| 1st | year | 260,000 | = | $26,000,000 |
| 2d | " | 520,000 | " | 52,000,000 |
| 3d | " | 780,000 | " | 78,000,000 |
| 4th | " | 1,040,000 | " | 104,000,000 |
| 5th | " | 1,300,000 | " | 130,000,000 |
| 6th | " | 1,560,000 | " | 156,000,000 |
| 7th | " | 1,820,000 | " | 182,000,000 |
| 8th | " | 2,080,000 | " | 208,000,000 |
| 9th | " | 2,340,000 | " | 234,000,000 |
| 10th | " | 2,600,000 | " | 260,000,000 |
| ————— | ||||
| Total, | $1,430,000,000 | |||
Thus the value of the labor of the immigrants from 1850 to 1860, was fourteen hundred and thirty millions of dollars, making no allowance for the accumulation of capital by annual reinvestment, nor for the natural increase of population, amounting by the census in ten years to about twenty-four per cent. This addition to our wealth by the labor of the children, in the first ten years, would be small; but in the second, and each succeeding decennium, when we count children and their descendants, it would be large and constantly augmenting. But the census shows, that our wealth increases each ten years at the rate of 126.45 per cent. Now then, take our increase of wealth in consequence of immigration as before stated, and compound it at the rate of 126.45 per cent, every ten years, and the result is largely over three billions of dollars in 1870, and over seven billions of dollars in 1880, independent of the effect of any immigration succeeding 1860. If these results are astonishing, we must remember that immigration here is augmented population, and that it is population and labor that create wealth. Capital, indeed, is but the accumulation of labor. Immigration, then, from 1850 to 1860, added to our national wealth a sum more than double our whole debt on the first of July last, and augmenting in a ratio much more rapid than its increase, and thus enabling us to bear the war expenses.
As the homestead privilege must largely increase immigration, and add especially to the cultivation of our soil, it will contribute more than any other measure to increase our population, wealth, and power, augment our revenue from duties and taxes, and soon enable us to repeal the tax bill, or, at least, confine it to a few articles of luxury.
Nor has this immigration merely increased our wealth; but it has filled our army with brave volunteer soldiers, Irish, Germans, and of other nationalities, who, side by side with our native sons, are now pouring out their blood on every battle field in defence of our flag and Union. Thousands of them have suffered in rebel dungeons, where many are still languishing—thousands are wounded, disabled for life, or filling a soldier's grave.
Thus has the immigrant proved himself worthy to participate with our native sons in the homestead privilege. He fights our battle, and dies, that the Union may live.
Come, then, our European brother, and enjoy with us every privilege of an American citizen. The altar of freedom is consecrated by the sacrament of our commingled blood. Countrymen of Lafayette and Montgomery, of Steuben and DeKalb, of Koscinsko and Pulaski! you are fighting, like them, in the same great cause, under the same banner, and for the same glorious Union, and, like them, you will reap an immortality of glory, and the gratitude of our country and of mankind. As century shall follow century, in marking this crisis of human destiny, history will record the stupendous fact, that the blood of all Europe commingled freely with our own in the mighty contest, the pledges of the freedom and brotherhood of man!
We have seen that the Homestead bill was of Union origin, opposed by Mr. Calhoun and the pro-slavery party. We have seen that the bill was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan, quoting the opposing argument of a traitor member of his Cabinet, now in the rebel army. The vote in the Senate after the veto, was, yeas 28 (not two thirds), and nays 18. (Sen. Journal, 757, June 23, 1860.) Of the yeas, all but three were from the free States; and of the nays, all were from the slave States. The opposition, then, as foreshadowed by Mr. Calhoun in 1836, was exclusively sectional and pro-slavery. As Mr. Buchanan changed his policy as to Kansas upon the threats of the secession leaders in 1857, so he sacrificed upon their mandate the Homestead bill in 1860.
Most of the eighteen Southern Senators who voted against this bill, are now in the rebel service. Among these eighteen nays, are Jefferson Davis, Bragg, Mason, Hunter, Mallory, Chesnut, Yulee, Wigfall, Fitzpatrick, Iveson, Johnson of Arkansas, Hemphill, and Sebastian. Now, then, when Irish and Germans in the South are asked to fight for the pro-slavery rebellion, let them remember that the secession leaders voted unanimously against the homestead bill, whilst the North then gave its entire vote in, favor of the measure, and have now made it the law of the land.
As it is a blessed thing for the poor and landless to receive, substantially as a gift, a farm from the Government, where they and their children may till their own soil, and enjoy competence, freedom, and free schools, let them never forget, that this was the act of the North, and opposed by the South. If the rebels succeed, they will hold the public domain in their States and Territories for large plantations, to be cultivated by slaves, and sink their 'poor whites,' as nearly as practicable, to the level of their slaves, in accordance with their theory, that capital should own labor.
Texas, is very nearly six times as large as New York, and more than one half the area is public domain of the State, with a most salubrious climate, with all the products of the North and South, as shown by the census, and with three times as many cattle (2,733,267) as in any other State. This vast domain, if the South succeeds, will be cultivated in large tracts by slaves; but with our success, the State title will be forfeited to the Government, and the land colonized by loyal freemen, and subjected to the Homestead law, so that educated free white labor can raise there sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, and indigo, as well as the crops of the North. It appears by the history of the reign of Henry II., that Ireland (in the year 1102) was the first country which abolished slavery, England still retaining it for many centuries; and Germany scarcely participated in the African slave trade. And now those two brave and mighty races, the Celtic and Teutonic, so devoted to liberty and the rights of man, will never erect the temple of their faith upon the Confederate corner stone, the ownership, of man by man, and of labor by capital. No—they are fighting in the great cause, (now, henceforth, and forever inseparable,) of Liberty and Union. And when, as the result of this rebellion, slavery shall disappear from our country, the words of the Sermon on the Mount, announcing the brotherhood of man, and adopted by our fathers in the Declaration of American Independence, may be inscribed on our banner, 'that all men are created Equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable Rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.' Such was the faith plighted to God, our country, and humanity, on the day of the nation's birth; in crushing this rebellion, and inaugurating the reign of universal freedom, we are now fulfilling that pledge. Slavery having struck down our flag, having dissevered our States, having, with sacrilegious steps, entered our holy temples, separated churches, and erected a government based on dehumanizing man, under the Union as it was: liberty will reunite us by fraternal and indissoluble ties, under the Union as it will be.