formation."
The anti-slavery work of England was originally inspired from
America, and the action of the British Parliament was really so
directed as to make the prohibition of the slave-trade correspond
in time with that prescribed in the Federal Constitution. The
American wits and critics of that day did not fail to note the
significance of the date, and to appreciate the statesmanship and
philosophy which led the British Parliament to terminate the trade
at the precise moment when the American Congress closed the market.

The slaves in the United States numbered about seven hundred thousand
when Washington's administration was organized. They had increased
to four millions when Lincoln was chosen President. Their number
in 1860 was less in proportion to the white population than it was
in 1789. The immigration of whites had changed the ratio. But
the more marked and important change had been in the value of slave
labor. In 1789 the slaves produced little or no surplus, and in
many States were regarded as a burden. In 1860 they produced a
surplus of at least three hundred millions of dollars. The power
of agricultural production in the Southern States had apparently
no limit. If the institution of Slavery could be rendered secure,
the dominant minds of the South saw political power and boundless
wealth within their grasp. They saw that they could control the
product and regulate the price of a staple in constant demand among
every people on the globe. The investment of the South in slaves
represented a capital of two thousand millions of dollars, reckoned
only upon the salable value of the chattel. Estimated by its
capacity to produce wealth, the institution of Slavery represented
to the white population of the South a sum vastly in excess of two
thousand millions. Without slave-labor, the cotton, rice, and
sugar lands were, in the view of Southern men, absolutely valueless.
With the labor of the slave, they could produce three hundred
millions a year in excess of the food required for the population.
Three hundred millions a year represented a remunerative interest
on a capital of five thousand millions of dollars. In the history
of the world there has perhaps never been so vast an amount of
productive capital firmly consolidated under one power, subject to
the ultimate control and direction of so small a number of men.

THE SOUTH AND THE SLAVE-TRADE.

Wi