Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/60

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48
LETTER ON SLAVERY.

ployed in teaching common schools. Thus, in 1847, in Massachusetts, there were 7,582 engaged in the common schools. In the slave States this class is much smaller. Still more, in all the free States there are many, not ranked in the learned professions, who devote themselves to science, literature, and the fine arts ; in the South but few. In the South, the female slaves are occupied in hard field-labour, which is almost unheard-of in the free States. Thus the difference in the earnings of the two, great as it is, is not an adequate emblem of the actual difference or productive capacity, or even of the production, in the two sections of the country.


IV.

EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON POPULATION.

Let us next consider the effects of slavery on the in- crease of numbers, as shown by the great movements of the population in the North and South.

In 1790, the present free States—New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—contained 1,968,455 persons; the slave States 1,961,372. In 1840 the same slave States—Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky—contained 5,479,860; the same free States, 6,767,082. In 50 years those slave States had increased 179 per cent.; those free States 243 per cent., or with 64 per cent, greater rapidity.

In 1790 the entire population of all the slave States was 1,961,372; in 1840, including the new slave States, 7,334,431; while the population of the free States—including the new ones—was 9,728,922. The slave States had increased 279 per cent.; the free, 394, the latter increasing with a rapidity 115 per cent, greater than the former.

In 1810 the new slave States—Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky—contained 805,991 persons; the new free States—Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan—contained but 272,324. But