THE

EDUCATION, LABOR, AND WEALTH OF THE SOUTH.

BY SAMUEL A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D.,
OF LOUISIANA.

Note.—This article of Dr. Cartwright's was designed by the Editor to follow "Cotton is King," but the copy was not received until the stereotyping had progressed nearly to completion.—Publisher.

It has long been a favorite argument of the abolitionists to assert that slave labor is unproductive, that the prevalence of slavery tends to diminish not only the productions of a country, but also the value of the lands. On this ground, appeals are constantly made to the non-slaveholders of the South, to induce them to abolish slavery; assigning as a reason, that their lands would rise in value so as to more than compensate the loss of the slaves.

That we may be able to ascertain how much truth there is in this assertion, let us refer to figures and facts. The following deductions from the Report of the Auditor of Public Accounts of the State of Louisiana, speak in a language too plain to be misunderstood by any one, and prove conclusively, that, so far at least as the slave States are concerned, a dense slave population gives the highest value and greatest productiveness to every species of property. Similar deductions might he drawn from the Auditors' Reports of every slave State in the Union Editor.

1. Annual Report of the Auditor of Public Accounts of the State of Louisiana. Baton Rouge, 1859.

2. Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Education. Baton Rouge, 1859.

3. Les Lois concernant, les Ecoles Publique dons l'Etat de la Louisiane, 1849.

4. Agricultural Productions of Louisiana. By Edward J. Forstal, New Orleans, 1845.

5. Address of the Commissioners for the Raising the Endowment of the University of the South. New Orleans, 1859.

It is much easier to acquire knowledge from things cognizable to the senses than from books. American civilization is founded upon the laws of nature and upon moral virue. "Honesty is the best policy," says Washington, its founder. The laws of nature are discovered by observation and experience. A practical direction is given to them by that species of knowedge, which is derived from handling the objects of sense and working upon the materials the earth produces. Moral virtue puts a bridle on the evil passions of the heart, and, at the same time, infuses into it an invincible courage in demanding what is right. A knowledge of nature enables its possessor to bridle the natural forces of air, earth, fire, and water—to hold the reins and drive ahead. With its rail-roads and telegraphs, American civilization is waging war with time and space, and, by its moral power and Christian example, with sin and evil. With its labor-saving machiney, its thirty millions do more work for God and man than three hundred millions of such people as inhabit Asia, Africa, Central, and South America, and Mexico. Its thirty millions are equal to any hundred millions of most of the governments of Europe. It is far ahead of the most enlightened nations of Europe, because its people are in the possession of all the blessings and comforts that heaven, through nature's laws, accord to earth's inhabitants, while three-fourths of the two hundred and fifty millions of Europe are writhing in an artificially created purgatory—deprived of all the good things of earth. Whoever would catch up with the annals of American progress, fall into line with American policy, and get within the influence of the guiding spirit of American policy, must not depend upon libraries for information, or he will be left far behind the age in which he lives; must look to the statistics of the churches, to the reports of legislative and commercial bodies, and to the monthly reviews recording the principal transactions of the busy world around him. If he wants to keep pace with the exploits of mankind under European civilization, in cutting one another's throats, sacking cities, destroying commerce, and laying waste the smiling fields of agriculture, the daily press will give the required information; but he can not rely upon it for these statistical details and stubborn facts which tell what the Caucasian in America, aided by his black man, Friday, is doing for Christianity, for liberty, for civilization, and for the good of the world. Some of these details are regarded as too dry and uninteresting, and others too long for admission in the daily press. Much is written and said about the benefits of education. The rudiments are alike important in both kinds of civilization, American and European. But after acquiring the rudimentary knowledge, the paths of education in the two hemispheres diverge from each other at right angles. The further the American travels in the labyrinths of that system of education, so fashionable in Europe, purposely designed to bury active minds in the rubbish of past ages, or tangle them in metaphysical abstractions and hide from them the beauty of truth and the matter-of-fact world around them, the less he is qualified to appreciate the blessings and benefits of republican institutions, and the more apt he is to be found in opposition to American policy. By hard studies on subjects of no practical importance, physical or moral, the European system of education drives independence out of the mind, and virtue out of the heart, as a pre-requisite qualification for obedience to governments resting upon diplomacy, falsehood, artificial and unnatural distinctions among men. But in the United States, the various State governments being founded on moral truths and nature's laws, and not on the opinions of a privileged order, our system of education should be in harmony with our system of government; our youth should be taught to love virtue for virtue's sake; to study nature, bow to her truths, and to give all the homage that the crowned heads receive in Europe, to nature and to truth. Our government sets up no religious creed or standard of morals, but leaves every one perfectly free in religion and morals, to be governed by the Bible as he understands it, provided he does not trespass upon the rights of others. The principal books in our libraries give little or no aid in qualifying our youth for public office or to direct the legislation or policy of a government resting upon natural laws. The practical operation of our system is scarcely anywhere else recorded than in church history, gospel triumph, legislative reports, reviews, and pamphlets. There the facts may be found, but they are isolated and disconnected, teaching nothing; but could be made a most potent means, not only of instruction in the practical operation of our system of government, but of developing the human faculties, if introduced into our schools. They are full of objects for comparison. By comparison the mind is taught the difference between things; comparisons are at the bottom of all useful and practical knowledge. "They are suggestive," says Prof. Agassiz, "of further comparisons. When the objects of nature are the subjects of comparison, the mind is insensibly led to make new inquiries, is filled with delight at every step of progress it makes in nature's ever young and blooming fields, and study becomes a pleasure. No American knows what a good country he has got until he visits Europe and draws comparisons between the condition of the laboring classes there and those at home. Even in London, about half the people have neither church-room nor school-room."

The Annual Report of the Auditor of Public accounts of the State of Louisiana abounds with objects which have only to be compared in their various relations to one another to give the mind a clear perception of the operation and practical working of some of the most important natural laws and moral truths lying at the bottom of American civilization and progress. Without comparisons they are like hieroglyphical characters telling nothing. Comparisons will decipher them and make them speak a language full of instruction, which every one can understand.

The more thorough the education in European colleges, or in American schools on a similar model, the more there will be to unlearn before American institutions can be understood or their value appreciated, and the less will the American citizen be qualified to vote understandingly at the polls. The reason is, that the system of education which directs the policy of goverments founded upon artificial distinctions, is from necessity inimical to a government founded upon natural distinctions and moral truth. Education on the British model has set the North against the South, and has waylaid every step of American progress, from the acquisition of Louisiana to the last foot of land acquired from Mexico or the Indians, and it now stands across the path of the all-conquering march of American civilization into Cuba, Central America, and Mexico. The vicious system of education founded upon the European model has almost reconquered Massachusetts and several other Northern States, converting them, in many essential particulars, into British provinces. The people of the North are virtuous and democratic at heart; but they have been turned against their own country and the sentiments which experience teaches to be truths, the obvious benefits of negro slavery, for instance, by an education essentially monarchical. To sustain itself, American policy should have its own schools, to guide and direct it. Heretofore it has been guided and directed almost entirely by the light and knowledge derived from the great school of experience, in which the democratic masses are taught without the aid of other books than the Bible and hymn book. In that school they learned that the negro was not a white man with a black skin, but a different being, intended by nature to occupy a subordinate place in society; that school made known that the only place which nature has qualified him to fill was the place of a servant. That place was accordingly assigned him in the new order of civilization called American civilization, founded upon moral virtue and natural distinctions, and not upon artifice and fraud; upon nature's laws and God's truths, and not upon the fallacies of human reason, as that of Europe. They had not even the assistance of book education to tell them that the white man bore the name of Japheth in the Bible, and the negro that of Canaan; and that the negro's servile nature was expressed in his Hebrew name. American theologians had not paid sufficient attention to the Hebrew, and could not inform the American reader that both the Hebrew Bible and its Greek translation, called the Septuagint, plainly, and in direct terms, recognize two classes or races of mankind, one having a black skin, and the other being fair or white; and that, besides these two races, it recognizes a third race under the term Shem, a name which has no reference to color; but as the other two were plainly designated as whites and blacks, the inference is, that the third class was red or yellow, or of an intermediate color. In the Septuagint (the Bible which our Saviour quotes), Æthiop is the term used to designate the sons of Ham, a term synonymous with the Latin word niger, from which the Spanish word negro is derived. The Bible tells in unmistakable terms that Japheth, or the white race, was to be enlarged. The discovery of the western hemisphere opened a wide field for the enlargement of the white race, pent up for thousands of years in a little corner of the eastern hemisphere. The new hemisphere was found to be inhabited by nomads of the race of Shem, neither white nor black. The historical fact is, that the white race is every year enlarging itself by dispossessing the nomadic sons of Shem, found on the American continent, of their tents, and dwelling in them; and that the black race are its servants. Thus literally, in accordance with the prophecy, "Japheth will be enlarged, he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan (the negro) shall be his servant." The prophecy is not fulfilled, but only in process of fulfillment. It clearly points to a new order of civilization, in a wider world for enlargement than the old, in which the black race was to serve the white. The will of God that such a new order of civilization should be established, in which the negro and white man should mutually aid each other, and supply each other's deficiencies, is not only revealed in Hebrew words, written thousands of years ago, but revealed also in the laws of nature, and revealed by Ethiop nowhere else but in our slaveholding States, stretching forth her arms to God. American civilization, founded upon revealed truth and nature's laws, puts the negro in his natural position, that of subordination to the white man.

The observation and experience of those who founded a government resting on the basis of moral truth and natural, instead of artificial distinctions, revealed to them the necessity of consigning to the negro an inferior position, in order to carry out that democratic principle which demands a place for every thing, and every thing in its place. What are called the free States have provided no place for the poor negro. He is an outcast and a wanderer, hurtful instead of helpful to society. Mexico, Central and South America, in catching at the shadow, lost the substance of republicanism. Republican government has utterly failed with them, because they fell into the error of supposing that all men of all races are naturally equal to one another. The white race in those countries, acting upon that error, emancipated the inferior negro race, and amalgamated with that and with the Indian race. This disregard of the distinctions made by nature, between the white, black, and Indian races, was fatal to American civilization in those countries.

Mr. Jefferson never meant to say that negroes were equal to white men; but that white men, whether born in England or America were equal to one another. Our fathers contended for their own equality among Englishmen, which not being granted to them, they declared their independence. But scarcely had their swords won that independence, when the governing classes of Great Britain began to teach the rising generation, through the medium of books, schools, and colleges, that the democratic doctrine, which declared all white men equal to one another, included negroes. Thus making the learned world believe that democracy and negro slavery are incompatible—that there can be no such thing as a democracy, or a government where the people rule, so long as black people are held in slavery. The schools not only taught the doctrine that negro slavery is anti-republican, but that it is a moral, social and political evil, and soon it was denounced from the pulpit as sin against God!

Under the influence of such an education, imported from Europe, the American people, even in the South, began to regard negro slavery as an evil—not from any thing they saw, but from what they had been taught. Thence all manner of experiments were made with the negro to make his condition better out of slavery than in it. All of which proving a failure, the South took issue with Old and New England on the question of negro slavery being an evil, social, political, or moral, and called for the proof. No proof could be given except that drawn from England, from hearsay evidence, and from theoretical teaching of that system of education designed to support European despotisms, and to destroy American republicanism. This has opened the eyes of the South to the necessity of establishing schools and colleges of its own to uphold American civilization. The address of the commissioners for the raising of the endowment of the University of the South commends it to the attention of the American people, not as a sectional or Southern university, but as an American university, to be the house and home of the spirit of American civilization—a dwelling-place not lighted with fox-fire tapers or artificial lights to disguise nature, as the institutions of learning in Europe are, but with the light inherent in nature's truths and in the revealed word of God, honestly translated and interpreted. Some schools to aid American civilization have already been established, but there is a sad outcry for the proper kind of school books; those of Old and New England being rotten to the core with abolitionism and with that false democracy which would make the rising generation believe that the heroes of the American Revolution fought for ruining the negro by giving him liberty, fought to annul God's decrees, which made him a servant of servants, instead of fighting for the principle asserting their own equality with the lords of England and the crowned heads of Europe. Fortunately the work before us, the Report of the Auditor of the Public Accounts of Louisiana, will answer very well to supply the want of a proper kind of school book to indoctrinate beginners in the mysteries of the political institutions of their own country, and at the same time to discipline and expand their minds. It is only one of the numerous books of its class, which might be advantageously pressed into the service of the schools for a similar purpose. The statistics of the United States Census, and De Bow's Industrial Resources, and the Minutes of the Progress of the American Churches, would prove a very good beginning of a high school and college library. Comparisons being the basis of all useful and practical knowledge, in the works just referred to, and in the auditor's report and others of its class, will be found ample materials for comparison. Comparison will infuse a soul into the dry bones of the facts and figures of our religious and political institutions, and make them declare the hidden truths of nature which lie at the bottom of American republicanism, Christianity, prosperity, and progress. The task of comparing will be highly instructive to the youthful mind, and at the same time agreeable and interesting. As an example, here is the way a beginning is recommended, for a comparison in secular affairs.

Lesson No. 1.—Let Lesson No. 1 consist in comparing the counties (or parishes, as they are called in Louisiana) having the largest white population and the fewest negroes, with those counties having the heaviest negro population and the fewest white people.

There are five parishes, or counties, found in the report of the auditor of public accounts, in which the white population exceeds the negro slaves three to one. Let these parishes be compared with five others in which the slave population exceeds the white seven to one.

Table I, represents the first class of parishes, and Table II, the second. Thus:

TABLE I.

Total acres of
land owned.		Population
Whites.Slaves.Free
Negroes.
Calcasieu,35,486 2,367947280
Livingston,60,885 3,9981,2977
Sabine,85,446[275]3,5851,409—
Vermillion,73,654 3,2601,37819
Winn,43,406 4,3141,00738
298,877 17,5246,038343
17,524
Total whites and slaves,23,562
343
Aggregate population,23,905

TABLE II.

Total acres of land owned.Population
Whites.Slaves.Free
Negroes.
Carroll,246,582 2,409 9,529 —
Concordia,318,395 1,384 11,908 11
Madison,304,494 1,293 9,863 —
Tensas,323,797 1,255 13,285 328
W. Feliciana,230,966 1,985 10,450 68
1,224,234 8,326 55,035 407
8,326
Total whites and slaves,63,361
407
Aggregate population,63,768

It will be seen from the above, that the white population of the parishes in table I exceeds the slaves nearly three to one; while, in the parishes in table II, the slaves exceed the whites nearly seven to one.

If the land were divided equally among the aggregate population, each inhabitant of the parishes in table I would have 12 acres, and each inhabitant of the parishes in table II would have 22 acres. Here lesson 1 ends, by proving that there is not as great a demand for land, by nearly one half, where the population consists of one white man and seven negroes. By referring to a map of Louisiana, it will be seen that the territorial extent of the parishes in table I is much greater than those in table II. Hence it is not for the want of territory, that a population consisting of three whites to one negro, owns less land by nearly one half, than a population consisting of seven negroes to one white man.

Lesson No. 2.—Lesson No. I requires the value of the land per acre, in tables I and II, to be ascertained and compared, with a view of solving the important problem: "Which gives the most value to land, a dense white population with a few negroes, or a dense slave population with a few white people?"

By referring to the report of the auditor of accounts of Louisiana, it will be seen that the assessed value of the lands of the parishes in table I amounts to $1,642,073, or $5 49 per acre; while that of table II amounts to $23,446,654, or $16 46 per acre. A population consisting of seven negro slaves to one white man, makes land three times as valuable as a population of three white men to one negro. The comparison drawn in this lesson, puts a soul in the dry bones of the facts and figures contained in the report of the auditor of public accounts, and makes them tell what it is which gives value to Southern land.

Lesson No. 3.—Let this lesson be devoted to drawing comparisons to ascertain: "Which pays the most taxes to the State, five parishes containing 17,524 whites with a few negroes, or five parishes containing less than half the whites (8,326) with a great many negroes?" By referring to the report of the auditor it will be seen, that the 17,524 whites of the five parishes in table I pay the State only $25,487,93, or less than $1 50 each, while the 8,326 whites in the five parishes in table II pay the State $169,900 per annum, or upward of $20 each. The aggregate population of the parishes in table I pay only $1 06 each, while the aggregate population of the parishes in table II pay $2 66 each. Every three whites and twenty negroes pay the State $61 18. By making a calculation it will appear that it will require forty-three whites and fifteen negroes of the parishes in table I, to pay the State as much as three whites and twenty negroes pay in the parishes in table II.

Corollary.—Three white men with twenty negroes, financially considered, are worth as much to the State as forty-three white men with fifteen negroes.

This strange truth meets a steady explanation in the fact found in Lesson No. 2, that in those parishes where every three white inhabitants own twenty negroes, the land is more than three times as valuable as in the parishes, where every forty-three of the white population possess only fifteen negroes.

Lesson No. 4.—In the last lesson the truth was brought out that forty-three white men and fifteen negroes are worth no more to the State, financially considered, than three white men and twenty negroes. Let this lesson examine the question: "Whether forty-three white men in command of fifteen negroes are worth as much to the State, agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in command of twenty negroes?" This is a bold question and requires some calculations. In making the calculations to base the comparisons upon, sugar will be estimated at $60 per hogshead; molasses at $7 per barrel; corn at $1 per bushel, and cotton at $40 dollars per bale. At these rates the value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes, where the white population is nearly three times as great as the negro, amounts to $446,550, in a population of 17,524 whites, 6,038 negro slaves, and 343 free negroes—the aggregate population 23,905, which gives to each inhabitant $18 68.

The value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes, viz: Carroll, Concordia, Madison, Tensas, and West Feliciana, where the negro slaves are nearly seven times as numerous as the white population, amounts to $8,854,770. In other words, 55,035 negroes under the command of 8,326 whites, in an aggregate population of 63,768 (407 being added for free negroes), produced $8,854,770 worth of agricultural products in one year, estimating cotton at $40 per bale, sugar $60 per hogshead, and corn at $1 a bushel; this amount divided by the aggregate population gives each individual, black and white, old and young, $138 87. Three whites in command of twenty negroes produce $3,194 worth of agricultral products. This lesson was to solve the question whether forty-three white men in command of fifteen negroes are worth as much to the State, agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in command of twenty negroes? It has been proved that in those five parishes where the whites nearly treble the negroes, each inhabitant only produces $18 68. This would give to forty-three white and fifteen negroes only $1,081 70 as their share of the value of the agricultural productions—whereas, the share of three whites and twenty negroes, in those parishes where the negro population is nearly seven to one of the white, has been ascertained to be $3,194. The student of political economy is now prepared to solve another question: "What number of inhabitants are required in those parishes where labor is isolated or disassociated, to produce as much as three white and twenty negroes produce in those parishes where labor is associated? The answer is 171; viz: 113 whites and 58 negroes. The question is proved to be correctly solved by multiplying 171 by $18.68 which gives $1,394 25, the exact amount and a quarter over, that twenty negroes and three whites produce in those parishes where labor is associated, or where the slave population is nearly seven times more numerous than the white.

Lesson No. 5.—Let two more lots of parishes be compared; one in which the white population is not quite double that of the negro slaves, and the other in which the negro slaves are not quite double the number of the whites.

TABLE III.
Parishes where whites exceed negroes less than two to one.

Whites.Slaves.Free negroes.Val. ag. prod.' 58.
Caldwell,2,6071,8308$121,920
St. Tammany,2,5881,945—67,170
Union,7,1914,1545691,641
Washington,2,9101,5511047,532
Jackson, 5,220 3,803 1 702,742
20,516 13,28324$1,631,005

Dividing the total value of the agricultural products by the aggregate population, gives $48 22 to each individual, as the average in five parishes, where the negro slaves are somewhat more than half the whole population. This is a considerable improvement on the five parishes in table I, where the whites exceed the negroes nearly three to one, the average to each inhabitant being only $18 68, instead of $48 22.

TABLE IV.
Parishes where negroes exceed whites less than two to one.

Whites.Slaves.Free negroes.Val. ag. prod. '58.
Claiborne,4,6187,00358$857,675
De Soto,4,4597,30129739,945
Morehouse,3,6205,46814785,370
Nachitoches,5,9877,9397751,120,718
Caddo,4,0735,978441,056,130
Bossier, 3,646 7,195 111,155,010
26,403 40,7849315,674,848

The total value of the agricultural productions, divided by the aggregate population, 68,168, gives to each inhabitant $83 25. In table II the aggregate population was 63,768, nearly seven negroes to one white man; the value of the agricultural products divided, gave each $138 07, instead of $83 25. The parishes of table II, with an aggregate population of 63,768, seven sixths of whom were slaves, produced $8,854,770 worth of agricultural products; whereas, the parishes of table IV, containing a population of 68,168, the slaves being less than double the number of whites, produced three millions less of agricultural products than a smaller aggregate population produced in those parishes where the negroes outnumbered the whites nearly seven to one.

The report of the auditor of public accounts for the year 1859, does not contain the necessary data for making comparisons in the parishes on the lower stem of the Mississippi river, by reason of crevasses and other disastrous causes. The valuable pamphlet of Edward J. Forstale, on the agricultural products of Louisiana, will supply that deficiency, though of a much older date. It appears from Mr. Forstale, that, so far back as 1844, "on well conducted estates, the average value of sugar and molasses, per slave, was $237 50, estimating sugar at 4 cents, and molasses at 15 cents," while the general average in the sugar district, per slave, was, in the year 1844, only $150 31, from which he deducted $75 for expenses. By examining his Monograph, it will be seen that the great bulk of the sugar and molasses was produced in those parishes having the heaviest negro population in proportion to the white. Thus, St. Martin's, with a total population more than three times as large as St. Charles, and with a negro population more than twice as numerous, produced, in 1844, only 5,000 hogsheads, while St. Charles produced upward of 12,000. The white population of St. Charles is only 883, while that of the slaves is 3,769. The white population of St. Martin is 6,400, and the negro population 8,200. Assumption and Ascension are adjoining parishes. Assumption contains more than three thousand whites, and three hundred slaves over and above the population of Ascension. It has more land than Ascension, yet it pays $2,200 less taxes on lands than Ascension, and its gross taxes are $1,500 less than Ascension. The value of its agricultural products is likewise less.

These lessons by comparison might be indefinitely extended, by dropping the report of the auditor of public accounts of Louisiana, and taking up the statistics of the churches, and the last United States census. The statistics of the American churches prove that the slaveholding States contain more Christian communicants, in proportion to the population, including black and white, than the non-slaveholding—South Carolina more than Massachusetts, Virginia more than Pennsylvania, Kentucky more than Ohio. The report proves that in the cotton and sugar region, the white people who have few or no negroes, are poor and helpless, but when supplied with seven times their own number of negroes, they are the richest and most powerful agricultural people on the earth. The census will prove that the landed property of those who are thus supplied with from three to seven times their own number of negroes, if sold at its assessed value, and the proceeds of sales divided equally among all the inhabitants, black and white, each individual would have a larger sum than any Pennsylvanian, New Yorker, or New Englander, would have, if the land in the richest counties were sold at its assessed value, and the proceeds of sales divided equally among the inhabitants of the said county. For instance, if the land in some of the richest counties of Pennsylvania, say Adams, Berks, Centre, Chester, and Washington, were all sold, and the proceeds divided among the inhabitants, each individual would have only about half as much as each negro and white man would have, if the lands of Carroll, Madison, Concordia, and Tensas, where the negroes outnumber the whites seven to one, were all sold, and the proceeds equally divided among blacks and whites.

Comparisons, instituted upon the data furnished by the United States census, will show that what Virginia wants is more negroes, and what Pennsylvania wants is more white laborers. In some counties in Pennsylvania, Cambria and Carbon for instance, the land, if sold and proceeds divided, would not give each inhabitant $75 a piece, the most of the land being uncultivated for want of laborers. Ohio, Wyoming, and Nicholas counties, in Virginia, with an aggregate population exceeding thirty thousand, have only 222 negro slaves. The land, if sold and divided, would not give each inhabitant one hundred dollars. In Accomac, Albemarle, York, Prince Edward, and Prince George, the negro population is about equal to the white. The land, if sold and equally divided, would give each individual from $150 to $220, which is nearly as much as the inhabitants of the best counties of Pennsylvania would have from the proceeds of sales of these lands. Land, per acre, is cheaper in Virginia than in Pennsylvania, because much the largest portion of the Virginia lands are unimproved for the want of laborers, while the largest portion of the Pennsylvania lands are under cultivation. The cotton States and Louisiana are sucking the life-blood out of Virginia by draining that noble old State of her agricultural laborers. The high price of negroes is ruining Virginia. In Sussex, Southampton, Northampton, and many other counties, which send most negroes to the cotton States, the inhabitants have lost more in the fall in the price of their land, than they have gained in the high price they got for their negroes. The land, if sold and divided, would give each individual only fifty-seven dollars, less than three dollars an acre. Oxford is Great Britain's eye, or rather the telescope which is used to see afar off, to direct British policy. Mr. Jefferson saw the importance of a university of the first class, to be used as a telescope to look into the distance, to direct Virginia, or what ought to be the same thing, American policy, as Oxford directs British policy. Hence he devoted the latter years of his life to establishing an institution for that very purpose.

Long before the West India emancipation act was passed, it was known by the learned graduates and fellows of Oxford, that negroes would not work as free laborers; and that their emancipation would ruin the British West Indies. British policy, however, to build up India, imperatively demanded the sacrifice to be made, as Russian policy demanded the sacrifice of Moscow. The African race furnished the only laborers, who could compete with the Mongolian race in producing the rich products of tropical agriculture. Great Britain had a hundred and fifty millions of the bronze and yellow-skin Asiatics under her command, and only wanted the black-skin Africans out of the way, to monopolize tropical agriculture. To carry out the British policy of becoming, not only mistress of the seas, but mistress of the boundless wealth of tropical and tropicoid climates, the learned graduates of Oxford and Cambridge raised a hue and cry against the inhumanity of the middle passage. So little truth was there in it, that when the committee of the United States Senate, appointed to consider the causes of the mortality prevailing on emigrant ships from Europe to this country, and the means for the better protection of the health of the passengers, did me the honor in 1854 to request my views on the subject, I replied (see "Report of the Select Committee of U. S. Senate on the Sickness and Mortality on Emigrant Ships," pages 119-144—Washington, 1854), recommending certain rules to be adopted to preserve the health and ameliorate the condition of emigrants on shipboard, which appeared to me to be the best. But, subsequently, a little volume fell into my hands containing the rules of the African slave-traders, half a century ago, which were so much better than those I had recommended, I called the attention of the chairman of the Senate's committee, the Hon. Hamilton Fish, to them, advising him by all means to adopt the African slave-traders' rules, if he had any regard for the health and comfort of the European emigrants. In the latter part of the last century no one pretended, as now, that the negro lost any thing by exchanging slavery in Africa for the more benign system of slavery in America. But it was the imaginary sufferings on the middle passage, which brought humanity with her eyes shut to lend to British policy a helping hand to close Africa and prevent her sable sons from exchanging their barbarous masters for civilized ones. America consented to that policy. The Southern tobacco-planters, believing they had as many negroes as the cultivation of tobacco required, had petitioned the king before the Revolution, to close the African slave trade. He did not do it. After the Revolution it was not only closed, but declared to be piracy, by the federal government. The policy which closed it may have been good policy or bad at that time. It soon gave the non-slaveholding States the ascendency in the Union. The question, whether they shall retain that ascendency, will depend very much upon whether they continue to abuse the power they acquired over the South by cutting off the supply of Southern laborers. Having ascertained that the negro would not work as a free man, the next move of British policy was, to set those free who were already in America. All parties in England, some by one artifice and some by another, were ultimately led to promote the British policy of negro abolitionism. From England it was brought over to the United States, took root and grew so rapidly as soon to become a most disturbing element in both church and state. We had no colleges at the North, and scarcely any churches which knew the advantages humanity and Christianity derived from the mutual aid the black and white races afford each other. The most of them are and were virtually European colleges located in America. This has enabled those learned men in Great Britain, who guide and direct British policy, to make a nose of wax of the great body of the educated classes in the United States. The prominence given to the Latin language, to the neglect of the Greek and Hebrew, in our schools and colleges, has greatly tended to fill the heads of the students with monarchical ideas, and to prevent them from understanding and appreciating the institutions of their own country. The study of Homer and the Greek classics favors genuine republicanism, by fostering a high-toned moral virtue, and by creating a love for nature and for political institutions founded upon her laws; while the study of Virgil, and other Latin text-books, used in our schools and colleges, has a strong tendency to lead to a sickly sentimental admiration for nominal instead of real freedom, and for governments founded upon usurpations and artificial distinctions, as that of the Cæsars was, and as that of Great Britain is. There is as much difference between Homer and Virgil as between nature and art. The Latin, being a derivative language, and of very little use, would long since have been banished from the schools, but for the aid monarchy derives from its binding men of letters, as Virgil bound the Muses, to the footstool of thrones, to flatter the frail humanity thereon with the incense of divine honors. Homer's Muses, like true Americans, pay no higher honors to the diadem on the king's head than to the gaudy plumage of the peacock's tail. Young America would derive great advantages from an intimate acquaintance with Homer. He wrote in a language which gives to all the arts and sciences their technical terms. Hence, the previous study of the Greek makes the acquaintance of the various sciences comparatively easy to the learner. The Greek and Hebrew being original languages, can be acquired in much less time than the Latin, which is a derivative language. It is to be hoped that the great University of the South, about to be established on the cool and salubrious plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, if it does not banish Latin, will at least give a greater degree of prominence to the Greek and Hebrew, the two languages in which the Scriptures were originally written. By comparing "The Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Education, 1859, with "Les Lois concernant les Ecoles Publique dans l'Etat de la Louisiane, 1849," it will be perceived, that the New England system of public education is not adapted to Louisiana and the South. The laws are excellent, if the system itself was in conformity to the spirit of our political institutions. After ten years' trial, we learn from the Report of the Superintendent, that they can not be carried out, as no laws can be, which are theoretical, burdensome, troublesome, expensive, and void of practical benefits. If a law were passed by the State of Louisiana appropriating three hundred thousand dollars per annum to furnishing every family with a loaf of bread every day, it could not be executed. More than half the families would not accept the bread. The Report of the Superintendent of Public Education proves that more than half the families in Louisiana will not accept of the mental food the State offers to their children. Some parishes will not receive any of it. Tensas, for instance, which is taxed $16,000 for the support of public schools, has "not a single public school," says the Report, "in it, yet nearly every planter has a school in his own house." The truth is, that government does more harm than good by interfering with the domestic concerns of our people. If let alone, they would not need governmental aid in furnishing food for either the body or the mind. The South would have been far ahead in education, manufactures, and internal improvements, if the federal government had not interfered, to shut out the only kind of laborers who can labor in the cane and cotton field and live. The system of public education, all admit, has failed in the country, but, it is asserted, has succeeded very well in New Orleans. If the tree be judged by its fruits it is poisonous instead of salutary, to republican institutions, in our great cities. If the boys whom it has taught to read novels, had been put to trades, they could not have been driven away from the polls after they had grown to be men. There has been virtually no election in New Orleans, and in many of our large cities, for the last five or six years; whether from fear or indifference, it proves that the system of education is defective. America wants a University to raise the standard of morals, manners, and learning, so high, that every individual will be as secure from personal violence at the sacred ballot-box, as at the church altar. America wants schools to raise the standard of moral virtue so high, that every American citizen, naturalized or native, may confidently rely upon government putting forth its whole power to protect him in all the rights and privileges of an American citizen, both at home and abroad.