AMERICAN EMIGRATION. A DISCOURSE IN BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY, PREACHED IN THE CITIES OF NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN, MAY, 1857.
New York: American Home Missionary Society / John A. Gray, Printer, 1857. First Edition. Softcover. 34pp. Bound in decorated yellow wrappers, sewn. 9" x 5.75" Fine. Item #040531
Sturtevant was then president of Illinois College. Here, he discusses emigration to the 16 non-slaveholding States. "For obvious reasons...we shall leave out of our estimate the colored population of the Free States. The free white population of the Free States was by the census of 1850, in round numbers, 13,000,000...." Re the American Home Missionary Society, "Its function is to follow such families to the heart of the Western wilderness, to the banks of the Columbia, and the gold fields of California....The very conception of a migration to Kansas, or Minnesota, or Oregon implies knowledge, resources, self-reliance in a very high degree....If an uncultivated, uneducated, laboring population does emigrate, it will not carry civilization with it....Its colonies will languish for ages in ignorance and barbarism...." [Sabin 93277].
Price: $35.00