Page:The Barbarism of Slavery - Sumner - 1863.pdf/30

 24 the Sla.ve had an amount valued at $1,377,199,968 at that of the only amount valued $410,754,992 an States persons engaged in trade, the Free States had 136,856, and the Slave States, 52,622 and that of the tonnage employed, the Free States had 2,790,195 tons, and the Slave States, only 726,This was in 1850. But in 1855 the disproportion was 285. still greater, the Free States having 4,252,615 tons, and the States







Slave States 855,517 tons, being a difference of five to one

and the tonnage of Massachusetts alone being 970,727

amount

tons,

an

The tonnage was 528,844 tons by

larger than that of all the Slave States.

built during this year

by the Free

States



the Slaves States, 52,959 tons. Maine alone built 215,905 tons, or more than four times the whole built in the Slave States. The foreign commerce, as indicated by the exports and imports in 1855, of the Free States,

Slave States, $132,067,216.

were $167,520,693

was $404,368,503

The exports of



of the

the Free States

of the Slave States, including the vaunted



cotton crop, $132,007,216. The imports of the Free States were $236,847,810 of the Slave States, $24,586,528. The foreign commerce of New-York alone was more than twice as

large as that of all the Slave States

and

her exports were larger also.



her imports were larger, to this testimony of

Add

Loudon, In a

figures the testimony of a Yirginian, Mr.

letter

written just before the sitting of a Southern Commercial Convention.

Thus he complains and

testifies



" There are not half a dozen vessels engaged in our own trade that are owned in Virginia ; and I have been unable to find a vessel at Liverpool loading for Virginia within three years, during the height of our busy season."

Railroads and canals are the avenues of commerce and here again the Free States excel. Of railroads in operation in 1854, there were 13,105 miles in the Free States, and 4212 in the Slave States. Of canals there were 3,682 miles in the Free

States,

The

and 1116 Post-

in the Slave States.

Office,

which

is

not only the agent of commerce,

but of civilization, joins in the uniform testimony. According to the tables for 1859, the postage collected in the Free States

was $5,532,999, and the expense of carrying the mails $6,748,In the Slave States the 189, leaving a deficit of $1,215,189. collected was only $1,988,050, and the expense of car-

amount

rying the mails $6,016,612, leaving the enormous

deficit

of