ADDRESS
TO THE
NON-SLAVEHOLDERS OF THE SOUTH,
ON THE
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EVILS
OF
SLAVERY.
New York:
PUBLISHED BY THE AM. & FOR. ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
WILLIAM HARNED, AGENT, 61 JOHN STREET.
☞ For Sale at the Depository of the Amer. and For. A. S. Society,No. 61 John Street, New York, at $35 per thousand, $4 per hundred,50 cents per dozen, and 5 cents for a single copy.
WILLIAM HARNED, Publishing Agent.
ADDRESS
TO
THE NON-SLAVEHOLDERS OF THE SLAVE STATES.
Fellow-Citizens:
We ask your attention to the injuries inflicted upon you and yourchildren, by an institution which lives by your sufferance, and willdie at your mandate. Slavery is maintained by you whom it impoverishesand degrades, not by those upon whom it conferswealth and influence. These assertions will be received by youand others with surprise and incredulity. Before you condemnthem, ponder the following considerations and statistics.
We all know that the sugar and cotton cultivation of the Southis conducted, not like the agriculture of the North, on smallfarms and with few hands, but on vast plantations and with largegangs of negroes, technically called "the force." In the breedingStates, men, women and children form the great staple forexportation; and like other stock, require capital on the part ofthose who follow the business of rearing them. It is also amatter of notoriety, that the price of slaves has been and still issuch as to confine their possession almost exclusively to the rich.We might as well talk of poor men owning herds of cattle andstuds of horses, as gangs of negroes. When an infant will bringone hundred, and a man from four hundred to a thousand dollarsin the market, slaves are not commodities to be found in thecabins of the poor. You are moreover aware that the greatcapitalists of the South have their wealth chiefly invested inplantations and slaves, and not as with us in commerce andmanufactures.
It has been repeatedly stated that Mr. Carroll, of Baltimore,the former president of the Colonization Society, was the ownerof 1,000 slaves. The newspapers, in announcing the death ofMr. Pollock, of North Carolina, remarked that he had left 1,500slaves. In the account of Mr. Madison's funeral, it was mentionedthat he was followed to the grave by 100 of his slaves,and it is probable that the women and children were not included.The following article, from the Gospel Messenger for August,1842, gives us some idea of the feudal vassalage prevailing onthe estates of some of your lordly planters. "A noble deed.—Dr.Mercer, of Adams county, Mississippi, has lately erected, at[pg 2]his own expense, and for the advantage of his vast plantation, andthe people on his lands, a neat church and parsonage house, atthe cost of over $30,000. He pays the salary of the minister,$1,200 a year, besides his meat and bread. On Bishop Otey'slate visit to that congregation, he and Mr. Deacon, the incumbent,baptized in one day one hundred and eight children and tenadults, all belonging to the plantation."
At the North a farmer hires as many men as his work requires;at the South the labor