Daily National Republican

Promoting Emigration to the South.

[From the New York Evening Post.]

Rev. J. D. B. DeBow has written a letter to provisional Governor Perry, of South Carolina, in which he discusses the problem of repopulating the southern states. How to turn the tide of emigration southward is the question—to which Mr. De Bow replies: "The South must throw her immense uncultivated domain into the market at a low price; reduce the quantity of land held by individual proprietors, and resort to intelligent and vigorous measures at the earliest moment, to induce an influx of population and capital from abroad,"

He gives a remarkable table, to show how greatly large estates preponderate in the South. In Kentucky, roughly, thirty-three farms in a thousand were over one thousand acres in extent; In Ohio less than nineteen in a thousand. In South Carolina two farms out of nine were over one thousand acres; in Pennsylvania less than seventeen in a thousand farms were over one thousand acres: and the comparison holds good with other states.

The first thing, says Mr. DeBow, is to divide these great estates, and to offer the surplus lands at such prices as will tempt emigrants. But secondly, he adds, to bring emigration to the South, southern men must "consult and abide by the experience of those states and communities which have grown populous and rich by the success which attended their efforts to secure immigration."

In accordance with this, he suggests a body of commissioners for the encouragement of emigration, to be composed of delegates from all the southern states, whose business it shall be to procure and disseminate information of the price of lands, the qualities of the mineral and other natural wealth, the climate, production and other advantages which should induce men to settle permanently in the Southern states. The suggestion is excellent: and we will add that such a commission, if it is formed, will find very valuable assistance in the immense and important body of statistical information contained in the three volumes of De Bow's "Industrial Resources of the Southern States." The political philosophy of these Essays is singularly and ingeniously wrong; but the facts and figures have great value.

But this commission will find, when they come to "consult the experience of those states which have grown populous and rich by their success in securing immigration," that something more than merely smoothing the way for emigrants has been done there. The emigrant to one of our western states whether from New England or from the old world, asks not only whether land is cheap, but whether speech and person and property are safe in the region to which he is turning his eyes. He cares more, as the whole course of emigration shows, about abundant schools and churches than about a mild climate; he asks more anxiously about the right of free discussion than about the natural fertility of the soil: he inquires more narrowly whether all men in that region have a fair and equal chance, whether labor is respected, and its rewards sure, than whether he can get land for a song, or raise the most profitable staples.

In short, the whole history of the vast migration westward, which has built up the upper Mississippi Valley, proves that, however ignorant themselves, emigrants, from whatever part of Europe they came to our shores, sought out, with an unfailing instinct, those regions where they could secure not only cheap lands, but the rights of free speech, education for their children, and respect for themselves. Nothing is more wonderful than this instinct, which carried hundreds of thousands to the far Northwest, where the summer is short, the winter severe, and the conditions of the laborer's life are necessarily hard, though nearer to them, on landing, lay cheaper lands and a milder climate—only cursed with slavery, which robbed the workmen of esteem, and deprived his children of schooling.

Considering this, it will be the part of wisdom in any southern state which desires to attract emigrants, to show that it has adopted a policy encouraging common schools and securing to the laboring man all the rights of a freeman in a republic. Should such a commission as Mr. De Bow suggests be assembled, we should advise them to consult first of all, and most carefully, the common school system of those northern states which have attracted the greatest number of emigrants. Let them ascertain how these states began and how they continued in this matter: what was their policy, and how it was carried out. Let it once become certainly known in Europe that Georgia has a system of public schools as permanently founded, as well cared for, as zealously extended as New York, and there will be no difficulty in turning the tide of emigration towards her borders.

Fortunately for the southern states, as Mr. De Bow remarks, and as we have frequently shown, the period has arrived in the settlement of our country, when emigration is compelled by natural obstacles to turn back from further advance westward. Our western settlements have reached the verge of the great interior desert; they already trench upon sterile soil; they now occupy lands so distant from a market, that the farmer's products become next to valueless, through the expensiveness of transportation. Just at this moment, auspiciously for itself, the South opens to receive the tide. It needs only the promise of free education, of thorough protection to person and property, and of an equal chance to all, to give to the southern states the men they need.

There is, moreover, a source of repopulation for almost all the southern states, which it is well worth while for southern men to bear in mind. Any system which will effectually draw emigrants to them, will keep within their borders the great mass of native population of which the South has been drained for many years, which has sought in the free northern states schools and an equal chance in life. If we take South Carolina as an example, Mr. Tarver, a writer in De Bow's "Industrial Resources," tells us that "thirty per cent of the [white] population of that state, in the short space of ten years, broke all the social and individual ties which bind man to the place of his birth and sought their fortunes in other lands." Nor have we far to seek for at least one of the causes of this strange and fatal depopulation of a state which had not, by far, the average density of population of the States. Governor Seabrook, of South Carolina, in a message quoted, we believe, also by Mr. De Bow, wrote:

"Education has been provided by the legislature but for one class of the citizens of the state, which is the wealthy class. For the poorer classes of society it has done nothing, since no organized system has been adopted for that purpose. * * * Ten years ago twenty thousand adults, besides children, were unable to read or write, in South Carolina. Has our free school system dispelled any of this ignorance? Are there not reasonable fears to be entertained that the number has increased since that period.'

What is true of South Carolina applies equally to other southern states which have for many years poured a large and constant stream of emigration into the free states. If we take the census report of 1850, which Mr. De Bow superintended, we find that the slave states had sent nearly six times as many of their population into free territory as the free states had sent into slave territory. We find that Kentucky had sent on to free soil sixty thousand more persons than all the free states had sent into slave soil. Little Maryland had sent more than half as many persons into free territory as all the free states had sent into slave territory. Virginia has sent sixty thousand more persons into free territory than all the free states had sent upon the slave soil. Kentucky and Tennessee were but little behind the other states we have mentioned. This shows the course of emigration. But it is even more clearly shown in some interesting tables contained in the last census report—that for 1860. In a table of "Internal Migration" we find that there were in the country, and returned by the census-takers, 899,700 persons born in Virginia, but living in the other states; 344,765 persons born in Tennessee but living in other states; 272,606 persons born in North Carolina, but living in other states; 137,258 persons born in Maryland but living in other states; 32,493 persons born in Delaware but living in other states; 331,904 persons born in Kentucky but living in other states.

Now it is true that not all these 1,518,726 persons who have migrated from only the border line of slave states were living in the free states, but by far the greater number were. The "course of internal migration" is exhibited in a table of the Census Report. There we find that emigrants from Virginia have removed "chiefly" to Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, and Indiana; from Kentucky they have removed chiefly to Missouri, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. From Maryland they have removed chiefly to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia. From Delaware they have migrated chiefly to Pennsylvania Maryland, Ohio and Indiana. From Tennessee they have removed chiefly to Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Illinois.

Finally, the southern states will gain their most valuable accretions, if they adopt a wise and liberal policy, by the migration of persons from the northern states. From this source they have hitherto received the merest trifle, as is shown by the table mentioned above. From the official figures there given we get the remarkable fact, that while from the southern tier of slave states the migration was chiefly into other slave states, in a western and northwestern direction towards the free states, and from the border slave states the migration was chiefly into the free states, and into that slave state (Missouri) which promised first to become free, from the free states, which sent forth also an immense stream of emigrants, there was no emigration to slave states; all, with insignificant exceptions, removed to other free states. 398,700 Virginians had removed chiefly to Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana; but of 582,512 Pennsylvanians just across the line, it is recorded that they removed "chiefly" to Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. 331,904 Kentuckians had removed "chiefly" to Missouri, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio; but 593,043 persons born across the river, in free Ohio, had removed chiefly to Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. These contrasts hold good of the whole table. From no free state has there been emigration to the slave states.

The southern states have before them a glorious and enviable future. With a wise and just policy, encouraging popular education protecting freedom of speech and press, respecting the rights of all, and honoring the laborer, they cannot help but quickly repair their losses; and the marvellous story of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and others of the new states of the far Northwest—but yesterday a wilderness, now teeming with an industrious, intelligent and prosperous population—shows how quickly the rich South may fill up her borders.