In natural fertility of soil Delaware is far superior to Rhode Island, the seasons much more favorable for crops and stock, and with more than double the number of acres of arable land.
Progress of Wealth.—By Census Tables 33 and 36 (omitting commerce), it appears that the products of industry as given, viz., of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year, in Rhode Island, of the value of $52,400,000, or $300 per capita, and in Delaware, $16,100,000, or $143 per capita. That is, the average annual value of the product of the labor of each person in Rhode Island is greatly more than double that of the labor of each person in Delaware, including slaves. This, we have seen, would make the value of the products of labor in Rhode Island in 1930, $132,363,600, and in Delaware, only $30,469,582, notwithstanding the far greater area and superior natural advantages of Delaware as compared with Rhode Island.
As to the rate of increase: the value of the products of Delaware in 1850 was $7,804,992, in 1860, $16,100,000; and in Rhode Island, in 1850, $24,288,088, and in 1860, $52,400,000 (Table 9, Treas. Rep., 1856), exhibiting a large difference in the ratio in favor of Rhode Island.
By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the cash value of the farm lands of Rhode Island in 1860 was $19,385,573, or $37.30 per acre (519,698 acres), and of Delaware, $31,426,357, or $31.39 per acre. (1,004,295 acres). Thus, if the farm lands of Delaware were of the cash value of those of Rhode Island per acre, it would increase the value of those of Delaware $5,935,385, whereas the whole value of her slaves is but $539,400.
But by Table 35, Census of 1860, the total value of the real and personal property of Rhode Island in 1860, was $135,337,588, and of Delaware, $46,242,181, making a difference in favor of Rhode Island, $89,095,407, whereas, we have seen, in the absence of slavery, Delaware must have far exceeded Rhode Island in wealth and population.
The earnings of commerce are not given by the census, but, to how vast an extent this would swell the difference in favor of Rhode Island, we may learn from the Census, Bank Table No. 34. The number of the banks of Rhode Island in 1860, was 91; capital, $20,865,569; loans, $26,719,877; circulation, $3,558,295; deposits, $3,553,104. In Delaware, number of banks, 12; capital, $1,640,775; loans, $3,150,215; circulation, $1,135,772; deposits, $976,223.
Having shown how much slavery has retarded the material progress of Delaware, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and intellectual development.
Newspapers and Periodicals.—The number of newspapers and periodicals in Rhode Island in 1860, was 26, of which 18 were political, 6 literary, and 2 miscellaneous. (Census, Table No. 37.) The number in Delaware was 14, of which 13 were political, and 1 literary. Of periodicals, Delaware had none; Rhode Island, 1. The number of copies of newspapers and periodicals issued in Rhode Island in 1860 was 5,289,280, and in Delaware only 1,010,776, or largely more than five to one in favor of Rhode Island.
As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must take the census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or published. The number of public schools in Rhode Island in 1850 was 426, teachers 518, pupils 23,130; attending school during the year, as returned by families, whites, 28,359; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 1,248; public libraries, 96; volumes, 104,342; value of churches, $1,293,600; percentage of native free adults who cannot read or write, 149. Colleges and academies, pupils, 3,664. (Comp. Census of 1850.) The number of public schools in Delaware in 1850, was 194, teachers 214, pupils 8,970; attending school during the year, whites, as returned by families, 14,216; native free adults of the State who cannot read or write, 9,777; public libraries, 17; volumes, 17,950; value of churches, $340,345; percentage of native free adults who cannot read or write, 23.03; colleges and academies, pupils, 764. (Comp. Census, 1850.)
These official statistics enable me then again to say, that slavery is hostile to the progress of population, wealth, and education, to science and literature, to schools and colleges, to books and libraries, to churches and religion, to the press, and therefore to FREE GOVERNMENT; hostile to the poor, keeping them in want and ignorance; hostile to labor, reducing it to servitude, and decreasing two thirds the value of its products; hostile to MORALS, repudiating among slaves the marital and parental condition, classifying them by law as CHATTELS, darkening the immortal soul, and making it a crime to teach millions of human beings to read or write.