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Milledgeville Georgia Journal, 9 October 1816, page 1.

No headline, an entry in miscellaneous reports.

Richmond, Sept. 11.

Slavery

- An experiment is making in the West, which will shed light upon a much agitated question in Political Economy: how far domestic slavery retards or accelerates the avancement of a nation to wealth?

The Ohio river is the line, which exactly defines the boundaries of the experiment. To the South, are the States which permit the existence of slavery; to the North, those states which forbid it. Kentucky, Tennessee, the Mississippi Territory, admit of slaves; the State of Ohio has forbid it by the very Constitution of her government. The second State which exists North of the river, is that of Indiana, the youngest state in the Union - Her Constitution expressly states, that a involuntary servitude is forbidden by principle - "no alteration of this constitution shall ever take place so as to introduce slavery, or involuntary servitude in this state, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the part shall have been duly convicted."

It is probable, that the same feature will run through all the North-western Region-and as the Michigan and Missouri Territories shall fall into the ranks of American States, an eternal prohibition will be raised by their Constitution to the introduction of involuntary slaves.

This distinction between the States North and South of the Ohio will have other bearings than upon the problem of national wealth-it will assist in showing the effects of servitude upon the characters and manners of a people: So far, then, the Ohio is a broad line between the states which hold slaves, and those which have none-and although the effects may not be immediately perceptible yet they will undoubtedly develop themselves in the lapse of generations-[illeg.], then forms one remarkable feature of distinction, between the banks of the Ohio.

There is another, in some measure growing out of it. As the states South of the Ohio not only permit the existence of slavery, but the introduction of Slaves, most of the emigrants from the southern Atlantic States will natrurally bend their steps to that direction. Many of them, because they would wish to take their domestics with them, and others though they are destitute of slaves, because they have been familiarized to their service and society. How different from the regions to the North of the Ohio! They will be principally frequented by emigrants from the Northern States, who have no slaves to accompany them. The rich will bend their steps in that direction, because they will find the laborer, whom he was used to employ in his own country. The poor laborer will follow the same track, because the field is fully open to him; there is no competition with the black laborer to lessen the demand for labor, and lower its wages.

These two features will strongly discriminate the state of society on both banks of the Ohio as strongly as that of Massachusetts is distinguished from that of Virginia. Time will develope the different consequences of these features upon their manners. In the one region we shall have more industry, in the other more enterprize: in the one more economy, in the other more liberality. It is thus that the manners of a people are affected by its laws. -- Compiler.