A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States with Remarks on Their Economy
New York: Dix & Edwards, 1856. 1st Edition. Small 8vo. Near Fine. Item #16227
One of the most important pre-Civil War works on the importance and effects of slavery to the southern economy and a major catalyst in fueling abolitionist sentiment in the north, helping propel the country toward war.
In exquisite condition, this is an uncommonly nice 1st Edition.
Olmsted was commissioned by the New York Times to travel the antebellum South and report on the conditions of life, with special attention to the various effects of slavery, both relating to the individual lives and treatment of blacks but also the effects of slavery on the overall economy.
Olmsted's reports were gobbled up be readers of the Daily Times and his astute observations added fuel to the fire of the abolitionist movement.
"Olmsted argued that slavery had made the slave states inefficient (a set amount of work took 4 times as long in Virginia as in the North) and backward both economically and socially. He said that the profits of slavery were enjoyed by no more than 8,000 owners of large plantations; a somewhat larger group had about the standard of living of a New York City policeman, but the proportion of the free white men who were as well-off as a Northern working man was small. Slavery meant that 'the proportion of men improving their condition was much less than in any Northern community; and that the natural resources of the land were strangely unused, or were used with poor economy.'
"Olmsted thought that the lack of a Southern white middle class and the general poverty of lower-class whites prevented the development of many civil amenities which were taken for granted in the North." - Wiki
"The citizens of the cotton States, as a whole, are poor. They work little, and that little, badly; they earn little, they sell little; they buy little, and they have little – very little – of the common comforts and consolations of civilized life. Their destitution is not material only; it is intellectual and it is moral ... They were neither generous nor hospitable and their talk was not that of evenly courageous men." - Olmsted
724pp + ads. Brown cloth with titling in gilt to spine. Square tight binding. Clean interior. Expertly re-backed in matching cloth with original spine laid down. Mild edge wear. Protected with archival 4mil mylar.
Sabin 57242, Howes O-78.
A lovely and important pre Civil War work helping the U.S. on its inevitable course to war.
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