led them to consider the moral question involved in maintaining slavery where it is, by forcing them to think of the material profit or otherwise which will result to themselves and their children from carrying it where it is not, and their verdict is against you. I believe that, rather than be parties to its extension, rather than shift the responsibility of a decision upon those who are so unintelligent or uninformed as to be willing to settle in a territory where its prohibition is yet undecided-unless they are patriotic enough to go for the purpose of deciding it—they will accept anything else that you may place in the alternative. Be it disunion, be it war, foreign or domestic, it will not divert them from their purpose. Any further extension or annexation of slavery, under whatever While the interest of the South in occupying a larger area of soil, is one that neither justice, generosity, friendship, nor self-interest would lead us to regard, the interest of the nation, as a nation, in my judgment, is strongly opposed to anything which unnecessarily deters the voluntary determination of independent laborers towards any unoccupied land. In fact, I believe that it is of far more consequence to apply the doctrine of free trade to labor than to anything else. I have long been of the opinion that the proportion of capital nominally employed in agriculture in the Eastern Free States, though better there than in the Slave States, was far too great, as a matter of national economy. Though I esteem the advantages of a tolerably complete social organization rather more than is usual, I consider that land has an exorbitantly high value, relatively to the reward of inbor expended upon it, in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. I could state interesting facts in the social condition of the agricultural, compared with other classes, to support this view. I suppose that in Kansas, and I am sure that in Western Texas, if slavery did not interfere, a laboring man with a small capital in stock and tools, would gain wealth as fast as he could in New England, if he were obliged to pay a rent one hundred per cent. higher on the value at which his land would be generally uppraised. If this is so, the interest of the merchant and the manufacturer equally with that of the laborer, enlists them to oppose the extension of slavery. Who can doubt for a moment that it does so, comparing the value to commerce of the demand of Virginia with Pennsylvania; of Kentucky with Ohio; of Missouri with Illinois, and of Texas with Iowa and Minnesota. Every laborer, who is given the opportunity to work in Iowa, may be depended upon to soon call upon Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, Lowell, Trenton, and Pittsburgh, for ten times as much as any slave who is carried to Texas. pretense or covering it is attempted, will only be effected in contemptuous defiance of the people of the Free States. I am, and I trust long to remain, Your fellow-citizen, and friend, FRED. LAW OLMSTED. INDEX. CHAPTER I. ROUTE TO TEXAS. Southern Phenomena, 1; Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 2; Cumberland, 3; Over the Blue Ridge; Wheeling, 4; The Ohio, 5; The Ohio Vineyards, 6; Cincinnati, 7; Pork, 9; To Lexington; The Woodland Pastures of Kentucky, 10; Pork on Foot, 11; "Cash Clay," from the Kentucky Point of View, 12; Kentucky Farming, 14; Corn-bread Begins, 15; Lexington, 16; Ashland, 17; Lexington as a Residence, 18; Slaves in Factories; Toward Louisville, 19; Self-defense, 20; Black Conversation; Fugitive Slave Law, 21; Louisville; Down the Ohio, 22; Steamboat Time, 23; The River Banks, 24; Smithland, mouth of the Cumberland, 25; The “D. A. Tomkins," 27; Crutches and Shoals, 29; Life and Scenery on the Cumberland, 30; Iron Works; Negro Wages, 32; Live Freight, 34; Nashville, 35; Return to the Ohio; The "Sultana," 37; The Mississippi, 38. CHAPTER II. ROUTE ACROSS EASTERN TEXAS. Routes into Texas, 43; Red River, 44; Our Mount, 45; A Red River Plantation, 46; The Road before us, 53: Piney Wood Travel; Emigrant Trains. 55; A Yellow Gentleman; Road Talk, 57; Land Locating; Cotton Hauling 59; The Entertainment for Man and Beast, 60; Worn out Land; The People. 62; Spanish Remains; The Progress of Dilapidation, 63; Our Old Frontier The First House in Texas, 64; Slave Life, 66; The Red-land District, 67; San Augustine; A Texan Fête, 68; Manners, 69; Packing the Mule, 70. Additions to the Company, 72; Our Experience with Arms, 73; Off Again. 75; The Country, 76; Piety in Negroes; "Done gone," 77; Nacogdoches, 78: Supplies, 80; The Angelina; Camp Diet, 81; The Neches; Worn-out Plantations, 82; A Sunday in Camp; Alimentary Substances, 83; Sunday Habits, 84; Black Temperance, 85; A Roasted Broad-axe, 86; A Windfall, CHAPTER III. ROUTE THROUGH WESTERN TEXAS. Over the Colorado; The Prairies, 129; Western Landscapes; A Mule Lesson, of Expense and Profit of a Cotton Plantation, 206; The Comanche Spring CHAPTER IV. A TRIP TO THE COAST. A Mule Spirt, 227; A Wet Norther in Camp, 228; A Black Life, 229; The CHAPTER V. A TRIP OVER THE FRONTIER. Frontier Trains, 273; A Cattle Drove for California, 274 Castroville; History |