cotton States are seeking, by every possible means, to drag all the Slave States with them, for the purpose of compelling them to share their burdens, and of giving greater strength and dignity to their cause.

This great tongue or wedge of land carries Northern ideas, Northern industry, and Northern population right into the heart of Cottondom, and within two hundred miles of the Gulf of Mexico. It is now, and must continue to be, the strategical line controlling the whole question of Secession. It now holds the Border States. Should Eastern Virginia go, Western Virginia would not. If Western Tennessee should, the Eastern portion of the State would not. They are very well satisfied with things as they are. They do not propose to cultivate cotton fields; but to grow grain, raise stock and work minerals, and in time to become a great manufacturing people. They are not going to submit to enormous taxes for the benefit of slave propagandism. They tolerate slavery, but want no more, and soon hope to get rid of the few slaves they have.

The accompanying map illustrates, in a striking manner, the relation of this territory to the question of Secession. The figures upon it show the ratio of the slave to the white population, which is also shown by the different degrees of shade. The territory upon which the slave does not exceed one-tenth of the population is left white. Where the population is so small its protection and development can never guide the legislation of a State. Where such territory is contiguous, so that its inhabitants can sustain and support each other, they are not to be overawed or driven in any direction adverse to their interest.

1 Will the Americans voluntarily set free their slaves, not having any substitute for the combined and constant labour of slaves? The answer is, that they will not, of their own accord, destroy

1 Wakefield, England and America [1834], pp. 220, 221-223.

property which they value at £120,000,000, and which is really worth that sum at market.

Is there any prospect of such a fall in the value of slaves as might render slavery not worth preserving? Of this there is not, at present, the slightest prospect; because the white population wanting slaves increases as fast almost in number as the slaves themselves, and faster in capital, for using which slaves are wanted; because superabundance of good land will continue to make slaves valuable, by enabling every freeman who so pleases to become an independent land-owner. . .

Still, as in America, the whites are ten millions and the blacks but two millions; and as the whites increase at nearly as great a rate as the blacks; as the twelve millions will, there can hardly be any doubt, become twenty-four millions in the course of twenty-five years or less, is there no prospect that land will rise in value, so that every freeman shall no longer be able to obtain for a trifle more good land than he can possibly cultivate; so that the value of slaves shall fall; so that the proprietors of slaves, being most of them proprietors of land, shall be ready to liberate their slaves, gaining on the one hand as much as they might lose on the other, or more? Of this there is no prospect; for three reasons. First, because, however rapidly population may increase, the quantity of land appropriated by individuals will increase at the same rate; because, in short, the colonization of new wilderness will go on as fast as population shall increase, so that every freeman will still be able to obtain for a trifle more good land than he can possibly cultivate. Secondly, because the land east of the Allegheny Mountains has been exhausted to a considerable extent, not merely for the growth of sugar, as in the West Indies, but fairly worn out by unskillful cultivation; and thus, from this exhausted district to new land in the western districts, emigration, both of whites and slaves, has taken place to a great amount, and is still going on rapidly; so that in those exhausted districts, a fall rather than a rise in the value of land may be expected. Thirdly, because where the moral evils of slavery exist, there whites settle for one purpose only, that of gaining by the combined labour of slaves. But the greater part of the whites of America are content to share from a distance the