s found in
these slave States. This is no condition of things to increase births,
or diminish deaths, unless brothels give _increase_, and squalid poverty
the requisite sympathy and aid, to recover the sick and dying, from the
period of infancy to that of old age.
We proceed to compare other facts, which have a bearing upon the
relative merits of different institutions in securing social prosperity.
In every country there is a class to be found in such utter destitution,
that they must either be supported by charity, or perish of want. This
destitution arises, generally, from oppressive exactions or excessive
vice, and is evidence of the tendency of social institutions, and the
superiority of one over another, in securing the greatest amount of
individual prosperity and comfort.
With these views to aid us, we will compare some facts belonging to New
England and these five old slave States. With an equal population, New
England has thirty-three thousand four hundred and thirty-one paupers;
these five slave States have fourteen thousand two hundred and
twenty-one. Here is an excess of paupers in New England, notwithstanding
her boasted prosperity, of one hundred and thirty-five per cent. over
these five slave States. And if to these _continual paupers_ we were to
add the number (as given in State returns) that are partially aided in
New England, the addition would be awful. But I suppose New England will
strive to wipe off this stain of regular pauperism, by throwing the
blame of it upon the _foreigners_ among them. It should be remembered,
however, as an offset to this, that these foreigners are all from
non-slaveholding countries. From their infancy they have shared the
blessings of freedom and free institutions; therefore they ought to be
admitted, as homogeneous materials, in the social organizations of New
England, which we are now comparing with Southern slaveholding
communities.
But as foreign paupers are distinguished in the census from native born
citizens, we will now (in the comparison) exclude them in both sections.
The number of paupers will then be, for New England, eighteen thousand
nine hundred and sixty-six; for the five slave States, eleven thousand
seven hundred and twenty-eight--leaving to New England, which is
considered the model section of the world in all that is lovely in
religious and social prosperity, seven thousand two hundred and
thirty-eight more of her native sons in the poor-house,
|