Misc. Records

Where to Emigrate and Why - Frederick B. Goddard, Peoples Publ. Co., 1869

THE SOUTHERN STATES.

        NOT all those who are seeking new homes will desire to emigrate to the West. There is a numerous class who would gladly exchange the long and severe winters of northern latitudes for a more kindly climate, where labor is unhindered by snow and ice, and soft sunshine and balmy air mark every season. And there are some who are reluctant to leave lands of hills and valleys, and leaping waters, for the more monotonous beauties of the far inland West, with its flower-clad prairie levels and more sluggish streams.

        There are others, again, whose tastes and inclinations would lead them where the pioneer's privations and hardships may be avoided, where social institutions and advantages are already established, and the surroundings are in keeping with their early habits and experience. To all with whom these influences may prevail, and to many others, the Southern States of the American Union, glowing with genial warmth, and possessing all the natural elements for a far higher degree of growth and development than they have yet attained, now offer extraordinary inducements for immigration.

        The South presents a wide diversity of surface features and resources. Its long line of sea-coast affords ample harbor facilities, its numerous broad and navigable rivers meander through extensive valleys, unrivaled for beauty and fertility, and its climate and soil, while favorable to all the productions of the temperate zone and many of the tropical, are specially adapted to the cultivation of certain staples, such as cotton, rice, tobacco, and sugar, some of which thrive elsewhere but indifferently, if at all. It would seem that in the bestowal of her bounties upon the South, Nature had denied it nothing.

        We shall endeavor to outline briefly the causes which, while disorganizing some of the institutions of the South, have contributed to render it in many respects, at the present more than at any previous time, such an especially inviting field for the emigrant.

        But a few years ago the South was in the full tide of prosperity and advancement. Its population was rapidly increasing, railroads and telegraphs were being constructed wherever the growing interests of the country required them, and education, science, and art were receiving their dues of nourishment and aid. Millions of acres of bursting cotton-bolls lay like vast snow-fields in the sun, and scattered everywhere were refined and luxurious homes, supported by the varied and abundant crops of a generous soil. The South was the abode of luxury and plenty.

        But upon this blossoming tree of progress was also growing an apple of discord. Heeding too much the counsels of men who were smarting under disappointed ambition, and alleged grievances at the hands of the North, the people of the South, underrating the depth and strength of that patriotism which had so long upheld the integrity of our common country, permitted themselves in an unfortunate moment to be dragged into a conflict, the avowed aim of which was to sever the Union—that Union which all the potent traditions of childhood, and the life-devotion and inspired utterances of our wisest and best-loved statesmen, had taught us to hold sacred.

        The institution of African slavery had for many years been the principal cause of that sectional bitterness which resulted in this unhappy rupture. On the one side it was upheld as a divine ordinance, patriarchal in its nature and benignant in its effects; on the other it was regarded as contrary to the precepts of the Christian religion, and subversive of the great principles of the Declaration of Independence.

        The institution was fastened upon this country during its colonial dependence upon England, despite the remonstrances of many of the colonies. Prior to 1776 it is estimated that 300,000 slaves were imported into the colonies which then declared their independence as the United States of America. In the early days of the Republic there was a very general desire expressed for the abolishment of slavery, some of the Southern States being prominently active to this end. Vermont led the way in 1777, before its admission into the Union. Other Northern States followed, generally passing what were called gradual emancipation acts. New York State passed an act of this kind in 1799, at which time it had upward of 20,000 slaves, and in 1819 adopted another act, declaring that all her slaves should be free in ten years, or by the 4th of July, 1827. Undoubtedly the Southern States would have pursued the same policy but for several circumstances which conspired to fix the institution more firmly upon them. Prominent among these was the invention of the cotton-gin, which at once advanced the culture of cotton to the front rank as a lucrative occupation, and thus rendered slavery more profitable to the Southern farmers. And so slavery continued to flourish, and take deeper root, notwithstanding the warnings of Washington, Jefferson, and many others of the most illustrious statesmen of both Northern and Southern birth, until it had thoroughly incorporated itself with the Southern portion of the great body politic. The slave population had increased from 893,041 in the year 1800, to nearly 4,000,000 in 1860.         Numerous anti-slavery societies had meantime been established throughout the North, pledged to agitate the important question to a satisfactory issue, and a great political party, organized in opposition to its extension, whose power first culminated in 1860 in the election of Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States.

At this juncture most of the slave-holding States seceded from the Union, and combining as the "Southern Confederacy," took the initiative in the most fearful strife of modern times. For four long and bloody years the whole land trembled with the shock of war. Marching armies swept over the fruitful fields of the South leaving in their train nothing but ruin and desolation. Flying squadrons thundered along beautiful southern valleys, and towns and cities crumbled beneath the storm of shot and shell, or vanished in a fiery flood. Every branch of industry was paralyzed, and few portions of the once prosperous South were exempt from the ravages of this terrible contest.

        The armies of the South fought desperately. But destiny had decreed that the equally brave and gallant patriots, who had so nobly and swiftly rallied to defend our flag, should finally march to lasting victory. The Union was restored—every bondman was now and forever freed, and the vast armies were disbanded, to forget the arts of war in cultivating those of peace.

        Unharmed beneath the havoc which had thus swept away the results a many years' industry, lay the fertile fields of the South, patiently awaiting their accustomed care, ready to smile again with bountiful harvests at the asking of peaceful labor. But laborers were few. Four millions of slaves who had been chiefly held to farm labor, had suddenly found their freedom, and freedom to their untaught simplicity too often meant the privilege of idleness. The relations existing between former masters and the freedmen were strange and anomalous. The whole labor system of the South was completely revolutionized, and it is found no easy matter to evoke order from the confusion.

        During the last year, it was officially stated that the effective  labor of the South had been reduced by the war, to one-third its former amount, and many careful and intelligent men placed the estimate at one-fourth. As a consequence, thousands of fenced and cleared fields are to be found throughout the South, untilled for the lack of laborers; and large areas of the most productive land, once thoroughly under cultivation, are now fast growing up with brush and briers. Before the war, large tracts of land were owned by individuals, and cultivated by slave-labor, which, under the present altered state of things, remain unproductive, and are offered to emigrants in farms of any required size, at very low prices.

        The tenor of not less than two thousand letters received by the writer within the past four months, from all parts of the South, has led him to believe that at no time since the first settlement of this country, has it offered to the toiling millions of the old world such an immense scope of fertile and improved land upon such advantageous terms.

        More than three years have now passed away since the war, and the people of the South have unceasingly invited—almost implored—the emigrant to come and see with his own eyes, the opportunities everywhere offered to him. But as yet, compared with the many who have sought homes in the West during this time, few have turned their faces toward the South. There is an obvious reason for this:—

        In this country soldiers must feel before they will fight, and it was hardly to be expected that vast numbers of plodding men, banded into a living force and frenzied with the increasing rancor and bitterness of a four years' deadly strife, could be suddenly discharged to the farm or the workshop without, for a time, holding on to the individual feeling of which their armies were the consolidated sum. The Southern soldiers, however, went to their homes proclaiming that they accepted the results of the war as final, and would cordially unite with the North in the re-establishment of harmony and concord. Many at the North believe that the words and deeds of the Southern people are far from showing that they have really intended to ratify and keep this compact; others claim that history records no instance where eight millions of high-spirited people have more quietly accepted such altered circumstances and changed relations, and where such a complete revolution of their hopes, and of matters affecting their material prosperity, has been followed by less general violence and disorder.

        For the first time in our country's history, the doors of southern emigration are now thrown widely open. From almost every part of the great South are heard the earnest Invitations, "come and possess the Land!" A people once proud and happy, with all the comforts of life around them, now writhing in poverty, their fortunes gone, their homes desolate, their hopes crushed, prostrate and helpless, are not only willing but anxious that the men of the North and East, with their money, their muscle, their skill and energy, should come and help rebuild, on the ruins and ashes of war, the coveted temple of prosperity. There is not a State in the South that would refuse a home to any honest northern man, with peaceful and industrious purpose. The people are kind, hospitable, and growing in intelligence. The climate is unsurpassed in the world. The soil is productive, yielding all manner of fruits in large return for small outlays. Railroads and manufactories are multiplying, and school-houses are springing up everywhere. The peaceful industries generally are being pursued with zeal. A considerable emigration in this direction has already set in, and will undoubtedly increase in proportion as the country becomes better known. The almost prodigal munificence of southern lands must inevitably draw to them in large numbers, wise and far-seeing farmers and young laborers, whose toil the comparatively rugged and reluctant northern farm scarcely repays.

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.