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Productions-Shipping Ports-Religion, Education, &c. 435

hogs, always selecting the fattest of the drove. They are frequently killed while going into the cornfield, by persons who take stands for them at their usual place of getting over, or when they return from the field. An overseer on Lake St. Joseph informed me that he shot one just after he had reached the ground in getting into the field; and in his efforts to get out of the field, he made a complete gap in the rail fence, and scattered the things about as if they were but playthings.

The improvements consist generally of very neat residences, and gin-houses and out-buildings of a very substantial character. There is an air of neatness and comfort in the dwellings which is very attractive. Hospitality is proverbialthough the untiring ambition to make money prevents much sociable intercourse.

It

The principal shipping points in the parish are Ashwood, Hard Times, St. Joseph, and Waterproof. St. Joseph is the parish site, and has a court-house and jail, a tavern and two stores. contains the residence of the marshal of the southern district of Louisiana, as well as several very able members of the bar. The population cannot contain more than fifty. St. Joseph, on a court day, or

animating interest-lawyers of high standing from a distance, the important interests at stake, citizens crowding into the little town, and all partaking of the bounties of life at the same table, as if they were all of one family, and needed only the name of brotherhood to make them so.

The productions of this parish are the same as in all the southern country, corn and cotton. The corn crop in last year (1851) was far below the usual average, on account of an unprecedented drought, and an insect which infested the roots, while very young, called the chinck on some court days, presents a scene of bug. It has puzzled many how to circumvent the little creatures, and to make corn notwithstanding. This year the insects were not so bad, and pleasant rains produced an abundant harvest, sometimes to the extent of fifty bushels to the acre. There were in 1851, 16,381 acres cultivated in corn. The culture of cotton is persevered in, and attended with great success. There were raised, in 1851, 46,223 bales of cotton, and there were 45,823 acres planted in cotton. The largest crop known to have been made was raised on Mrs. Ogden's place in 1839, which was nineteen bales to the hand. The overseer was grieved that he could not make twenty. It is useless to detail the manner in which corn and cotton are cultivated, but merely to say, that the most approved instruments are used in the cultivation, and cultivated in a way which experience has sanctioned to be the best, and carried on with a spirit and energy which neither slackens nor slumbers. There is but one new place opened this year, that of Mr. Daniel's, on Van Buren Bayou. "Lands are estimated at from 10 to 30 dollars per acre.

Planters living back are, of necessity, compelled to keep their roads in good condition. There has been of late years great improvements in this respect. Some haul the cotton to the Mississippi, others wait a rise in the back streams to take it out this way. If the numerous bayous which intersect the parish were properly cleansed, no country could exceed it in internal navigation. Nature has placed them as drains, and man's labor could make them highly auxiliary to the end for which his labor has been appropriated.

RELIGION AND EDUCATION.-Religious services are performed every Sabbath in various parts of the parish by the Methodists and Presbyterians. There are one hundred and twenty white members of the Methodist Church, and one hundred and three colored. What the number of the Presbyterians is I have not been informed. I do not believe that there is as yet any organized society. There are four Methodist preachers residing in the parish, and one Presbyterian. There are three Methodist churches

the one at Waterproof is a beautiful edifice, and will cost $4,000. There are schools in nearly every neighborhood, supported partially by the school-fund. The salaries of teachers are from five hundred to a thousand dollars. There are 232 persons between the ages of six and sixteen; also lawyers, and doctors, and planters, of great intelligence, but I know of no one whose profession is purely literary.

With a brief statement of the progress of population from the settlement of this country to this time, and a brief history of the parish judges who have conducted the business of the people through the trying emergencies which characterized its settlement, I will conclude.

In 1810, the parish of Concordia, which embraced all the country lying from the

mouth of Red River to the Arkansas There were no regular packet-boats in line, contained 2,895 souls. In 1815, those days, passing and repassing; and if the whole state did not exceed 90,000 the parish judge sometimes took an oc souls-but few Americans arrived be- casional steamboat, ten chances to one fore the purchase of Louisiana. After he would have to float back on a flat1815 was the greatest influx of popula- boat. But the dignity of the office was tion. Concordia is now divided into four not compromised, for their duties were parishes, and constitutes a very import- important, and their discomforts were in ant fragment of the cotton region. keeping with the state of the country. Tensas parish contains 902 free persons, Judge Ogden was the father of three and 8,673 negroes. There was paid in distinguished lawyers of that name, now three years quite a large sum for levee residents of this state-two of whom purposes. live in New-Orleans, and one in the parish of Rapides.

The first parish judge who acted under the territorial government, was a gentleHe was followed by Judge George S. man by the name of Ross. He was Guion, who administered the office from succeeded by Dr. David Lattimore, who 1828 to 1836, and was highly esteemed still lives in Concordia at the extreme and respected for the mildness of his old age of about ninety years. He was manners, and his clear characteristics as followed by Edward Broughton, Esq., judge. Parts of the country, however, who, not being a lawyer, and leaving were in a state of rudeness, morally as the administration of affairs to his clerk, well as physically, and some of the newcaused great confusion and irregularity ly settled neighborhoods were wild and in the office. There were many amusing stories related of the judge; among others, there was one-which, of course, must have been apocryphal, as intending to disparage the office, being considered by some as having all the honors and emoluments concentrated in it-to this effect, that having settled a small estate of five hundred dollars belonging to a Kentuckian, who had died in Concordia, he wrote to the friends of the deceased in Kentucky to remit one hundred dollars, to pay the balance due him for fees. He was followed by John Perkins, Esq., the venerable and respected citizen and model planter, now and for many years residing at Somerset, in the parish of Madison. Judge P. has a son, John Perkins, Jr., who wears the judicial ermine with distinguished honor, and who has presided in this district. The next was Robert Ogden, Esq., who administered the office little more than two years, from 1826 to 1828. He was a very worthy man, and possessed of considerable learning, but being advanced in years, and of feeble constitution, he was not able to undergo the fatigue, and surmount the difficulties attendant upon the discharge of the duties of parish judge of the extensive district of Concordia. In order to make inventories and sales of succession property in remote parts of the parish, it was frequently necessary to undertake journeys of more than a hundred miles, subject to many inconveniences and annoyances.

lawless, and not disposed to look upon the
parish judge with favor or treat him
with much courtesy. Indeed, the office
was in such bad odor among some of
the frontier people, owing either to per
sonal prejudice against those who had
preceded him, or some more substantial
cause, that for the
himself from personal violence whilst
purpose of protecting
among them, he was compelled to
wear a brace of pistols openly belted
around him.

not last long, and before he resigned, a This state of things did complete change was manifest. Judge Guion is now a resident of the parish of Lafourche Interior, a planter, and holds a distinguished place in the affections of his fellow-citizens. He was elected a member of the convention in 1845, assisted in framing that constitution, and was elected to the same office in 1852 as member of the convention, when it be came expedient to change the economy which prevailed in 1845, and to engraft some new features which were agreeable to the age in which we live. The next was Judge Keeton, who was killed by the falling of a house during the great tornado of 1840. Judge Dunlap succeeded him, and he was followed by George C. McWhorter, at present State Treasurer.

In Tensas Parish, Judge Montgomery was judge after the organization, who, having served a year or two, was followed by Judge Bradstreet, who held the reins till the office was abolished in 1845.

Alabama Direct Trade and Exchange Company.

437

ART. IV.-DIRECT TRADE OF THE SOUTH.

[In addition to the very able and valuable papers we have from time to time published in the Review upon the subject of the Direct Trade of the South, we recommend to the attention of our readers the following, which, though strained and speculative in many respects, embodies some sound and wholesome truths. There is a propriety in referring to such papers on the eve of another Convention at Memphis for the promotion of southern trade, and our only regret is that we cannot be present and take part in its deliberations, as we have made it a point hitherto to do.]

The Committee of Ways and Means, stances, that they should be confined, reto whom was referred the bill incorporating the Alabama Direct Trade and Exchange Company, have duly considered the same, and believing that there is no one subject in which all our citizens have a deeper or more lasting interest than a speedy and radical change in our import trade, beg leave to make the following report:

strained, punished, and, at times, even destroyed. They, too, like individuals, in obtaining or making locations on the earth's surface, have advantages or disadvantages more or less suited to their peculiar mental, moral or physical organization, propensities, habits and occupations. The country we now occupy, before it was discovered by the EuroThe skilful and prudent merchant, in pean race, was admirably suited in all selecting a site for extensive, profitable respects to the wild, savage, roving, deand durable commerce, will examine structive propensities of the Indian. carefully the whole surrounding country, By nature free and idle, he could neithconsider well its climates, soils and er be civilized nor enslaved, without deseasons; its valleys, hills and mountains; its vegetable, animal and mineral productions; its lakes, rivers and roads; its bays, seas, gulfs and oceans, with their peculiar currents, tides and winds; look well to the natural disposition, capacity, occupation, wealth, habits and customs, opinions, political, religious and moral, of the whole sur rounding population. His interest is identical with the greatest prosperity and tranquillity of all his customers. He is, therefore, the natural ally of the best and most stable government.

Civilization, the arts and sciences, first appeared in the East. Their course has been westward; as the world is but a great national race-ground, in process of time they will again reach their starting point.

The Israelites, Grecians, Romans and Spaniards have exerted a powerful influence on the destinies of mankind. They were all extensive slaveholding countries in their days of progress and power. Nations, like individuals, have their birth, infancy, manhood and old age; like them, they have their peculiarities, their inferior or superior mental, moral and physical power and physical or ganization; like them, they have their fevers, consumptions, epidemics, and chronic infections, and the good of mankind requires, under certain circum

stroying his existence or happiness. In selecting a place of residence, all he desired was a wilderness to rove in, and game to gratify his destructive propensities and furnish him food and raiment.

The African, when left to himself, can only exist and be happy under a tropical sun, where summer is continual, clothing not a necessity, and food can be obtained by little effort from the spontaneous productions of the country. Freedom to him, in a cold climate, is a curse, compared to slavery under an intelligent master, in a mild one. In their native country they are a nation of human beings at rest, and likely to continue so, until highly stimulated by some race different in physical organization. If, by pestilence, the whole race in their own country were suddenly cut off, Europe and America would only feel it in an advance on ivory and a few spices. The energetic white European or American requires for the full development of his capacity and disposition, a country possessing all the natural elements of the three great pursuits of civilized man, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. That country combining all these in the most extensive and compact form, in the most convenient location, is, above all others, the best calculated to promote his own happiness, and enable him to be useful to surrounding nations.

In our portion of the continent we have, so far, followed a different course. We expelled from amongst us the Indian, and kept the African entirely under our control and direction. We, although in infancy as to the ordinary age of a government, are already a giant in physical power, with strides so long and rapid as to strike with wonder and admiration all surrounding nations.

The white European, in the course of terial and government skill, to hers. his progress and enterprise, discovered She has a home population of twentythe American continent, on parts of seven millions on a territory about the which the attempt has been made by size of Georgia and Florida, with adlegislation to bring the Indian and Afri- vantages in position, soil, climate, mincan up to a political equality with the eral and vegetable productions, of not white man. Political equality neces- more than one half of theirs. Her sarily brings about social equality; social colonial dominions are scattered over equality produces amalgamation. This every quarter of the globe in all latipolitical and social equality, with the tudes. Within them she has large posconsequent amalgamation, has brought sessions, devoted to the culture of coton premature consumption and rapid de- ton, rice, sugar and indigo. Every efcay in the whole political and social fort within her skill and power has mass, which threatens to bring about pre- been exerted to excel our country in the mature dissolution and lasting imbecili- production of cotton. Notwithstanding ty. her cotton region contains a population of more than one hundred millions of free laborers, which she calls her subjects, who are employed at mere nominal wages, so far, all her efforts have proved abortive, and must, regardless of soil or climate, unless she establishes our system of African slave labor. The consequence is, that she is dependent on our slaveholding states for a supply of cotton, on which, to a great extent, depends There exists in our system of African her commercial and manufacturing slavery a powerful tendency to elevate, prosperity. In order to obtain commerand keep free and independent, the cial preference in the markets of Europe white race. Every citizen within these and America, in favor of her colonial states sees slavery by color, by name, commodities, she calls them free-labor and nature, and from the time he can productions, and, by this device, has reflect, sets himself above a slave. So succeeded in humbugging a numerous long as lands are low and labor profita- class of short-sighted customers in both ble, there is no necessity for the poor countries. She has a company called white man to become dependent or a the "East India Company," who rule slave. The poor white man and the and govern her extensive East India slave owner are alike interested in possessions. From the force of circumcheap lands and high wages; their in- stances, her Canadian colonies are goterests are, therefore, identical. There verned with more liberality and justice is a powerful tendency in all republican than any other portion of her extensive states like our free states, to run into the dominions. She fears their revolt and European system of high taxes to favor our assistance. Her public debt is particular classes. As population be- eight hundred millions pounds sterling, a comes dense, capital puts down the very considerable portion of which was wages of labor, and can enslave the la- created to abolish African slavery in her borer. West India Islands, and has resulted in the ruin of the whites and blacks on those islands, and a destruction of their commercial prosperity. To pay the interest on this enormous public debt, as the taxes are levied most heavily on the laboring classes and all goes to the higher classes, a large majority of her population are in a much worse state of slavery than the African race are in the slaveholding states of our Union. To pay this tax, and obtain a scanty supply of food and raiment, requires constant labor. If affliction, by disease or old

Great Britain is the first commercial nation of the age, unless we may except our own country. Her commercial power, for many years, enabled her to be mistress of the seas. She is now the first manufacturing country of the world. On commerce and manufactures, all her present political power and greatness depend. Any power capable of striking a death-blow at her commerce and manufactures, must necessarily be her superior in any military contest waged with equal campaign ma

Tendency of African Slavery-Great Britain and her Colonies. 439

age, disqualifies any from capacity to labor, they are thrown out of doors, paupers, upon public charity. Of this class there are now, in Great Britain, over three millions; and in Europe not less than twenty millions; a living fungus upon European governments. The accumulated miseries flowing from their system of government, keep the population in a feverish revolutionary spirit. To preserve law and order, and collect the heavy taxes, requires in England a standing army of one hundred thousand men, stationed ali over her territory; yet outbreaks and insurrections are common occurrences. Notwithstanding all this, it is said Great Britain has the freest and best government in Europe. We know heavy taxes, and standing armies to collect them and enforce obedience to unequal laws, abject slavery of the masses under the delusive name of free laborers, and an uncertainty in the future to every one, are general over Europe. The wealthy have no security from poverty by revolution, and the poor no security from the cannon, the sword, halter or dungeon, for revolt.

ment, that they should be opposed, checked or stopped. Great Britain made a second attempt to subjugate or check our power, in her last war with us. Failing in both instances, she now seeks to weaken us by attacking and urging others to attack, our system of African slavery.

There are four prominent, grand divisions within our present extensive boundaries: our commercial and manufacturing states, with their principal outlets through Massachusetts, New-York, and Pennsylvania; the agricultural states, with their principal outlets through Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, on the Atlantic and Gulf coast; California, with the Bay of San Francisco, and Oregon, with the Columbia River, as their principal outlets on the Pacific.

Whatever may be said of California gold, Oregon's farming capacity, or commercial and manufacturing prosperity of the New-England or Northern States, a close examination into the Southern Atlantic, Gulf, and Mississippi Valley States, must convince every one that there lie, congregated together, in the most compact form, all the elements, in the highest degree, of agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing superiority. The general progress and power of the Union requires that the resources of this section be wisely and skilfully directed.

Great Britain, by unequal and inexpedient laws, forced upon her North American colonies the alternative of abject submission to unauthorized aggressions, or manly resistance in defence of their most sacred rights. After ten years' unregarded remonstrances, hope was lost, and the sword drawn; the contest appeared an unequal one, but seven Commerce is the heart of circulation years' war ended in the complete inde- in making exchanges of agricultural and pendence of our original thirteen colo- manufacturing productions to the whole nies. It was a great loss of political population. Any policy of the governpower and sectional aggrandizement to ment or habits of the community that the mother country. To the people of has a tendency to turn commerce out of the United States, and many others, it its natural channels, within the same has been a far greater gain. They government, is a drawback on the healabolished the British system of govern- thy and vigorous action of the whole ment, which holds the citizens to be system. subjects and subordinate to the King and Our navigable rivers and lakes have other departments of the government, their bluffs, which are natural landings. and made the citizens of the respective To those bluffs roads can be made, with states sovereign, and the governor more or less labor, of higher or lower President, and legislative bodies all grades. When made, they are more subordinate to the will of the people, convenient and less expensive for a cerproperly expressed through their con- tain surrounding population, as highventions. ways and landings, through which to send off or dispose of their surplus productions, than any other road or landing. The same landing and road is also the most convenient and least expensive, naturally, through which to obtain their purchases of other articles.

The love of power and aggrandizement has been in all ages, amongst individuals and nations, prominent and constant. They are powerful elements in human progress, and it is only when unjust means are used for their attain

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