In every country there is a class to be found in such utter destitution, that they must either be supported by charity, or perish of want. This destitution arises, generally, from oppressive exactions or excessive vice, and is evidence of the tendency of social institutions, and the superiority of one over another, in securing the greatest amount of individual prosperity and comfort.
With these views to aid us, we will compare some facts belonging to New England and these five old slave States. With an equal population, New England has thirty-three thousand four hundred and thirty-one paupers; these five slave States have fourteen thousand two hundred and twenty-one. Here is an excess of paupers in New England, notwithstanding her boasted prosperity, of one hundred and thirty-five per cent. over these five slave States. And if to these continual paupers we were to add the number (as given in State returns) that are partially aided in New England, the addition would be awful. But I suppose New England will strive to wipe off this stain of regular pauperism, by throwing the blame of it upon the foreigners among them. It should be remembered, however, as an offset to this, that these foreigners are all from non-slaveholding countries. From their infancy they have shared the blessings of freedom and free institutions; therefore they ought to be admitted, as homogeneous materials, in the social organizations of New England, which we are now comparing with Southern slaveholding communities.
But as foreign paupers are distinguished in the census from native born citizens, we will now (in the comparison) exclude them in both sections. The number of paupers will then be, for New England, eighteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-six; for the five slave States, eleven thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight—leaving to New England, which is considered the model section of the world in all that is lovely in religious and social prosperity, seven thousand two hundred and thirty-eight more of her native sons in the poor-house, (or nearly seventy per cent.,) than are to be found in this condition in an equal population in these five Southern States.
The ratio of New England's native sons in the poor-house is one to one hundred and forty-three; of these five slave States one to two hundred and thirty-four. The ratio of New England's entire population in the poor-house is one to eighty-one; the ratio of the entire population of these five slave States is one to one hundred and seventy-one.
The Saviour asks if a good tree can bring forth evil fruit, or an evil tree good fruit. Here is an exhibition of the fruit borne by New England freedom and Southern slavery. The Saviour gives every man a right to judge the tree by the fruit, and declares such to be righteous judgment.
There is another item in the census which throws much light on the comparative comfort and happiness of the people in these two localities. It is neither physical destitution, criminal degradation, nor mental suffering; but it is an effect which is known to flow from one, or the other, or all three of these conditions as causes; therefore it is an important item in determining the amount of destitution, degradation, and suffering, which exist in a community.
When we see effects which are known to flow from certain causes—the causes may be concealed—yet we know that they exist by the effects we see. With these remarks I proceed to state a fact disclosed in the census, as it exists in New England, and as it exists in these five old slave States.
In New England, with an equal population, we find that three thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine of her white children have been crushed by sufferings of some sort, to the condition of insanity, while in these five old slave States there are only two thousand three hundred and twenty-six of her white children who have been called to suffer, in their earthly pilgrimage, a degree of anguish beyond mental endurance. Here is a difference of more than sixty per cent. in favor of these five States, as to conditions of suffering that are beyond endurance among men. Very poor evidence this, of the superior happiness and comfort of New England.
But while her white children are called to suffer over sixty per cent. more of these crushing sorrows than those of these five States, how is it with her black children in freedom, compared with the family here in slavery, from which the most of them have fled, that they might enjoy the blessings of liberty? It is exceedingly interesting to see the benefits and blessings which New England freedom and Puritan sympathy have conferred upon them.
Here are the facts of the census upon this subject: