the general government, and the work is completed. It is estimated, that there exist in the United States, about four hundred thousand free blacks; (by the census of 1840, there were three hundred and eighty-six thousand, two hundred and ninety-three.) At fifty dollars per head, the ratio fixed by the American Colonization Society, their entire removal would cost twenty millions of dollars; but as their colonization is not the work of a day or a year, but of a series of years, only a small portion of this amount would be required at any one time. Say it could be accomplished in ten years, which is probably the shortest practicable period, two millions of dollars annually would be required; a mere nominal sum, surely, when compared with the actual resources of the government. This amount may be raised by direct appropriations from the
North by the Southern States acting against the Constitution: what complaint would there not be; what memorials, remonstrances and legislative resolutions would come down upon us? How would this Hall be filled with lobby members, coming here to press their claims upon Congress? Why, sir, many of the border counties in the slaveholding States have been obliged to give up their slaves almost entirely. It was stated in the newspapers the other day, that a few counties named, in Maryland, had, by the efforts of the abolitionists, within six months, upon computation, lost one hundred thousand dollars worth of slaves. A gentleman of the highest standing, from Delaware, assured me the other day, that that little State lost, each year, at least that value of such property in the same way. A heavy tax to be levied on a single congressional district by abolitionists!
"Suppose a proportional burden was inflicted on the northern States How would Massachusetts bear the loss annually of one million one hundred thousand dollars, not only inflicted without law, but against an express provision of the Constitution? We may infer, from the complaint she has made of a slight inconvenience imposed on her, by that regulation of South Carolina, which prevented ship-captains from carrying free negro servants to Charleston." — Speech of T. L. Clingman, of North Carolina.
