In The Three Border States Of Kentucky, Virginia, And
Maryland, The Slaves Amount To Thirty Per Cent.
Of the whole
population.
From these figures it will be seen that Missouri, which
is comparatively a new slave State, has not gone ahead with slavery
as the old slave States have done, although from its position and
climate, lying as far south as Virginia, it might seem to have had
the same reasons for doing so. I think there is every reason to
believe that slavery will die out in Missouri. The institution is
not popular with the people generally; and as white labor becomes
abundant - and before the war it was becoming abundant - men recognize
the fact that the white man's labor is the more profitable. The
heat in this State, in midsummer, is very great, especially in the
valleys of the rivers. At St. Louis, on the Mississippi, it reaches
commonly to ninety degrees, and very frequently goes above that.
The nights, moreover, are nearly as hot as the days; but this great
heat does not last for any very long period, and it seems that white
men are able to work throughout the year. If correspondingly severe
weather in winter affords any compensation to the white man for what
of heat he endures during the summer, I can testify that such
compensation is to be found in Missouri. When I was there we were
afflicted with a combination of snow, sleet, frost, and wind, with a
mixture of ice and mud, that makes me regard Missouri as the most
inclement land into which I ever penetrated.
St. Louis, on the Mississippi, is the great town of Missouri, and is
considered by the Missourians to be the star of the West. It is not
to be beaten in population, wealth, or natural advantages by any
other city so far west; but it has not increased with such rapidity
as Chicago, which is considerably to the north of it, on Lake
Michigan. Of the great Western cities I regard Chicago as the most
remarkable, seeing that St. Louis was a large town before Chicago
had been founded.
The population of St. Louis is 170,000. Of this number only 2000
are slaves. I was told that a large proportion of the slaves of
Missouri are employed near the Missouri River in breaking hemp. The
growth of hemp is very profitably carried on in that valley, and the
labor attached to it is one which white men do not like to
encounter. Slaves are not generally employed in St. Louis for
domestic service as is done almost universally in the towns of
Kentucky. This work is chiefly in the hands of Irish and Germans.
Considerably above one-third of the population of the whole city is
made up of these two nationalities. So much is confessed; but if I
were to form an opinion from the language I heard in the streets of
the town, I should say that nearly every man was either an Irishman
or a German.
St. Louis has none of the aspects of a slave city. I cannot say
that I found it an attractive place; but then I did not visit it at
an attractive time. The war had disturbed everything, given a
special color of its own to men's thoughts and words, and destroyed
all interest except that which might proceed from itself. The town
is well built, with good shops, straight streets, never-ending rows
of excellent houses, and every sign of commercial wealth and
domestic comfort - of commercial wealth and domestic comfort in the
past, for there was no present appearance either of comfort or of
wealth. The new hotel here was to be bigger than all the hotels of
all other towns. It is built, and is an enormous pile, and would be
handsome but for a terribly ambitious Grecian doorway. It is built,
as far as the walls and roof are concerned, but in all other
respects is unfinished. I was told that the shares of the original
stockholders were now worth nothing. A shareholder, who so told me,
seemed to regard this as the ordinary course of business.
The great glory of the town is the "levee," as it is called, or the
long river beach up to which the steamers are brought with their
bows to the shore. It is an esplanade looking on to the river, not
built with quays or wharves, as would be the case with us, but with
a sloping bank running down to the water. In the good days of peace
a hundred vessels were to be seen here, each with its double
funnels. The line of them seemed to be never ending even when I was
there, but then a very large proportion of them were lying idle.
They resemble huge, wooden houses, apparently of frail architecture,
floating upon the water. Each has its double row of balconies
running round it, and the lower or ground floor is open throughout.
The upper stories are propped and supported on ugly sticks and
rickety-looking beams; so that the first appearance does not convey
any great idea of security to a stranger. They are always painted
white, and the paint is always very dirty. When they begin to move,
they moan and groan in melancholy tones which are subversive of all
comfort; and as they continue on their courses they puff and
bluster, and are forever threatening to burst and shatter themselves
to pieces. There they lie, in a continuous line nearly a mile in
length, along the levee of St. Louis, dirty, dingy, and now, alas!
mute. They have ceased to groan and puff, and, if this war be
continued for six months longer, will become rotten and useless as
they lie.
They boast at St. Louis that they command 46,000 miles of navigable
river water, counting the great rivers up and down from that place.
These rivers are chiefly the Mississippi; the Missouri and Ohio,
which fall into the Mississippi near St. Louis; the Platte and
Kansas Rivers, tributaries of the Missouri; the Illinois, and the
Wisconsin.
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