Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/325

Rh mills of Lawrence, Lowell, and Manchester, all put together. In 1836, it did not turn a wheel; now, I am told, it drives a grist-mill. No State is so rich in water power. The Alleghanies are a great water-shed, and at the eaves the streams rush forward as if impatient to turn mills. Virginia is full of minerals—coal, iron, lead, copper, salt. Her agricultural resources are immense. What timber clothes her mountains! what a soil for Indian corn, wheat, tobacco, rice! even cotton grows in the southern part. Washington said the central counties of Virginia were the best land in the United States. Daniel Webster, reporting to Virginians of his European tour, said, he saw "no lands in Europe so good as the valley of the Shenandoah." Virginia is rich in mountain pastures favourable to sheep and horned cattle. Nature gives Virginia all that can be asked of nature. What a position for agriculture, manufactures, mining, commerce! Norfolk is a hundred miles nearer Chicago than New York is, but she has no intercourse with Chicago. It is three hundred miles nearer the mouth of the Ohio; but if a Norfolk man wants to go to St Louis, I believe his quickest way lies through New York. It is not a day’s sail further from Liverpool; it is nearer to the Mediterranean and South American ports. But what is Norfolk, with her 23,000 tons of shipping and her fourteen thousand population? What is Richmond, with her twenty-seven thousand men—ten thousand of them slaves? Nay, what is Virginia herself, the very oldest State? Let me cypher out some numerical details. In 1790, she had 748,000 inhabitants; now she has 1,421,000. She has not doubled in sixty years.

In 1790, New York had 340,000; now she has 3,048,000. She has multiplied her population almost ten times. In Virginia, in 1850, there were only 452,000 more freemen than sixty years before; in New York, there were 2,724,000 more freemen than there were in 1790. There are only 165,000 dwellings in Virginia; 463,000 in New York. Then the Virginia farms were worth $216,000,000; yours, $554,000,000; Virginia is wholly agricultural, while you are also manufacturing and commercial. Her farm tools were worth $7,000,000; yours, $22,000,000. Her cattle, $33,000,000; yours, $73,000,000. The orchard products of Virginia were worth $177,000; of New York, $1,762,000. Virginia had