The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet ItHelper, Hinton Rowan
History
The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It
Helper, Hinton Rowan
Slavery -- United States
To the statistical tables which show the number of deaths in the free and
in the slave States in 1850, we would direct special attention. Those
persons, particularly the propogandists of negro slavery, who,
heretofore, have been so dreadfully exercised on account of what they have
been pleased to term "the insalubrity of Southern climes," will there find
something to allay their fearful apprehensions. A critical examination of
said tables will disclose the fact that, in proportion to population,
deaths occur more frequently in Massachusetts than in any Southern State
except Louisiana; more frequently in New York than in any of the Southern
States, except Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas; more
frequently in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and in Ohio, than in either
Georgia, Florida, or Alabama. Leaving Wisconsin and Louisiana out of the
account, and then comparing the bills of mortality in the remaining
Northern States, with those in the remaining Southern States, we find the
difference decidedly in favor of the latter; for, according to this
calculation, while the ratio of deaths is as only one to 74.60 of the
living population in the Southern States, it is as one to 72.39 in the
Northern.
Says Dr. J. C. Nott, of Mobile:--
"Heat, moisture, animal and vegetable matter are said to be the
elements which produce the diseases of the South, and yet the
testimony in proof of the health of the banks of the lower portion of
the Mississippi River, is too strong to be doubted,--not only the
river itself but also the numerous bayous which meander through
Louisiana. Here is a perfectly flat alluvial country, covering
several hundred miles, interspersed with interminable lakes, lagunes
and jungles, and still we are informed by Dr. Cartwright, one of the
most acute observers of the day, that this country is exempt from
miasmatic disorders, and is extremely healthy. His assertion has been
confirmed to me by hundreds of witnesses, and we know from our own
observation, that the population present a robust and healthy
appearance."
But the best part is yet to come. In spite of all the blatant assertions
of the oligarchy, that the climate of the South was arranged expressly for
the negroes, and that the negroes were created expressly to inhabit it as
the healthful servitors of other men, a carefully kept register of all the
deaths that occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, for the space of six
years, shows that, even in that locality which is generally regarded as so
unhealthy, the annual mortality was much greater among the blacks, in
proportion to population, than among the whites. Dr. Nott himself shall
state the facts. He says:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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