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Show 110 DESPOTJSl\1 Should the slave-holding states become involved in a war, which it would be necessary for them tn prosecute from their own resources, they wonld be oblig. ed to depend upon a standing army levied from among the dregs of the population. Such an army would be likely to become quite as much an object of terror to those for whose defence it would be levied, as to those against whom it would be raised. It would not be easy to disband an army composed of men destitute of every other resource, bnt who had found in military service a means of living at the expense of others. It would be insisted, and with some show of justice too, that the country was bound to maintain and provide for those to whom it was indebted for defence and even existence. One other observation will place the military weakness of the sian-holding states in a clear point of view. They are dependent for all manufactured articles upon foreign supply. Even the very tools with which the plantations are cultivated, are furnished from abroad. Every article of equipment necessary to enable an army to take the field, must be imported, and unless their agricultural productions can be freely exported in return, they have no means whereby to purchase, or to pay. The coast of the slave-holding states is but scantily furnished with harbors; all the trade of export and import, centres at a few points. These points may be easily blockaded by a small naval force. The slave states have no facilities for eqnipping or manning a fleet. In a naval warfare, halt' a dozen of the fishing towns of New England might comrete with the whole of them, and a stnct blockade o their harbors for three or four years, would reduce the whole of the Southern States to a condition of the greatest distress. In point of military strength the slave-holding states are not by any means all to be placed upon the same level. Such•states as Kentucky and Tennessee where the proportion of slaves is small, are very strong lll comparison with Carolina. and Louisiana, where .the 1mprivileged class form a majority of the populatwn. CHAP 'l' E R T II I RD. ECONOl\IICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE·HOLDING SYSTETII. SECTION I. Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of Wealth. The public wealth consists in the sum total of the wealth possessed by all the individual members of the commumty. Generally speaking a community is wealthy m proportiOn to the relative number of its members who are possessors of property. A few very nch men may make a great show, and create a false ImpressiOn as to the wealth of a community· but a large number of small properties added together will far outrun the sum total of a few large ones. 'l'he pay of the officers of an army is very large compared With that of the rank and file; but the sum total of the pay of the rank and file, far exceeds in amount the ,sum total of the pay of the officers. 'l hat the slave states of the American Union are excesstvely poor compared with the free states, is conceded on all hands. 'l'he slaves forming in some of ~le states, the majority of the population are incapac~ e of holdmg property. '!'hey are not' the owners en of the•; own labor, and of course they can con~ pbute notlung to the sum total of the public wealth /'e class of poor whites, including a large proporti01~ 0 the free population, are possessed of a very trilling property. Almost the entire capital of the cnuntry is '.] the hands of a comparatively small number of ~ave-holders; and of the property which they possess, th great P.o~tton consists iu the minds and muscles of e uupnvlieged class. In free communities, every |