ening letter to him, intimating that they would take measures to prevent the bonds of his Government being placed on the Stock Exchange until this Mississippi affair was settled to their satisfaction. The letter was despatched by the Arago on April 24, 1861, before the news of the fall of Fort Sumter came to hand, but the person conveying it was arrested by the authorities at New York, and returned to Europe. Whether the communication has ever been received by Mr. Davis, is not known. But whatever the ethical merits of the case may be, such a procedure, at such a time, cannot be too strongly condemned. It was a pusillanimous attempt to extort from the necessities of a government struggling for existence money that it was in no manner liable for. No similar demand or threat was made to the Federal power when Mississippi was a member of that Confederacy.

Extract from a Letter of the Hon. Robert J. Walker, Jan. 8, 1844, in favour of the Annexation of Texas.

THE only remaining objection is the question of Slavery. And have we a question which is to curtail the limits of the Republic-to threaten its existence to aim a deadly blow at all its great and vital interests— to court alliances with foreign and hostile powers-to recall our commerce and expel our manufactures from bays and rivers that once were all our own-to strike down the flag of the Union, as it advances towards our ancient boundary-to resurrender a mighty Territory, and invite to its occupancy the deadliest (in truth, the only) foes this Government has ever encountered? Is anti-slavery to do all this? And is it so to endanger New Orleans, and the valley and commerce and outlet of the West, that we would hold them, not by our own strength, but by the slender tenure of the will and of the mercy of Great Britain? If anti-slavery can effect all this, may God, in His infinite mercy, save and perpetuate this Union-for the efforts of man would be feeble and impotent. The avowed object of this party is the immediate abolition of slavery. For this they traverse sea and land; for this they hold conventions in the capital of England; and there they brood over schemes of abolition in association with British Societies; there they join in denunciations of their countrymen, until their hearts are filled with treason; and they return home, Americans in name, but Englishmen in feelings and principles. Let us all, then, feel and know, whether we live North or South, that this party, if not vanquished, must overthrow the Government and dissolve the Union. This party propose the immediate abolition of slavery throughout the Union. If this were practicable, let us look at the consequences. By the returns of the last census, the products of the

slaveholding States, in 1840, amounted in value to $404,429,368. These products, then, of the South must have alone enabled it to furnish a home market for all the surplus manufactures of the North, as also a market for the product of its forests and fisheries—and giving a mighty impulse to all its commercial and navigating interests. Now, nearly all these agricultural products of the South which accomplish all these great purposes, are the result of slave-labour; and, strike down these products by the immediate abolition of slavery, and the markets of the South, for want of the means to purchase, will be lost to the people of the North; and North and South will be involved in one common ruin. Yes, in the harbours of the North (at Philadelphia, New York, and Boston) the vessels would rot at their wharves for want of exchangeable products to carry; the building of ships would

cease, and the grass would grow in many a street now enlivened by an

active and progressive industry. In the interior, the railroads and canals would languish for want of business; and the factories and manufacturing towns and cities, decaying and deserted, would stand as blasted monuments of the folly of man. One universal bankruptcy would overspread the country, together with all the demoralisation and crime which ever accompany such a catastrophe; and the notices at every corner would point only to sales on execution, by the constable, the sheriff, the marshal, and the auctioneer; whilst the beggars would ask us in the streets, not for money, but for bread. Dark as the picture may be, it could not exceed the gloomy reality. Such would be the effects in the North, whilst in the South no human heart can conceive, nor pen describe, the dreadful consequences. Let us look at another result to the North. The slaves being emancipated, not by the South, but by the North, would fly there for safety and protection; and three millions of free blacks would be thrown at once, as if by a convulsion of nature, upon the States of the North. They would come there, to their friends of the North who had given them freedom, to give them also habitation, food, and clothing; and not having it to give, many of them would perish from want and exposure; whilst the wretched remainder would be left to live as they could, by theft or charity: they would still be a degraded caste, free only in name, without the reality of freedom. A few might earn a wretched and precarious subsistence by competing with the white labourers of the North, and reducing their wages to the lowest point in the sliding scale of starvation and misery; whilst the poor-house and the jail, the asylums of the deaf and dumb, the blind, the idiot, and insane, would be filled to overflowing, if indeed any asylum could be afforded to the millions of the negro race whom wretchedness and crime would drive to despair and madness.

That these are sad realities is proved by the census of 1840. I annex in an appendix a table marked No. 1, compiled by me entirely from the official returns of the census of 1840, except as to prisons and paupers which are obtained from city and State returns, and the results are as follows:

1st. The number of deaf and dumb, blind, idiots, and insane, of the negroes in the non-slaveholding States, is 1 out of every 96; in the slaveholding States, it is 1 out of every 672, or 7 to 1 in favour of the slaves in this respect, as compared with the free blacks.

2nd. The number of whites, deaf and dumb, blind, idiots, and insane, in the non-slaveholding States, is 1 in every 561, being nearly 6 to 1 against the free blacks in the same States.

3rd. The number of negroes, who are deaf and dumb, blind, idiots, and insane, paupers, and in prison in the non-slaveholding States, is 1 out of every 6, and in the slaveholding States, 1 out of every 154, or 22 to 1 against the free blacks, as compared with the slaves.

4th. Taking the two extremes of North and South, in Maine, the number of negroes returned as deaf and dumb, blind, insane, and idiots, by the census of 1840, is 1 out of every 12, and in slaveholding Florida, by the same returns, is 1 of every 1,105; or 92 to 1 in favour of the slaves of Florida as compared with the free blacks of Maine.

By the report of the Secretary of State of Massachusetts (of November 1, 1843) to the Legislature, there were then in the county jails and houses of correction in that State 4,020 whites, and 364 negroes; and adding the previous returns of the State prison, 255 whites and 32 blacks, making in all 4,275 whites, and 396 free blacks; being 1 out of every 170 of the white, and 1 out of every 21 of the free black population; and by the official returns of the census of 1840, and their own official returns to their own Legislature, 1 out of every 13 of the free blacks of Massachusetts was either deaf and dumb, blind, idiot, or insane, or in prison-thus proving a degree of debasement and misery on the part of the coloured race in that truly great State which is appalling. In the last official report to the Legislature of the warden of the penitentiary of Eastern Pennsylvania, he says: "The 'whole number of prisoners received from the opening of the insti'tution (October 25, 1829), to January 1, 1843, is 1,622; of these '1,004 were white males, 533 coloured males; 27 white females, and 58 coloured females!' or 1 out of every 847 of the white, and 1 out of every 64 of the negro population; and of the white female convicts, 1 out of every 16,288; and of the coloured female convicts, 1 out of every 349 in one prison, showing a degree of guilt and debasement, on the part of the coloured females, revolting and un

paralleled. When such is the debasement of the coloured females, far exceeding even that of the white females in the most corrupt cities of Europe, extending, too, throughout one-half the limits of a great State, we may begin to form some idea of the dreadful condition of the free blacks, and how much worse it is than that of the slaves, whom we are asked to liberate and consign to a similar condition of guilt and misery. Where, too, are these examples? The first is in the great State of Massachusetts, that, for 64 years, has never had a slave, and whose free black population, being 5,463 in 1790, and but 8,669 at present, is nearly the same free negro population, and their descendants, whom for more than half a century she has strived, but strived in vain, to elevate in rank and comfort and morals. The other example is the eastern half of the great State of Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, and the Quakers of the State, who, with an industry and humanity that never tired, and a charity that spared not time or money, have exerted every effort to improve the morals and better the condition of their free black population. But where are the great results? Let the census and the reports of the prisons answer. Worse-incomparably worse, than the condition of the slaves, and demonstrating that the free black, in the midst of his friends in the North, is sinking lower every day in the scale of want and misery. The Regular Physicians' Report and Review, published in 1840, says, 'the facts, then, show an increasing 'disproportionate number of coloured prisoners in the eastern penitentiary.' In contrasting the condition, for the same year, of the penitentiaries of all the non-slaveholding States, as compared with all the slaveholding States in which returns are made, I find the number of free blacks is 54 to 1, as compared with the slaves, in proportion to population, who are incarcerated in these prisons. There are no paupers among the slaves, whilst, in the non-slaveholding States, great is the number of coloured paupers.

From the Belgian statistics, compiled by Mr. Quetelet, the distinguished secretary of the Royal Academy of Brussels, it appears that in Belgium the number of deaf and dumb was 1 out of every 2,180 persons in Great Britain, 1 out of every 1,539; in Italy, 1 out of every 1,539; and in Europe, 1 out of every 1,474. Of the blind, 1 out of every 1,009 in Belgium; 1 out of every 800 in Prussia; 1 out of every 1,600 in France; and 1 out of every 1,666 in Saxony; and no further returns as to the blind are given. [Belgian Annuaire, 1836, pages 213, 215, 217.] But the table shows an average in Europe of 1 out of every 1,474 of deaf and dumb, and of about 1 out of every 1,000 of blind; whereas our census shows, of the deaf and dumb whites of the Union, 1 out of every 2,193; and of the blacks in the non-slaveholding States, 1 out of every 656; also, of the blind, 1 out of every 2,821 of the whites of the Union, and 1 out of every

516 of the blacks in the non-slaveholding States. Thus we have not only shown the condition of the blacks of the non-slaveholding States to be far worse than that of the slaves of the South, but also far worse than that of the condition of the people of Europe, deplorable as that may be. It has been heretofore shown that the free blacks in the nonslaveholding States were becoming, in an augmented proportion, more debased in morals as they increased in numbers; and the same proposition is true in other respects. Thus, by the census of 1830, the number of deaf and dumb of the free blacks of the non-slaveholding States, was 1 out of every 996; and of blind, 1 out of 893; whereas we have seen, by the census of 1840, the number of free blacks, deaf and dumb, in the non-slaveholding States was 1 out of every 656; and of blind, 1 out of every 516. In the last ten years, then, the alarming fact is proved, that the proportionate number of free black deaf and dumb, and also of blind, has increased about fifty per cent. No statements as to the insane or idiots is given in the census of 1830. Let us now examine the future increase of free blacks in the States adjoining the slaveholding States, if Texas is not reannexed to the Union. By the census of 1790 the number of free blacks in the States (adding New York) adjoining slaveholding States was 13,953. In the States (adding New York) adjacent to the slaveholding States, the number of free blacks by the census of 1840 was 148,107, being an aggregate increase of nearly 11 to 2 in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Now by the census and table above given, the aggregate number of free blacks who were deaf and dumb, blind, idiot or insane, paupers, or in prisons, in the non-slaveholding States was 26,342, or 1 in every 6 of the whole number. Now if the free black population should increase in the same ratio in the aggregate in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, from 1840 to 1890, as it did from 1790 to 1840, the aggregate free black population in these six States would be, in 1890, 1,600,000; in 1865, 800,000; in 1853, 400,000: and the aggregate number in these *The African race does not flourish north of Mason and Dixon's line. Instead of 800,000, as Mr. Walker supposed there would be by this time, making his calculations on their former increase, there were not, according to the census of 1860, notwithstanding the 20,000 manumitted slaves from the South, one-fourth that number of blacks in the six States. Here are the figures: