Untitled - African American History

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. CCXV
the places of free laborers, and three-fifths only of their
number being estimated under the Constitution of the
United States, for representative purposes, the result is
inevitable that the slaveholding States must ever have a
smaller voice, politically, than the same territory would
command with free labor. To this extent slavery de-
stroys their political equality in the nation.
Another result of a sparse population is, that a perfect
system of thorough common school education is almost
an impossibility. Extensive plantations, occupied by
slaves only, independent of the exhausting crops culti-
vated and annually adding to barren fields, render a per-
fect system of common schools impossible.
In a slaveholding State, the greatest evidence of wealth
in the planter is the number of his slaves. The most
desirable property for a remunerative income, is slaves.
The best property to leave to his children, and from
which they will part with greatest reluctance, is slaves.
Hence, the planter invests his surplus income in slaves.
The natural result is, that lands are a secondary consideration.
No surplus is left for their improvement. The
homestead is valued only so long as the adjacent lands
are profitable for cultivation. The planter himself,
having no local attachments, his children inherit none.
On the contrary, he encourages in them a disposition to
seek new lands. His valuable property (his slaves) are
much more easily than to
easily removed to fresh lands ;
materials to the old. The result is
bring the fertilizing
that they, as a class, are never settled. Such a population
is almost nomadic. It is useless to seek to excite
patriotic emotions in behalf of the land of birth, when
self-interest speaks so loudly. On the other hand, where
no slavery exists, and the planter's surplus cannot be in-
vested in laborers, it is appropriated to the improvement
or extension of his farm, the beautifying of the home-
stead where his fathers are buried, and where he hopes