The Continental Monthly, Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 | Page 5

$235 per capita, and of
Maryland, $96, making the average annual value of the labor of each
person in the former greatly more than double that of the latter, and the
gross product more than quadruple. This is an amazing result, but it is
far below the reality. The earnings of commerce and navigation are
omitted in the Census, which includes only the products of agriculture,
manufactures, the mines, and fisheries. This was a most unfortunate
omission, attributable to the secession leaders, who wished to confine
the Census to a mere enumeration of population, and thus obliterate all
the other great decennial monuments which mark the nation's progress
in the pathway of empire.
Some of these tables are given as follows:
First, as to Railroads.--The number of miles in Massachusetts in 1860
(including city roads) was 1,340, and the cost of construction
$61,857,203. (Table 38, pp. 230, 231.) The value of the freight of these
roads in 1860 was $500,524,201. (P. 105.) The number of miles of
railroad in Maryland at the same time was 380, the cost of construction
$21,387,157, and the value of the freight (at the same average rate)
$141,111,348, and the difference in favor of Massachusetts
$359,412,883. The difference must have been much greater, because a
much larger portion of the freight in Massachusetts consisted of
domestic manufactures, worth $250 per ton, which is $100 a ton above
the average value.

The passengers' account, not given, would vastly swell the difference in
favor of Massachusetts.
The tonnage of vessels built in Massachusetts in 1860 was 34,460 tons,
and in Maryland, 7,798 tons. (P. 107).
The number of banks in Massachusetts in 1860 was 174; capital,
$64,619,200; loans, $107,417,323. In Maryland the number was 31;
capital, $12,568,962; loans, $20,898,762. (Table 34, p. 193.)
The number of insurance companies in Massachusetts, 117; risks,
$450,886,263. No statement given for Maryland, but comparatively
very small, as the risks in Massachusetts were nearly one sixth of all in
the Union.
Our exports abroad, from Massachusetts, for the fiscal year ending 30th
June, 1860, were of the value of $17,003,277, and the foreign imports
$41,187,539; total of imports and exports, $58,190,816; the clearances,
746,909 tons, the entries, 849,449; total entered and cleared, 1,596,458
tons. In Maryland, exports, $9,001,600, foreign imports, $9,784,773;
total imports and exports, $18,786,323; clearances, 174,000 tons;
entries, 186,417; total of entries and clearances, 360,417. (Table 14,
Register of Treasury.) Thus, the foreign imports and exports abroad, of
Massachusetts, were much more than triple those of Maryland, and the
entries and clearances very largely more than quadruple. The coastwise
and internal trade are not given, as recommended by me when
Secretary of the Treasury, but the tables of the railroad traffic indicate
in part the immense superiority of Massachusetts.
These statistics, however, prove that, if the earnings of commerce and
navigation were added, the annual value of the products of
Massachusetts per capita would be at least $300, and three times that
of Maryland. In estimating values per capita, we must find the earnings
of commerce very large, as a single merchant, in his counting house,
engaged in an immense trade, and employing only a few clerks, may
earn as much as a great manufacturing corporation, employing
hundreds of hands. Including commerce, the value, per capita, of the
products and earnings of Massachusetts exceeds not only those of any

State in our Union, BUT OF THE WORLD; and would, at the same
rate, make the value of its annual products three hundred billions of
dollars; and of our own country, upward of nine billions of dollars per
annum. Such, under great natural disadvantages, is the grand result
achieved in Massachusetts, by education, science, industry, free schools,
free soil, free speech, free labor, free press, and free government. The
facts prove that freedom is progress, that 'knowledge is power,' and that
the best way to appreciate the value of property and augment wealth
most rapidly, is to invest a large portion of it in schools, high schools,
academies, colleges, universities, books, libraries, and the press, so as
to make labor more productive, because more skilled, educated, and
better directed. Massachusetts has achieved much in this respect; but
when she shall have made high schools as free and universal as
common schools, and the attendance on both compulsory, so as to
qualify every voter for governing a State or nation, she will have made
a still grander step in material and intellectual progress, and the results
would be still more astounding.
By Table 35 of the Census, p. 195, the whole value of all the property,
real and personal, of Massachusetts, in 1860, was $815,237,433, and
that of Maryland, $376,919,944. We have seen that the value of the
products that year in Massachusetts was $287,000,000 (exclusive of
commerce), and of Maryland, $66,000,000. As a