Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 35

7. A Friend in the North, The South: A Letter from a Friend in the North. With Special Reference to the Effects of Disunion upon Slavery (Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Son, 1856). (45 p.)

Open letter defending slavery and prophesying an economic disaster for the South should the nation go to war. “I say nothing of the courage, endurance, or military skill of the respective parties. There is not a doubt they could do each other incalculable injury, and that in a few years the actual cost of the war, its ravages, its interruption of industry, would be equal in value to the whole of the able-bodied slaves. The free states would have double the population along the boundary that the States of the South have, and are therefore doubly as strong, without taking into account the paralyzing effect of the slave population, which would have to be watched in the rear, with a powerful enemy in the front.”