ommunity, but should in its results rather illustrate old Falstaff's
remark,--that "there is a thing often heard of, and it is known to many
in our land, by the name of pitch; this pitch, as ancient writers do
report, doth defile: so doth the company thou keepest."

Such, reason tells us, should be the effect on the intelligence and
education of the free masses of the South of the policy and dynasty of
King Cotton. That experience in this case verifies the conclusions
of reason who can doubt who has ever set foot in a thorough Slave
State,--or in Kansas, or in any Free State half-peopled by the poor
whites of the South?--or who can doubt it, that has ever even talked on
the subject with an intelligent and fair-minded Southern gentleman? Who
that knows them will deny that the poor whites of the South make the
worst population in the country? Who ever heard a Southern gentleman
speak of them, save in Congress or on the hustings, otherwise than with
aversion and contempt?[C]

[Footnote C: Except when used by the accomplished statistician, there is
nothing more fallacious than the figures of the census. As the author of
this article is a disciple neither of Buckle nor De Bow, they have not
been used at all; but a few of the census figures are nevertheless
instructive, as showing the difference between the Free and the Servile
States in respect to popular education. According to the census of 1850,
the white population of the Slave States amounted to 6,184,477 souls,
and the colored population, free and slave, brought the total population
up to an aggregate of 9,612,979, of which the whole number of
school-pupils was 581,861. New York, with a population of 3,097,894
souls, numbered 675,221 pupils, or 98,830 more than all the Slave
States. The eight Cotton States, from South Carolina to Arkansas, with
a population of 2,137,264 whites and a grand total of 3,970,337 human
beings, contained 141,032 pupils; the State of Massachusetts, with a
total population of 994,514, numbered 176,475, or 35,443 pupils more
than all the Cotton States. In popular governments the great sources
of general intelligence are newspapers and periodicals; in estimating
these, metropolitan New York should not be considered; but of these
the whole number, in 1850, issued annually in all the Slave States was
61,038,698, and the number in the not peculiarly enlightened State of
Pennsylvania was 84,898,672, or 3,859,974 more than in all the Slave
States. In