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It is not our intention in this chapter to enter into an elaborate ethnographical essay, to establish peculiarities of difference, mental, moral, and physical, in the great family of man. Neither is it our design to launch into a philosophical disquisition on the laws and principles of light and darkness, with a view of educing any additional evidence of the fact, that as a general rule, the rays of the sun are more fructifying and congenial than the shades of night. Nor yet is it our purpose, by writing a formal treatise on ethics, to draw a broad line of distinction between right and wrong, to point out the propriety of morality and its advantages over immorality, nor to waste time in pressing a universally admitted truism--that virtue is preferable to vice. Self-evident truths require no argumentative demonstration.
What we mean to do is simply this : to take a survey of the relative position and importance of the several states of this confederacy, from the adoption of the national compact ; and when, of two sections of the country starting under the same auspices, and with equal natural advantages, we find the one rising to a degree of almost uncxampled power and eminence, and the other sinking
into a state of comparative imbecility and obscurity, it is our determination to trace out the causes which have led to the elevation of the former, and the depression of the latter, and to use our most earnest and honest endeavors to utterly extirpate whatever opposes the progress and prosperity of any portion of the union
This survey we have already made; we have also instituted an impartial comparison between the cardinal sections of the country, north, south, east, and west ; and as a true hearted southerner, whose ancestors have resided in North Carolina between one and two hundred years, and as one who would rather have his native clime excel than be excelled, we feel constrained to confess that we are deeply abashed and chagrined at the disclosures of the comparison thus instituted. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, in 1789, we commenced an even race with the North. All things considered, if either the North or the South had the advantage, it was the latter, In proof of this, let us introduce a few statistics, beginning with the states of
In 1790, when the first census was taken, New York contained 340,120 inhabitants ; at the same time the population of Virginia was 748,308, being more than twice the number of New York. Just sixty years afterward, as we learn from the census of 1850, New York had a population of 3,097,394 ; while that of Virginia was only 1,421,661, being less than half the number of New York !
In 1791, the exports of New York amounted to $2,505,-
In August, 1856, the real and personal estate assessed
What says one of Virginia's own sons? He still lives ; hear him speak. Says Gov. Wise :
"It may be painful, but nevertheless, profitable, to recur occasionally to the history of the past ; to listen to the admonitions of experience, and learn lessons of wisdom from the efforts and actions of those who have preceded us in the drama of human life. The records of former days show that at a period not very remote, Virginia stood preeminently the first commercial State in the Union ; when her commerce exceeded in amount that of all the New
England States combined; when the City of Norfolk owned more than one hundred trading ships, and her direct foreign trade exceeded that of the City of New-York, now the centre of trade and the great emporium of North America. At the period of the war of independence, the commerce of Virginia was four times larger than that of New-York."
The cash value of all the farms, farming implements and machinery in Virginia, in 1850, was $223,423,315 ; the value of the same in New-York, in the same year, was $576,631,568. In about the same ratio does the value of the agricultural products and live stock of New-York exceed the value of the agricultural products and live stock of Virginia. But we will pursue this humiliating comparison no further. With feelings mingled with indignation and disgust, we turn from the picture, and will now pay our respects to
In 1790, Massachusetts contained 378,717 inhabitants; in the same year North Carolina contained 393,751 ; in 1850, the population of Massachusetts was 994,514, all freemen ; while that of North Carolina was only 869,039, of whom 288,548 were slaves. Massachusetts has an area of only 7,800 square miles; the area of North Carolina is 50,704 square miles, which, though less than Virginia, is considerably larger than the State of New-York. Massachusetts and North Carolina each have a harbor, Boston and Beaufort, which harbors, with the States that back
them, are, by nature, possessed of about equal capacities
How is it with Beaufort, in North Carolina, whose harbor is said to be the safest and most commodious anywhere to be found on the Atlantic coast south of the harbor of New-York, and but little inferior to that? Has anybody ever heard of her? Do the masts of her ships ever cast a shadow on foreign waters? Upon what distant or benighted shore have her merchants and mariners ever hoisted our national ensign, or spread the arts of civilization and peaceful industry? What changes worthy of note have taken place in the physical features of her superficies since "the evening and the morning were the third day ?" But we will make no further attempt to draw a comparison between the populous, wealthy, and renowned city of Boston and the obscure, despicable little village of Beaufort, which, notwithstanding " the placid bosom of its deep and well-protected harbor," has no place in the annals or records of the country, and has scarcely ever been heard of fifty miles from home.
In 1853, the exports of Massachusetts amounted to