The proposition was
addressed to all the States, and embraced the whole number of Slaves.
"According to the census of 1860 there were then nearly four million
Slaves in the Country; from natural increase they exceed that number
now. At even the low average of $300, the price fixed by the
Emancipation Act for the Slaves of this District, and greatly below
their real worth, their value runs up to the enormous sum of
$1,200,000,000; and if to that we add the cost of deportation and
colonization, at $100 each, which is but a fraction more than is
actually paid--by the Maryland Colonization Society, we have
$400,000,000 more.
"We were not willing to impose a tax on our people sufficient to pay the
interest on that sum, in addition to the vast and daily increasing debt
already fixed upon them by exigencies of the War, and if we had been
willing, the Country could not bear it. Stated in this form the
proposition is nothing less than the deportation from the Country of
$1,600,000,000 worth of producing labor, and the substitution, in its
place, of an interest-bearing debt of the same amount.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111