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![handle is hein.slavery/powhiso0001 and id is 1 raw text is: - ar -ful peruseal of the following is commended to all who fiel an interest in the eleva
tion t the white as well as the colored race. It is a very clear exhibition of the condition, of
the miss of the white population in the slave States.
THE POOR WHITES OF TERE SOUTH.
THE INJIURY DONE THIEi BY SLAVEIRY.
Be the sin, the dangers, and evils of Slavery all our own. We compel, we ask, none to
share them with us-Letter of Governor Hammond of South Carolina to Thomas Clarkson.
The number of slaveholders in the slave slave-owners. Alabama, Mississippi, and Lou-
States of this Union, as ascertained by the cen- isiana, with 897,531 slaves, return 73,081 slave-
sus returns of 1850, was three hundred and owners. The relative excess of slave-owners
forty-seven tl-ousand five hundred and twenty- returned in Virginia, Maryland, and the District
five. An average of five persons and seven- of Columbia, must be attributed, in part, to the
tenths to a family, as assumed by the Superin- inclusion of a relatively larger number of
tendeut of tho Census, would give 1,980,894 as slave-hirers. Upon the whole, it may safely
the iiumber of persous interested as slaveholders be concluded that at least seven-tenths of the
in their own right, or by family relation. The whites in the slave States are not slave-owners,
whole number of whites in the siaveholding either in their own right or by family relation.
States being 6,222,418, the slaveholding pro- The number of white males in the slave States,
portion is a faction short of 32 per cent. aged twenty-one years and upward, in 1850,
The SuII)-rintendeut of the Census, Professor was 1,490,892.
])e Bow, says of the number, 347,525, returned Considering that the number of 3-7,525, re-
as slaveholders: turned as slave-owners, is subject to some de-
The number includes slave-hirers, but is exclusive of ductions, and considering that of the slave-
those wo I'o interested conjointly with otlier-, in fqavo
property. '1w two will about balance each other, Ibr te owners many are females and minors, it is
wole &S(lth, ind leave the -'iave-owners as stated. r probable that not exceeding one-fifth of the
'. Whero to- party ns slaves in dilt'rcut counties, or in white male adults of the slave States own
diff ent tate, lie a will be cnterel more tlm oi,' 'This
will disturb thu calouation v ry little) being only tle case slaves.
asaong the la-ger proportic,. The non-slaveholding whites of the South,
The addition of those who are slave-hirers being not less than seven-tenths of the whole
merely, to the category of slave-owners, must, number of whites, would seem to be entitled to
I thiuk, swell their number much more than it some inquiry into their actual condition; and
is diminished by the exclusion of those who especially, as they have no real political weight
are interested coujointly with others in slave or consideration in the country, and little op-
property. Such instances of conjoint interest portunity to speak for themselves. I have been
will occur most frequently in the family rein- for twenty years a reader of Southern news-
tions, already taken into the account, when we papers, and a reader and hearer of Congression.
multiplied the number of slaveholders returned al debates ; but, in all that time, I do not recol-
by five and seven-tenths. A comparison of the lect ever to have seen or heard these non-slave-
returns from IMaryland, the District of Colum- holding whites referred to by Southern gentle-
bia, and Virginia, where slave-hiring is much men, as constituting any part of what they call
practiced, with Alabama, Mississippi, and Lou- - he South. When the rights of the South,
isiana, where it is less practiced, shows the fol or its wrongs, or its policy, or its interests, or
lowing results: its institutions, are spoken of, reference is al-
Maryland, Virginia. and the District of Co- ways intended to the rights, wrongs, policy. in-
lumbia, with 566,583 slaves, retuttrn 42,54 terests, and institutions, of the threg hundred](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/powhiso0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)