NINE SLAVE CITIES.
| Name. | Population. | Wealth. | Wealth per capita. |
| Baltimore | 250,000 | $102,053,839 | $408 |
| New Orleans | 175,000 | 91,188,195 | 521 |
| St. Louis | 140,000 | 63,000,000 | 450 |
| Charleston | 60,000 | 36,127,751 | 602 |
| Louisville | 70,000 | 31,500,000 | 450 |
| Richmond | 40,000 | 20,143,520 | 503 |
| Norfolk | 17,000 | 12,000,000 | 705 |
| Savannah | 25,000 | 11,999,015 | 480 |
| Wilmington | 10,000 | 7,850,000 | 785 |
| 787,000 | $375,862,320 | $477 |
Let it not be forgotten that the slaves themselves are valued at so much per head, and counted as part of the wealth of slave cities; and yet, though we assent, as we have done, to the inclusion of all this fictitious wealth, it will be observed that the residents of free cities are far wealthier, per capita, than the residents of slave cities. We trust the reader will not fail to examine the figures with great care.
In this age of the world, commerce is an indispensable element of national greatness. Without commerce we can have no great cities, and without great cities we can have no reliable tenure of distinct nationality. Commerce is the forerunner of wealth and population; and it is mainly these that make invincible the power of undying States.
Speaking in general terms of the commerce of this country, and of the great cities through which that commerce is chiefly carried on, the Boston Traveler says:—
“The wealth concentrated at the great commercial points of the United States is truly astonishing. For instance, one-eighth part of the entire property of this country is owned by the cities of New-York and Boston. Boston alone, in its corporate limits, owns one-twentieth of the property of this entire Union, being an amount equal to the wealth of any three of the New-England States, except Massachusetts. In this city is found the richest community, per capita, of any in the United States. The next city in point of wealth, according to its population, is Providence, (R. I.,) which city is one of the richest in the Union, having a valuation of fifty-six millions, with a population of fifty thousand.”
The same paper, in the course of an editorial article on the “Wealth of Boston and its Business,” says:—
“The assessors’ return of the wealth of Boston will probably show this year an aggregate property of nearly three hundred millions. This sum, divided among 160,000 people, would give nearly $2,000 to each inhabitant, and will show Boston to be much the wealthiest community in the United States, save New York alone, with four times its population. The value of the real estate in this city is increasing now with great rapidity, as at least four millions of dollars’ worth of new houses and stores will be built this year. The personal estate in ships, cargoes, stocks, &c., is greatly increasing with each succeeding year, not withstanding the many disasters and losses constantly occurring in such kinds of property.
“It is impossible to get the exact earnings of the nearly six hundred thousand tons of shipping owned in this city. But perhaps it would not be much out of the way to set the total amount for 1855 at from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars. This sum has probably been earned by our fleet engaged in the domestic trade, and in commercial transactions with the East and West Indies, South America, the Pacific, Europe and Africa. The three sources from which the population of Boston is maintained, and its prosperity continued, are these: Commerce, trade, and manufactures. Its annual trade and sales of merchandise are said now, by competent judges, to amount to three hundred millions of goods per annum, and will soon greatly exceed that vast sum. The annual manufactures of this city are much more in amount than in many entire States in this Union. They amount, according to recent statistics, to nearly seventy-five millions of dollars.”
Freeman Hunt, the accomplished editor of Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, writing on the “Progressive Growth of Cities,” says:—