A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings

The body of the peeple are ignorant. I once saw a copy of instructions given to a representativ by hiz constituents, with more than a hundred names subscribed; three fifths of which were marked with a cross, because the men could not write. Two or three colleges, and some academies and private skools, constitute the principal meens of instruction in this state, and most of theze are of a modern establishment. A few large towns only giv good encuragement to skools and the clergy.

Maryland continues to receev multitudes of emigrants from Europe, and many of them are of the poorest class. From several months rezidence in Maryland, I am inclined to beleev, there are more vagabonds in Baltimore and the vicinity, than in all New England. But Maryland must decide upon the public benefit derived from this unrestrained admission of foreigners.

Virginia waz settled eight yeers before New York, and fourteen before New England. This circumstance haz given the state the quaint appellation of the ancient dominion. The divisions of property are large, and the lands cultivated by slaves. Entailments of land were barred before the revolution; but real estate iz not liable for det upon an execution. It appeers strange at first view, that men should exempt their lands from this liability, and at the same time, suffer their persons to be imprizoned for det: The singularity however iz eezily accounted for, by their karacteristic attachment to large estates, or rather to the name of possessing them. When a man's consequence and reputation depend principally on the quantity of land and number of negroes he iz said to possess, he will not risk both for the sake of hiz creditors. The passion for the name of a planter, absorbs all other considerations. I waz once present at an entertainment, given by a yung planter in Virginia, who had much land and many slaves. He aroze at two o'clock next morning, pawned hiz knee buckles and some other articles, gave hiz landlord a note for about sixty dollars, and rode off without paying hiz hair-dresser. But he waz said to be a man of property. Many of the planters are indeed nominally rich; but their dets are not paid. I waz told by wel informed planters, that some whole counties in Virginia would hardly sel for the valu of the dets du from the inhabitants. The Virginians, it iz tru, owe immense sums to British merchants, and the difficulty of paying them might be a principal reezon for suspending the collection by law, at the cloze of the war; but that the real estates of a whole county would not discharge the dets of it, iz not to be beleeved.

A large part of the peeple in Virginia hav not the meens of education. The dispersed situation of the planters in the suthern states, renders it impossible for all to hav access to skools. The university of Williamsburg, and a few academies in large towns, constitute the principal meens of education in Virginia; and the same remark iz applicable to all the suthern states. But a small proportion of the white children can reep any advantage from theze institutions. Since the revolution, the legislatures of all the suthern states hav shown a dispozition to giv liberal encuragement to the education of every rank of citizens; but the local circumstances or habits of the peeple throw innumerable obstacles in the way of executing their patriotic designs. Gentlemen of property, reziding on their plantations at a distance from a village, wil sometimes hire a private instructor in their families; but theze instructors must be vagabonds, for the most part; az the gentlemen wil not admit that a skoolmaster can be a gentleman; in consequence of which opinion, most or all teechers are excluded from genteel company. While this iz the case, men of good breeding wil not be found to teech their children. An exception must be made of grammar masters, az they are called; for a man who can teech Latin, they suppoze, may be a decent man, and fit for gentlemen's company.

Religion fares worse in Virginia than education. Before the war, the episcopal waz the established religion of the province, and the churches were liberally endowed by law. A parish usually contained four churches, in eech of which a clergyman officiated in rotation, one Sunday in a month. But this greevous burthen waz remooved by the revolution, and great numbers of parishes hav no officiating minister. A motion waz brot forward in 1785, to make some legal provizion for supporting clergymen; but the proposition waz suspended til the next session of the legislature. In the meen time a pompous retorical memorial waz circulated and subscribed, in oppozition to the mezure. The arguments uzed against any ecclesiastical establishments were splendid, liberal and efficacious; and at the following session, the legislature passed a declaratory argumentativ resolv against giving religion any establishment and protection.163

When men hav thrown off a restraint that iz disagreeable and unreezonable, it iz to be expected that they wil run into the extreme of licentiousness. Yet it iz one of the most difficult problems in the history of theze states, that the liberal and eminently lerned men, who conduct the guvernment of Virginia, (and many of their leeding karacters are of this description) should not view the ministers of religion, in America, az destitute of that odious and tremendous authority over human consciences, which waz assumed under the papal hierarky. I can hardly beleev a man of reeding and reflection to be serious, when he asserts that legislatures hav no right to compel the subject to contribute to the support of clergymen, because they hav no authority over men's consciences. Neether clergymen nor human laws hav the leest authority over the conscience; nor iz any such power implied in a law compelling every citizen to contribute annually to the support of a clergyman. But any sovereign authority may justly command the citizens to establish and attend religious assemblies, az wel az to meet for the choice of representativs, or send their children to a skool; powers which were never questioned. A man iz not bound in conscience to beleev all the instructions of hiz preceptor; nor are the citizens compellable to beleev the opinions and decisions of a court of justice; but the legislature haz a right to compel every citizen to pay hiz proportion of taxes to maintain preceptors and judges. This iz precisely the fact with respect to a legal support of clergymen.

No man iz bound in law or conscience to beleev all a preecher says; but the whole question iz this; are clergymen, az moral instructors, a beneficial order of men? Haz their ministration a good effect upon society? If this should be admitted, there iz no more dout of the right of a legislature to support such men by law, than there iz of their right of instituting universities or courts of justice. That enormous error which seems to be rivetted in popular opinion, that the functions of clergymen are of a spiritual and divine nature, and that this order of men should hav no concern with secular affairs, haz laid the foundation of a separation of interest and influence between the civil and ecclesiastical orders; haz produced a rivalship az fatal to the peece of society az war and pestilence, and a prejudice against all orders of preechers, which bids fair to banish the "gospel of peece" from some parts of our empire. The Kristian religion, in its purity, iz the best institution on erth for softening the ferocious tempers, and awakening the benevolent affections of men. To this religion, Europe and America are indetted for half their civilization. There hav been periods, when mankind hav suffered from ecclesiastical tyranny; but information iz demolishing all systems of despotism, civil and ecclesiastical. And when the clergy themselves leev all rangling about speculativ points, which neether they nor philosophers understand, and confine themselves to publishing and enforcing the benevolent precepts of a gospel which breethes nothing but universal luv and peece to all mankind, they wil remoov the prejudices against their order, they wil be really the messengers of peece, they wil conciliate affection, and thus open the harts of men to receev impressions of virtue, they wil make men good citizens here, without which they are never prepared to be members of a heavenly society; and finally they wil establish a rational moral influence over an enlightened peeple, equally fatal to the declamation of ranting fanatics, and the pernicious amusement of gambling at inns and horse-races.

In the Carolinas and Georgia, we find the state of property, literature and religion, resembling that in Virginia and Maryland. Charleston iz remarkable for its hospitality and good order. But in the states south of Pensylvania and Delaware, the divisions of property, the habits of the peeple, and the dispersed local situation of the planters, are all unfavorable to improovments of any kind. Men who liv remote from society, surrounded only by slaves, acquire manners singular and often disagreeably imperious, ruf and clownish. Urbanity iz acquired only in societies of wel bred peeple. They cannot hav the benefit of skools and churches, without which the body of a peeple cannot be wel informed, and wil not acquire social and virtuous habits. This manner of settlement therefore, tho it may be necessary and beneficial to individuals, may be considered az highly inauspicious in a yung country, whoze constitutions of guvernment are founded on the principle of equality, and cannot flurish without mildness of manners and a general diffusion of knowlege.

In the agricultural improovments of the united states, there iz a remarkable difference, which must hav proceeded principally from the slavery of the suthern. In Virginia and Maryland, I should question whether a tenth of the land iz yet cultivated. In New England, more than half the whole iz cultivated, and in Connecticut, scarcely a tenth remains in a wild state. Yet Virginia haz been settled longer than New England.

I once heerd the Prezident remark, "that from the northern to the suthern states, the agricultural improovments are in an inverse proportion to the number of slaves." This remark, like the actions of that illustrious karacter, dezerves to be engraven on monuments of marble. Slaves hav no motiv to labor; at leest, none but what iz common to horses and cattle. They want the only stimulus that unites industry with economy, viz. the prospect of a permanent advantage from their labor.

It haz been obzerved in Europe, that land rented on long leeses, iz better cultivated, than that which iz farmed on short leeses. A man who holds lands in fee, will uze them to the best advantage, for he expects hiz children wil enjoy the benefit. A man who haz lands on very long leeses, haz neerly the same motivs to improov them. Tenants for life wil make the most of lands for themselves; but wil probably leev them in the most impoverished condition. Lessees for a yeer hav few motivs to keep a farm in good repair; and slaves are the worst cultivaters on erth, az they hav the leest interest in the fruits of their labor. One yeman, who iz master of himself and hiz labors, and eets substantial food, wil perform the work of four slaves.

This iz not the whole evil. Slaves not only produce less than freemen, but they waste more; every slave, az Dr. Franklin haz remarked in hiz Miscellaneous wurks, being, from the nature of situation, a theef. In addition to this, wherever slavery exists, a great proportion of inhabitants are rendered indolent, and indolence iz followed by vices and dissipation.

Suppoze twenty thousand men to do no productiv business; what an immense difference wil this make in the cultivation of a state and in the annual income. In New England every man does some kind of business: In the suthern states, the proprietors of large plantations do little or no business. The reezon why the planters make such a profit on the labor of their slaves iz, that the subsistence of negroes iz not very expensiv. The northern yemanry not only require more clothing than the suthern, but they liv on expensiv food and drinks. Every man, even the poorest, makes use of tee, sugar, spirits, and a multitude of articles, which are not consumed by the laborers of any other country.164

But however cheep may be the subsistence of slaves, while every thing iz left to a mercenary unprincipled overseer and to lazy negroes, a state wil never be wel cultivated. In autumn, 1785, a gentleman in Richmond informed me he had just carried some manure upon a field to make an experiment for the first time. This fact wil hardly be beleeved in the northern states. In travelling thro Virginia, from Alexandria to Williamsburg, and also to Petersburg, I saw not one mill dam, except what consisted of mere sand, thrown across a streem. The idea of constructing dams of timber and planks, laid so az to make an angle of forty five or fifty degrees with the horizon, that it might gain strength and stability in proportion to the pressure of the incumbent water, seemed not, at that time, to hav prevailed in Virginia. In a variety of particulars, the slow progress of invention in the suthern states, waz equally remarkable.

Slavery iz an evil of the worst kind; this iz generally acknowledged. But what remedy can be applied? To liberate the slaves at once would be madness; it would ruin both masters and slaves. To liberate them gradually, and suffer the freed men to liv with the whites, might giv rise to discord and tumults. Colonization, by a gradual exportation, iz an expedient that would be safe and effectual, but cannot be put in execution. The probability iz, that, in the lapse of time, the blacks wil all be blended with the whites; the mixed race wil acquire freedom, and be the predominant part of the inhabitants. This event haz taken place in Spanish America, between the nativs and Spaniards; and, to a great degree, in some of the West India islands. The same event iz rapidly taking place in the suthern states. A propozition waz once made in the house of delegates, in Virginia, for granting the rights of freemen to the free blacks; it waz not carried; but I do not see how any state can deny theze rights to blacks that hav the legal qualifications of property and residence. This privilege once granted, would facilitate the intercourse between the whites and blacks, and hasten the abolition of slavery.

In the climate of the united states, there are several particulars that dezerv notice. In the first place, every circumstance in the local position of Atlantic America, concurs to render the wether variable. Theze states extend thro fifteen degrees of latitude, in the temperate zone; consequently must always experience the extremes of winter and summer. Every part of this territory experiences sudden changes of wether; but the most numerous and violent changes, are between the 36th and 43d degrees of latitude, on the Atlantic coast. Within this district, the most frequent variations seem to be in Pensylvania and Maryland. Four months in the winter season, the wether in Pensylvania, Maryland and Virginia, resembles the March wether in New England; almost every week exhibiting the varieties of cold, heet, frost, snow and rain. For two months in the spring, and one in autumn, New England iz expozed to eesterly winds and rain; except in theze months, the changes of wether, tho sometimes sudden and violent, are not very frequent. The eesterly winds, which uzually bring rain, ceese about the 20th of May.

The variations of wether in the united states, arizing from the latitude of their situation, are multiplied by their position on the ocean. Water in an ocean iz of a very uniform temperature; whereas land iz eezily heeted and cooled. This circumstance creates an incessant contest between heet and cold, on an extensiv see coast; and of course an everlasting variableness of winds. This iz true in all countries. According to this theory, Atlantic America must always hav a variable climate.

The south eest winds from the ocean, falling upon the continent at right angles with the shore, invariably produce rain; the opposit, or north west winds, proceeding from the high lands in the back country, invariably produce cold cleer wether. North eest winds, running parallel with the shore, produce storms of snow in winter, and long cold storms of rain in spring and autum. Our most violent gales blow from the north eest. A south westerly wind sometimes brings rain, and when it first blows in winter, iz chilly; but it soon moderates cold wether, and in summer it iz the gentle zepher of the poets.

In speeking of winds, it iz necessary to correct a vulgar error. It iz commonly said, that north west winds contract their coldness from the vast lakes in the north west regions of the united states. This iz an unphilosophical opinion, for water always moderates the temperature of the air; and it iz a wel known fact that the large lakes do not freeze at all; so that if we were to feel the wind immediately after passing over them, we should find it always temperate. The truth iz, our westerly winds come from high mountains and high regions of the atmosphere, which are always cool. The top of the blu ridge, or first range of mountains in Virginia, iz about four thousand feet abuv its base. The top of the Allegany or middle ridge, which iz the height of land between the Atlantic and the Missisippi, tho not so far from its base, must be much higher in the atmosphere. How far the base of the blu ridge iz abuv the surface of the ocean, haz not been ascertained; but suppoze it five thousand feet, and the top of the Allegany, two thousand feet abuv the blu ridge, and the greatest elevation of land iz eleven thousand feet abuv the waters of the Atlantic.

The air on the tops of theze mountains iz never heeted to the degree it iz in the low countries. The cold regions of the atmosphere are much neerer to such hights, than to a vast extended plain. Thus the tops of mountains are often cuvered with snow, when the land at the feet of them, iz fit for plowing. From the regions of air abuv theze mountains, proceed the serene cold winds which sweep the Atlantic states, purifying the atmosphere and bracing the bodies of animals.

I would just remark here, that the climate of the trans-alleganean country, wil never be expozed to the frequent changes of air and violent tempests which harrass the inhabitants of the Atlantic shore. The force and disagreeable effects of eesterly winds from the ocean, are broken by the mountains; and the northerly winds wil be tempered by passing over the lakes; while the sutherly winds wil be az refreshing in summer az on this eestern coast. Theze remarks are now verified by facts; altho by being cleered from forests, the country wil become more expozed to variations of wind.

In the second place, it iz obzervable that the climate of America grows more variable, in proportion to the cultivation of the land. Every person obzerves this effect of cleering the lands in the eestern and middle states. The heet in summer, and the cold in winter, are not so steddy az formerly, being interrupted by cool rains in summer, and moderate wether in winter. Our springs and autums are longer, the former extending into summer, and the latter into winter. The cause of this change iz obvious: By levelling the forests, we lay open the erth to the sun, and it becumes more impressible with heet and cold. This circumstance must multiply changes of wether. The cultivation necessary to produce this effect, haz proceeded about one hundred miles from the Atlantic, or perhaps a little farther. But in Vermont and other back settlements, the wether iz yet steddy; there being few violent storms, especially in winter. The snow falls gently, and lies til spring; whereas neer the Atlantic, moderate wether for three or four days, or a warm rain, often sweeps away the snow in January or February.

But altho the wether iz growing more variable from the cleering of lands, yet the salutary effects of cultivation are vizible in the increesing salubrity of the climate. The agu and fever iz a disorder that infests most new settlements. Cultivation wil totally remoov the causes of this disorder, from every tract of country, which iz capable of being drained. Forty yeers ago, this diseese prevailed in the state of Connecticut, in the same manner it now does in Maryland. But for twenty or thirty yeers past, it haz hardly been heerd of in the state. There are a few places expozed to the effluvia of marshy grounds, where the disorder stil infests the inhabitants.

Some parts of the suthern states can never be drained; the land iz so low that the freshes in the rivers, or the tides, are almost constantly cuvering it with water. Vegetable putrefaction may be considered az furnishing the miasmata in any country; and the greatest quantities of putrid effluvia are exhaled from lands constantly expozed to a flux and reflux of water.

But all countries, except the very mountanous, when first cleered, are infested with intermittants. Peeple on the fronteers of New York and Vermont, are trubbled with it, especially in low flat tracts of land. The surface of a wilderness iz cuvered with leevs and rotten wood; at the same time, it iz moist, the rays of the sun being excluded by the trees. Therefore when peeple first settle in a wilderness, they are not immediately attacked with intermittents. They must lay open the surface of the erth to the action of heet and wind; the noxious effluvia then begin to rize, and wil infect the air, til the whole surface of the erth iz dry and sweetened by the heet of the sun. The amazing difference in the state of a cultivated and uncultivated surface of erth, iz demonstrated by the number of small streems of water, which are dried up by cleering away forests. The quantity of water, falling upon the surface, may be the same; but when land iz cuvered with trees and leevs, it retains the water; when it iz cleered, the water runs off suddenly into the large streems. It iz for this reezon that freshes in rivers hav becume larger, more frequent, sudden and destructiv, than they were formerly. This fact should be attended to by the settlers in a new country, that they may gard against sudden and extraordinary freshes in the erection of mills and bridges.

It iz vulgarly suppozed that the wether in summer iz hotter in the suthern states than in the northern. This opinion iz not accurate. The truth iz, at particular times, the northern states experience a greater degree of heet than iz ever known in the suthern. In the summer munths, the mercury in Farenheit often rizes, in the middle of the day, much higher at Boston, than at Charleston, in South Carolina. Thus in July, 1789, the mercury roze to 90° or upwards no less than six days, and once to 93°, in the vicinity of Boston; whereas at Charleston, it roze but once to 88° during the same munth, and but four days to 87°. Besides the meteorological obzervations I hav, were made at Boston, at one o'clock, P. M. and in Charleston, at two o'clock, when the heet iz usually the greatest. In August, the same yeer, the mercury roze at Boston165 four days to 90, and once to 95°; but in Charleston, it roze but once to 89°. The remark then ought not to be, that the heet at the suthward iz greater; but that it continus longer; that iz, the aggregate quantity of heet in the suthern latitudes, exceeds that in the northern. I hav taken some pains to ascertain the difference, and omitting decimals, here giv the result of my enquiries.

The meen degree of heet for the whole munth of July, 1789, in Charleston, South Carolina, by Farenheit's thermometer, waz az follows:

For AUGUST, 1789.

The meen degree of heet, at Spring-Mill, a few miles from Philadelphia, for July, waz 74.

The meen degree of heet, at Boston, for July, waz

For AUGUST.

Theze facts, tho they cannot be the foundation of exact calculations, because the observations were not made at the same hour of the day, and perhaps the thermometers were not exactly alike or in the same situation az to heet, the facts I say may stil establish the following conclusion: