Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
These results are general; but if we take any particular Slave State,
and compare it with a Free State, we shall find the same marked
evidence for Freedom. Take Virginia, with a territory of 61,352 miles,
and New York, with a territory of 47,000, or over 14,000 square miles
less than her sister State. New York has one seaport, Virginia some
three or four; New York has one noble river, Virginia has several;
New York for 400 miles runs along the frozen line of Canada, Virginia
basks in a climate of constant felicity. But Freedom is better than
climate, river, or seaport. In 1790 the population of Virginia was
748,308, and in 1850 it was 1,421,661. In 1790 the population of New
York was 340,120, and in 1850 it was 3,097,394. That of Virginia had
not doubled in sixty years, while that of New York had multiplied more
than nine-fold. A similar comparison may be made between Kentucky, with
37,680 square miles, admitted into the Union as long ago as 1792, and
Ohio, with 39,964 square miles, admitted into the Union in 1802. In
1850, the Slave State had a population of only 982,405, while Ohio had
a population of 1,980,329, showing a difference of nearly a million in
favor of Freedom.
As in population, so also in _the value of property, real and
personal_, do the Free States excel the Slave States. According to
the census of 1850, the value of property in the Free States was
$4,102,162,098, while in the Slave States it was $2,936,090,737;
or, if we deduct the asserted property in human flesh, only
$1,655,945,137,--showing an enormous difference of billions in favor of
Freedom. In the Free States the valuation per acre was $10.46, in the
Slave States only $3.04. This disproportion was still greater in 1855,
when, according to the Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, the
valuation of the Free States was $5,770,197,679, or $14.71 per acre;
and of the Slave States, $3,977,354,046, or, if we deduct the asserted
property in human flesh, $2,505,186,446, or $4.59 per acre. Thus in
five years from 1850 the valuation of property in the Free States
received an increase of more than the whole accumulated valuation of
the Slave States in 1850.
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