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SlaveryandFreeLaborDescribedandCompared.docx

Edmund Ruffin, Slavery and Free Labor, Described and Compared (1860)

Comparison in Regard to Free Population of the Six New England States with the Five Old and More Southern States – By Census Returns of 1850.

	New England States	Five old Southern States	Excess for N. or S.
Total free population in 1850	2,728,016	2,732,214	S. 2,198
Annual Births	61,148 or 1 to 44	77,683 or 1 to 35	S. 16,535
Annual Deaths	42,368 or 1 to 64	32,216 or 1 to 85	N. 10,152
Number of churches erected and in use	4,607	8,081	S. 3,374
Valuation of all the churches	$19,362,634	$11,149,118	N. $8,313,516
Church accommodation for hearers	1,893,450	2,896,472	S. 1,003,022
Excess of persons over seats in churches	834,566	-
Excess of seats over number of persons	-	164,528
Number of families	518,532	506,968	N. 11,564
Number of dwellings	447,789	496,369	S. 48,580
Number of families without separate dwellings	70,743 or 1 in 7	10,599 or 1 in 52	N. 60,144
Number of paupers (receiving regular and continued public support)	33,431	14,221	N. 19,220
Number of native paupers (excluding foreigners)	18,966	11,728	N. 7,238
Ratio of native paupers to total population	1 to 143	1 to 234
Ratio of all paupers to total population (including slaves)	1 to 81	1 to 171
Insane persons	3,821	2,326	N. 1,495
Of negroes free in New England and slaves in the five Southern States…
Insane and idiots	1 in 980	1 in 3,080	N.
Blind	1 in 370	1 in 2,645	N.
Deaf mutes	1 in 3,005	1 in 6,552	N.
Total value of property	$1,003,466,181	$1,420,989,573	S. 417½ mil.
Average value for each white person	$367	$520	S. $153

Lest the condition of the States referred to should be supposed peculiar, the average of property to each white person will be stated for sundry other particular States as follows:--

Non-Slaveholding States

· New York has for each, $231

· Pennsylvania, 214

· Ohio, 219

· Illinois, 134

· New England, (as above,) 367

· Next richest Non-slaveholding States in their order severally as follows: $280, $231, $228, $219, $214; and the remaining States range from $166 down to $134 for Illinois.

Slaveholding States

· South Carolina, $1,001

· Louisiana, 806

· Mississippi, 702

· Georgia, 638

· Alabama, 511

· Maryland, 423

· Virginia, 403

· Kentucky, 377

· North Carolina, 367

· Tennessee, 248

· Missouri, (the poorest,) 166

· For all the fifteen Non-slaveholding States in 1850, (excluding California,) the value of property to each white person was, $233

· For the same in all the fifteen Slaveholding States, 439

....The foregoing statistical facts show a remarkable superiority of the slaveholding section in view, over the New England States (and would over all the free States,) in almost everything that is desirable to all.

Despite our sickly climate over a large portion near the coast, the births are more Instead of our labors and investments in slave-labor being less profitable than northern operations, it is manifest that the slaveholding States are much richer than the free States, and to make this result the more striking, even if counting every slave as if free, and supposing the whole property to be divided among all the population, (slaves included,) still on this general average, the individual share of every one, bond or free, would be considerably larger than in the free States. The greater number of houseless families, of paupers, of criminals and of insane--as well as of deaths--all show in their calamitous effects that there is much more suffering, of both body and mind, in the North than in the South, whether comparing total populations, or whites only--or our slaves to the free negroes of the North.

These statistics clearly show that all the general evils--physical, economical, moral, or mental--which have been falsely ascribed to the existence and injurious influence of slavery, are to be found existing in much greater number and force in the non-slaveholding, or free-labor communities of the North, which have especially denounced and exaggerated the demoralizing effects of slavery, and claimed for themselves a superiority in every respect over slave-holding communities.