Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/290

266 fertilizing flood across the great States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and is now murmuring up the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. Will slaveholders, in view of the great hazard of bringing and keeping slaves here, immigrate to any considerable extents Will men run a great risk with their property when there is nothing to be made by if? Slave property is more secure and more profitable in Missouri than it would be in Oregon, then why bring it here? Millions of untouched acres in the new States of the South invite the culture of cotton, sugar and kindred productions. Will the slaveholder wishing to emigrate go where his slaves will be secure and valuable, or will he make a wild goose chase across the continent to engage in raising wheat, oats and potatoes?

Some people talk as though voting for slavery would supply the country with labor, but it will be found that money is more necessary for that purpose than votes. Five hundred slaves here would cost between five hundred thousand and a millioti of dollars, and yet only one farmer in ten would be provided with a hand, if there be (of which there is little doubt) 5,000 farmers in Oregon. Let it be remembered that out of 6,222,418 whites in the slave-holding States, only 347^525 own slaves. How can slave labor be made to pay in this country? Can any farmer afford to buy and keep slaves, and raise wheat at 75 cents or $1.00 per bushel? If there were thousands of slaves now cultivating the soil here, where would be the market, and what the demand for the grain they would produce? Slaves are certainly not necessary or desirable for fruit or stock raising.

Much is claimed for slavery because the slave-holding States export more and have a larger amount of personal property than the non-slave-holding States. I will compare Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1850. They are adjoining States, and that is a fair way to try the question: