Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/71

Rh not idle, has said, the spirit of slavery "has crept into the philosophical chairs of the schools. Its cloven foot has ascended the pulpits of the churches. Professors of colleges teach it as a lesson of morals ; ministers of the gospel seek and profess to find sanctions for it in the Word of God." The effect of slavery on the industrial, numerical, intellectual, and moral developments of the people may be best shown by a comparison of the condition and history of the two largest States, one slave, the other free. Virginia contains more than 64,000 square miles, or 13,370 more than England. The climate is delightful. The State is intersected by "the finest bay in the world," watered by long and abundant rivers; this inviting navigation, and allowing numerous and easy communications with the interior; that waiting to turn the wheels of the manufacturer, to weave and spin. The soil is rich in minerals. Iron, lead, and limestone are abundant. Nitre is found in her caverns. Salt abounds on the Great Kenawha and the Hoist on. Fields of coal, anthracite and bituminous, are numerous, rich, and of easy access. The soil is fertile, the sky genial, the air salubrious. She is the oldest State in the Union; long the most important in wealth, population, and political power. The noble array of talent and virtue found there in the last century has already been mentioned. Abundantly blessed with bays, harbours, rivers, mines, no State in the Union had such natural advantages as Virginia in 1790. New York has 49,000 square miles, and was settled somewhat later than Virginia, and under circumstances less propitious. Numerous causes retarded her growth before the Revolution. Though favoured with an excellent harbour, she has but one natural channel of communication with the interior. In 1790 Virginia contained 748,348 inhabitants; New York but 340,120. In 1840 Virginia had 1,239,797; New York 2,428,921, and in 1845, 2,604,495. In fifty years Virginia had not doubled her population, while New York had increased more than four-fold. In 1790, Virginia had more than eleven inhabitants to each square mile, and New York not quite eight; but in 1840, Virginia had only nineteen, and New York fifty-three persons to the square mile. In 1798, the houses and lands of Virginia were valued at