Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/291

Rh {| class=wikitable ! !! Pennsylvania. !! Virginia.
 * Area || align=right |46,000 miles || align=right |61,000 miles
 * Population || align=right |2,311,786|| align=right |1,421,661
 * Total property || align=right |$729,144,998 || align=right |$391,646,430
 * Personal property ||align=right | 72,410,191 || align=right |130,198,429
 * Manufactures ||align=right | 155,044,910 ||align=right | 29,704,387
 * Exports ||align=right | 6,255,229 ||align=right | 3,302,560
 * Imports ||align=right | 12,066,154 ||align=right | 426,599
 * }
 * Manufactures ||align=right | 155,044,910 ||align=right | 29,704,387
 * Exports ||align=right | 6,255,229 ||align=right | 3,302,560
 * Imports ||align=right | 12,066,154 ||align=right | 426,599
 * }
 * Imports ||align=right | 12,066,154 ||align=right | 426,599
 * }
 * }

Now I submit upon these figures which is the more powerful, wealthy and prosperous of the two States. True, the personal property of Virginia exceeds that of Pennsylvania, but this is because 422,528 blacks, estimated at so much population, are at the same time considered as personal property, worth from $500 to $2,000 per head. I will ask if 1,000 Pennsylvania families would not be worth more to Oregon — would not make more blades of grass— bring more wheat to market and dig more gold out of the mountain than so many Virginia negroes, and yet the census taker would say nothing about the value of the farmers, but call the negroes worth one or two millions of dollars. The exports of the South exceed those of the North, but that proves nothing for slavery here, for 84 per cent of exports of the salve-holding States are cotton, rice and sugar, which cannot be cultivated in Oregon.

I have heard it said that slavery would increase the price of lands in this country, but this is a very great mistake. I find by the census of 1850 that the average value of land per acre in New England is $20.27. In Middle States it is $28.07 per acre, while the average value of land per acre in the Southern States is $5.34. None who are familiar with current events, can be ignorant of the fact that large quantities of land in the South has been worn out and reduced to a value merely nominal by slave labor. One very common argument for slavery is, that laborers, if free, will engage in mining when they are wanted by the farmers. Admit such to be the fact, is the labor of a man lost to the country who makes $25 or $50 per month more in the mines than he would on a farm 1 Now the question is, what is good for the country, not what is of benefit to A or B, or any class of individuals, and