45. Now, if we would increase
the wealth of the country only one tenth in the next ten years, by the
gradual disappearance of slavery (far below the results of the Census),
then our wealth being now $16,159,616,068, the effect of such increase
would be to make our wealth in 1870, instead of $36,593,450,585, more
than sixteen hundred millions greater, and in 1880, instead of
$82,865,868,849, over three billions six hundred millions, or more than
three times our present debt.
Before the close of this letter, it will be shown that the difference,
_per capita_, of the annual products of Massachusetts and Maryland
exceeds $150. As to the other Southern States, the excess is much
greater. Now, if the annual products of the South were increased $150
each _per capita_ (still far below Massachusetts) by the exclusion of
slavery, then multiplying the total population of the South, 12,229,727,
by 150, the result would be an addition to the annual value of the
products of the South of $1,834,456,050, and in the decade,
$18,344,580,500. This change would not be immediate, but there can be no
doubt that with the vastly greater natural advantages of the South, the
superiority of free to slave labor, the immense immigration, especially
from Europe to the South, aided by the Homestead Bill, and the
conversion of large plantations into small farms, an addition of at
least one billion of dollars would be made in a decade, by the
exclusion of slavery, to the value of the products of the South.
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