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ing Stales, whose own numbers must thereby
be reduced by the exact amount of that sup
ply. and as their reproduction in the territories
is in no degree greater than in the supplying
States, it is clear that whilst a fragmant of the
slave population has changed an old residence
for a new one. the population, in other re
spects, is just what it was. Not a solitary hu
man* being has been made a slave by the exten
sion who would not have been one—had such
extension never taken place, and never been
dreamed of. As the extent of personal slavery
cannot be changed by its transfer to the teni
tories, what is it that is to be changed ? Not
the personal hardships ot the condition, and
not the legal enacments by which that con
dition is secured or enforced, for it is, in no re
spect, even supposable, either that the treat
ment of the slave will be harsher in the territo
ries than in the States, or that the property or
police laws which govern him there, will differ
in any material point from those to which he
has elsewhere been subjected. If slavery, then,
in its most important aspect, in its personal,
numerical, moral and legal aspects, is un
changed, if not unchangeable, by its admission
into the territories, where is the harm which
comes of this “extension,” that it should he so
furiously and relentlessly resisted ? There is
butone solitary elementofincreasedstrength or
power to slavery which this extension can in
volve, and that is the political one which may
contingently inure to it from an increased re
presentation in the United States Senate.
Should the admission of it into the territories
result, as it probably would, in the final recog
nition’and establishment of it under their State
constitutions, there would result with it the ad
vantage of being represented by additional
members in the Senate ; and in that particular,
and that only, the extension would bring along
with it an unquestionable gain. In this House
there would be none. The representation in
it being founded in numbers, the whole of the
slaves who would be counted for representa
tives in California and Naw Mexico, but for
their removal there, would have been added,
with all their increase, to the count or reckon
ing of the States from which they were ta
ken.
In this House, therefore, the strength of sla
very will not be increased a particle by its de
preciated extension. In the Senate it will he,
and it isjust and right, upon the whole spirit
and stricture of our Government, that it should
be. We of the South, as I have already said,
are in a double minority—one of number and
ofinterest; and on behalf particularly of our
interest minority, we are entitled, consistently
with the principles of our political system, to
direct and adequate constitutional protection.
A minority in numbers may be so identical
in sympathy and interest with the majority in
numbers as to enjoy, practically and in fact, the
full benefit and protection of the majority pow
—er* But rtris can never be the case with the
minority in interests, as we have some painful
occasion to know.
Our interest is separate, sectional and pecu
liar—at all points an interest of antagonism ;
adversary, as our constitutional colleagues al
lege, to their feelings, their habits, their convic
tions of right, their sense of public duty, to sanc
tion or maintain it; and hence it is an interest
which is especially liable to attack and aggres
sion, and will be sure to suffer from both, un
less protected by a sufficient constitutional
shield. Tnis would be afforded, in some meas
ure, by adding directly to its representation in
the Senate, and afforded precisely on the same
principle on which that representation was ori
ginally granted to such States as Rhode Island
and Delaware—the principle, namely, of de
fending the weaker against the power and ag
gression of the stronger. But even then, with
all the benefit of new and augmented numbers
in the Senate, the whole necessities of our
case will not at last, be reached; for, toother
minorities we are destined—to that of a minori
ty of Slates, as well as of population and in
terest.
Turn your eye upon that part of our nation
al map which is yet to be parcelled out into
States, the Mexican territories included, and it
wjuld <eern that the probable and natural divi
sion of it would be into about five new slave
holding States and six or eight non-slavehold
ing or “Free soil” States. Add these five to our
present stock of fourteen, (for I do not reckon
Delaware amangst the slaveholdirig States)
and we shall have nineteen states represented
by thirty-eight senators,. .Add the new to the
sixteen free States, and they will amount at the
lowest estimate, to twenty-two: in all, having
forty-four Senators.
Thus upon the supposition that New Mexi
co and California should both become slave
holding States, the other States have now, and
will continue to have, a fixed, established, and
immovable majority. Their present majority,
also, in this House, is obliged to become pro
gressively greater and greater, at every suc
cessive reapportionment of it* numbers. /Al
most all of the foreign and almost all of the
internal immigration is also to them: and, what
is more, it is in the power oftheir Represenla
lives in Congress, being a majority of the
whole, so to dispose of this territorial subject
as to stimulate that emigration from the slave
holding States to a greater and more mischiev
ous event than ever.
Alli, igli it would be easy, Mr. Chairman,
to illusti ile the nature and effect of that “exten
sion” so denounced and so resisted by gentle
men here, in still other aspects, yet enough
has been said, 1 think to show that the main
idea which it conveys to the popular mind is a
deceptive and mistaken one; that, in point of
fact, the extension of slavery to the territories
will not and cannot make one single human be
ing in thiscountry a slave, who would not have
been one without it; that it will not render
the personal condition of the slaves a particle
harsher than now ; that it will not render the
rights of slavery, as a social or legal system, a
particle stronger than now ; that it will not add
anything whatsoever to its strength, except,
contingently, in its greater political represen
tation in the United States Senate, and that
the addition so made to it there is not only in
strictest accordance with the guarantee prin
cipie on which that branch of Congress, for just
such cases, is constituted, but falls short of full
and perfect protection, because of that ultimate
minority in which the slaveholding Stales are
destined to remain.
We tints see, Mr. Chairman, what extension
will not do. Let us reverse the picture for a
moment, and see what it will do, not politically,
but practically. It will co-operate with other
causes already existing for the gradual transfer
of slaves from situations where their labor is
least valuable, to where it will be most so ;
that is, from the graingrowing to the planting
regions of the United Stales—Wherever su
gar and cotton growing lands could be had in
these Territories cheaper and more productive
than similar lands in the Slates, they would be
bought up and settled with slaves, and these,
to that exlent, would be drained off from their
present abodes into them. This deportation
of slaves for the very purpose or settling such
lands has been steadily going on for many
years amongst the Slates themselves, until al
length it has come to mark itself upon the
condition of property and the structure of so
ciety in some of them—V irginia for instance—
by consequences of the most decided and al
most revolutionary kind. First, the annual re
durlion of the black race by removal is equal
to, if not greater, than its natural annual in
crease— Second this reduction of black labor
opens up many employments, especially me
chanical employments, to the easier and more
profitable pursuit of the white man, and thus
discourages his emigration from the Stale.
Thirdly, thir reduction has the further effect of
leaving a progressively increasing deficiency
of labor tor the full occupation and tillage of
the soil, and so throws out of use and into mark
et immense quantities ofimproved land, which,
far exceeding the wantsand the means of local
purchasers, are left to grow ou into greater and
greater amount, until by and by—perhaps at
this hour —habitations of a comfortable kind,
and of indefinite, extent, can be had upon bet
ter terms in the oldest, and commercially con
sidered, the best portions of that “ ancient”
common-wealth, than even in the unpeopled
wilds of the “far West. ” These causes,
combining with one another and with other
causes, have so operated upon the relative
growth of the two races in that State, as to be
daily adding to the more and more decided
preponderance of the white one. If they are
allowed to work on as they have already done
and are now doing, especially if the auxiliary
and stimulating cause of a free admission of
slaves into the territories be superadded, it is
evident, as their number, both absolute and
relative, will grow le»s, that the whde system
of slavery in Virginia will be placed in a new
and more controllable relation than it has ever
stood in before.
When tinder the uniform and wholesome
law of private interest, the black population
of Virginia and Maryland and North Carolina,
Missouri or Kentucky, quietly empties itself out
upon the sugar and the cotton lands of the
Territories, or of the lower South, where the
torrid suu is so propitious to their consiitu ion
and labor and when, as a consequence of this
removal, free men enter into and occupy the
home they have left, what is there in this to
lament .’ What shock does it intlict upon per
sonal humanity or general freedom, that those
of us here who are the professed if not the ex
clusive supporters of both, should denounce
and deplore it ?
But Mr. Chairman, let this transfer of the
slave to the lower, more congenial and more
productive latitudes of the South be stopped;
begin the stoppage of it here, by shutting him
out ofyour territories in Mexico; let that act
cf yours be followed as it surely would be by
prohibitory acts on the part of the slaveholding
States themselves, mutually forbidding importa
tions from one another, then the relative pro
gression of the black over the white race will
rapidly advance, and a disastrous future to
them both will begin at once to be shadowed
out. Not only is the increase of the black race
greater under all circumstances than that of
the white, because of the absence, in their case,
of all prudential restraint, but when no emi
gration uallowed, to keep down that excessive
growth, it will follow of course, that that race
w ill absorb all the occupations upon which the
laboring part of the white one can live, and
they, as a consequence, be driven away.
\\ hen ail the held labor, when all the han
dicraft tr u!e*. such as carpenters, coopers,
tanners, blacksmiths, shoemakers. Ac , arc
engrossed by the slave, and taken away from •
the resour *es ot the laboring white man : j
w hen in addition to this, the hopes and means j
of common education are ail cut oft by con
tiguous settlements of slaves oter whole di
tricta of country : when this comes to pass,
what earthly consideration can prevent a labor*
mg man so situated from instantly picking up
his family and going to some other comtnunitv.
where he might hope to improve and belter
their condition. Nothing could prevent h.m.
Thus ihrong after throng ofthis class— amongst
the very soundest and best of all—would pass
away from amongst us almost as numerous and
as unreturmng as the passengers to the tomb :
and so they would continue to pass away un
til. by-and-by. in the course of a few genera
tion- the whole population tn our slm ehold
ing States would be r*duced to the slave
upon one side, and the masters and managers
on the other—a disproportion so great, so pal
pable to every eye. so suggestive to the slave
h m*e!f of the feaifu secret of his giganuc phy
sical rower, that nothing could take ftsm his
heart the temptation to try it. and try il he would,
no matter w hat the eomnqaences, and thus
catastrophe would follow catastrophe, and
our sunny and happy South would be cover
ed over with scenes of conflict and of weeping.
Concentrate the slaves where they now are,
strip us by that very act of the energies
and protecting presence of the laboring white
man, and the bloody process of St. Domingo
emancipation will be tried amongst ourselves
—vainly, but yetaffiictingly.
The only preventive for this which is at our
command, the only constitutional mode in
which slavery is accessible to us at all is to
open up, as far as we have the power, every
practicable outlet for its diffusion. Let it go in
to the territories ; let it go. unrestrained, wher
ever it is thought most to its interest to go
—to the ends of the earth, if it were possible.
You thus cut up the great mass of it into frag
ments, which you divide or parcel out amongst
a greater number of Stales, thereby render
ing it comparatively harmless for evil and there
by, too, so reducing the magnitude of it, wher
ever considered a burden, that each particular
State upon which it pressed will be better
able than before to cope with and master it.
But this is the exact remedy in the case which
- entlernen here so strenuously and so ardently
resist. Instead of dividing out and draining
off this population, they are for hedging it in ;
they are for accumulating it mass upon mass
into one vast storehouse of conflict and calami
ty Like a turbid and swollen stream, if its
channels are open and unobstructed, it will flow
on without danger ; but if they are choked and
dammed across, and the living and swelling
waters, thrown back upon themselves, are to
be pent up and confined, they will gather, wave
upon wave, into an impending deluge for the
overwhelming of embankments and all that
they were raised to protect.
Well, gentlemen, go on with your schemes,
carry out your proposition of “free labor and
free soil” to the uttermost: rule out the slave
from your territories ; rule out the South, your
true and loyal partner in every extremity for
seventy years; rule her out from all due partici
pation in these territories; use all the liberty
and all the faculties which your union with her
has imparled to youreself to crush her right to
a coequality with yon in the use and enjoyment
of a common property ; call upon her to bow
down and submit to conditions as conditions
precedent to such enjoyment, which or the
equivalents of wnich, in your own case, you
would indignantly refuse ; do all this, and do
it in such away as will go the furthest to offend
her sense of justice and of constitutional right
—to wound her honor, to mortify her quick
and generous spirit; and what, al last, will you
accomplish by it all ? What amount of public
good at all commensurate with so much
sectional wrong ? What, in fact, will you have
done by it, except to depopulate the South in
a great measure of her white inhabitants, and
to put the residue, together with their
slaves, in astate of aggravated and appalling
danger to one another ? This is all that you
will have done.
And,is this an achievement worthy of your
philanthropy and your labors? Is this an ob
ject for which, in the judgemen of patriots, state
men, and Christians, the angriest passions of
the country ought to be aroused, its great di
visions thrown into commotion with one an
other and our blessed Union itself brought in
to danger—that Uuion which, next to personal
liberty (and it is a high protecter even of that)
is to every Am - rican the richest of all the pub
lic treasures which Heaven has to give—that
Union which considered even as antagonistic to
the hopes of the slave, (though it is not so)
wonk still in the righteous judgement of the
world be worth more, immeasurable more, to
us and mankind than all the slaves of all the
globe together ?—Extinguish it. if you can in a
ruthless and senseless crusade for the slave and
he and his advocate and his master will suffer
arid perish together. Light up if yon can. the
warfare and the spirit of another Peter the
Hermit, and in this case, as in that, you will be
rewarded with desolation and a tomb.
That slavery has been permitted to establish
itself on this Continent for purposes both of
wisdom and of mercy, no reasonable man who
is accustomed to look for the origin or the pro
gress vfevents in a power and a knowledge
higher than his own, can reasonably doubt.
Neither can he uoubt that these purposes what
ever they are, will in due time be made mani
fest to all. Meanwhile, it is not for us to lay
an impatient and forbidden hand upon any of
the powers of this Government for the purpose
of disturbing or controlling it by any authority
or action of ours On our part, perfect ab
stinence in regard to it is the wisest of all poli
cies. the clearest of all constitutional obligations
and the best of all personal humanities. Let it
atone, is the one rational and authoritative in
junction of wisdom and of duty concerning it
—let it go south, as it is now going ; and let
its diffusion he such that the two races shall be
protected as long as possible and as much as
possible from all liabilities of violent collision
with one another. This permitted and done,
all else should be patiently left to the develop
ments and the teachings of time.
Some of these, as they have gradually come
to be seen and apprehended, are beginning to
shine forth with impressive and instructive sig
nificance Take the cq|or, for instance—a
mark of perpetual separation from the white
man, but a bond of perpetual union and sym
paty with the negroes themselves. It is and
ever have been prohibitory of all complete a
malgamation between the races, and thus pre
serves amongst us all the physical characteris
tics of the African, just as they were impressed
upon him at the hour and in the land of his
birth.
But this separation of the races, with the
ultimate and providential design, it would seem,
to maintain on this continent all the physical
peculiarities of the African on his own, would
never have been effectual had it not been left
to the mere caprices of sentiment or taste
founded upon varities color. These might
have been overcome, and the peculiarities to
be maintained consequently lost. They are
therefore placed beyond the law of taste, un
der the protection of another physical law
which lies far deeper, operating independently
of all human will, and enforcing itself under
tho sternest and severest of natural penal
ties. The offspring of the two races is a hy.
brid—an offspring whose progression, though
not limited like that of some of the lower ani
mals to the first generation, nevertheless so
arrested by lunacy, idiocy, blindness, deafness,
and dumbness, and other the most crushing
infirmities “that flesh is heir to,” that it can
never become the sound parental stock of a
self maintaining population *
Here, then, we have always before ns, the
remarkable phenomenon of one race of man
kind living, and living for upwards of two hun
dred years, in the midst of another race, and
yet incapable, by reason of natural laws, of dis
appearing by incorporation with it. and thereby
incapable also of impairing or losing any of its
original and native characteristics. The final
cause of this phenomenon must be looked for
either in that primitive doom upon Canaan by
which he was sentenced to be “a servant of
servants unto his brethren.” or it is to be found
in some high and renovating function which
the American slave is yet to fulfil in the re
demption of the continent from which he came.
Besides this physical immutability of the ne
gro. as a race amongst us, he has in association
with it another peculiarity, scarcely less striking
or significant than it is: and that is his extra
ordinary aptitude to possess himself, as if by in
tuition. of all the tastes and social habits and
mechanical arts and domestic intelligence and
civilization of his master. You may pickup a
wild negro in Dahomy, and bring him to Vir
ginia, with his fettishes and his conjuring rod,
and his sharpened cannibal teeth, and his unin
telligible tongue, and give him there no in
struction but tv hat he can catch from his fellow
slaves at their common work, and in a few
years he will be a civilized man. And if he is
not. his American child in the first generation
will be. This is true of no other savage man
upon earth. Look at our red man—as unciv
ilized almost as if centuries of effort had not
been expended upon his improvement. Look
at this very African himself in his own country,
amongst the most incapable of all savages lor
self elevation, but wonderfully capable of help
ing himself up by the hands and assistance of
others.
In this connection, it may be stated, as one
of a group of facts, mutually bearing upon and
illustrating one another that the climate of Af
rica is too fatal to the white man ever to become
the place of his safe and permanent abode.
This, our experience at Liberia and the mission
ary experience of our rebgioussocieties at all
points very fully establish. It is obvious there
fore from this, that whatever is done for the
moral improvement of that continent, must be
done by those whose entire physical nature is
suited to this baleful and burning sun. It must
in other words be done by the black man him
self. And here, in the absolute necessity of
confiding this high mission *o him. or of lea
ving Africa to her solitary woe. we find a not
improbable solution of so much that is peculiar
and otherwise mysterious in his circumstances
an<i position amongst ourselves. Herein the
light of this necessity we see. most probably,
why it is that his perfect identity has been pro
tected by natural laws, w hich rendered his in
corporation with us. and consequently his dis
appearance as a distinct race, absolutely impos
sible. Here. too. we have as probable the
reason of his extraordinary capacity to take
upon himself the know ledge and the arts of his
master. Here 100. perhaps. the reason of his
presence with us. amongst whom the habits of
private intercourse are freer, and the rudiments
of learning more persuasive and universal,
than amongst any other people in the world;
and here also it may be the reason why he was
bound, hand and foot, with the iron chain of
personal bondage, that he might be fastened to
the spot of his trials and his training, until all
things were ready for his final deliverance and
departure.
I offer you. Mr. Chairman, no hypothesis
upon these facts. They are such, however,
undoubtedly, as to encourage the hope that
our country may become to Africa, as to others
the nursery and storehouse of ns civilization
and its freedom ; that though it has trodden upon
a portion of her children, and harnessed them
for long years to the yoke of its labors, yet that
even thus it has been unconsciously but benefi
cently preparing the means by which the smi
tmgs of this very portion may be converted in
to the uplifting of a continent, and the siiper
stitiou and cannibalism and tears of its sunken
millions be wiped away. The facts aiso are
such as to surround this w hole subject of sla
very with new motives to forbearance, and
new injunctions against the folly and the wick
edness of ail unauthorized intermeddling with
1L
hen I k* k, Mr. Chairman, beyond the forms ot
legislation, and consider wh the real parties are to
the controversy bet ere ua—that they are not indivi
dual* rashing a-urexti >n with one another, under
'.he fierceness .'t ign.K-k passions, excited tor ignoble
•i he w s irom an official letter
' S Mi P.k<
>h>. IV.I de.f lad dumb , j
. .nf ibe &« M«k» in the non 2
. * U . e *‘ ''' r c{ every ninetv-six:
n unler r aoh - lhe U S ve
1 treed* deaf nd .
insane, and ki es, : y ue census of \
w«e in ererj
* ' w .r-J u.- In Maertens, e- • -
. irw Me.k w datioaM wsethiog lIXM ,
‘7 ? :U!n,feo enker dwf »'ud
dual., b. r.J. rdi-x, insane, or m pnww
objects, but powerful and independent States, consti- I
tuted into one for certain great ends of mutual protec- :
tion and advantage, and bound, therefore, upon the
first great law of governments as well as of persons —
the law of self-preservation—so to administer that
common government as never to endanger or over
wuclm it; —when I consider, sir, who the parties are ;
what their relative obligations—wiiat their recipro
cal dependence—how infinitely exceeding every
thing else is the interest of each in the mutual justice
and fidelity of ail—how amazing their prosperity —
how exalted tbeir renown—how renova ing their ex
ample upon the hopes and liberties of the world how
inspiring the thought that their republican banner not
only waves over an empire unparalleledin all its ele
ments of happiness and freedom and power, but is yet
to wave, by its influence, over the illimitable empire
of reborn and self-governing man ; when I consider
all this, sir, I cannot be otherwise than cheered with
the conviction that all will be well; that parties so
situated will never profane their story nor their honor,
through an act of deliberate wrong by either on the
other; and that “the spirit of amity and of mutual
deference and concession” which united them at first,
will triumph over all troubles, dispose aright of all con
tests, and thus continue to harmonize and unite them
forever. In such a brotherhood of parties, when dif
ficulties arise, there is no expediency upon which to
settle them but that of justice : no benefit to be sought
in the settlement but the benefit of all. So thinking
and feeling habitually, I almost hesitate to ask of any
possible adjustment of the difficulty before us, what
will our part, our southern part, of its history be?
Will it be a history of disappointment, mortification,
indignity, and wrong? And your part of it—will it
be the short and the stern one of power—power —un
caring and unrelenting power? It is said of one ol
the very worst of the Roman emperors that he la
mented with great bitterness that his reign had never
been distinguished by the oc-.urrence of any remark
able calamity, and had no other or better record by
which to be transmitted to posterity than the dull and
monotonous one of its prosperity anil peace. He
dreaded lest it should fade from the history of the
world, and be lost to the gaze and the animadversion
of man. Sir, if you will only push on the controver
sy which now disturbs us, from angrier to angrier
toue, if you will only settle it here with deliberate
indignity and wrong to one of the parties it involves,
you will soon interweave with the richest and purest
national happiness which it was ever allowed any peo
ple on earth to enjoy, a memorial of national sorrow,
withering and crushing enough to have satisfied the
monster wish and the monster heart of Caligula
himself.
But, Mr. Chairman, when I pass by the collective
parties in this case, and recall the particular ones;
when I see that my own State is as deeply implica
tedin the trouble and the danger of it as any other,
and shares, to the full, with all of her southern col
leagues, in the most painful apprehensions of its
issue; when I see this, I turn involuntarily, and
with unaffected deference of spirit, and ask,
What, in this exigent moment to Virginia, will
Massachusetts do?—that Massachusetts which, in the
designations of our early colonial history, was known
as Northern Virginia. What will Northern Vir
ginia do, in the matter before us, for her Southern
namesake and sister? Will you too—(I speak to her
as present in her Representatives)—will you, too, for
getting all the past, put forth a hand to smite her ig
nominiously upon the cheek ? In your own early
day of deepest extremity and dish ess—the day of the
Boston Port Bill—when your beautiful capital was
threatened with extinction, and England was collect
ing her gigantic power to sweep your liberties away
Virginia, caring for no odds, and counting no cost,
bravely, generously, instantly stepped forth for your
deliverance. She made the day on which this bill
was to be executed, the Ist of June, 1774, a day of
humiliation, fasting and prayer —thus imploring, with
one voice, the protection and blessing of Heaven up
on you, and thus, through a religious act, the jltimate
one of national distress, rousing up her people to the
fullest and most startling sense of the outrage and the
peril which awaited you. She called upon you to
s'and up for your cause ; that it was the true cause—
the cause of right, and freedom, and justice—that, as
such, she made it her own, and would fight it out
with you, blow by blow, and, live or die, would give
every faculty that belonged to her of soul and body
and eslate, to make it good. Addressing her through
the justice of your cause and the agonies of your con
dition, you asked her for her heart. She gave it :
with scarce the reservation of a throb, she gave it
freely, and gave it all. You called upon her for her
blood. She took her children from her bosom and
offered them to supply it. With her spirit, with her
appreciation ot the great principles of representative
and of popular government which your case involved,
and with her holy enthusiasm in their support, Vir
ginia would have been utterly recreant to herself
if she had done anything else or anything less than
she did.
But in all this she felt and knew that she was more
than your political ally—more than your political
friend. She felt, she knew that she was your near
natural born relation—such in virtue of your com
mon descent, but such far more still in virtue of the
higher attributes of a congenial and kindred nature.
Do not be startled at common qualities between the
American cavalier and the American roundhead.
[Ncte —At this point Mr. McDowell’s hour having
expired, he was about to close his remarks, when he
was called upon from all parts of the Hall with strong
emphasis to “go on”—“ go on” To this request the
committeegiving its unanimous consent,he proceeded:]
Do not be staitled, Mr. Chairman, at the idea of a
close and near relationship between the inq>etiious
and haughty, but courteous colonist of Jamestown,
with his intense point of personal honor, an 1 his de
votion to ail that is stirring in the incidents of life,
and the stern, solemn, self-denying, almost as<*e
tic pilgrim of Plymouth. A proud but mis
guided legality drives the tiefenders of the Stuarts
to the shores of the Chesapeake, that there in
privation and poverty if need be, they might fol
low out the impulses of their own honor, and
their own free will, without let or hindrance
from human authority. A pure exclusive, uncompro
mising spirit of religion, that co'dd not mingle with,
and that would not be controlled by the corruptions
of earth, drives a persecuted but a precious people to
the rocks of Massachusetts Bay, that there, whatever
else might betide they could pour out their hearts as
they pleased to Him whom it was the richest of all
their delights to worship and to serve. A heroic and
unconquerable will, differently directed, is the perva
sive and master element in the character of both.
Secondary differences—the differences of culture —a
culture which, in the one case, was directed to train
the heart for all that was guy and glad and animating
in life ; and in the other to train it for a subdued, chas
tened, concentrated spirituality—these have thrown
around our ancestors, a various costume, and have
long exhibited them to one another and to the world
in all the glare of pictured and dramatic contrast.
But in that proud and lofty spirit which claims the
human will for itself, which indignantly repulses ev
ery desire or effort to control it, as an unwarrantable
and impious wrong—in that they were thoroughly
and indissolubly one. The same in this master qual
ity, so controlling in itself of all others, it was impos
sible for them to be otherwise than blended by it
promptly, harmoniously, gloriously, at the very dawn
of our national day. They were the first, as a con
sequence to proclaim and to resist the aggressions of
England, and never after, even in the fainting hours
of the struggle that followed, were they absent from
the duty or the spot where their valor or their coun
sels were required.
Nourished by the same spirit, sharing as twin sis
ters in the struggle and the heritage of the same revo
lution, what is there in any demand of national
faith, or of constitutional duty, or of public mor
als which should separate them now? What is
there in these grounds—the sound and the true
grounds of national conduct—that should induce
Massachuset.s to disavow the rights, disown the
equality, disdain the remonstrance, or scorn the
feelings and the honor of her best, her strongest ami
her earliest friend ? What is there in the possibilities
of sectional advantage so precious as to justify her,
nr any other, in risking for a single moment, the dan
gers of un incurable family discord in order to obtain
it ? It is not for us as a people or asbtates, to stay
the march of that unseen and eternal cause which
sweeps over the devices and the trophies of man. and
crowds whole nations in melancholy procession to the
tomb. But it is for us, as both, to stay the very be
ginnings of that family quarrel, which never fails,
wheresoever it occurs, to hurry onward and down
ward the destiny of a people, and which sn strips the
destiny that it hurries on of every hope that could
soothe, and so surrounds it with every element of ut
ter and appalling woe, as to mark it out from all com
mon curses, for the shuddering, the horror, and the
admonition ot man. Shrinking from such a fate as
this, and from thecauses that impel to it, we cherish
with the deeper fervor, the just and the natural hope
that here in this proud and honored temple of our
common liberty, Virginia and Massachusetts, by
whose hands and by whose wisdom in chief it was
raised into power, will sit and worship side by side
forever; that here in the face of Heaven and of
each other, with clean hands and pure hearts, they
will always minister in public things, doing right to
all, wrong to none ; that here they will carry on to
its brightest consummation, the illustrious career they
have begun, comforting, cherishing, supporting one
another through all the conflicts of the day,and mitiga
ting.should they ever come, the convulsions of the last
hour by the southings of a last embrace ; thus testify
ing, for the honor of our nature, to a national fidelity,
which there was nothing in the temptations of Gov
ernment that could corrupt, and nothing but the | ow
er of death that could destroy.
Gentlemen, Representatives of Massachusetts,
what say you ? Are you agreed ? Your equals be
fore the Revolution began—your equals when it did
begin—confederated as your equals in 1777 united
as such in 1787-co-operating with you as such in the
administration of our common country from the dec
laration of independence to the present hour, and so
confederated,united and co operating with you with all
the local rightsand institutions which are objected to
us now—are you agreed that what we were, and
are and ought to be, and mu»t be, we shall always
continue to be, your equals—inviolably your equals
still? Are you agreed to this ? If so, then, in the
sight of heaven and of man, we shall renew this day
a compact, not of peace only—no. no, not only of
peace, grateiul as that alone would be—but a compact
of immortality for our country.
As the powers of this government, and therefore, to
a great extent, the destinies of this country, are in
trusted officially to our hands, it is our duty to give
ail vigilance ot ear and eye and thought—to every
thing that can affect them. It is for us, then, to be
warned by that voice that comes from all the records
of all the past, and ccmes to admonish us that lost
republics are lost forever ; that though their spirit
never dies, but abides upon earth to enlighten, to im
prove, and to oless it,yet that it never revives »o regen
erate themselves. Look at the reptile and the tiger, as
they have dwelt for ages in the habitations of the
Holy City, look at despotism, worse than either, as
it has nestled and brooded with its raven wing upon
the very bosom of buried republics, and be warned
of that mysterious doom, that evident ordination
from on high, which connects in eternal fellowship,
the privileges, with the punishment of nations, and
never all xs the highest blessings but side by side
with the heaviest woes. Let us be warned by this
fated conjunction to pul away all passion, and preju
dice, and parricide—unacknowledged but latent par
ricide— from amongst us to gather around and press
to the side of our country ; to heal the chafings and
wounds of her spirit by the unity and fervor of our
own ; to be ready ourselves to sacrifice and suffer, if
need be, that she may never sorrow or peiish ; and if
there is a curse in all our borders, let it abide for the
overwhelming of him who cometh not up in the hour
of trouble to succor, to defend, and to save ; —yes,
for the overwhelming of him, and such as him ; for
where, under Providence, but upon the heart—the
constant and devoted heart—where, but upon the
patriotism and the virtue ot' her sons, is the country
to rely in the moment of adversity, or at any time to
rely against the perversion of her own mighty ele
ments of good into mighty engines of evil ?
Give us but a part of that devotion which glowed
in the heart of the younger Pitt, and of our own e>der
Adams, who, in the midst of their agonies, forgot not
the countries they had lived for, but mingled with the
spasms of their dying hour a last imploring appeal to
the Parent ot all .Mercies that he would remember, in
eternal blessings, the land of their birth ; give us
their devotion—give us that of the young enthusiast
of Paris, who, listening to Mirabeau in one of his sur
passing vindications ot human rights, and seeing him
tail from his stand, dying, as a physician proclaimed
for the want of blood, rusted to the spot, and as he
bent over the expiring man, bared his arm for the
lancet, and cried again and again, with impassioned
voice—•'take it—oh! take it from me —let me die.
so that Mirabeau and the liberties of my country may
not perish Give us something ooly ot such a spi
rit as this—something only of such a love of country,
and we are safe, forever safe : the troubles which
shadow ever and oppress us now. will pass away as
a summer cloud. No measure of unallowable wrong,
no measure of unconquerable disagreement, w .l be
pressed upon us Lere. The fatal element of all our
discord will be taken from amongst us. Let gentle
men be entreated to remove it. as the one only and
sohtarv obstacle to our perfect peace. Let them be
adjured bv the weal of this and of coming ages —by
our own and our children's good—by all tbat
we love or that we look fem the progress and
the clones of our land —to leave the eoti re subject of
s a very, with every accountability it may impose,
every jensedy it may req lire, every accunnriabua of
d ffieuhy or of pressure it mav reach—to leave nail
the interest, to the wisdom, and to the conscience
of those upon whom the providence of God and the
Constitution of their country have cast. it. Leave it
to them, now and forever, and stop, whilst it is yet
possible to stop, the furious and blind headway of
that wild and mad philanthropy, which is lighting up
for the Natio i itself the fires of the stake, and which
is rushing on, stride after stride- to an intestine strug
gle that may bury us all under a harder, and wick
eder, and more inc arable slavery, than any it would
extinguish.
Nothing but aggravation of heart and of lot have been
brought upon the poor slave by the rash and unwar
ranted effects which have been put forth to relieve
him. They have broken down the foiling he had
reached, crushed the sympathies he had won, embar
rassed and accursed the fortunes, they were intended
to control. The generous and elevating influence of
our free institutions was relaxing his bondage, better
ing his condition, lifting up his character, turning up
on him the public anxieties and the public counsels,
as a fit and deserving object of provident and public
provision—was changing, at all points, the aspects of
his fate, when the spirit of Abolitionism, political and
fanatic, came frxn abroad to scourge him with a de
mon visitation, to wrench him from the arms of his
only true and only capable benefactors, to throw him
back again upon the earth, a thousand-fold more sus
pected, separate, and forlorn than ever ; riviting up
on him every fetter it would loosen, poisoning every
blessing it. would bestow, and so filling his whole case
wi'h the elements of hopelessness, explosion, and
evil,that the heart shudders whilst it weeps to look up
on it. What are they who cherish and di
rect this spirit? Friends of the slave?-
They are robbing him of <very vestige of lib
erty he has left. Friends of humanity ? They
are staking ruthlessly staking it, upon the issues of
massacre and convulsion. Friends of the country ?
They are rapidly becoming its iron homicides, cleav
ing down its Constitution with murderous arm, and
tearing it limb from limb.
Should it ever happen, as the result of any interfe
rence and action here, that some insurgent ebullition
of the slave will break out amongst us —that the blood
of our people will be made to stream in our dwellings,
and ooze up from the bosom of the soil that it feeds —
it will cry aloud, like that of Abel, for vengeance
against the brother’s hand that shed it; and ven
geance would be had, though every drop that was left
should be poured out in one anguished and dying
effort to obtain it. Nothing but Heaven couid stop a
people so lashed up to phrensy by rage and suffering
and wrong, from sending back upon the firesides and
fields of the guilty that visitation of calamity and
death which had first been sent to desolate their own.
Spare, oh I spare us the curse of a broken brother
hood—of a ruined, ruined, ruined country ! Remem
ber that there are no groans like the groans of expiring
liberty—no convulsions like those which her dying
agonies extort. It took Rome some three hundred
years to die. With far deeper vitality than Iler’s,
our end, when it comes, will come with a far keener,
crueler and bitterer pang.
Give up our common and united country —give it
up at the call of some sectional interest —sacrifice it to
the phrensy of fanaticism or of passion—let it godown,
down, under some monstrous and horrible struggle of
brother with brother—do this, and you will get it back
again as you have it now—the home of happiness, the
city upon a hill towering up for the light and for the
healing of nations —you will get it thus again when
the “ shadows shall go back upon the dial of Ahaz”
when He who sent out the luminary of day upon his
march shall again put forth His hand and stop him in
his pathway of light.
It is said, sir, that at some dark hour of our revolu
tionary contest, when army after army had been lost,
when dispirited, beaten, wrenched, the heart of the
boldest and faitlifulest died within them, and all, for
an instant, seemed conquered, except the unconquer
able soul of our father-chief, —it is said that at that
moment, rising above all the auguries around him and
buoyed up by the inspiration of his immortal work
for all the trials it could bring, he aroused anew the
sunken spirits of his associates by this confident and
daring declaration: “Strip me (said he) of the de
jected and suffering remnant of my army —take from
me all that I have left—leave me but a banner, give
me but the meansHo plant it upon the mountains of
West Augusta, and I will yet draw around me the
men who will lift up their bleeding country from the
dust, and set her free.” Give to me, who am a son
and representative here of that same West Augusta,
give to me as a banner the propitious measure 1 have
endeavored to support, help me to plant it upon this
mountain top of our national power, and the land of
Washington, undivided and unbrok n, will be our
land, and the land of our children’s children forever.
So help me to do this at this hour, and generations
hence, some future son of the South, standing where
I stand, in this same honored Hall, and in the midst
of our legitimate successors, will bless and praise and
thank God that he, t< o, can say of them, as I of you,
and of all around me, these are my brethren, and
this, oh ! this, too, is my country!
Colonel Fremont’s attempt to cross the
monntains was at the Pueblo of San Carlos,
in the neighborhood of the most norlhernly of
the New Mexican settlements, on the Ar
kansas river. He was repulsed by the intense
cold and deep snows.
The place is at the foot of Pike Peak, the
highest range of which is from fifleeen to sev
enteen thousand feet. The failure of the ex
pedition has called forth the following remarks
from the “North American” :
“ This was the very scene of the well remem
bered sufferings of poor Pike, who, more than
forty years ago, (in IdOG-7) with a small party
of soldiers, entirely unprovided with winter
clothing, himself wearing “cotton overalls,”
clambered over the snowy ridge* and frozen
“canions” of these mountains during two-thirds
of the winter, until, in fact, compelled by the
intense sufleringsof his party, towards the close
of January, in the upper part of the valley of
the Rio Grande, to construct for Winter quar
ters the block house, in which he was ultimate
ly discovered and arrested by the Spaniards.—
Pike’s intrepid though confused exploration
had made the world well acquainted with at
least the eastern range of this section of the
Rocky Mountans, and he had rambled through
the stern solitudes of the Bayou Salade, or
South Park, long before trapper or trader had
dreamed of its existence ; crossing, behind the
“High Peak.” which now bears nis name, to
the South Fork of Plaue, and even, from a
mountain ridge, looking down upon a main
head branch of Grand River—the Colorado of
the Pacific—although he mistook it for a branch
of the Yellowstone. Pike’s difficulties, and
the knowledge that here is a culminating swell
of the plateau, from which such rivers flow
as the Arkansas, Rio Grande, and the Colorado
of the West, must have induced the expectation
of serious impediments to be encountered on
this route. It appears, however, that Fre
mont’s calamity arose from no ordinary rigors
of winter. Facts mentioned in the Intelligen
cer, and the last despatch from St. Louis, show
that the last winter in New Mexico set iu un
usually early, and was of unparalleled severi
ty. Fremont left the Pueblo at the close of
November or al the begining of December.
On the 2t»lh of the last named month, at Santa
Fe, the thomometer had fallen to twenty de
grees below zero ; men froze to death ; the
snow wasashign as a horse’s back in the moun
tain passes ; it appears from the last accounts
from St. Louis that it fell much deeper, the
mules and horses having, it may be said, been
entombed under a fall—perhaps an avalanche
—of thirty or forty feet deep. And hence the
failure of the expedition is to be attributed
chiefly to a misfortune of an unprecedented
character; although in part, a’so, undoubtedly
owing to the unfavorable nature of that parti
cular tract of country.”
The Washington correspondence of the
Commercial says of the expedition—
Mr. Benton is deeply affected by the confir
mation of a portion of the disastrous intelli
gence from Col Fremont’s expedition. The
adventurous party was made up of young men
of high character, from different parts of the
Union. They were young men from New
York and other Northern States ; some from
this district, beloved and respected by wide
circles of friends. The residue went from the
South and West. Mr. Preuss, from this city,
is lost. His fate is particularly deplored. He
has been long a resident here. He was a Ger
man. and was renowned a* an excellent
draughtsman. The reader of Col. Fremont’s
reports will remember the dreadful sufferings
and narrow escape of Mr. Preuss in 1844, dur
ing the memorable passage by Col. F. of the
Sierra Nevada, in the depth of winter. When
the name of this gentleman, and others, whom
he had known in St. Louis, were given to
Col Benton as among the lost, he burst into
tears.
The National Intelligencer says—
Henry King, ai: assistant surveyor, of
Georgetown, Mr. Preuss, artist, of this city,
and Henry J. Wise, of St Louis, are the names
of three of Col. Fremont’s party who are known
to have perished in the Rocky Mountains.
M Stanislaus Jvlicn. the learned oriental
ist has communicated to the French Institute the
Chinese method ofcoloring the hair. Il is said
that the Chinese have succeeded in reaching
and transforming, by means of medicine and
a peculiar diet, the liquid w hich colors the pilous
system, and giving to white or red hair a black
tint, which maintains itself during the contin
ued growth. The coloring is produced by
means of certain substances mixed w iih the
food and drink. These substances are not
hurtful to the body, having for basis and ele
ment ferruginous principles which are recom
mended by physicians and always successfully
employed. M. Debay, who has written a trea
tise on the subject, and prepared a formula of
the means to be employed, says—
“ It is astonishing that the physiologists who
have experimented and succeeded in coloring
the bones of living animals red, by making
them eat and digest madder, have not thought
of seeking in the same way to color red and
white hair black. The hair and the beard be
long to vegetable life, and are disposed to the
same phenomena In fact, after a sufficient
quantity of ferruginous salts has been introduc
ed into the body, the circulation takes them
up. the blood loaded with these substances de
posits them in the follicules of the hair, which
in turn pours them into the oil of the hair,
and this oil, saturated w ith iron, becomes black,
and the whole hair with it.”
M. Imber. at present bishop in China, offers,
according to the testimony of the Abbe Voisin,
one of the directors of foreign missions, living
proof of this internal coloring of the hair and
beard. It is by this method that the Chinese,
correcting the vagaries of nature, have been
able to claim the title from the highest anti
quity (rs the bl ack-hatred nation.— -Balt. Amen
can.
Rio Janeiro, Feb. 11. 1849.—0 n the night
of the 9th ins:, a report from a reliable source
reached this city, stating that the Buenos Ay
reans had entered the city of Rio Grande, the
previous night, and committed excesses of the
most revolting character. Several robberies tok
place among the wealthiest classes, houses and
stores were plundered and set on fire, and the
number of inhabitants m urdered had not been
ascertained, but reported to exceed 300 men
women and children, most of whom moved in
the highest sphere of society—-V. }'. Express.
The New Charleston Steamer.—Ona
visit («ays the Bimore Sun, ol Friday.) to
me ship yard of Messrs. Robb yesterday, we
noticed that the new ocean steamer, building
to run between Baltimore and Charleston, was
very far advanced, and preparations are being
mace for launching. It is hoped that she will
be ready to go into her destined element to
morrow. or at farthest on Monday ne.v. She
is a beautiful model, and looks as if she would
be among the fastest vessels ever launched in
our port.
I Holiday?—Abdi has passed the
; “' ’ r r New i urk signaling as tne
h<?;:di\s to be observed in respect to the pro
testing oi notes. Christmas. New Year. Thanks
giving. and the 4th of July.
Augusta, on.:
SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL 7, ’49.
New Indication. In Agriculture.
Editors of the Plough, Loom and An-
. Th- indications I have drawn from the practi
’ my personal ob-
ca . mV attention has been directed to the
servat.on s.ncc my mal(;riuHy from (lje
received opmiona of the present day, that 1 have been
receiver, opimu for yolir consideration ; under
induced to sub or SOlpe ope equa || y
SIX”™ if they should prove to be
erroneous With this view, I shall state them >n d.s
tmet substantive p|allt which the farmer
is interested in cultivating, derives its principal nutn
m“„ tL" carbonic acid gna of .he atmosphere
Although air is indispensable to vegetable ns well as
to animal life, it is equally true that no ao.mal can
live without fad, and no plant ex.slman impoverish
ed soil wilho.it manure at lhe root.
2d. That the only food of plants known to the prac
tical farmer is manure, nr the res.due of putrefaction.
Neither water, oil, carbon, phlogiston, nor the sul
phites, nitrates, muriates, carbonates, silicates, phos
phates of soda and potash; nor the carbonates, sul
phates, phosphates of ammonia, lime, magnesia; nor
acids, nor alkalies, have ever been proved to be the
aliment of plants, unconnected with the putrefied sub
stances which may contain them.
3d. It is not true that different vegetable matters,
during their growih, extract different fertilizing salts
from the earth. For lands exhausted by continued
cultivation in one kind of grain will not produce a
more remunerative crop of any other kind.
4th. It is not true that lands under cultivation can
not be made to preserve their natural fertility with
out manure; on the contrary, lands naturally |X>or may
be made exceedingly fertile without the addition of
manure, of any kind whatever.
sth. There is no natural disintegration of the soil
in a state of repose, and a formation of alkalies, unless
its surface be covered with some substances or other.
Exhausted lands, which remain uncovered, never im
prove in fertility by rest.
6th. The residue of the decomposition of vegetable
substances or the “ ash of plants,” is not manure.
Nor can manure be made of any substance, without
the aid of the putrefactive process.
7th. That the analytical investigations of learned
chemists, totally disregarding the vital principle of
life, have not promoted the interest of agriculture. On
the contrary, diverting the attention of agriculturists
from careful observations of the operations of nature,
and the inductive reasonings drawn therefrom, have
been decidedly injurious to its best interests.
Bth. That shade is the great fertilizing agent; the
putrefactive fermentation cannot be produced without
it, and consequently no manures can be made, and no
fertility imparted to the earth, in any manner, inde
pendent of its influence.
9th. That the earth itself is capable of being con
verted into the best manure; tp effect this, it is only
necessary that it should be densely shaded. That is,
it should be located favorably for the generation of the
putrefactive fermentation.
10th. That the fertility imparted to the soil is more
permanent, when produced by shade, than from the
application of any manure whatever.
11th. That every particle of earth, as it is natural
ly constituted, contains a portion of the fertilizing
principle. The surface earth, cr “mould,” is fer
tilized earth itselfcaused by shade, and not the resi
due of vegetable decomposition.
12th. The difference in the fertility of the soil, in
our native forest lands, arises solely from the circum
stance of the surface soil being more or less densely
shaded. Pines, which have no leaves, and white and
red oak, which part with theirs so reluctantly, never
leave the surface so fertile as those trees which drop
their leaves with the first frosts.
13th. Many plants do impart more fertility to the
soil than they extract from it during their growth, —
not in ‘excrements,’ but by their shade.
14th. The natural provision of the renovation of
worn out land appears to be this:—That some plants,
like some animals, require but little food; these
thrive best on the poorest soils. Every practical far
mer knows, that if additional fertility be given to the
soil, they disappear almost magically.
15th. However industrious and energetic a farmer
may be, he cannot continue to cultivate a farm ex
ceeding one hundred acres, and preserve its natural
f. rtility by manures made on the farm. He attempts
an impossibility and must fail.
16th. Through the aeency of shade, every farmer
may fertilize every acre of land which he is able to
cultivate. In this, consists the perfection of agricul
ture.
1 most sincerely believe that these propositions may
be abundantly sustained by facts, prominently before
the observation of every agriculturist. Yours, with
respect, R. T. Baldwin.
Winchester, Va.
The above sixteen propositions in relation
to soils and the growih of cultivated plants, star
ting in a journal ofcharacter, are having a wide
circulation through the newspapers of the
country. In twelve of the sixteen statements
the writer is wholly wrong, and partly wrong
in the other four.
In the Ist Dr. B. is partly right. Plants
not only imbibe “carbonic acid gas” from the
atmosphere through their leaves and roots, but
moisture also, which with the gas named, form
full three fourths of the weight and substance
of all crops, like wheat, cotton, corn, tobacco,
and potatoes. Five hundred pounds of good
soil will lose not to exceed five pounds of its
own weight, in organizing fifty pounds of any
cultivated plant—nine tenths of the substance
of the latter is composed of atom? derived
from other sources than “the residue of pu
trefaction or manure.” Dr. B. appears not to
have studied the subject of “ manures” very
closely, nor that of “ putrefaction.”
Most of farmers k now that if they feed one
thousand pounds of hay, oats or corn, to a do
mestic animal and save all the manure derived
from the same, the skilful application of this
fertilizer to the soil, will give a little larger
quantity of hay. oats or corn than was con
sumed in forming the manure. In other words
the fertility of the land will be sensibly improved.
Now, if he compares the dry weight of matter
eaten by the animal, with the dry weight of
that voided in its excretions, the latter will be
not far from forty per cent, of the former. Dr.
B. should know that about sixty per cent, of
the dry food of man and of all mammalia, es
capes from the system, mainly through the
lungs, in the shape of carbonic acid and vapor.
The air expelled from the lungs in breathing,-
which never ceases night nor day, contains one
hundred limes more carborn than it did when
it entered the organs of respiration.
If we compare the weight of the seeds of
plants or other food consumed by birds with
the matter excreted, the difference is still lar
ger —a greater per certage has escaped in
breathing. Guano, and the excretions of do
mestic fowls, are worth more per hundred
pounds as fertilizers, than the manure of neat
cattle—horsesand sheep. One hundred pounds
of corn fed to a horse will make twice as much
dry manure as when eaten by birds Hence,
in any given weight of pure guano, there will
be twice as much phosphates and sulphates of
lime, magnesia, &c.,and twice as much nitro
gen as in the best stable manure. The excre
tions of birds contain less carbon and the ele
ments of water, which plants can obtain from
the atmosphere ; hence, one hundred pounds
of the dry manure of fowls is worth more
than a like weight of the dung of the mamma
lia, simply because it lakes twice as much food
to form it.
In the matter of putrefaction, Dr. B. is
equally wide of the mark. Although the de
composition of vegetable and animal substances
causes perhaps half the sickness which af
flicts our race, nevertheless the subject is but
little studied, and is less understood. Both
the air we breathe and the water we drink are
extremely liable to be contaminated by decay
ing plants and animals. Hence, not only
farmers, but everybody that has occasion to
drink or to breathe, should know what will pu
rify and what poison the atmosphere and wa
ler. On this point, in connection with the
growth of crops, we will say something here
after.
Railroad Stock.—An offer was made on
F riday of par for Georgia R. Road Stock and re
fused. The value of this stock is now justly
appr
The Cabinet and Correspondents.—The
following extract from the Washington corres
pondence of the Baltimore American, we give
tor what it is worth, expressing our entire dis
belief in its truth:
“ Rumors have been rife to-day of difficulties
in the Cabinet in regard to appointments, and
that Mr. Clayton wishes to go to England. In
this event Mr. Meredith will be Secretary of
Stale, and Mr. Evans, of Maine, Secretary of
the Treasury. The office-seekers like this lat
ter arrangement.
“ The Connecticut and Rhode Island elec
tions have had a great influence on the Cabinet
as to the necessity of removals and appoint
ments, and it is rumored that General Taylor
says that he is now going to work. The of
fice-seekers are highly gratified at this declara
tion.”
Earthquake.—A shock of an earthquake
was fell at Newport, R. 1., on Friday evening
It was of sufficient violence to throw down
nearly a rod nt stone fence on a farm near the
town. The vibration lasted at least fifteen se
conds, and seemed to die away in the north
west.
The High Water in Illinois.—Cairo is
reported inundated by the flood. But few
houses are out of the water. The Ohio and
Mississippi are both higher at that point than
they were ever known before.
A recent number ot the St. Louis New Era
informs us that several members of the bar in
Illinois who had been attending court in Fulton
county.and resided in Quincy, were compelled
to come down the Illinois river and then as
cend the Mississippi to Quincy in order to get
home. It was impossible to cross the country
from the Illinois to the Mississippi, inconse
quence of the overflow of the Illinois bottoms
and the impassable condition of all the streams.
The like has never before been known.
An Act against Prize Fighting. —A bill
has passed our Legislature, and been appro
ved bv the Governor, rendering every person
who fights by previons arrangement liable to 10
vears imprisonment or <SSOUU fine. Every one
who attends such a fight, as aid, second, or sur
geon. or in any way encourages and promotes
it. shall be liable to serve five years in the state
Prison, or three vears in the County Jail, or to
be fined SI,OOO Any one who leaves the
State to fight, is punishable with five years tm
prisonment or .*s.oot’ fine- an.
Repttblica n.
v vfrrriNGS continue to be
Emancipation
held tn Kentucky. U e notice i«o-one a
Richmond, the other, for j o ' . jj’ 1
Geortretown-lhe calls ««ned by hundreds o
slave and tion-slaveholdeis- to appoint gradual
emancipation delegates to the contention at
Frankfort on the 15th inst. Belt. '“n
A New use made of Carbonic Acid.—
The London correspondent of the Boston At
las says, that at a recent meeting of the Royal
Institution a paper was read announcing a dis
covery, by means of which carbonic acid gas is
applied to the extinguishmentof fires with com
plete success. It is said to be making consid
erable talk among scientific men. The follow
ing is given as an abstract of the paper:
In large fires, flame is the great agent of de
struction; it occasions a violent draught, in
tense heat, and rapidly generates suffocating
and noxious gas. For its existence a constant
supply of pure air is necessary, as well as a
constant high temperature. To prevent the
latter, water is sufficient, but not so to prevent
the other condition. The “ fire annihilator”
subdues flame by preventing effectually the
supply of its vital element, pure air, and sup
plying instead one destructive to its existence
—carbonic gas and steam—thus rendering the
continuance of the flame impossible. These
are generated by this apparatus, which is per
fectly portable, for one ample for a private
house weighs only about twenty five pounds.
It is so contrived th n t by simply touching a
spring this active agency can be aroused in
three seconds of time. For the protection of
larger builings, such as churches, factories, &c.,
a larger apparatus in proportion will be re
quired, in a convenient position. The poten
cy of this invention was exhibited in several
different ways in the lecture room. Models of
houses, ships, &c.. were set on fire, and when
fully ignited the flame was extinguished as
soon as the annihilator was brought to bear
upon it.
A person who knows anything of the chem
ical process by which the combustion of wood
and co?l is effected will fully comprehend
how an atmosphere of Carbonic acid will ex
tinguish fire instantaneously.
The costof generating the gas is the only bar
to the general use of this fire extinguisher.
Compliment to the Sons of Temperance.
—The Grand Jury of Wilkes county, at the
late term of the Superior Court, in their pre
sentments, paid the following handsome com
pliment to that noble order, The Sons of Tem
perance :
° Under the obligations of conservators of
the public morals of the County, we have in
quired into the existence of evils tending to the
spread of immorality and vice, and in this
investigation could we offer gratulations to
our fellow-citizens upon the fact, that vice <tnd
immorality in all their insidious and seductive
forms have been banished from our Coui ity,
and that the laws were respected and obeyed
by every individual member of the community,
that would be a desideratum, to which we can not
hope to arrive, until the places from which
these evils emanate shall have been removed.
And casting about for the originating causes
of riots, broils, fighting and even murders, the
termination of the search rests in the Grog
shops, where the inexperienced arid unsuspect
ing youth is allured to destruction, and where
the confirmed and habitual inebriate is hurried
on to a drunkard's grave. Why are such places
tolerated among those who boast of their
privileges as freemen ? Why will they suffer
such disgusting and blighting spots to remain
to mar the beauty and order of our County ?
“ We rejoice with our fellow-citizens that
great good has been done by the noble Sons
of Temperance in arresting the progress of
the devastating Hydra, and that their march
is still onward, conquering and to conquer,
their banner waving with graceful and peace
ful folds over many hundreds of the rescued
from degradation and premature graves.
*• We do therefore solemnly and earnestly
call upon every good citizen of our County to
lend his aid and assistance in suppressing vice
and bringing to condign punishment all viola
tors of the law.”
Among the Jurors we recognize the names
of several of the most intelligent and respecta
ble citizens of the county, and we rejoice to
see them thus endorsing the purposes of an
order, whose philanthropic efforts are directed
earnestly and zealously to the amelioration of
the condition and the promotion of the happi
ness of their fellow beings.
Rumored Cabinet Dissentions.
The National Intelligencer in the following
article puts a quietus to the stories of Wash
ington letter writers, about Cabinet dissentions:
“ We are often amused, and not seldom in
structed, by a portion of the correspondence
carried on from this city by gentlemen who re
side here for the purpose of communicating to
distant journals whatever they think worthy of
note at the s-iat of Government. Naturally
eager to give interest to their letters, some
yield a more ready credence to rumor than
others, and are in constant danger of substi
tuting fancy for fact, and giving to “airy no
thing” the importance of sober reality. In
general these things are not worthy of serious
notice. If they excite a momentary interest or
a transient belief, they soon sink into forget
fulness, without any formal contradiction. Oc
casionally statements are made which, how
ever unfounded, the distant public have no
means of detecting, and are of too grave a
character to let pass. Such is one which we
observe circulating in regard to alleged divi
sions and discontents in the Cabinet of the
new Administration. This, we beg leave to
say, in the classic phrase of our neighbor, the
Union, is a “ mare’s nest.” We can undertake
to say that there is not, and has never at any
moment been, the slightest foundation for any
such statement. On the contrary. we are con
fident that there has never existed in this Gov
ernment a more harmonious Cabinet The
gentlem en who compose it are personal friends
with an entire agreement on all the great points
of political faith: and it will require deeper
intrigue and much more party rancor than
their opponents are believed capable of to
alienate them from each other, or to estrange
one man among them from the rightminded.
brave, and honest chief under whose direction
it is their pleasure and there pride to serve
their country.”
Texas.—The steamship Portland, Captain
Place, arrived here last evening from Galves
ton, bringing us files of the News and the Ci
vilian to the 31 st nit., inclusive.
Col Joseph S. Hansborongh has entered the
field against Mr. Pilsbury and Gov. Runnels,
to represent the Western District of Texas in
Congress.
The cholera has broken out in Lavaca; Mr.
Geo. Peacock, Mr. S. Segure, chief clerk in
the Quartermaster’s Department, and Mrs.
Chroncrite, are among the victims to the dis
ease.
At Indianola, Mr. Wood, Mrs. Wood and
W. C. Perrin, her brother, died of chotera.
The origin of the disease at Indianola is sup
posed to have been from sea-weed, which col
lected within a breakwater at Cook’s wharf*
The breakwater has since been cut loose,
when the rotten weed floated off with the
tide ; since which time no additional cases have
occurred.
The News of the 29th ult. says :
Our city is in good health. We learn of no
additional cases of cholera within the past three
or four days. The total number of deaths for
the week ending on the 27th inst. is ten, in
eluding two children Os these it is possible
one-third may have been from cholera mor
bus, but we think not more. They are all for
eigners except one lady from Louisiana, who
died of dropsy.
We find m the News of the 31st a summary
of some interesting information respecting Cali
fornia, coming thence at a very late date.—
We append it:
From California. — We have just been fa
vored with the perusal of a letter from Los An
geles, California, dated February 14th. The
letter is from a surgeon in the U. S. service
addressed to his brother in this city, and its
statements as to the almost incredible produc
tiveness of the gold mines, fully confirm all
that has hitherto been published on the subject.
The name of the writer, were we at liberty to
give it, would he deemed a sufficient guaran
tee for the truth of the assertion. The writer
gives it as his opinion th t our accounts of the
mines have not been exaggerated, and that from
one to two ounces of the gold may be obtain
ed per day by every man. He does not give
this as the result of his own labor, but from the
best evidence in his possession, of the labor of
others. The country is represented as rapidly
filling up with emigrants from all parts, and as
offering many inducements to persons of en
terprise to emigrate there. We cannot re
capitulate the whole letter, but can say that its
tenor throughout is calculated to encourage
those who have once determined upon this
great enterprise, not to abandon it, but to per
severe unto the end.—A’. O. Picayune, Zdinst.
Farther Intelligence from Califor
si a— Great Quantities of Gold.— We give be
low an extract from a business letter received
by a respectable house of this city engaged in
the North-West Trade, from its correspondent
at San Francisco. Though some of the state
ments seem almost incredible, we vouch for
their authenticity, having seen the original let
ter :— N. y. Tribune.
San Francisco, Feb. 7, 1849.
iou ask me to give you facts as they are.
ou shall have a plain statement of facts as
they exist. At present there is little or nothing
doing in the place, in consequence of the im
mense quantity of snow that has fallen this
year.
There are at present two thousand persons
at the Mmes; some are living in tents, and
others in log houses. Many have perished
from exposure to cold, fevers, &.c , but such is
the excitement and rage for gold that they un
dergo the most unheard of hardships with the
hope ol passingthe Winter on the spot.so as to
avail themselves of the first opening of Spring,
which is looked furward to with great hopes
As regards the richness of these Mines. 1 can
only say that the most exaggerated accounts
may be believed. A few days ago a gentleman
came down from the Mines bringing with him
$12,000. in gold dust, which he dug out in the
space of six days. Tnis is a fact that you may
rely upon. I have it from persons, eye wit
nesses, whose veracity cannot be doubted.
I mv self saw a piece this morning weighing
seven pounds, the most curious specimen that
has yet made its appearance. The extraordi
nary richness of this placer, or placers, for
there are many, surpasses anything that the
world has ever seen. I can hardly realize it
myself.
There has been upwards of five millions of
dollars of gold exported from 2»an Francisco
alone, exclusive of that taken by traders who
have gone to Oregon and the United States,
who have all carried from ten to twenty thou
sand dollars.
All who go to the mines do well, which is
the most convincing proof I can give you of
its great richness.
Dlrasgo, March 2. I*49.—About thirteen
thousand ounces of gold have been brought to
this coast, all of which goes to Eingland in the
English ship-ofwar Cypress, now here, and
soon to sail for Valparaiso.
A Ykar's Immigration.—ln the year ending
on the Ist of April. 1*49, two hundred and
four honsand,»lx hundred and thirty-six im mi
grants.
CAngusta, (©a.:
MONDAY MORNING, APRIL 9, 1849.
—
Railway Progress.
The American Railroad Journal, of Feb 24
contains some valuable and interesting statis
tics upon the subject of Railroads, showing
their present condition throughout the world.
The following table is more full and accurate
than any other published on the subject:
Allies. Cost per mile. Total.
U. States ....6,421 ....$30,000 $192,63,000
Canada 54 .... 30,000 1.620 000
Cuba 250 .... 28,000 7,000,000
Total in Amer 6,725 • • • • •• • -3200,250,000
G. Britain... 4,420 .... 145,000 640.900,000
France 1,250 ...-110,000 137 500 000
Germany.. • 3,370 •••• 50.000 168,500,1'00
Belgium.... 495 J-... 80,900 39,640,000
Holland.... 162 J.... 25,000 4,062,500
D’k & Holstein 282 •••• 40.000 11,280.000
Switzerland* 78 •••• 50,000 3,600,000
Italy 1625.... 90,000 14,000,000
Russia 113 .... 60,000 6.780,000
Poland 187$-... 50,000 9,375,000
Hungary.. • 157 .... 50,000 7,850,000
Total in Europe, 10,678 31,044,402.500
Grand total-. 17,403 31,244,652,500
The above gives the number of miles of Railroad
in operation at the commmencement of the present
year—the cost per mile of their constraction, and the
aggregate expenditure. Within the last twenty
years these seventeen thousand lour hundred and
three miles of Railroad have been built at an
expense of twelve hundred and forty-four millions,
six hundred and fifty-two thousand five hundred
dollars, and it is asserted that the Roads now in pro
gress, including those which will be completed within
the next five years, will represent an additional a
mount of capital equal to the sums already expended
upon those that are finished.
It will be noted that the above table only comprises
roads finished and in progress, while in Europe and
America thousands of miles are in progress of com
pletion, and thousands of additional miles are contem
plated and being projected. For instance, at the
close of the year 1847 the railways built and in
progress in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland
amounted to 12,481 miles, contemplating a capital of
31,576,887,000, and the whole amount actually ex
pended on railways, to the end of September, 1848,
was $837,222,000. And in France, at the close of
the year 1846, the number of miles of railway in
progress and completed was 3,841, requiring a capi
tal of $416,000,000.
In Russia, also, at the end of the year 1847 there
were 1600 miles of railway in progress, which are
being rapidly built by the Government, although on
ly 113 miles are in operation, as stated in the above
table.
And in the United States, 6,451 miles are in opera
tion, while the number of mile? of railway in pro
gress of completion is comparatively greater than in
the European countries above mentioned.
The construction of so many iron ways
in all civilized countries, and the vastly extend
ed and multiplied intercourse between the peo
ple of different sections, habits and languages,
must work peculiar and incalculable changes
in the affairs of nations. It seems safe to say
that local prejudices and antipathies can not
long survive the daily and hourly whistle of
the locomotive which heralds the arrival of re
presentatives from ten to twenty States or
principalities, all alike correcting their own
errors, and removing the wrong impressions
which others may have received and still cher
ish. Homogenity of thought and feeling, and
unity of interest, must result from the constant
commingling of so many sects in religion and
politics, and of so many arts, trades, proses
sions and commercial callings in the business
affairs of mankind. Those that take narrow,
sectional views of society and of the wants
and interests of communities, will be mortified
by disappointment if not disgrace. The hu
man soul is fast expanding, like water con
verted into steam, and with a force a thousand
fold more powerful and far reaching than elec
tricity.
Common Schools in Mississippi.
It gives us great pleasure to learn from the
Mississippian that the people of that State are
beginning to take a deep interest in the wel
fare of their common schools. It says :
“ We have been informed, by a gentleman who has
most piaiseworthily bestowed much of his time in or
ganizing and rendering effective our common school
system, that there are about forty schools in operation
in this county under the late law, and that commo
dious and convenient school houses have sprung up,
or are in the course of erection, in localities where
such things have long been greatly needed, but where
the hitherto prevalent indifference has alone prevented
their establishment. He assures us, also, that the
school law, and the best mode of carrying out its ob
jects, have become subjects of conversation in every
neighborhood; and that the most propitious results
are be anticipated from the interest so generally
awakened and still increasing. With a view to fa
cilitate operations, in carrying on the good work, a
Teachers’ Institute has been organized, composed of
teachers both in public and private schools, which
meets monthly for discussion and deliberation,
and the cultivation of a proper professional spirit.
Its regular meetings take place on the 3d Sa
turday of each month. We are pleased also to
learn that the law of last winter meets with general
approbation, and there is every where a cheerful wil
lingness expressed to comply with its requisitions.
As was to be expected, some defects Eave shown
themselves in the system, when attempted to be car
ried in»o practical effect; but they are not considered
of any great moment, and belong to the details of the
system, and not to the principle upon which it is based.
Subsequent legislation will effectually prevent their
retarding the full beneficial operation of the law.”
A community of active, thriving citizens can
do almost anything in the way of education
and other improvements, if they on'y go about
it in a steady, rational and business like man
ner. Teachers’ institutes for the mutual in
struction of all engaged in the honorable call
ing of developing aright the intellectual and
moral faculties of pupils, have done much to
elevate the profession at the North, and awaken
public attention to the duty of educating every
child in the State. Popular education, being
the common interest of all citizens, is the par
ticular interest of none, and hence it is too apt
to be neglected by all. For nothing is truer
than the tr.te remark—“ What is every body’s
business is nobody’s business.”
Il is wise to make the supervision of com
mon schools the official duty of some compe
tent person; and let him devote his whole time
and acquirements in exciting in teachers, pu
pilsand the community, a lively interest in the
success of these primary institutions of learn
ing. There must be a deep, an abiding and
universal interest in common schools, before
they can really prosper. A little generous ex
citement of this kind, alike exempt from politi
cal ascerbity and religious bigotry, is as saluta
ry as it is agreeable. Any considerable de
gree of mental activity, implies a keen appre
ciation of the importance of the matter to which
one’s thoughts and energies are devoted. A
few earnest men laboring faithfully to advance
the cause of popular education, will soon com
mand the sympathy of the popular heart and
the successful co-operation of the will and the
purse of the people. As a mere recreation,
the skilful culture of the highest and purest ca
pabilities of man, possesses many advantage
over all othersources of amusement. Few are
aware how arbitary and artificial are most of
the cherished pleasures, customs and habits of
society. Strange to say, a community can be
as highly amused in doing good as in doing mis
chief. This is an important discovery; and
one that will completely change the condition,
or destiny, of rational and moral beings. Both
the art and the science of “ training up chil
dren in the way they should go” are in their
chrysalis state. How to teach unceasingly by
good example, and how to render all social
pleasures subservient to the wise develope
ment of the moral and intellectual man, are
points in popular education which are little
studied. In the largest and best sense of the
term education, it is a great and profound sub
ject, which commends itself to the highest re'
gards of the utilitarian, the philanthropist and
the patriot. It is too much neglected in every
State in the Union; and confers, nowhere, a
tenth part of the benefits on the public that
might be realized, in the way of preventing
rcime, vice, contention, poverty, and all the
other evils which flow from popular ignorance.
Tonnage of the Lakes.—Under this head
the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser gives a
series of valuable tables, setting forth the
tonnage, license and enrolled at the several
American por’s on the Lakes. We have
room but for a mere summary of the in
formation contained in the tables, but the
extent and value of the information they con
tain may be surmised when we state that they
comprise all the vessels of all classes, steamers,
propellers, barques, brigs, schooners, sloops,
andscows enrolled on Lakes Michigan, Huron,
Superior, St. Clair, Erie, Ontario, and Cham
plain, embracing within that space the collec
tion districts of Buffalo, Presque Island. Cuya
hoga, Sandusky, Miami, Detroit, Chicago,
Michilimackinac, Lewiston, Rochester, Oswe
go, Oswegatchie, Cape Vincent, Sackett’s
Harbor, and Champlain. The grand total is
thus presented in the Commercial Advertiser :
Number of Vessels and Tonnage.
95 steamers, 38,912.53 tons.
45 pmpellers. 14,435.37
5 barques, 1,645.88
brigs, 21.330.27
543 schooners, 71.618.22
128 sloops and scows, 5.484.25
153,426.62
Total tonnage and valuation.
45,067 tons, steamers 83.3-0 000
Is l ? r-n lons ’ propcl,ers : 950’001J
101,080 tons, sail vessels. 1.535
The commerce of the Northern Lakes
amounts to over $100,000,000 a year, and this
is all crowded into some six or seven months.
The commerce of Mobile, Savannah, and
Charleston is soon to experience very great im
provement by the construction and extension
of Railroads into the interior, and by the more
productive use of the labor and capital of the
South. Its surplus for export will be immense
ly increased, and its itnpor'R augmented in ai\
equal ratio. It is idle to assert that all the labor,
all the capital, and all the business talent of the
South, are now employed to the best possible
advantage.
“Gov. McDowell made a speech at Harrisonburg
Va., on the 19th ult., in which, according to the Re
publican of that place, he defended his course in not
signing Mr. Calhoun’s address. Part of his argu
ment was. that the policy of Mr. Calhoun and his
followers tended to a dissolution of the Union.”
Governor McDowell is a leading Demo
crat of the Old Dominion, who patriotically re
fused to sign the sectional appeal of Mr. Cal
houn, because he believed that it tended to a
dissolution of the Union, and since his return
to his constituents he has had the manliness
and independence to proclaim it to the people.
If the Ex-Governor was a Whig, the epithet
of “Traitor to the South” would be heaped
upon him with an unsparing hand by the or
gans of the Agitators, but be happens to boa
prominent Democrat in the stronghold of the
Democracy of Virginia, whose influence is
feared, and hence they dare not denounce him.
Thirty-Second Anniversary of the Au
gusta Bible Society.
The Anniversary meeting of the above
named Society was held last evening at the
Methodist Church, and drew together a large
and most respectable audience. Hon. L. D.
Ford, President of the Society, was in the
Chair. The opening prayer was made by the
Rev. Mr. Pearce. The President gave a brief
but highly interesting account of the history and
of some of the doings of this most useful insti
tution. The Rev. Mr. Rogers then read ex
tracts from the report of the Executive Com
mittee, by which it appeared that the Society is
in a flourisning condition. Eloquent addresses
were then made in behalf of the Bible cause,
by the Rev. Messrs. Foster, Howe and
Smythe.
Much good may reasonably be anticipated
from the zedous and well-directed labors of
the friends and members of this Society.
Jas. S. Calhoun of Columbus, has been ap
pointed by the President Indian Agent at San
ta Fe, New Mexico.
Nomination of Mr. Bott/—A second Con
vention has been held in the Richmond Dis
trict, and nominated Mr. Botts for Congress.
There are now two Whig candidates in the
field, which secures a Democratic victory
Such a result will possibly teach Mr. Botts
*«nd his adinireis a lesson by which they may
profit.
The Memphis Eagle of the 2nd inst. says:—
“ The River at this point is now fully up to the
extreme high water mark, as high as it was ever
known, and still rising slowly from above.”
Fire.—We regret to learn that the new and
elegant building occupied as the Female Acade
my at Greenwood, Abhtiviile District. S. C,
was burned down on the morning of Ist insl.
The loss is estimated ar. about S3OOO. From
all the facts connected vrith lhis sad affair, there
is no doubt in the minds of any, that it is the
work of an incendiary.
The Rev. Jas. M. Chiles, President of the
Board of Trustees, makes an earnest appeal to
“ all friends of Education” for aid to rebuild
the institution. We sincerely hope the liberal
and patriotic friends of the cause of education
will respond promptly to th is call.
Tire Cotton Trade.
The Boston Journal gives the subjoined sta
tistics in relation to the cotton trade. The ta
ble shows the amount imported in o England
during the following period:
Years. Pounds per year.
1771 to 1795- 1,170,181
1771 to 1780 6,122 717
1771 to 1790 19,105.547
1791 to 1800 31,341,373
18 4 to 1810 69.372,179
1811 to 1820105,571.546
1821 to 1825105 667.033
1826 to 1845351.700,000
1846588,000,000
1847439,000,000
In 20 years, from 182 G to 1845, of every 10,-
000 bales worked up :
England usedßales. 5,700
Francel,7oo
Holland and the North of Europe 850
Trieste and the South of Europe 450
United Slatesl,3oo
No particular account was kept of the amount
used in England from 1705 to 1770. In 1832,
the amount used in that country was 277,000,-
000 lbs., and the United States now use equal
to that amount. During the 20 years specified
above, it will be seen that the amount used in
France exceeded that used in this country.—
The United States now use more than France.
The prices of Upland Cotton in 1808. in
England was 72 cents per lb., in Amsterdam
$1.44 per lb., and in Havre $1 92 per lb.
In the years 1845 6 England used 1,630 000
lbs. at a cost of $167,000,000, and gained in
manufacturing $412 000,000 Os which ex
ported to foreign countries. $359,000 000; used
at home $220,000,000 value. Whole value
manufactured in 3 years.’, $599,000,000.
The amount of Cotton exported from the U.
States in the year 1836, was valued at $71.284,-
925, and would have taken more than 190 tons
of gold, al £3 17s 9d per oz., to pay for it.
From California.
Interesting Letter from San Francisco.— The
following letter, of a recent date from San
Francisco, was received by one of our most
esteemed fellow-citizens from his brother, form
erly American const! lat the Sandwich Islands,
but now of San Francisco, and attached to one
of the very first commercial houses of that
place. It will be seen that the writer confirms
all the wildest accounts we have yet had of the
abundance of the gold, of the high price of la
bor and the extraordinary rise in land. These
statements can be relied upon to the fullest ex
tent, as the probity and sagacity of the writer
are unquestionable.
San Francisco, Jan. 20, 1840.
Dear Brother.— l suppose that ere this reach
es you the excitement in the United States a
bout California will run as high as it now does
throughout the Pacific. * * * JVfy part
ner arrived here on the 10th and lon the 21st
November: and our sales already go above a
half million of dollars. The great excitement
which prevails in Chili and Peru relative to this
gold country is fast depopulating those coun
tries of their European population. Every
vessel that arrives brings many passengers and
reports of every body else winding up their
affairs to join in the rush.
The quantity of goods that is pouring into
the country is reducing the price materially;
still every thing is, compared with the original
cost, very high. I paid a bill today for our table;
it runs thus: butter,sl; sausages $1 per pound;
pork, 25 cents ; eggs, $2 a dozen; milk, $1
per bottle; a box of fine salt, $2; sperm can
dles, $2 a pound; raisins, $1 a pound; com
mon lamp oil. $2 a gallon ; bottle of mustard,
(half a pound) $2, &c. tec.
For the little unfurnished one story building
in which we stay—dining and sleeping in the
same room—we pay SIOO per month. Our
cook receives SIOO per month. My washwo
man has condescended to do my washing for
$6 per dozen. The carpenters employed on
our warehouses threaten to leave unless we in
crease their wages above $8 per day. I paid
a cartman this evening $72 for two days’work.
You cau judge by these quotations the ~uant
ity of money that a laboring man can obtain
by a little work.
In regard to the gold, every day only adds
to the surprise created by previous reports of
the quantity to be had. Yesterday morning an
Indianshowed me a specimen of ore intermix
ed with a stone, weighing five pounds He
sold it for five hundred dollars 1 To day some
Oregon farmers, who came down to obtain
gold, and remained a month at the mines, offer
ed to sell me 150 pounds of gold, which they
had collected. Mr. Brannon, who has the es
tablishments for storing and selling goods at the
mines, told me to-day that seven men took
from the earth, within one hundred yards ofhis
upper store, thirty-three thousand dollars’
worth of gold in four days ; and the gold was
weighed by a man in his employment
At the dry diggings, one hundred dollars per
day is paid to cooks. The general impression
is, that from ten to twenty millions will lie ta
ken from the mines the coming summer. It
would not surprise me at all were it to be ten
times that amount. The fact is, that it comes
down from the mines by the peck, pure gold !
I Land throughout California has gone up to
enormous prices. The present week Mr.
1 Cross purchased of Capt. Paty a building lot.
say one hundred feet square, on which there
was an unfinished building, and paid $15,000
for it. Two years since Capt. Paly gave a
barrel of rum for it, or rather took it for a debt
due for a barrel of rum. There is no lot of one
hundred and fifty feet square in San Francisco
that cau be bought for less than three to ten
thousand dollars. Towns are being laid out
in many ports or points on the Bay, and are
sellihg at from fifty to two hundred dollars.
The climate, to persons who have resided
in the tropics, is not agreeable, because it oc
casionally rains, and is at times quiet cold ; but
it is infinitely superior to New England. It
has had an astonishing effect on me, and from
a sallow looking skeleton (but not ill) I am
getting fat, and am running out of my clothes
fast. I suppose that in a week or more I shall
have to throw them all aside. One thing re
markable in this climate, is, that every body, at
all times, has a great appetite.
Lumber is very scarce and goes off immedi
ately at $l5O per thousand, if seasoned ; and
SIOO if green. Fifty ship loads could be sold
immediately. I think the greatest part of the
lumber used here will be sent from Boston, for
labor is too high, and it is too small business to
attend to sate mills in this country. Os all
things that are sent out from home none will be
so sure of sale as small frame houses.
At the present, in San Francisco, many are
living in tents, although occasionally there J
is a flight of snow and a plenty of rain. In
order to afford the means to introduce the t
greatest quantity of lumber, Commodore 1
Jones, now here, has licensed a limited num- s
ber of foreign vessels to engage in a coastwise
trade to the Colombia River. w
Since my arrival here I have heard from my *
family at the Sandwich Islands as often as once g
in ten days; and I hope to continue to, while
lam here. At present Ido not entertain the
idea of sending for them, as it would be quite
impossible to make them as comfortable here 1<
as where they are, though lam satisfied they tl
would enjoy better health.—N. Y. Com. Ad- fa
vertiser.
7.368 000
Augusta, (©a.:
TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 10,1849.
Depopulation.—The Next Census.
The next census will be likely to announce some
important facts—facts for which reasons will be de
manded. Where there are results there must be
causes. Where tendencies exist and continue to
operate steadily and uniformly, there must be princi
ples at work which take particular forms of manifes
tation by reason of inevitable laws. Neither progress
on the one hand nor decay on the other, characteri
zing the history of Stales, can be deemed accidental
unless upon the assumption that all distinctions be
tween wisdom and folly are imaginary and null.
The next census, we repeat, will contain a vast vol
ume of instruction. It will speak not in the language
of pass on or excitement, but in the dialect of facts
stamped with their unmistakcable aspect of inflexible
reality.— Balt. American.
No previous census of the United States
was looked for with half the interest that is now
felt for that of 1850. It will test the virtues of
the creed of a large class of political econo
mists, who advocate National and State Sub-
Treasuries—who are opposed to banks, man
ufactures and internal improvements on prin
ciples which are regarded as sound and endu
ring. Locofocoism, which is essentially anti
improvemont in everything, which repels al
advancement in industrial pursuits, lest it
should unwittingly foster “ monopolies” in the
arts and sciences, in commerce and manufactu
rers, will be found to blight, depopulate and
impoverish the communities where its hard
currency dogmas, and harder theories adverse
to mechanical pursuits, have most prevailed.
Intelligent citizens who wish to build up es
tates by legitimate industry will emigrate from '
Counties and States where ali enterprize is
discouraged, except that of bleeding and skin
ning the soil. It requires but little wit to see
that all real estate must depreciate in value,
where the popular system is constantly opera
ting to render the earth less and less capable
of feeding any given population. Hence the
quicker one sells, pockets his cash, and seeks
an improving community, the better it will be
for his family and his property.
Let four fat mere improve well their estates,
and the land of the fifth may be doubled in
value though its owner has not expended a
dollar upon it. On the other hand, destroy
the improvements or fertility of four farms and
depopulate the neighborhood, and you will sink
the value of adjoining property 50 per cent.
So long as man shall remain a social, an intel
lectual and a moral being, a policy which is
truly bad for one citizen, will be bad for all.
The anti-improvement,—the desolating, depo
pulating policy is good for no class in the com
munity. The census will show who have
gained in wealth, in political and moral power,
and who have lost.
Augusta Steam Engines.
Among the several articles of Augusta man
ufacture worthy of public attention and en
couragement, that of the Steam Engine is not
the least important. The power and value of
Steam are too well understood to need any
commendation at our hands. Our country
friends will only be interested to learn how
this mechanical power can be made subser
vient to the labor and profits of their planta
tions. Wishing to benefit at once the enter
prising manufacturers in this city, Messrs. Ta
liaferro & Torbet, and the planters of
Georgia, we give the Steam Engine a promi
nent place in our columns this morning.
The gentlemen named are now finishing
one of twenty-horse power, designed to drive
two runs of mill stones, and a saw mill, and of
so simple a character and of such strength of
material, that ordinary negroes can manage
and govern it as easily as they can a mule. Its
fly wheel weighs 5000 pounds. This engine is
larger than we would recommend for ordinary
farm purposes. One that wiil drive efficient
ly, a simple saw for cutting planks, or agrist
mill or cotton gin, is the size that will be found
most profitable and convenient.
Nothing is better settled in farm economy
than the advantage of grinding and cooking
all the corn, oats, barley and rve eaten by hogs,
mules, horses or cattle. The escape steam
which has ground ten or one hundred bushels
of corn will cook the meal. Without this it is
very difficult for an animal to extract all the
nutritive elements from corn or other hard
seeds of cereal plants. In making cheap bacon
and other meat, a plenty of excellent manure,
and good crops of corn, peas and cotton, a
small steam engine and boiler will be of great
service.
For ginning cotton, cutting lumber and fire
wood, steam is well adapted. It often happens
thatccdar and other logs, which are durable as
fence posts, are high in price; and these logs
need to be sawed into many pieces before
they are set in the ground. Thus, farmers in
Western Nv.vv Yo«k«u«> pMjciug « uord
for red cedar logs, and getting over 100 good
posts from a cord, which will last half a century
in the earth. One post in a rod answers every
purpose; having a short one in the middle, like
a stake, to nail the single plank to, which is all
that is used in making the fence. This plank
is I 6 feet long and 12 or 14 inches wide. A
bove this are stretched five strong wires, which
have been boiled in oil and painted with a cheap
paint to keep off rust. Calling the plank
worth $7 per 1000 feet; allowing $2.50 per
cord for sawing logs into posts, and the wire
to cost, $7.50 per 100 pounds, and the whole
expense of this beautiful and durable fence is
but fifiy-five cents a rod, exclusive of setting
posts, and straining the wires. A small bit is
used to bore a hole through the centre of
each post, through winch the wire is drawn and
plugged on either side to keep out water and
hold the wire firmly.
We little thought of writing an article on ce
dar posts and wire fences when we took up a
pen merely to aid Augusta Steam Engines a
little to puff themselves. No matter; we are
great admirers of neat, economical fences,
which are straight and free from bushes, briers
and other trash to harbor rats and other depre
dators on the farmer’s crops.
Messrs. Taliaferro and Torbet are enti
tled to much credit for their perseverance in
overcoming every obstacle in the way of starl
ing the manufacture of so complicated ma
chinery as Steam Engines and of power looms.
They intend that the castings and the finish
ing of the latter, (their present contract is for
112) shall be equal to any made at the North.
If Engines and Power Looms create wealth
for the people of England, by millions on mil
lions,in workingup American cotton and wheat
and American provisions, let us Americans see
what we can realize in working up our own
cotton, our own wool, our own corn and wheat
and our own provisions. A single engine in
Manchesterdrives seventy-five thousand cotton
spindles. The Southern States, not Great
Britain, should annually export one hundred
and fifty million pounds of cotton yarn. Why
not? We pause for a reply.
The Steamship Cherokee*
i We yesterday received through Mr. Wm.
Hunter, a beautiful Lithographic print of this
elegant steamship, (for which we tender our
• acknowlegements to Messrs. Padleford
Fay, of Savannah,) which in connection with
’ the “Tennessee” is now plying so successfully
i between that city and New York. We con
gratulate the citizens of Savannah upon their
success in this noble enterprise, and sincerely
trust they may reap a rich reward.
The Election
Yesterday for Mayor and twelve Council
men was a very quiet affair, and resulted as
follows:
For Mayor.
♦J. B. Bishop. J. 7 J . Garvin.
Ist Ward 86 101
2d H ard 69 124
3d Ward lo2 58
4th Ward l42 14
Total 399 297
COUNCILMEN.
FIRST WARD.
♦F. Blodget, Jr. 130 I A. G. Willis, 73
•G. F. Jack.«on, 117 18. B. Russell, 72
♦A. J. Nowland, 109 |J. S. Green, 43
SECOND WARD.
♦A. Hatch, 103 I J. R- Crocker, 96
♦Wm. Johnson, 100 L A. Dugas, 91
♦H. D. Bell, 97 | John Bones, 82
THIRD WARD.
♦B. Conley, 119 I *Geo. McCord, 97
♦L. D. Ford, 118 J J- C. Carmichael, 83
FOURTH WARD.
♦W. K. Kitchen, 123 IT. W. Freeman, 76
♦J. B. Hart, 103 G. Simmons, 40
♦Jas. Harper, 99 |
*Elected. Those in Italics are Democrats.
The contest was not strictly a political one
(although it had its influence) as other ques
tions were mingled in the canvass.
The Central Railroad and Banking Compa
ny, at a recent meeting in Savannah, resolved
that while it felt the warmest interest in the
success of the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail
Road Company, it felt constrained not to sus
tain the recommendation of the Board of Di
rectors in favor of subscribing $250,000 to the
stock of said road.
Naval Court Martial.— The Secretary of the
Navy has issued orders for holding a Court Mar
tial in Washington, for the purpose of try in
several officers high in command in the late
Mexican squadron.
Baltimore, April 7, p. m.—President Tay
lor to-day. in conversation with Mr. Riddle,
the Editor of the Pittsburg Journal, avowed’
himself in favor of a judicious tariff for protec
tion, with specific duties.