To show this fully, it will be necessary to make some estimates, and present some statistics.  And first, the northern reader must bear in mind, that the corn furnished to the slaves at the south, is almost invariably the white gourd seed corn, and that a quart of this kind of corn weighs five or six ounces less than a quart of “flint corn,” the kind generally raised in the northern and eastern states; consequently a peck of the corn generally given to the slaves, would be only equivalent to a fraction more than six quarts and a pint of the corn commonly raised in the New England States, New York, New Jersey, &c.  Now, what would be said of the northern capitalist, who should allow his laborers but six quarts and five gills of corn for a week’s provisions?

Further, it appears in evidence, that the corn given to the slaves is often defective.  This, the reader will recollect, is the voluntary testimony of Thomas Clay, Esq., the Georgia planter, whose testimony is given above.  When this is the case, the amount of actual nutriment contained in a peck of the “gourd seed,” may not be more than in five, or four, or even three quarts of “flint corn.”

As a quart of southern corn weighs at least five ounces less than a quart of northern corn, it requires little arithmetic to perceive, that the daily allowance of the slave fed upon that kind of corn, would contain about one third of a pound less nutriment than though his daily ration were the same quantity of northern corn, which would amount, in a year, to more than a hundred and twenty pounds of human sustenance! which would furnish the slave with his full allowance of a peck of corn a week for two months!  It is unnecessary to add, that this difference in the weight of the two kinds of corn, is an item too important to be overlooked.  As one quart of the southern corn weighs one pound and eleven-sixteenths of a pound, it follows that it would be about one pound and six-eighths of a pound.  We now solicit the attention of the reader to the following unanimous testimony, of the civilized world, to the utter insufficiency of this amount of food to sustain human beings under labor.  This testimony is to be found in the laws of all civilized nations, which regulate the rations of soldiers and sailors, disbursements made by governments for the support of citizens in times of public calamity, the allowance to convicts in prisons, &c.  We will begin with the United States.

The daily ration for each United States soldier, established by act of Congress, May 30, 1796. was the following:  one pound of beef, one pound of bread, half a gill of spirits; and at the rate of one quart of salt, two quarts of vinegar, two pounds of soap, and one pound of candles to every hundred rations.  To those soldiers “who were on the frontiers,” (where the labor and exposure were greater,) the ration was one pound two ounces of beef and one pound two ounces of bread.  Laws U.S. vol. 3d, sec. 10, p. 431.