The Daily Union

"MILLIONS FOR SLAVERY"—ESTIMATES OF SEWARD ORGAN—THE BOOT ON THE OTHER LEG.

We find in the Buffalo Express—a conspicuous organ of W. H. Seward and his anti-slavery coalition—a leading article bearing the significant caption of "Millions for Slavery—Nothing for Commerce." In this article we are told that southern slavery "has ever been a pet institution of government, and has grown fat and strong from the public treasury. Each President, in turn, has caressed and patted the thing on the head, while the Secretary of the Treasury has constantly fed it from the choicest pap afforded from the government resources. In this way it has been reared as a 'spoiled child' desiring and coveting all that it sees, and proving fretful and uncomfortable if its every want is not speedily gratified."

To establish the charge that this "pet institution" of the South "has grown fat and strong from the public treasury," the following are given by our Buffalo philosopher as some of the items of the expenses incurred by the general government on account of slavery:

Purchasing Louisiana in 1803..... $23,530,000
Florida from Spain in 1821............. 6,490,000
Florida war with the Indians in 1834-38.......... 32,244,000
Mississippi from Georgia......... ......5,532,000
War to obtain Texas, 1846-'47.............. .....217,174,000
Paid to Texas for sham claims in 1850-55........ 16,000,000
Mesilla Valley, to Santa Anna, 1853........... 10,000,000
Total................... ...$310,970,000

Now, we shall proceed to take this bill of costs to pieces, and if we do not prove that "figures can lie," we think we shall satisfy the reader that they may be used to suppress very material facts, and to establish the most ridiculous conclusions. Let us look, then, into these items of the Express, of the expenses of "the pet institution," in connexion with this outcry of "millions for slavery— Nothing for commerce."

The first item relates to the Louisiana Territory; and the cost of its purchase is set down at $23,530,000. Grant it—grant that the territory purchased was a slaveholding territory: were there no advantages in the purchase to the North, and "nothing for commerce?" As we understand it, the great object of the purchase was to secure the outlet of the Mississippi river, and its magnificent and prolific valley, for the benefit of commerce. In the way of trade this acquisition, since 1803, has been to the free States and Territories contiguous to the Mississippi and its tributaries equal in value to at least one thousand millions of dollars.

Then, again, as parts of this Louisiana purchase, the North have secured the flourishing State of Iowa, the beautiful and thrifty Territory of Minnesota, and the tremendous Territory of Nebraska, to say nothing of the chances for Kansas, and the prairies to the south of it. All this is an offset, which cannot be measured in dollars and cents; but the public lands in this Louisiana purchase sold, and to be sold, will probably foot up in the end at the Treasury Department a gross amount in hard cash of not less than two hundred millions of dollars, exclusive of grants to northern railroads.

We find, then, that the account on both sides, touching the Louisiana purchase, stands as follows:

Purchase of Louisiana $23,530,000
Actual benefits to northern trade from the acquisition of the mouths of the Mississippi..................1,000,000,000
Public lands, in cash......................... 200,000,000
Total..................... 1,200,000,000
Deduct outlay for slavery.. 23,530,000
Balance, clear gain by the Union......... 1,176,470,000

Over eleven hundred millions clear gain. "Answer a fool according to his folly," saith the Scriptures. This balance will pay for the purchase of Florida, the Florida wars from first to last, and the purchase of Mississippi from Georgia, to say nothing of the revenues and materials from the public lands in those States; and we shall still have a margin to spare of a thousand millions in favor of the Louisiana purchase.

The next three items are:

The war to obtain Texas, 1846-'47...............$217,174,000
Texas claims, 1850-55. 16,000,000
The Gadsden treaty..... 10,000,000
Add Mexican indemnities, 1848 15,000,000
And we have a total of. 258,164,000

This is a large sum expended in behalf of the "pet institution" of the government, resulting from the annexation of Texas. But let us look at the other side of the account. The war and the peace with Mexico have given the North the splendid State of California, whose seaport of San Francisco is the New York of the Pacific coast. But we must not overlook the solid specie dividends of California, nearly the whole of which have been the substantial gains of the North. Since the discovery of the gold washings on the Rio de los Americanos, in 1848, the export of California gold, manifested and in private hands, to the Atlantic northern States, has been, we dare say, fully up to three hundred and fifty millions of dollars.

Our northern account with southern slavery, therefore concerning Texas, the war with Mexico, &c., is as follows:

Total expenses..... .$258,174,000
Total profits, in solid gold.. 350,000,000
Balance, clear gain by the Union..... 91,826,000

Or, in round numbers, ninety-two millions of dollars!

And how does this preposterous rubbish of "millions for slavery and nothing for commerce" apply to California? The acquisition of that country, and the discovery of the gold there, have given a greater impulse to our commerce, domestic and foreign, Atlantic and Pacific, than would have been given to it, without California, had a hundred millions a year for the last half century been appropriated to the improvement of rivers and harbors.

We think our case is made out. In our purchases of and wars for southern territory neither the public treasury nor the northern States have been the losers. On the contrary, while the treasury has been replenished from these "acquisitions on account of the pet institution of southern slavery"—while our commerce, from the sea to the rivers and the lakes, has been vastly benefited—and while the North has secured some of the richest and fairest of these acquisitions—we have secured with them the whole region of the gold country, and the monopoly of its bountiful diggings, wet and dry, the ports of California, the isthmus passages, and the command of the Pacific trade.

In view of such splendid advantages as these, derived from our outlays on account of the "pet institution," we are under a debt of the heaviest obligations to the South. This debt cannot be cancelled in dollars and cents—it can only be met by the exercise of that spirit of compromise and concession towards the South which distinguished the fathers of the constitution. In the exercise of this spirit, should the South give shape and form to the State institutions of Kansas, it will be a small concession to them to admit the State thus organized into the Union, in consideration of the balance due the South on account of the Louisiana purchase, every inch of which belonged to them on the date of its acquisition, from the Balize to the British boundary above the head springs of the Mississippi. We can spare Kansas to the South, if they win it according to the law and the constitution, and still hold a prodigious slice of the original French Louisiana.

Let our Buffalo cotemporary try it again. His statistics upon the text "Millions for slavery, nothing for commerce," recoil against himself and his cause. It is true that in our purchase of southern territory, and in our acquisitions from southern territorial wars, we of the North have secured the lion's share of the plunder, and it is folly to deny it. The outlet of the Mississippi and the gold mines of California settle the question against us—for the past, the present, and for all time to come.