Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments
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Title: Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments
comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on this important subject
Editor: E. N. Elliott
Release date: February 20, 2009 [eBook #28148]
Language: English
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Produced by Cori Samuel, Jon Ingram, the Online Distributed
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Transcriber's Notes:
Spelling and punctuation anomalies were retained, such as
"Masachusettes" and "philanthrophy" on page 40. The table of
contents can be found at the end of this book.
COTTON IS KING,
AND
PRO-SLAVERY ARGUMENTS:
COMPRISING THE WRITINGS OF
HAMMOND, HARPER, CHRISTY, STRINGFELLOW, HODGE, BLEDSOE, AND CARTWRIGHT,
ON THIS IMPORTANT SUBJECT.
BY
E. N. ELLIOTT, L.L.D., PRESIDENT OF PLANTERS' COLLEGE, MISSISSIPPI.
WITH AN ESSAY ON SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, BY THE
EDITOR.
PUBLISHED AND SOLD EXCLUSIVELY BY SUBSCRIPTION.
AUGUSTA, GA: PRITCHARD, ABBOTT & LOOMIS. 1860.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by M. P. ABBOTT
AND GEO. M. LOOMIS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Southern District of Georgia.
INTRODUCTION.
THERE is now but one great question dividing the American people, and
that, to the great danger of the stability of our government, the
concord and harmony of our citizens, and the perpetuation of our
liberties, divides us by a geographical line. Hence estrangement,
alienation, enmity, have arisen between the North and the South, and
those who, from "the times that tried men's souls," have stood shoulder
to shoulder in asserting their rights against the world; who, as a band
of brothers, had combined to build up this fair fabric of human liberty,
are now almost in the act of turning their fratricidal arms against each
other's bosoms. All other parties that have existed in our country, were
segregated on questions of policy affecting the whole nation and each
individual composing it alike; they pervaded every section of the Union,
and the acerbity of political strife was softened by the ties of blood,
friendship, and neighborhood association. Moreover, these parties were
constantly changing, on account of the influence mutually exerted by the
members of each; the Federalist of yesterday becomes the Republican of
to-day, and Whigs and Democrats change their party allegiance with every
change of leaders. If the republicans mismanaged the government, they
suffered the consequences alike with the federalists; if the democrats
plunged our country into difficulties, they had to abide the penalty as
well as the whigs. All parties alike had to suffer the evils, or enjoy
the advantages of bad or good government. But it has been reserved to
our own times to witness the rise, growth, and prevalence of a party
confined exclusively to one section of the Union, whose fundamental
principle is opposition to the rights and interests of the other
section; and this, too, when those rights are most sacredly guaranteed,
and those interests protected, by that compact under which we became a
united nation. In a free government like ours, the eclecticism of
parties--by which we mean the affinity by which the members of a party
unite on questions of national policy, by which all sections of the
country are alike affected--has always been considered as highly
conducive to the purity and integrity of the government, and one of the
causes most promotive of its perpetuity. Such has been the case, not
only in our own country, but also in England, from whom we have mainly
derived our ideas of civil and religious liberty, and even, to some
extent, our form of government. But there, the case of oppressed and
down-trodden Ireland, bears witness to the baneful effects of
geographical partizan government and legislation.
In our own country this same spirit, which had its origin in the
Missouri contest, is now beginning to produce its legitimate fruits:
witness the growing distrust with which the people of the North and the
South begin to regard each other; the diminution of Southern travel,
either for business or pleasure, in the Northern States; the efforts of
each section to develop its own resources, so as virtually to render it
independent of the other; the enactment of "unfriendly legislation," in
several of the States, towards other States of the Union, or their
citizens; the contest for the exclusive possession of the territories,
the common property of the States; the anarchy and bloodshed in Kansas;
the exasperation of parties throughout the Union; the attempt to
nullify, by popular clamor, the decision of the supreme tribunal of our
country; the existence of the "underground railroad," and of a party in
the North organized for the express purpose of robbing the citizens of
the Southern States of their property; the almost daily occurrence of
fugitive slave mobs; the total insecurity of slave property in the
border States;[1] the attempt to circulate incendiary documents among
the slaves in the Southern States, and the flooding of the whole country
with the most false and malicious misrepresentations of the state of
society in the slave States; the attempt to produce division among us,
and to array one portion of our citizens in deadly hostility to the
other; and finally, the recent attempt to excite, at Harper's Ferry, and
throughout the South, an insurrection, and a civil and servile war, with
all its attendant horrors.
All these facts go to prove that there is a great wrong somewhere, and
that a part, or the whole, of the American people are demented, and
hurrying down to swift destruction. To ascertain where this great wrong
and evil lies, to point out the remedy, to disabuse the public mind of
all erroneous impressions or prejudices, to combat all false doctrines
on _this_ subject, and to establish the truth, shall be the aim of the
following pages. In preparing them we have consulted the works of most
of the writers on both sides of this question, as well as the statistics
and history tending to throw light upon the subject. To this we would
invite the candid and dispassionate attention of every patriot and
philanthropist. To all such we would say, in the language of the Roman
bard,
"Si quid novisti vectius istis,
Candidus imperti; si non,
His utere mecum."
In the following pages, the words slave and slavery are not used in the
sense commonly understood by the abolitionists. With them these terms
are contradistinguished from servants and servitude. According to their
definition, a slave is merely a "chattel" in a human form; a _thing_ to
be bought and sold, and treated worse than a brute; a being without
rights, privileges, or duties. Now, if this is a correct definition of
the word, we totally object to the term, and deny that we have any such
institution as _slavery_ among us. We recognize among us no class,
which, as the abolitionists falsely assert, that the Supreme Court
decided "had no rights which a white man was bound to respect." The
words _slave_ and _servant_ are perfectly synonymous, and differ only in
being derived from different languages; the one from Sclavonic, the
other from the Latin, just as feminine and womanly are respectively of
Latin and Saxon origin. The Saxon synonym _thrall_ has become obsolete
in our language, but some of its derivations, as thralldom, are still in
use. In Greek the same idea was expressed by _doulos_, and in Hebrew by
_ebed_. The one idea of servitude, or of obedience to the will of
another, is accurately expressed by all these terms. He who wishes to
see this topic thoroughly examined, may consult "Fletcher's Studies on
Slavery."
The word _slavery_ is used in the following discussions, to express the
condition of the _African race_ in our Southern States, as also in other
parts of the world, and in other times. This word, as defined by most
writers, does not truly express the relation which the African race in
our country, _now_ bears to the white race. In some parts of the world,
the relation has essentially changed, while the word to express it has
remained the same. In most countries of the world, especially in former
times, the _persons_ of the slaves were the absolute property of the
master, and might be used or abused, as caprice or passion might
dictate. Under the Jewish law, a slave might be beaten to death by his
master, and yet the master go entirely unpunished, unless the slave died
outright under his hand. Under the Roman law, slaves had no rights
whatever, and were scarcely recognized as human beings; indeed, they
were sometimes drowned in fish-ponds, to feed the eels. Such is not the
labor system among us. As an example of faulty definition, we will
adduce that of Paley: "Slavery," says he, "is an obligation to labor for
the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the
servant." Waiving, for the present, the accuracy of this definition, as
far as it goes, we would remark that it is only half of the definition;
the only idea here conveyed is that of compulsory and unrequited labor.
Such is not our labor-system. Though we prefer the term slave, yet if
this be its true definition, we must protest against its being applied
to our system of African servitude, and insist that some other term
shall be used. The true definition of the term, as applicable to the
domestic institution in the Southern States, is as follows: Slavery is
the duty and obligation of the slave to labor for the mutual benefit of
both master and slave, under a warrant to the slave of protection, and a
comfortable subsistence, under all circumstances. The person of the
slave is not property, no matter what the fictions of the law may say;
but the right to his labor is property, and may be transferred like any
other property, or as the right to the services of a minor or an
apprentice may be transferred. Nor is the labor of the slave solely for
the benefit of the master, but for the benefit of all concerned; for
himself, to repay the advances made for his support in childhood, for
present subsistence, and for guardianship and protection, and to
accumulate a fund for sickness, disability, and old age. The master, as
the head of the system, has a right to the obedience and labor of the
slave, but the slave has also his mutual rights in the master; the right
of protection, the right of counsel and guidance, the right of
subsistence, the right of care and attention in sickness and old age. He
has also a right in his master as the sole arbiter in all his wrongs and
difficulties, and as a merciful judge and dispenser of law to award the
penalty of his misdeeds. Such is American slavery, or as Mr. Henry
Hughes happily terms it, "Warranteeism."
In order that the subject of American slavery may be thoroughly
discussed, we have availed ourselves of the labors of several of the
ablest writers in the Union. These have been taken, not from one section
only, but from both sections of our country. It is true, most of them
are citizens of the Southern States, and for this there is a good and
obvious reason; no one can correctly discuss this subject, or any other,
who is practically unacquainted with it. This was the error of the
French nation, when they undertook to legislate the African savages of
St. Domingo into free citizens of the model republic; of the English
nation when they undertook to interfere in the internal affairs of
their colonies; and thus must it always be, when men undertake to think
or write, or act, in reference to any subject, of whose fundamental
truths, they are profoundly ignorant. It is true, that in every part of
the civilized world there are noble minds, rising superior to the
prejudices of education, and the influence of the society in which they
are placed, and defending the truth for its own sake; to all such we
render their due homage.
It is objected to the defenders of American slavery, that they have
changed their ground; that from being apologists for it as an inevitable
evil, they have become its defenders as a social and political good,
morally right, and sanctioned by the Bible and by God himself. This
charge is unjust, as by reference to a few historical facts will
abundantly appear. The present slave States had little or no agency in
the first introduction of Africans into this country; this was achieved
by the Northern commercial States and by Great Britain. Wherever the
climate suited the negro constitution, slavery was profitable and
flourished; where the climate was unsuitable, slavery was unprofitable,
and died out. Most of the slaves in the Northern States were sent
southward to a more congenial clime. Upon the introduction into Congress
of the first abolition discussions, by John Quincy Adams, and Joshua
Giddings, Southern men altogether refused to engage in the debate, or
even to receive petitions on the subject. They averred that no good
could grow out of it, but only unmitigated evil.
The agitation of the abolition question had commenced in France during
the horrors of her first revolution, under the auspices of the Red
Republicans; it had pervaded England until it achieved the ruin of her
West India colonies, and by anti-slavery missionaries it had been
introduced into our Northern States. During all this agitation the
Southern States had been quietly minding their own business, regardless
of all the turmoil abroad. They had never investigated the subject
theoretically, but they were well acquainted with all its practical
workings. They had received from Africa a few hundred thousand pagan
savages, and had developed them into millions of civilized Christians,
happy in themselves, and useful to the world. They had never made the
inquiry whether the system were fundamentally wrong, but they judged it
by its fruits, which were beneficent to all. When therefore they were
charged with upholding a moral, social, and political evil; and its
immediate abolition was demanded, as a matter not only of policy, but
also of justice and right, their reply was, we have never investigated
the subject. Our fathers left it to us as a legacy, we have grown up
with it; it has grown with our growth, and strengthened with our
strength, until it is now incorporated with every fibre of our social
and political existence. What you say concerning its evils _may_ be true
or false, but we clearly see that your remedy involves a vastly greater
evil, to the slave, to the master, to our common country, and to the
world. We understand the nature of the negro race; and in the relation
in which the providence of God has placed them to us, they are happy and
useful members of society, and are fast rising in the scale of
intelligence and civilization, and the time may come when they will be
capable of enjoying the blessings of freedom and self-government. We are
instructing them in the principles of our common Christianity, and in
many instances have already taught them to read the word of life. But we
know that the time has not yet come; that this liberty which is a
blessing to _us_, would be a curse to _them_. Besides, to us and to you,
such a violent disruption would be most disastrous, it would topple to
its foundations the whole social and political edifice. Moreover, we
have had warning on this subject. God, in his providence, has permitted
the emancipation of the African race in a few of the islands contiguous
to our shores, and far from being elevated thereby to the condition of
Christian freemen, they have rapidly retrograded to the state of pagan
savages. The value of property in those islands has rapidly depreciated,
their production has vastly diminished, and their commerce and
usefulness to the world is destroyed. We wish not to subject either
ourselves or our dependents to such a fate. God has placed them in our
hands, and he holds us responsible for our course of policy towards
them.
This courteous, common-sense, and practical reply, far from closing the
mouths of the agitators, only encouraged them to redouble their
exertions, and to imbitter the epithets which they hurled at the
slave-holders. They exhausted the vocabulary of billingsgate in
denouncing those guilty of this most henious of all sins, and charged
them in plain terms, with being _afraid_ to investigate or to discuss
the subject. Thus goaded into it, many commenced the investigation. Then
for the first time did the Southern people take a position on this
subject. It is due to a citizen of this State, the Rev. J. Smylie, to
say that he was the first to promulgate the truth, as deduced from the
Bible, on the subject of slavery. He was followed by a host of others,
who discussed it not only in the light of revelation and morals, but as
consistent with the Federal Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence; until many of those who had commenced their career of
abolition agitation by reasoning from the Bible and the Constitution,
were compelled to acknowledge that they both were hopelessly
pro-slavery, and to cry: "give us an anti-slavery constitution, an
anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God." To such straits are men
reduced by fanaticism. It is here worthy of remark, that most of the
early abolition propagandists, many of whom commenced as Christian
ministers, have ended in downright infidelity. Let us then hear no more
of this charge, that the defenders of slavery have changed their ground;
it is the abolitionists who have been compelled to appeal to "a higher
law," not only than the Federal Constitution, but also, than the law of
God. This is the inevitable result when men undertake to be "wise above
what is written." The Apostle, in the Epistle to Timothy, has not only
explicitly laid down the law on the subject of slavery, but has, with
prophetic vision, drawn the exact portrait of our modern abolitionists.
"Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters
worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not
blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise
them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because
they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things
teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to
wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the
doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing,
but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy,
strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings, of men of
corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is
godliness; from such withdraw thyself."
Can any words more accurately and vividly portray the character and
conduct of the abolitionists, or more plainly point out the results of
their efforts? Is it any wonder that after having received such a
castigation, they should totally repudiate the authority of God's law,
and say, "Not _thy_ will, but _mine_ be done." It is here explicitly
declared that this doctrine, the obedience of slaves to their masters,
are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ; and the arguments of its
opposers are characterized as doting sillily about questions and strifes
of words, and therefore unworthy of reply and refutation. But the
consequences are more serious; look at the catalogue. Envy, the root of
the evil; strife, see the divisions in our churches, and in our
political communities; railings, their calling slaveholders robbers,
thieves, murderers, outlaws; evil surmisings, can any good thing come
out of Nazareth, or from the Slave States? Perverse disputings of men of
corrupt minds, their wresting the Scriptures from their plain and
obvious meaning to compel them to teach abolitionism. Finally; the duty
of all Christians: from such withdraw thyself.
The monographs embraced in this compendium of discussions on slavery,
were written at different periods; some of them several years ago, and
some of them were prepared expressly for this work, and some have been
re-written in order to continue the subject down to the present time.
There is this further advantage in combining works of different dates,
that by comparing them it is evident that the earlier and later writers
both stood on, substantially, the same ground, and take the same general
views of the institution. The charge of inconsistency must, therefore,
fall to the ground. To the reading public, most of the matter contained
in these pages will be new; as, though some of them have been before the
public for several years, they have had but a limited circulation, no
efforts having been made by the Southern people to scatter them
broadcast throughout the land, in the form of _Sunday school books_, or
_religious tracts_. Nor will it be expected by the reader, that the
authors of the works on the different topics embraced in this
discussion, should have been able to confine their arguments strictly
within the assigned limits. The subjects themselves so inosculate, that
it would be strange indeed if the writers should not occasionally
encroach upon each other's province; but even this, from the variety of
argument, and mode of illustration, will be found interesting.
The work of Professor Christy, on the Economical Relations of Slavery,
contains a large amount of the most accurate, valuable and well arranged
statistical matter, and his combinations and deductions are remarkable
for their philosophical accuracy. He spent several years in the service
of the American Colonization Society, as agent for Ohio, and made
himself thoroughly acquainted with the results, both to the blacks and
whites, both of slavery and emancipation.
Governor Hammond is too well known, as an eminent statesman and
political writer, to require notice here. His letters are addressed to
Mr. Clarkson, of England, who, in conjunction with Wilberforce, after a
long struggle, at last secured the passage, by the Parliament of Great
Britain, of acts to abolish the slave trade and slavery, in the British
West India colonies. The results of this are vividly portrayed by the
author, and his predictions are now history.
Chancellor Harper, with a master hand, draws a parallel between the
social condition of communities where slave labor exists and where it
does not, and vindicates the South from the aspersions cast upon her.
Dr. Bledsoe's "Liberty and Slavery," or Slavery in the Light of Moral
Science, discusses the right or wrong of slavery, exposes the fallacies,
and answers the arguments of the abolitionists. His established
reputation as an accurate reasoner, and a forcible writer, guarantees
the excellence of this work.
Dr. Stringfellow's Slavery in the Light of Divine Revelation, and Dr.
Hodge's Bible Argument on Slavery, form a synopsis of the whole
theological argument on the subject. The plain and obvious teachings, of
both Old and New Testament, are given with such irresistible force as to
carry conviction to every mind, except those wedded to the theory of a
"Higher Law" than the Law of God.
Dr. Cartwright's "Ethnology of the African Race," are the results of the
observation and experience of a lifetime, spent in an extensive practice
of medicine in the midst of the race. He has had the best of
opportunities for becoming intimately acquainted with all the
idiosyncrasies of this race, and he has well improved them. That the
negro is _now_ an inferior species, or at least variety of the human
race, is well established, and must, we think, be admitted by all. That
by himself he has never emerged from barbarism, and even when partly
civilized under the control of the white man, he speedily returns to the
same state, if emancipated, are now indubitable truths. Whether or not,
under our system of slavery, he can ever be so elevated as to be worthy
of freedom, time and the providence of God alone can determine. The most
encouraging results have already been achieved by American slavery, in
the elevation of the negro race in our midst; as they are now as far
superior to the natives of Africa, as the whites are to them. In a
religious point of view, also, there is great encouragement, as there
are twice as many communicants of Christian churches among our slaves,
as there are among the heathen at all the missionary stations in the
world. (See Prof. Christy's statistics in this volume.) What the negroes
might have been, but for the interference of the abolitionists, it is
impossible to conjecture. That their influence has only been unmitigated
evil, we have the united testimony, both of themselves and of the slave
holders. (See Dr. Beecher's late sermon on the Harper's Ferry trials.)
To show what has been the uniform course of Christians in the South
towards the slaves, we will quote from the first pastoral letter of the
Synod of the Carolinas and Georgia, to the churches under their care.
After addressing husbands and wives, parents and children, on their
relative duties, the Synod continues, "But parents and heads of
families, think it not surprising that we inform you that God has
committed others to your care, besides your natural offspring, in the
welfare of whose souls you are also deeply interested, and whose
salvation you are bound to endeavor to promote--we mean your slaves;
poor creatures! shall they be bound for life, and their owners never
once attempt to deliver their souls from the bondage of sin, nor point
them to eternal freedom through the blood of the Son of God! On this
subject we beg leave to submit to your consideration the conduct of
Abraham, the father of the faithful, through whose example is
communicated unto you the commandment of God (Gen. xviii: 19); 'For I
know him,' says God, 'that he will command his children and his
household after him, that they shall keep the ways of the Lord, to do
justice and judgment.'
"Masters and servants, attend to your duty--in the express language of
the Holy Ghost--'servants, obey your masters in all things; not with eye
service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God; and
whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to man. And
you, masters, render to your servants their due, knowing that your
master is also in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with Him.'
And let those who govern, and those who are governed, make the object of
living in this world be, to prepare to meet your God and judge, when all
shall stand on a level before His bar, and receive their decisive
sentence according to the deeds done in the body.
"Servants, be willing to receive instruction, and discourage not your
masters by your stubbornness or aversion. Remember, the interest is your
own, and if you be wise, it will be for your own good; _spend the
Sabbath in learning to read, and in teaching your young ones_, instead
of rambling abroad from place to place; a few years will give you many
Sabbaths, which, if rightly improved, will be sufficient for the
purpose. Attend, also, on public worship, when you have opportunity, and
behave there with decency and good order.
"Were these relative duties conscientiously practiced, by husbands and
wives, parents and children, masters and servants, how pleasing would be
the sight; expressing by your conduct pious Joshua's resolution, as for
me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
The argument on slavery, deduced from the law of nations, we commend to
the special attention of the candid reader. Indeed, it is from the
recognition of the duty of the various races and nations composing the
human family, to contribute their part for the advancement and good of
the whole, not only that slavery has existed in all ages, but also that
efforts have been, and are now being made, to extend the benefits of
civilization and religion to the benighted races of the earth. This has
been done in two different ways; one by sending the teacher forth to the
heathen, the other by bringing the heathen to the teacher. Both have
achieved great good, but the latter has been the more successful. Though
the principles embraced in this general law of nations have been
acknowledged and acted out in all times, it is due to J. Q. Adams, to
state that he first gave a clear elucidation of those principles, so far
as they apply to commerce.
Commending these arguments to the candid consideration of every friend
to his country, we may be permitted to express the hope that they will
redound, not only to the perpetuity of our blood-bought liberties, but
to the glory of God, and the good of all men.
PORT GIBSON, MISS., Jan. 1, 1860.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Strange that we should be compelled to call those _border_ States,
which lie in the very midst of our Union.
COTTON IS KING:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
BY
DAVID CHRISTY, ESQ.
OF CINCINNATI.
COTTON IS KING:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
THE first edition of COTTON IS KING was issued as an experiment. Its
favorable reception led to further investigation, and an enlargement of
the work for a second edition.
The present publishers have bought the copyright of the third edition,
with the privilege of printing it in the form and manner that may best
suit their purposes. This step severs the author from all further
connection with the work, and affords him an opportunity of stating a
few of the facts which led, originally, to its production. He was
connected with the newspaper press, as an editor, from 1824 till 1836.
This included the period of the tariff controversy, and the rise of the
anti-slavery party of this country. After resigning the editorial chair,
he still remained associated with public affairs, so as to afford him
opportunities of observing the progress of events. In 1848 he accepted
an appointment as Agent of the American Colonization Society, for Ohio;
and was thus brought directly into contact with the elements of
agitation upon the slavery question, in the aspect which that
controversy had then assumed. Upon visiting Columbus, the seat of
government of the State, in January, 1849, the Legislature, then in
session, was found in great, agitation about the repeal of the Black
Laws, which had originally been enacted to prevent the immigration of
colored men into the State. The abolitionists held the balance of
power, and were uncompromising in their demands. To escape from the
difficulty, and prevent all future agitation upon the subject,
politicians united in erasing this cause of disturbance from the statute
book. The colored people had been in convention at the capitol; and felt
themselves in a position, as they imagined, to control the legislation
of the State. They were encouraged in this belief by the abolitionists,
and proceeded to effect an organization by which black men were to
_stump_ the State in advocacy of their claims to an equality with white
men.
At this juncture the Colonization cause was brought before the
Legislature, by a memorial asking aid to send emigrants to Liberia. An
appointment was also made, by the agent, for a Lecture on Colonization,
to be delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives; and
respectful notices sent to the African churches, inviting the colored
people to attend. This invitation was met by them with the publication
of a call for an indignation meeting; which, on assembling, denounced
both the agent and the cause he advocated, in terms unfitted to be
copied into this work. One of the resolutions, however, has some
significance, as foreshadowing the final action they contemplated, and
which has shown itself so futile, as a means of redress, in the recent
Harper's Ferry Tragedy. That resolution reads as follows:
"_Resolved_,--That we will never leave this country while one of our
brethren groans in slavish fetters in the United States, but will remain
on this soil and contend for our rights, and those of our enslaved
race--upon the rostrum--in the pulpit--in the social circle, and upon
the field, if necessary, until liberty to the captive shall be
proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of this great Republic, or
we called from time to eternity."
In the winter of 1850, Mr. Stanley's proposition, to Congress, for the
appropriation of the last installment of the Surplus Revenue to
Colonization, was laid before the Ohio Legislature for approval. The
colored people again held meetings, denouncing this proposition also,
and the following resolutions, among others, were adopted--the first at
Columbus and the second at Cincinnati:
"_Resolved_,--That it is our unalterable and eternal determination, as
heretofore expressed, to remain in the United States at all hazards, and
to 'buffet the withering flood of prejudice and misrule,' which menaces
our destruction until we are exalted, to ride triumphantly upon its
foaming billows, or honorably sink into its destroying vortex: although
inducements may be held out for us to emigrate, in the shape of odious
and oppressive laws, or liberal appropriations."
"_Resolved_,--That we should labor diligently to secure--first, the
abolition of slavery, and, failing in this, the separation of the
States; one or the other event being necessary to our ever enjoying in
its fullness and power, the privilege of an American citizen."
Again, some three or four years later, on the occasion of the formation
of the Ohio State Colonization Society, another meeting was called, in
opposition to Colonization, in the city of Cincinnati, which, among
others, passed the following resolution:
"_Resolved_,--That in our opinion the emancipation and elevation of our
enslaved brethren depends in a great measure upon their brethren who are
free, remaining in the country; and we will remain to be that 'agitating
element' in American politics, which Mr Wise, in a late letter,
concludes, has done so much for the slave."
Many similar resolutions might be quoted, all manifesting a
determination, on the part of the colored people, to maintain their
foothold in the United States, until the freedom of the slave should be
effected; and indicating an expectation, on their part, that this result
would be brought about by an insurrection, in which they expected to
take a prominent part. In this policy they were encouraged by nearly all
the opponents of Colonization, but especially by the active members of
the organizations for running off slaves to Canada.
To meet this state of things, COTTON IS KING was written. The mad folly
of the Burns' case, at Boston, in 1854, proved, conclusively, that white
men, by the thousand, stood prepared to provoke a collision between the
North and the South. The eight hundred men who volunteered at Worcester,
and proceeded to Boston, on that occasion, with banner flying, showed
that such a condition of public sentiment prevailed; while, at the same
time, the sudden dispersion of that valorous army, by a single officer
of the general government, who, unaided, captured their leader and bore
off their banner, proved, as conclusively, that such philanthropists are
not soldiers--that promiscuous crowds of undisciplined men are wholly
unreliable in the hour of danger.
The author would here repeat, then, that the main object he had in view,
in the preparation of COTTON IS KING, was to convince the abolitionists
of the utter failure of their plans, and that the policy they had
adopted was productive of results, the opposite of what they wished to
effect;--that British and American abolitionists, in destroying tropical
cultivation by emancipation in the West Indies, and opposing its
promotion in Africa by Colonization, had given to slavery in the United
States its prosperity and its power;--that the institution was no longer
to be controlled by moral or physical force, but had become wholly
subject to the laws of Political Economy;--and that, therefore, labor in
tropical countries, to supply tropical products to commerce, and not
insurrection in the United States, was the agency to be employed by
those who would successfully oppose the extension of American Slavery:
for, just as long as the hands of the free should persist in refusing to
supply the demands of commerce for cotton, just so long it would
continue to be obtained from those of the slave.
It will be seen in the perusal of the present edition, that Great
Britain, in her efforts to promote cotton cultivation in India and
Africa, now acts upon this principle, and that she thereby acknowledges
the truth of the views which the author has advanced. It will be seen
also, that to check American slavery and prevent a renewal of the slave
trade by American planters, she has even determined to employ the slaves
of Africa in the production of cotton: that is to say, the slavery of
America is to be opposed by arraying against it the slavery of
Africa--the petty chiefs there being required to force their slaves to
the cotton patches, that the masters here may find a diminishing market
for the products of their plantations.
In this connection it may be remarked, that the author has had many
opportunities of conversing with colored men, on the subject of
emigration to Africa, and they have almost uniformly opposed it on the
ground that they would be needed here. Some of them, in defending their
conduct, revealed the grounds of their hopes. But details on this point
are unnecessary. The subject is referred to, only as affording an
illustration of the extent to which ignorant men may become the victims
of dangerous delusions. The sum of the matter was about this: the
colored people, they said, had organizations extending from Canada to
Louisiana, by means of which information could be communicated
throughout the South, when the blow for freedom was to be struck.
Philanthropic white men were expected to take sides against the
oppressor, while those occupying neutral ground would offer no
resistance to the passage of forces from Canada and Ohio to Virginia and
Kentucky. Once upon slave territory, they imagined the work of
emancipation would be easily executed, as every slave would rush to the
standard of freedom.
These schemes of the colored people were viewed, at the time, as the
vagaries of over excited and ignorant minds, dreaming of the repetition
of Egyptian miracles for their deliverance; and were subjects of regret,
only because they operated as barriers to Colonization. But when a
friend placed in the author's hand, a few days since, a copy of the
_Chatham_ (Canada West) _Weekly Pilot_, of October 13, he could see that
the seed sown at Columbus in 1849, had yielded its harvest of bitterness
and disappointment at Harper's Ferry in 1859. That paper contained the
proceedings and resolutions of the colored men, at Chatham, on the 3d of
that month, in which the annexed resolution was included:
"_Resolved_,--That in view of the fact that a crisis will soon occur in
the United States to affect our friends and countrymen there, we feel it
the duty of every colored person to make the Canadas their homes. The
temperature and salubrity of the climate, and the productiveness and
fertility of the soil afford ample field for their encouragement. To
hail their enslaved bondmen upon their deliverance, in the glorious
kingdom of British Liberty, in the Canadas, we cordially invite the free
and the bond, the noble and the ignoble--we have no 'Dred Scott Law.'"
The occasion which called out this resolution, together with a number of
others, was the delivery of a lecture, on the 3d of October last, by an
agent from Jamaica, who urged them to emigrate to that beautiful island.
The import of this resolution will be better understood, when it is
remembered, that the organization of Brown's insurrectionary scheme took
place, in this same city of Chatham, on the 8th of May last. The
"crisis" which was soon to occur in the United States, and the
importance of every colored man remaining at his post, at that
particular juncture, as urged by the resolutions, all indicate, very
clearly, that Brown's movements were known to the leaders of the
meeting, and that they desired to co-operate in the movement. The
spirit breathed by the whole series of the Chatham resolutions, is so
fully in accord with those passed from time to time in the United
States, that there is no difficulty in perceiving that the views,
expectations, and hopes of the colored people of both countries have
been the same. The Chatham meeting was on the night of the 3d October,
and the outbreak of Brown on that of the 16th.
But the failure of the Harper's Ferry movement should now serve as
convincing proof, that nothing can be gained, by such means, for the
African race. No successful organization, for their deliverance, can be
effected in this country; and foreign aid is out of the question, not
only because foreign nations will not wage war for a philanthropic
object, but because they cannot do without our cotton for a single year.
They are very much in the condition of our Northern politicians, since
the old party landmarks have been broken down. The slavery question is
the only one left, upon which any enthusiasm can be awakened among the
people. The negro is to American politics what cotton is to European
manufactures and commerce--the controlling element. As the overthrow of
American slavery, with the consequent suspension of the motion of the
spindles and looms of Europe, would bring ruin upon millions of its
population; so the dropping of the negro question, in American politics,
would at once destroy the prospects of thousands of aspirants to office.
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the clamor against slavery is
made only for effect; and there is not now, nor has there been at any
other period, any intention on the part of political agitators to wage
actual war against the slave States themselves. But while the author
believes that no intention of exciting to insurrection ever existed
among leading politicians at the North, he must express the opinion that
evil has grown out of the policy they have pursued, as it has excited
the free negro to attempts at insurrection, by leading him to believe
that they were in earnest in their professions of prosecuting the
"irrepressible conflict," between freedom and slavery, to a termination
destructive to the South; and, lured by this hope, he has been led to
consider it his duty, as a man, to stand prepared for Mr Jefferson's
crisis, in which Omnipotence would be arrayed upon his side. This stand
he has been induced to take from principles of honor, instead of seeking
new fields of enterprise in which to better his condition.
But there is another evil to the colored man, which has grown out of
northern agitation on the question of slavery. The controversy is one of
such a peculiar nature, that any needed modification of it can be made,
by politicians, to suit whatever emergency may arise. The Burns' case
convinced them that many men, white and black, were then prepared for
treason. This was a step, however, that voters at large disapproved;
and, not only was it unpopular to advocate the forcing of emancipation
upon the slave States, but it seemed equally repugnant to the people to
have the North filled with free negroes. The free colored man was,
therefore, given to understand, that slavery was not to be disturbed in
the States where it had been already established. But this was not all.
He had to have another lesson in the philosophy of _dissolving scenes_,
as exhibited in the great political magic lantern. Nearly all the
Western States had denied him an equality with the white man, in the
adoption or modification of their constitutions. He looked to Kansas for
justice, and lo! it came. The first constitution, adopted by the free
State men of that territory, excluded the free colored man from the
rights of citizenship! "Why is this," said the author, to a leading
German politician of Cincinnati: "why have the free State men excluded
the free colored people from the proposed State?" "Oh," he replied, "we
want it for our sons--for white men,--and we want the _nigger_ out of
our way: we neither want him there as a slave or freeman, as in either
case his presence tends to degrade labor." This is not all. Nearly every
slave State is legislating the free colored men out of their bounds, as
a "disturbing element" which their people are determined no longer to
tolerate. Here, then, is the result of the efforts of the free colored
man to sustain himself in the midst of the whites; and here is the evil
that political agitation has brought upon him.
Under these circumstances, the author believes he will be performing a
useful service, in bringing the question of the economical relations of
American slavery, once more, prominently before the public. It is time
that the true character of the negro race, as compared with the white,
in productive industry, should be determined. If the negro, as a
voluntary laborer, is the equal of the white man, as the abolitionists
contend, then, set him to work in tropical cultivation, and he can
accomplish something for his race; but if he is incapable of competing
with the white man, except in compulsory labor,--as slaveholders most
sincerely believe the history of the race fully demonstrates--then let
the truth be understood by the world, and all efforts for his elevation
be directed to the accomplishment of the separation of the races.
Because, until the colored men, who are now free, shall afford the
evidence that freedom is best for the race, those held in slavery cannot
escape from their condition of servitude.
Some new and important facts in relation to the results of West India
emancipation are presented, which show, beyond question, that the
advancing productiveness, claimed for these islands, is not due to any
improvement in the industrial habits of the negroes, but is the result,
wholly, of the introduction of immigrant labor from abroad. No
advancement, of any consequence, has been made where immigrants have not
been largely imported; and in Jamaica, which has received but few, there
is a large decline in production from what existed during even the first
years of freedom.
The present edition embraces a considerable amount of new matter, having
a bearing on the condition of the cotton question, and a few other
points of public interest. Several new Statistical Tables have been
added to the appendix, that are necessary to the illustration of the
topics discussed; and some historical matter also, in illustration of
the early history of slavery in the United States.
CINCINNATI, JANUARY 1, 1860.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
"COTTON IS KING" has been received, generally, with much favor by the
public. The author's name having been withheld, the book was left to
stand or fall upon its own merits. The first edition has been sold
without any special effort on the part of the publishers. As they did
not risk the cost of stereotyping, the work has been left open for
revision and enlargement. No change in the matter of the first edition
has been made, except a few verbal alterations and the addition of some
qualifying phrases. Two short paragraphs only have been omitted, so as
to leave the public documents and abolitionists, only, to testify as to
the moral condition of the free colored people. The matter added to the
present volume equals nearly one-fourth of the work. It relates mainly
to two points: _First_, The condition of the free colored people;
_Second_, The economical and political relations of slavery. The facts
given, it is believed, will completely fortify all the positions of the
author, on these questions, so far as his views have been assailed.
The field of investigation embraced in the book is a broad one, and the
sources of information from which its facts are derived are accessible
to but few. It is not surprising, then, that strangers to these facts,
on first seeing them arranged in their philosophical relations and
logical connection, should be startled at their import, and misconceive
the object and motives of the author.
For example: One reviewer, in noticing the first edition, asserts that
the writer "endeavors to prove that slavery is a great blessing in its
relations to agriculture, manufactures, and commerce." The candid reader
will be unable to find any thing, in the pages of the work, to justify
such an assertion. The author has proved that the products of slave
labor are in such universal demand, through the channels named by the
reviewer, that it is impracticable, in the existing condition of the
world, to overthrow the system; and that as the free negro has
demonstrated his inability to engage successfully in cotton culture,
therefore American slavery remains immovable, and presents a standing
monument of the folly of those who imagined they could effect its
overthrow by the measures they pursued. This was the author's aim.
Another charges, that the whole work is based on a fallacy, and that all
its arguments, therefore, are unsound. The fallacy of the book, it is
explained, consists in making cotton and slavery indivisible, and
teaching that cotton can not be cultivated except by slave labor;
whereas, in the opinion of the objector, that staple can be grown by
free labor. Here, again, the author is misunderstood. He only teaches
what is true beyond all question: not that free labor is incapable of
producing cotton, but that it does not produce it so as to affect the
interests of slave labor; and that the American planter, therefore,
still finds himself in the possession of the monopoly of the market for
cotton, and unable to meet the demand made upon him for that staple,
except by a vast enlargement of its cultivation, requiring the
employment of an increased amount of labor in its production.
Another says: "The real object of the work is an apology for American
slavery. Professing to repudiate extremes, the author pleads the
necessity for the present continuance of slavery, founded on economical,
political, and moral considerations." The dullest reader can not fail to
perceive that the work contains not one word of apology for the
institution of slavery, nor the slightest wish for its continuance. The
author did not suppose that Southern slave holders would thank any
Northern man to attempt an apology for their maintaining what they
consider their rights under the constitution; neither did he imagine
that any plea for the continuance of American slavery was needed, while
the world at large is industriously engaged in supporting it by the
consumption of its products. He, therefore, neither attempted an apology
for its existence nor a plea for its continuance. He was writing history
and not recording his own opinions, about which he never imagined the
public cared a fig. He was merely aiming at showing, how an institution,
feeble and ill supported in the outset, had become one of the most
potent agents in the advancement of civilization, notwithstanding the
opposition it has had to encounter; and that those who had attempted its
overthrow, in consequence of a lack of knowledge of the plainest
principles of political economy and of human nature in its barbarous
state, had contributed, more than any other class of persons, to produce
this result.
Another charges the author with ignorance of the recent progress making
in the culture of cotton, by free labor, in India and Algeria; and
congratulates his readers that, "on this side of the ocean, the
prospects of free soil and free labor, and of free cotton as one of the
products of free soil and free labor, were never so fair as now." This
is a pretty fair example of one's "whistling to keep his courage up,"
while passing, in the dark, through woods where he thinks ghosts are
lurking on either side. Algeria has done nothing, yet, to encourage the
hope that American slavery will be lessened in value by the cultivation
of cotton in Africa. The British custom-house reports, as late as
September, 1855, instead of showing any increase of imports of cotton
from India, it will be seen, exhibit a great falling off in its
supplies; and, in the opinion of the best authorities, extinguishes the
hope of arresting the progress of American slavery by any efforts made
to render Asiatic free labor more effective. As to the prospects on this
side of the ocean, a glance at the map will show, that the chances of
growing cotton in Kansas are just as good, and only as good as in
Illinois and Missouri, from whence not a pound is ever exported. Texas
was careful to appropriate nearly all the cotton lands acquired from
Mexico, which lie on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains; and, by
that act, all such lands, mainly, have been secured to slavery. Where,
then, is free labor to operate, even were it ready for the task?
Another alleges that the book is "a weak effort to slander the people of
color." This is a charge that could have come only from a careless
reader. The whole testimony, embraced in the first edition, nearly, as
to the economical failure of West India Emancipation, and the moral
degradation of the free colored people, generally, is quoted from
abolition authorities, as is expressly stated; not to slander the people
of color, but to show them what the world is to think of them, on the
testimony of their particular friends and self-constituted guardians.
Another objects to what is said of those who hold the opinion that
slavery is _malum in se_, and who yet continue to purchase and use its
products. On this point it is only necessary to say, that the logic of
the book has not been affected by the sophistry employed against it; and
that if those who hold the _per se_ doctrine, and continue to use slave
labor products, dislike the charge of being _participes criminis_ with
robbers, they must classify slavery in some other mode than that in
which they have placed it in their creeds. For, if they are not
partakers with thieves, then slavery is not a system of robbery; but if
slavery be a system of robbery, as they maintain, then, on their own
principles, they are as much partakers with thieves as any others who
deal in stolen property.
The severest criticism on the book, however, comes from one who charges
the author with a "disposition to mislead, or an ignorance which is
inexcusable," in the use of the statistics of crime, having reference to
the free colored people, from 1820 to 1827. The object of the author, in
using the statistics referred to, was only to show the reasons why the
scheme of colonization was then accepted, by the American public, as a
means of relief to the colored population, and not to drag out these
sorrowful facts to the disparagement of those now living. But the
reviewer, suspicious of every one who does not adopt his abolition
notions, suspects the author of improper motives, and asks: "Why go so
far back, if our author wished to treat the subject fairly?" Well, the
statistics on this dismal topic have been brought up to the latest date
practicable, and the author now leaves it to the colored people
themselves to say, whether they have gained any thing by the reviewer's
zeal in their behalf. He will learn one lesson at least, we hope, from
the result: that a writer can use his pen with greater safety to his
reputation, when he knows something about the subject he discusses.
But this reviewer, warming in his zeal, undertakes to philosophise, and
says, that the evils existing among the free colored people, will be
found in exact proportion to the slowness of emancipation; and complains
that New Jersey was taken as the standard, in this respect, instead of
Massachusetts, where, he asserts, "all the negroes in the commonwealth,
were, by the new constitution, liberated in a day, and none of the ill
consequences objected followed, either to the commonwealth or to
individuals." The reviewer is referred to the facts, in the present
edition, where he will find, that the amount of crime, at the date to
which he refers, was _six times_ greater among the colored people of
Massachusetts, in proportion to their numbers, than among those of New
Jersey. The next time he undertakes to review KING COTTON, it will be
best for him not to rely upon his imagination, but to look at the facts.
He should be able at least, when quoting a writer, to discriminate
between evils resulting from insurrections, and evils growing out of
common immoralities. Experience has taught, that it is unsafe, when
calculating the results of the means of elevation employed, to reason
from a civilized to a half civilized race of men.
The last point that needs attention, is the charge that the author is a
slaveholder, and governed by mercenary motives. To break the force of
any such objection to the work, and relieve it from prejudices thus
created, the veil is lifted, and the author's name is placed upon the
title page.
The facts and statistics used in the first edition, were brought down to
the close of 1854, mainly, and the arguments founded upon the then
existing state of things. The year 1853 was taken as best indicating the
relations of our planters and farmers to the manufactures and commerce
of the country and the world; because the exports and imports of that
year were nearer an average of the commercial operations of the country
than the extraordinary year which followed; and because the author had
nearly finished his labors before the results of 1854 had been
ascertained. In preparing the second edition for the press, many
additional facts, of a more recent date, have been introduced: all of
which tend to prove the general accuracy of the author's conclusions, as
expressed in the first edition.
Tables IV and V, added to the present edition, embrace some very curious
and instructive statistics, in relation to the increase and decrease of
the free colored people, in certain sections, and the influence they
appear to exert on public sentiment.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
IN the preparation of the following pages, the author has aimed at
clearness of statement, rather than elegance of diction. He sets up no
claim to literary distinction; and even if he did, every man of
classical taste knows, that a work, abounding in facts and statistics,
affords little opportunity for any display of literary ability.
The greatest care has been taken, by the author, to secure perfect
accuracy in the statistical information supplied, and in all the facts
stated.
The authorities consulted are Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature
and Art; Porter's Progress of the British Nation; McCullough's
Commercial Dictionary; Encyclopædia Americana; London Economist; De
Bow's Review; Patent Office Reports; Congressional Reports on Commerce
and Navigation; Abstract of the Census Reports, 1850; and Compendium of
the Census Reports. The extracts from the Debates in Congress, on the
Tariff Question, are copied from the _National Intelligencer_.
The tabular statements appended, bring together the principal facts,
belonging to the questions examined, in such a manner that their
relations to each other can be seen at a glance.
The first of these Tables, shows the date of the origin of cotton
manufactories in England, and the amount of cotton annually consumed,
down to 1853; the origin and amount of the exports of cotton from the
United States to Europe; the sources of England's supplies of cotton,
from countries other than the United States; the dates of the
discoveries which have promoted the production and manufacture of
cotton; the commencement of the movements made to meliorate the
condition of the African race; and the occurrence of events that have
increased the value of slavery, and led to its extension.
The second and third of the tables, relate to the exports and imports of
the United States; and illustrate the relations sustained by slavery, to
the other industrial interests and to the commerce of the country.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENTS.
Character of the Slavery controversy in the United
States--In Great Britain--Its influence in
modifying the policy of Anti-Slavery men in
America--Course of the Churches--Political
Parties--Result, COTTON IS KING--Necessity of
reviewing the policy in relation to the African
race--Topics embraced in the discussion.
THE controversy on SLAVERY, in the United States, has been one of an
exciting and complicated character. The power to emancipate existing, in
fact, in the States separately and not in the general government, the
efforts to abolish it, by appeals to public opinion, have been fruitless
except when confined to single States. In Great Britain the question was
simple. The power to abolish slavery in her West Indian colonies was
vested in Parliament. To agitate the people of England, and call out a
full expression of sentiment, was to control Parliament and secure its
abolition. The success of the English abolitionists, in the employment
of moral force, had a powerful influence in modifying the policy of
American anti-slavery men. Failing to discern the difference in the
condition of the two countries, they attempted to create a public
sentiment throughout the United States adverse to slavery, in the
confident expectation of speedily overthrowing the institution. The
issue taken, that slavery is _malum in se_--a sin in itself--was
prosecuted with all the zeal and eloquence they could command. Churches
adopting the _sin per se_ doctrine, inquired of their converts, not
whether they supported slavery by the use of its products, but whether
they believed the institution itself sinful. Could public sentiment be
brought to assume the proper ground; could the slaveholder be convinced
that the world denounced him as equally criminal with the robber and
murderer; then, it was believed, he would abandon the system. Political
parties, subsequently organized, taught, that to vote for a slaveholder,
or a pro-slavery man, was sinful, and could not be done without violence
to conscience; while, at the same time, they made no scruples of using
the products of slave labor--the exorbitant demand for which was the
great bulwark of the institution. This was a radical error. It laid all
who adopted it open to the charge of practical inconsistency, and left
them without any moral power over the consciences of others. As long as
all used their products, so long the slaveholders found the _per se_
doctrine working them no harm; as long as no provision was made for
supplying the demand for tropical products by free labor, so long there
was no risk in extending the field of operations. Thus, the very things
necessary to the overthrow of American slavery, were left undone, while
those essential to its prosperity, were continued in the most active
operation; so that, now, after more than a thirty years' war, we may
say, emphatically, COTTON IS KING, and his enemies are vanquished.
Under these circumstances, it is due to the age--to the friends of
humanity--to the cause of liberty--to the safety of the Union--that we
should review the movements made in behalf of the African race, in our
country; so that errors of principle may be abandoned; mistakes in
policy corrected; the free colored people taught their true relations to
the industrial interests of the world; the rights of the slave as well
as the master secured; and the principles of the constitution
established and revered. It is proposed, therefore, to examine this
subject in the light of the social, civil, and commercial history of the
country; and, in doing this, to embrace the facts and arguments under
the following heads:
1. The early movements on the subject of slavery; the circumstances
under which the Colonization Society took its rise; the relations it
sustained to slavery and to the schemes projected for its abolition; the
origin of the elements which have given to American slavery its
commercial value and consequent powers of expansion; and the futility of
the means used to prevent the extension of the institution.
2. The relations of American slavery to the industrial interests of our
own country; to the demands of commerce; and to the present political
crisis.
3. The industrial, social, and moral condition of the free colored
people in the British colonies and in the United States; and the
influence they have exerted on public sentiment in relation to the
perpetuation of slavery.
4. The moral relations of persons holding the _per se_ doctrine, on the
subject of slavery, to the purchase and consumption of slave labor
products.
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLY MOVEMENTS ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY; THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER
WHICH THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY TOOK ITS RISE; THE RELATIONS IT SUSTAINED
TO SLAVERY AND TO THE SCHEMES PROJECTED FOR ITS ABOLITION; THE ORIGIN OF
THE ELEMENTS WHICH HAVE GIVEN TO AMERICAN SLAVERY ITS COMMERCIAL VALUE
AND CONSEQUENT POWERS OF EXPANSION; AND THE FUTILITY OF THE MEANS USED
TO PREVENT THE EXTENSION OF THE INSTITUTION.
Emancipation in the United States begun--First
Abolition Society organized--Progress of
Emancipation--First Cotton Mill--Exclusion of
Slavery from N. W. Territory--Elements of Slavery
expansion--Cotton Gin invented--Suppression of the
Slave Trade--Cotton Manufactures commenced in
Boston--Franklin's Appeal--Condition of the Free
Colored People--Boston Prison-Discipline
Society--Darkening Prospects of the Colored
People.
FOUR years after the Declaration of American Independence, Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts had emancipated their slaves; and, eight years
thereafter, Connecticut and Rhode Island followed their example.
Three years after the last named event, an _abolition society_ was
organized by the citizens of the State of New York, with John Jay at its
head. Two years subsequently, the Pennsylvanians did the same thing,
electing Benjamin Franklin to the presidency of their association. The
same year, too, slavery was forever excluded, by act of Congress, from
the Northwest Territory. This year is also memorable as having witnessed
the erection of the first cotton mill in the United States, at Beverley,
Massachusetts.
During the year that the New York Abolition Society was formed, Watts,
of England, had so far perfected the _steam engine_ as to use it in
propelling machinery for spinning cotton; and the year the Pennsylvania
Society was organized witnessed the invention of the _power loom_. The
_carding machine_ and the _spinning jenny_ having been invented twenty
years before, the power loom completed the machinery necessary to the
indefinite extension of the manufacture of cotton.
The work of emancipation, begun by the four States named, continued to
progress, so that in seventeen years from the adoption of the
constitution, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey, had also
enacted laws to free themselves from the burden of slavery.
As the work of manumission proceeded, the elements of slavery expansion
were multiplied. When the four States first named liberated their
slaves, no regular exports of cotton to Europe had yet commenced; and
the year New Hampshire set hers free, only 138,328 lbs. of that article
were shipped from the country. Simultaneously with the action of
Vermont, in the year following, the _cotton gin_ was invented, and an
unparalleled impulse given to the cultivation of cotton. At the same
time, Louisiana, with her immense territory, was added to the Union, and
room for the extension of slavery vastly increased. New York lagged
behind Vermont for six years, before taking her first step to free her
slaves, when she found the exports of cotton to England had reached
9,500,000 lbs.; and New Jersey, still more tardy, fell five years behind
New York; at which time the exports of that staple--so rapidly had its
cultivation progressed--were augmented to 38,900,000 lbs.
Four years after the emancipations by States had ceased, the slave trade
was prohibited; but, as if each movement for freedom must have its
counter-movement to stimulate slavery, that same year the manufacture of
cotton goods was commenced in Boston. Two years after that event, the
exports of cotton amounted to 93,900,000 lbs. War with Great Britain,
soon afterward, checked both our exports and her manufacture of the
article; but the year 1817, memorable in this connection, from its being
the date of the organization of the Colonization Society, found our
exports augmented to 95,660,000 lbs., and her consumption enlarged to
126,240,000 lbs. Carding and spinning machinery had now reached a good
degree of perfection, and the power loom was brought into general use in
England, and was also introduced into the United States. Steamboats,
too, were coming into use, in both countries; and great activity
prevailed in commerce, manufactures, and the cultivation of cotton.
But how fared it with the free colored people during all this time? To
obtain a true answer to this question we must revert to the days of the
Pennsylvania Abolition Society.
With freedom to the slave, came anxieties among the whites as to the
results. Nine years after Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had taken the
lead in the trial of emancipation, Franklin issued an appeal for aid to
enable his society to form a plan for the promotion of industry,
intelligence, and morality among the free blacks; and he zealously urged
the measure on public attention, as essential to their well-being, and
indispensable to the safety of society. He expressed his belief, that
such is the debasing influence of slavery on human nature, that its very
extirpation, if not performed with care, may sometimes open a source of
serious evils; and that so far as emancipation should be promoted by the
society, it was a duty incumbent on its members to instruct, to advise,
to qualify those restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of
civil liberty.
How far Franklin's influence failed to promote the humane object he had
in view, may be inferred from the fact, that forty-seven years after
Pennsylvania passed her act of emancipation, and thirty-eight after he
issued his appeal, _one-third_ of the convicts in her penitentiary were
colored men; though the preceding census showed that her slave
population had almost wholly disappeared--there being but _two hundred
and eleven_ of them remaining, while her free colored people had
increased in number to more than _thirty thousand_. Few of the other
free States were more fortunate, and some of them were even in a worse
condition--_one-half_ of the convicts in the penitentiary of New Jersey
being colored men.
But this is not the whole of the sad tale that must be recorded. Gloomy
as was the picture of crime among the colored people of New Jersey, that
of Massachusetts was vastly worse. For though the number of her colored
convicts, as compared with the whites, was as _one_ to _six_, yet the
proportion of her colored population in the penitentiary was _one_ out
of _one hundred and forty_, while the proportion in New Jersey was but
_one_ out of _eight hundred and thirty-three_. Thus, in Massachusetts,
where emancipation had, in 1780, been _immediate_ and unconditional,
there was, in 1826, among her colored people, about six times as much
crime as existed among those of New Jersey, where _gradual_ emancipation
had not been provided for until 1804.
The moral condition of the colored people in the free States, generally,
at the period we are considering, may be understood more clearly from
the opinions expressed, at the time, by the _Boston Prison Discipline
Society_. This benevolent association included among its members, Rev.
Francis Wayland, Rev. Justin Edwards, Rev. Leonard Woods, Rev. William
Jenks, Rev. B. B. Wisner, Rev. Edward Beecher, Lewis Tappan, Esq., John
Tappan, Esq., Hon. George Bliss, and Hon. Samuel M. Hopkins.
In the First Annual Report of the Society, dated June 2, 1826, they
enter into an investigation "of the progress of crime, with the causes
of it," from which we make the following extracts:
"DEGRADED CHARACTER OF THE COLORED POPULATION.--The first cause,
existing in society, of the frequency and increase of crime is the
degraded character of the colored population. The facts, which are
gathered from the penitentiaries, to show how great a proportion of the
convicts are colored, even in those States where the colored population
is small, show, most strikingly, the connection between ignorance and
vice."
The report proceeds to sustain its assertions by statistics, which
prove, that, in Massachusetts, where the free colored people constituted
_one seventy-fourth_ part of the population, they supplied _one-sixth_
part of the convicts in her penitentiary; that in New York, where the
free colored people constituted _one thirty-fifth_ part of the
population, they supplied more than _one-fourth_ part of the convicts;
that, in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, where the colored people
constituted _one thirty-fourth_ part of the population, they supplied
more than _one-third_ part of the convicts; and that, in New Jersey,
where the colored people constituted _one-thirteenth_ part of the
population, they supplied more than _one-third_ part of the convicts.
"It is not necessary," continues the report, "to pursue these
illustrations. It is sufficiently apparent, that one great cause of the
frequency and increase of crime, is neglecting to raise the character of
the colored population.
"We derive an argument in favor of education from these facts. It
appears from the above statement, that about _one-fourth_ part of all
the expense incurred by the States above mentioned, for the support of
their criminal institutions, is for the colored convicts. * * Could
these States have anticipated these surprising results, and appropriated
the money to raise the character of the colored population, how much
better would have been their prospects, and how much less the expense of
the States through which they are dispersed for the support of their
colored convicts! * * If, however, their character can not be raised,
where they are, a powerful argument may be derived from these facts, in
favor of colonization, and civilized States ought surely to be as
willing to expend money on any given part of its population, to prevent
crime, as to punish it.
"We can not but indulge the hope that the facts disclosed above, if they
do not lead to an effort to raise the character of the colored
population, will strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of all
the friends of colonizing the free people of color in the United
States."
The Second Annual Report of the Society, dated June 1, 1827, gives the
results of its continued investigations into the condition of the free
colored people, in the following language and figures:
"CHARACTER OF THE COLORED POPULATION.--In the last
report, this subject was exhibited at considerable
length. From a deep conviction of its importance,
and an earnest desire to keep it ever before the
public mind, till the remedy is applied, we
present the following table, showing, in regard to
several States, the whole population, the colored
population, the whole number of convicts, the
number of colored convicts, proportion of convicts
to the whole population, proportion of colored
convicts:
_Whole _Number _Proportion _Proportion
number of of of
_Whole _Colored of Colored Colored Colored
Population._ Population._ Convicts._ Convicts._ People._ Convicts._
Mass. 523,000 7,000 314 50 1 to 74 1 to 6
Conn. 275,000 8,000 117 39 1 to 34 1 to 3
N. York 1,372,000 39,000 637 154 1 to 35 1 to 4
N. Jersey 277,000 20,000 74 24 1 to 13 1 to 3
Penn. 1,049,000 30,000 474 165 1 to 34 1 to 3
"Or,
_Proportion of the _Proportion of the
Population sent to Colored Popu'n
Prison._ sent to Prison._
In Massachusetts, 1 out of 1665 1 out of 140
In Connecticut, 1 out of 2350 1 out of 205
In New York, 1 out of 2153 1 out of 253
In New Jersey, 1 out of 3743 1 out of 833
In Pennsylvania, 1 out of 2191 1 out of 181
EXPENSE FOR THE SUPPORT OF COLORED CONVICTS.
In Masachusetts, in 10 years, $17,734
In Connecticut, in 15 years, 37,166
In New York, in 27 years, 109,166
--------
Total $164 066
"Such is the abstract of the information presented last year, concerning
the degraded character of the colored population. The returns from
several prisons show, that the white convicts are remaining nearly the
same, or are diminishing, while the colored convicts are increasing. At
the same time, the white population is increasing, in the Northern
States, much faster than the colored population."
_Whole No. _Colored
of Convicts._ Convicts._ _Proportion._
In Massachusetts, 313 50 1 to 6
In New York, 381 101 1 to 4
In New Jersey, 67 33 1 to 2
Such is the testimony of men of unimpeachable veracity and undoubted
philanthrophy, as to the early results of emancipation in the United
States. Had the freedmen, in the Northern States, improved their
privileges; had they established a reputation for industry, integrity,
and virtue, far other consequences would have followed their
emancipation. Their advancement in moral character would have put to
shame the advocate for the perpetuation of slavery. Indeed, there could
have been no plausible argument found for its continuance. No regular
exports of cotton, no cultivation of cane sugar, to give a profitable
character to slave labor, had any existence when Jay and Franklin
commenced their labors, and when Congress took its first step for the
suppression of the slave trade.
Unfortunately, the free colored people persevered in their evil habits.
This not only served to fix their own social and political condition on
the level of the slave, but it reacted with fearful effect upon their
brethren remaining in bondage. Their refusing to listen to the counsel
of the philanthropists, who urged them to forsake their indolence and
vice, and their frequent violations of the laws, more than all things
else, put a check to the tendencies, in public sentiment, toward general
emancipation. The failure of Franklin to obtain the means of
establishing institutions for the education of the blacks, confirmed the
popular belief that such an undertaking was impracticable, and the whole
African race, freedmen as well as slaves, were viewed as an intolerable
burden, such as the imports of foreign paupers are now considered. Thus
the free colored people themselves, ruthlessly threw the car of
emancipation from the track, and tore up the rails upon which, alone, it
could move.
CHAPTER III.
State of public opinion in relation to colored
population--Southern views of
Emancipation--Influence of Mr. Jefferson's
opinions--He opposed Emancipation except connected
with Colonization--Negro equality not contemplated
by the Father's of the Revolution--This proved by
the resolutions of their conventions--The true
objects of the opposition to the slave
trade--Motives of British Statesmen in forcing
Slavery on the colonies--Absurdity of supposing
negro equality was contemplated.
THE opinion that the African race would become a growing burden had its
origin before the revolution, and led the colonists to oppose the
introduction of slaves; but failing in this, through the opposition of
England, as soon as they threw off the foreign yoke many of the States
at once crushed the system--among the first acts of sovereignty by
Virginia, being the prohibition of the slave trade. In the determination
to suppress this traffic all the States united--but in emancipation
their policy differed. It was found easier to manage the slaves than the
free blacks--at least it was claimed to be so--and, for this reason, the
slave States, not long after the others had completed their work of
manumission, proceeded to enact laws prohibiting emancipations, except
on condition that the persons liberated should be removed. The newly
organized free States, too, taking alarm at this, and dreading the
influx of the free colored people, adopted measures to prevent the
ingress of this proscribed and helpless race.
These movements, so distressing to the reflecting colored man, be it
remembered, were not the effect of the action of colonizationists, but
took place, mostly, long before the organization of the American
Colonization Society; and, at its first annual meeting, the importance
and humanity of colonization was strongly urged, on the very ground that
the slave States, as soon as they should find that the persons liberated
could be sent to Africa, would relax their laws against emancipation.
The slow progress made by the great body of the free blacks in the
North, or the absence, rather, of any evidences of improvement in
industry, intelligence, and morality, gave rise to the notion, that
before they could be elevated to an equality with the whites, slavery
must be wholly abolished throughout the Union. The constant ingress of
liberated slaves from the South, to commingle with the free colored
people of the North, it was claimed, tended to perpetuate the low moral
standard originally existing among the blacks; and universal
emancipation was believed to be indispensable to the elevation of the
race. Those who adopted this view, seem to have overlooked the fact,
that the Africans, of savage origin, could not be elevated at once to an
equality with the American people, by the mere force of legal
enactments. More than this was needed, for their elevation, as all are
now, reluctantly, compelled to acknowledge. Emancipation, unaccompanied
by the means of intellectual and moral culture, is of but little value.
The savage, liberated from bondage, is a savage still.
The slave States adopted opinions, as to the negro character, opposite
to those of the free States, and would not risk the experiment of
emancipation. They said, if the free States feel themselves burdened by
the few Africans they have freed, and whom they find it impracticable to
educate and elevate, how much greater would be the evil the slave States
must bring upon themselves by letting loose a population nearly twelve
times as numerous. Such an act, they argued, would be suicidal--would
crush out all progress in civilization; or, in the effort to elevate the
negro with the white man, allowing him equal freedom of action, would
make the more energetic Anglo-Saxon the slave of the indolent African.
Such a task, onerous in the highest degree, they could not, and would
not undertake; such an experiment, on their social system, they dared
not hazard; and in this determination they were encouraged to
persevere, not only by the results of emancipation, then wrought out at
the North, but by the settled convictions which had long prevailed at
the South, in relation to the impropriety of freeing the negroes. This
opinion was one of long standing, and had been avowed by some of the
ablest statesmen of the Revolution. Among these Mr. Jefferson stood
prominent. He was inclined to consider the African inferior "in the
endowments both of body and mind" to the European; and, while expressing
his hostility to slavery earnestly, vehemently, he avowed the opinion
that it was impossible for the two races to live equally free in the
same government--that "nature, habit, opinion, had drawn indelible lines
of distinction between them"--that, accordingly, emancipation and
"deportation" (colonization) should go hand in hand--and that these
processes should be gradual enough to make proper provisions for the
blacks in a new country, and fill their places in this with free white
laborers.[2]
Another point needs examination. Notwithstanding the well-known opinions
of Mr. Jefferson, it has been urged that the Declaration of Independence
was designed, by those who issued it, to apply to the negro as well as
to the white man; and that they purposed to extend to the negro, at the
end of the struggle, then begun, all the privileges which they hoped to
secure for themselves. Nothing can be further from the truth, and
nothing more certain than that the rights of the negro never entered
into the questions then considered. That document was written by Mr.
Jefferson himself, and, with the views which he entertained, he could
not have thought, for a moment, of conferring upon the negro the rights
of American citizenship. Hear him further upon this subject and then
judge:
"It will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the blacks
into the State, and thus save the expense of supplying by importation of
white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep-rooted prejudices
entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of
the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real
distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will
divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably
never end, but in the extermination of the one or the other race. To
these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are
physical and moral"[3]
Now it is evident, from this language, that Mr. Jefferson was not only
opposed to allowing the negroes the rights of citizenship, but that he
was opposed to emancipation also, except on the condition that the
freedmen should be removed from the country. He could, therefore, have
meant nothing more by the phrase, "all men are created equal," which he
employed in the Declaration of Independence, than the announcement of a
general principle, which, in its application to the colonists, was
intended most emphatically to assert their equality, before God and the
world, with the imperious Englishmen who claimed the divine right of
lording it over them. This was undoubtedly the view held by Mr.
Jefferson, and the extent to which he expected the language of the
Declaration to be applied.[4] Nor could the signers of that instrument,
or the people whom they represented, ever have intended to apply its
principles to any barbarous or semi-barbarous people, in the sense of
admitting them to an equality with themselves in the management of a
free government. Had this been their design, they must have enfranchised
both Indians and Africans, as both were within the territory over which
they exercised jurisdiction.
But testimony of a conclusive character is at hand, to show that quite
a different object was to be accomplished, than negro equality, in the
movements of the colonists which preceded the outbreak of the American
Revolution. They passed resolutions upon the subject of the slave trade,
it is true, but it was to oppose it, because it increased the colored
population, a result they deprecated in the strongest language. The
checking of this evil, great as the people considered it, was not the
principal object they had in view, in resolving to crush out the slave
trade. It was one of far greater moment, affecting the prosperity of the
mother country, and designed to force her to deal justly with the
colonies.
This point can only be understood by an examination of the history of
that period, so as to comprehend the relations existing between Great
Britain and her several colonies. Let us, then, proceed to the
performance of this task.
The whole commerce of Great Britain, in 1704, amounted, in value, to
thirty-two and a half millions of dollars. In less than three quarters
of a century thereafter, or three years preceding the outbreak of the
American Revolution, it had increased to eighty millions annually. More
than thirty millions of this amount, or over one-third of the whole,
consisted of exports to her West Indian and North American colonies and
to Africa. The yearly trade with Africa, alone, at this
period--1772--was over four and a third millions of dollars: a
significant fact, when it is known that this African traffic was in
slaves.
But this statement fails to give a true idea of the value of North
America and the West Indies to the mother country. Of the commodities
which she imported from them--tobacco, rice, sugar, rum--ten millions of
dollars worth, annually, were re-exported to her other dependencies, and
five millions to foreign countries--thus making her indebted to these
colonies, directly and indirectly, for more than one-half of all her
commerce.
If England was greatly dependent upon these colonies for her increasing
prosperity, they were also dependent upon her; and upon each other, for
the mutual promotion of their comfort and wealth. This is easily
understood. The colonies were prohibited from manufacturing for
themselves. This rendered it necessary that they should be supplied with
linen and woolen fabrics, hardware and cutlery, from the looms and shops
of Great Britain; and, in addition to these necessaries, they were
dependent upon her ships to furnish them with slaves from Africa. The
North American colonies were dependent upon the West Indies for coffee,
sugar, rum; and the West Indies upon North America, in turn, for their
main supplies of provisions and lumber. The North Americans, if
compelled by necessity, could do without the manufacures of England, and
forego the use of the groceries and rum of the West Indies; but Great
Britain could not easily bear the loss of half her commerce, nor could
the West India planters meet a sudden emergency that would cut off their
usual supplies of provisions.
Such were the relations existing between Great Britain and the colonies,
and between the colonies themselves, when the Bostonians cast the tea
overboard. This act of resistance to law, was followed by the passage,
through Parliament, of the Boston Port Bill, closing Boston Harbor to
all commerce whatsoever. The North American colonies, conscious of their
power over the commerce of Great Britain, at once obeyed the call of the
citizens of Boston, and united in the adoption of peaceful measures, to
force the repeal of the obnoxious act. Meetings of the people were held
throughout the country, generally, and resolutions passed, recommending
the non-importation and non-consumption of all British manufactures and
West India products; and resolving, also, that they would not export any
provisions, lumber, or other products, whatever, to Great Britain or any
of her colonies. These resolutions were accompanied by another, in many
of the counties of Virginia, in some of the State conventions, and,
finally, in those of the Continental Congress, in which the slave trade,
and the purchase of additional slaves, were specially referred to as
measures to be at once discontinued. These resolutions, in substance,
declare, as the sentiment of the people: That the African trade is
injurious to the colonies; that it obstructs the population of them by
freemen; that it prevents the immigration of manufacturers and other
useful emigrants from Europe from settling among them; that it is
dangerous to virtue and the welfare of the population; that it occasions
an annual increase of the balance of trade against them; that they most
earnestly wished to see an entire stop put to such a wicked, cruel, and
unlawful traffic; that they would not purchase any slaves hereafter to
be imported, nor hire their vessels, nor sell their commodities or
manufactures to those who are concerned in their importation.
From these facts it appears evident, that the primary object of all the
resolutions was to cripple the commerce of England. Those in relation to
the slave trade, especially, were expected, at once, when taken in
connection with the determination to withhold all supplies of provisions
from the West India planters--to stop the slave trade, and deprive the
British merchants of all further profits from that traffic. But it would
do more than this, as it would compel the West India planters, in a
great degree, to stop the cultivation of sugar and cotton, for export,
and force them to commence the growing of provisions for food--thus
producing ruinous consequences to British manufactures and commerce.[5]
But, in the opposition thus made to the slave trade, there is no act
warranting the conclusion that the negroes were to be admitted to a
position of equality with the whites. The sentiments expressed, with a
single exception,[6] are the reverse, and their increase viewed as an
evil. South Carolina and Georgia did not follow the example of Virginia
and North Carolina in resolving against the slave trade, but acquiesced
in the non-intercourse policy, until the grievances complained of should
be remedied. Another reason existed for opposing the slave trade; this
was the importance of preventing the increase of a population that might
be employed against the liberties of the colonies. That negroes were
thus employed, during the Revolution, is a matter of history; and that
the British hoped to use that population for their own advantage, is
clearly indicated by the language of the Earl of Dartmouth, who
declared, as a sufficient reason for turning a deaf ear to the
remonstrances of the colonists against the further importation of
slaves, that "Negroes cannot become Republicans--they will be a power in
our hands to restrain the unruly colonists."
And, now, will any one say, that the fathers of the Revolution ever
intended to declare the negro the equal of the white man, in the sense
that he was entitled to an equality of political privileges under the
constitution of the United States!
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370.
[3] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370, Note.
[4] That Mr. Jefferson was considered as having no settled plans or
views in relation to the disposal of the blacks, and that he was
disinclined to risk the disturbance of the harmony of the country for
the sake of the negro, appears evident from the opinions entertained of
him and his schemes by John Quincy Adams. After speaking of the zeal of
Mr. Jefferson, and the strong manner in which, at times, he had spoken
against slavery, Mr. Adams says: "But Jefferson had not the spirit of
martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation of slavery
into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of his
colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and impassioned
argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that very account,
the book was published almost against his will. He projected a plan of
general emancipation, in his revision of the Virginia laws, but finally
presented a plan leaving slavery precisely where it was; and, in his
Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the planters that they must,
at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or that worse will follow;
but he withheld the publication of his prophecy till he should himself
be in the grave."--_Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177, 178._
[5] See a more extended detail of the proceedings in relation to this
subject, both in England and the colonies, in the Appendix.
[6] Providence, Rhode Island.
CHAPTER IV.
Dismal condition of Africa--Hopes of Wilberforce
disappointed--Organization of the American
Colonization Society--Its necessity, objects, and
policy--Public sentiment in its favor--Opposition
developes itself--Wm. Lloyd Garrison, James G.
Birney, Gerrit Smith--Effects of
opposition--Stimulants to Slavery--Exports of
Cotton--England sustaining American
Slavery--Failure of the Niger Expedition--Strength
of Slavery--Political action--Its failure--Its
fruits.
ANOTHER question, "How shall the slave trade be suppressed?" began to be
agitated near the close of the last century. The moral desolation
existing in Africa, was without a parallel among the nations of the
earth. When the last of our Northern States had freed its slaves, not a
single Christian Church had been successfully established in Africa, and
the slave trade was still legalized to the citizens of every Christian
nation. Even its subsequent prohibition, by the United States and
England, had no tendency to check the traffic, nor ameliorate the
condition of the African. The other Europeon powers, having now the
monopoly of the trade, continued to prosecute it with a vigor it never
felt before. The institution of slavery, while lessened in the United
States, where it had not yet been made profitable, was rapidly acquiring
an unprecedented enlargement in Cuba and Brazil, where its profitable
character had been more fully realized. How shall the slave trade be
annihilated, slavery extension prevented, and Africa receive a Christian
civilization? were questions that agitated the bosom of many a
philanthropist, long after Wilberforce had achieved his triumphs. It was
found, that the passage of laws prohibiting the slave trade, and the
extermination of that traffic, were two distinct things--the one not
necessarily following the other. The success of Wilberforce with the
British Parliament, only increased the necessity for additional
philanthropic efforts; and a quarter of a century afterwards found the
evil vastly increased which he imagined was wholly destroyed.
It was at the period in the history of Africa, and of public sentiment
on slavery, which we have been considering, that the American
Colonization Society was organized. It began its labors when the eye of
the statesman, the philanthropist, and the Christian, could discover no
other plan of overcoming the moral desolation, the universal oppression
of the colored race, than by restoring the most enlightened of their
number to Africa itself. Emancipation, by States, had been at an end for
a dozen of years. The improvement of the free colored people, in the
presence of the slave, was considered impracticable. Slave labor had
become so profitable, as to leave little ground to expect general
emancipation, even though all other objections had been removed. The
slave trade had increased twenty-five per cent. during the preceding ten
years. Slavery was rapidly extending itself in the tropics, and could
not be arrested but by the suppression of the slave trade. The foothold
of the Christian missionary was yet so precarious in Africa, as to leave
it doubtful whether he could sustain his position.
The colonization of the free colored people in Africa, under the
teachings of the Christian men who were prepared to accompany them, it
was believed, would as fully meet all the conditions of the race, as was
possible in the then existing state of the world. It would separate
those who should emigrate from all further contact with slavery, and
from its depressing influences; it would relax the laws of the slave
States against emancipation, and lead to the more frequent liberation of
slaves; it would stimulate and encourage the colored people remaining
here, to engage in efforts for their own elevation; it would establish
free republics along the coast of Africa, and drive away the slave
trader; it would prevent the extension of slavery, by means of the slave
trade, in tropical America; it would introduce civilization and
Christianity among the people of Africa, and overturn their barbarism
and bloody superstitions; and, if successful, it would react upon
slavery at home, by pointing out to the States and General Government, a
mode by which they might free themselves from the whole African race.
The Society had thus undertaken as great an amount of work as it could
perform. The field was broad enough, truly, for an association that
hoped to obtain an income of but five to ten thousand dollars a year,
and realized annually an average of only $3,276 during the first six
years of its existence. It did not include the destruction of American
slavery among the objects it labored to accomplish. That subject had
been fully discussed; the ablest men in the nation had labored for its
overthrow; more than half the original States of the Union had
emancipated their slaves; the advantages of freedom to the colored man
had been tested; the results had not been as favorable as anticipated;
the public sentiment of the country was adverse to an increase of the
free colored population; the few of their number who had risen to
respectability and affluence, were too widely separated to act in
concert in promoting measures for the general good; and, until better
results should follow the liberation of slaves, further emancipations,
by the States, were not to be expected. The friends of the Colonization
Society, therefore, while affording every encouragement to emancipation
by individuals, refused to agitate the question of the general abolition
of slavery. Nor did they thrust aside any other scheme of benevolence in
behalf of the African race. Forty years had elapsed from the
commencement of emancipation in the country, and thirty from the date of
Franklin's Appeal, before the society sent off its first emigrants. At
that date, no extended plans were in existence, promising relief to the
free colored man. A period of lethargy, among the benevolent, had
succeeded the State emancipations, as a consequence of the indifference
of the free colored people, as a class, to their degraded condition. The
public sentiment of the country was fully prepared, therefore, to adopt
colonization as the best means, or, rather, as the only means for
accomplishing any thing for them or for the African race. Indeed, so
general was the sentiment in favor of colonization, somewhere beyond the
limits of the United States, that those who disliked Africa, commenced a
scheme of emigration to Hayti, and prosecuted it, until eight thousand
free colored persons were removed to that island--a number nearly
equaling the whole emigration to Liberia up to 1850. Haytien emigration,
however, proved a most disastrous experiment.
But the general acquiescence in the objects of the Colonization Society
did not long continue. The exports of cotton from the South were then
rapidly on the increase. Slave labor had become profitable, and slaves,
in the cotton-growing States, were no longer considered a burden. Seven
years after the first emigrants reached Liberia, the South exported
294,310,115 lbs. of cotton; and, the year following, the total cotton
crop reached 325,000,000 lbs. But a great depression in prices had
occurred,[7] and alarmed the planters for their safety. They had
decided against emancipation, and now to have their slaves rendered
valueless, was an evil they were determined to avert. The Report of the
Boston Prison Discipline Society, which appeared at this moment, was
well calculated, by the disclosures it made, to increase the alarm in
the South, and to confirm slaveholders in their belief of the dangers of
emancipation.
At this juncture, a warfare against colonization was commenced at the
South, and it was pronounced an abolition scheme in disguise. In
defending itself, the society re-asserted its principles of neutrality
in relation to slavery, and that it had only in view the colonization of
the free colored people. In the heat of the contest, the South were
reminded of their former sentiments in relation to the whole colored
population, and that colonization merely proposed removing one division
of a people they had pronounced a public burden.[8]
The emancipationists at the North had only lent their aid to
colonization in the hope that it would prove an able auxiliary to
abolition; but when the society declared its unalterable purpose to
adhere to its original position of neutrality, they withdrew their
support, and commenced hostilities against it. "The Anti-Slavery
Society," said a distinguished abolitionist, "began with a declaration
of war against the Colonization Society."[9] This feeling of hostility
was greatly increased by the action of the abolitionists of England.
The doctrine of "Immediate, not Gradual Abolition," was announced by
them as their creed; and the anti-slavery men of the United States
adopted it as the basis of their action. Its success in the English
Parliament, in procuring the passage of the Act for West India
emancipation, in 1833, gave a great impulse to the abolition cause in
the United States.
In 1832, William Lloyd Garrison declared hostilities against the
Colonization Society; in 1834, James G. Birney followed his example;
and, in 1836 Gerritt Smith also abandoned the cause. The North
everywhere resounded with the cry of "Immediate Abolition;" and, in
1837, the abolitionists numbered 1,015 societies; had seventy agents
under commission, and an income, for the year, of $36,000.[10] The
Colonization Society, on the other hand, was greatly embarrassed. Its
income, in 1838, was reduced to $10,000; it was deeply in debt; the
parent society did not send a single emigrant, that year, to Liberia;
and its enemies pronounced it bankrupt and dead.[11]
But did the abolitionists succeed in forcing emancipation upon the
South, when they had thus rendered colonization powerless? Did the
fetters fall from the slave at their bidding? Did fire from heaven
descend, and consume the slaveholder at their invocation? No such thing!
They had not touched the true cause of the extension of slavery. They
had not discovered the secret of its power; and, therefore, its locks
remained unshorn, its strength unabated. The institution advanced as
triumphantly as if no opposition existed. The planters were progressing
steadily, in securing to themselves the monopoly of the cotton markets
of Europe, and in extending the area of slavery at home. In the same
year that Gerritt Smith declared for abolition, the title of the Indians
to fifty-five millions of acres of land, in the slave States, was
extinguished, and the tribes removed. The year that colonization was
depressed to the lowest point, the exports of cotton, from the United
States, amounted to 595,952,297 lbs., and the consumption of the article
in England, to 477,206,108 lbs.
When Mr. Birney seceded from colonization, he encouraged his new allies
with the hope, that West India free labor would render our slave labor
less profitable, and emancipation, as a consequence, be more easily
effected. How stood this matter six years afterward? This will be best
understood by contrast. In 1800, the West Indies exported 17,000,000
lbs. of cotton, and the United States, 17,789,803 lbs. They were then
about equally productive in that article. In 1840, the West India
exports had dwindled down to 427,529 lbs., while those of the United
States had increased to 743,941,061 lbs.
And what was England doing all this while? Having lost her supplies from
the West Indies, she was quietly spinning away at American slave labor
cotton; and to ease the public conscience of the kingdom, was loudly
talking of a free labor supply of the commodity from the banks of the
Niger! But the expedition up that river failed, and 1845 found her
manufacturing 626,496,000 lbs. of cotton, mostly the product of American
slaves! The strength of American slavery at that moment may be inferred
from the fact, that we exported that year 872,905,996 lbs. of cotton,
and our production of cane sugar had reached over 200,000,000 lbs.;
while, to make room for slavery extension, we were busied in the
annexation of Texas and in preparations for the consequent war with
Mexico!
But abolitionists themselves, some time before this, had, mostly, become
convinced of the feeble character of their efforts against slavery, and
allowed politicians to enlist them in a political crusade, as the last
hope of arresting the progress of the system. The cry of "Immediate
Abolition" died away; reliance upon moral means was mainly abandoned;
and the limitation of the institution, geographically, became the chief
object of effort. The results of more than a dozen years of political
action are before the public, and what has it accomplished! We are not
now concerned in the inquiry of how far the strategy of politicians
succeeded in making the votes of abolitionists subservient to slavery
extension. That they did so, in at least one prominent case, will never
be denied by any candid man. All we intend to say, is, that the cotton
planters, instead of being crippled in their operations, were able, in
the year ending the last of June, 1853, to export 1,111,570,370 lbs. of
cotton, beside supplying near 300,000,000 lbs. for home consumption; and
that England, the year ending the last of January, 1853, consumed the
unprecedented quantity of 817,998,048 lbs. of that staple.[12] The year
1854, instead of finding slavery perishing under the blows it had
received, has witnessed the destruction of all the old barriers to its
extension, and beholds it expanded widely enough for the profitable
employment of the slave population, with all its natural increase, for a
hundred years to come!!
If political action against slavery has been thus disastrously
unfortunate, how is it with anti-slavery action, at large, as to its
efficiency at this moment? On this point, hear the testimony of a
correspondent of Frederick Douglass' Paper, January 26, 1855:
"How gloriously did the anti-slavery cause arise . . . . . . in 1833-4!
And now what is it, in our agency! . . . . . . What is it, through the
errors or crimes of its advocates variously--probably quite as much as
through the brazen, gross, and licentious wickedness of its enemies.
Alas! what is it but a mutilated, feeble, discordant, and half-expiring
instrument, at which Satan and his children, legally and illegally,
scoff! Of it I despair."
Such are the crowning results of both political and anti-slavery action,
for the overthrow of slavery! Such are the demonstrations of their utter
impotency as a means of relief to the bond and free of the colored
people!
Surely, then, if the negro is capable of elevation, it is time that some
other measures should be devised, than those hitherto adopted, for the
melioration of the African race! Surely, too, it is time for the
American people to rebuke that class of politicians, North and South,
whose only capital consists in keeping up a fruitless warfare upon the
subject of slavery--nay! abundant in fruits to the poor colored man; but
to him, "their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of
Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter;
their vine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps."[13]
The application of this language, to the case under consideration, will
be fully justified when the facts, in the remaining pages of this work,
are carefully studied.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See Table I, Appendix.
[8] The sentiment of the Colonization Society, was expressed in the
following resolution, embraced in its annual report of 1826:
"_Resolved_,--That the society disclaims, in the most unqualified terms,
the design attributed to it, of interfering, on the one hand, with the
legal rights and obligations of slavery; and, on the other, of
perpetuating its existence within the limits of the country."
On another occasion Mr. Clay, on behalf of the society, defined its
position thus:
"It protested, from the commencement, and throughout all its progress,
and it now protests, that it entertains no purpose, on its own
authority, or by its own means, to attempt emancipation, partial or
general; that it knows the General Government has no constitutional
power to achieve such an object; that it believes that the States, and
the States only, which tolerate slavery, can accomplish the work of
emancipation; and that it ought to be left to them exclusively,
absolutely, and voluntarily, to decide the question."--_Tenth Annual
Report, p. 14, 1828._
[9] Gerrit Smith, 1835.
[10] Lundy's Life.
[11] On the floor of an Ecclesiastical Assembly, one minister pronounced
colonization "a dead horse;" while another claimed that his "old mare
was giving freedom to more slaves, by trotting off with them to Canada,
than the Colonization Society was sending of emigrants to Liberia."
[12] This portion of the work is left unchanged, and the statistics of
the increase of slave labor products, up to 1859, introduced elsewhere.
[13] Deuteronomy, xxxii. 32, 33.
CHAPTER V.
THE RELATIONS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY TO THE INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS OF OUR
COUNTRY; TO THE DEMANDS OF COMMERCE; AND TO THE PRESENT POLITICAL
CRISIS.
Present condition of Slavery--Not an isolated
system--Its relations to other industrial
interests--To manufactures, commerce, trade, human
comfort--Its benevolent aspect--The reverse
picture--Immense value of tropical possessions to
Great Britain--England's attempted monopoly of
Manufactures--Her dependence on American
Planters--Cotton Planters attempt to monopolize
Cotton markets--_Fusion_ of these parties--Free
Trade essential to their success--Influence on
agriculture, mechanics--Exports of Cotton,
Tobacco, etc.--Increased production of
Provisions--Their extent--New markets needed.
THE institution of slavery, at this moment, gives indications of a
vitality that was never anticipated by its friends or foes. Its enemies
often supposed it about ready to expire, from the wounds they had
inflicted, when in truth it had taken two steps in advance, while they
had taken twice the number in an opposite direction. In each successive
conflict, its assailants have been weakened, while its dominion has been
extended.
This has arisen from causes too generally overlooked. Slavery is not an
isolated system, but is so mingled with the business of the world, that
it derives facilities from the most innocent transactions. Capital and
labor, in Europe and America, are largely employed in the manufacture of
cotton. These goods, to a great extent, may be seen freighting every
vessel, from Christian nations, that traverses the seas of the globe;
and filling the warehouses and shelves of the merchants over two-thirds
of the world. By the industry, skill, and enterprise employed in the
manufacture of cotton, mankind are better clothed; their comfort better
promoted; general industry more highly stimulated; commerce more widely
extended; and civilization more rapidly advanced than in any preceding
age.
To the superficial observer, all the agencies, based upon the sale and
manufacture of cotton, seem to be legitimately engaged in promoting
human happiness; and he, doubtless, feels like invoking Heaven's
choicest blessings upon them. When he sees the stockholders in the
cotton corporations receiving their dividends, the operatives their
wages, the merchants their profits, and civilized people everywhere
clothed comfortably in cottons, he can not refrain from exclaiming: The
lines have fallen unto them in pleasant places; yea, they have a goodly
heritage!
But turn a moment to the source whence the raw cotton, the basis of
these operations, is obtained, and observe the aspect of things in that
direction. When the statistics on the subject are examined, it appears
that nine-tenths of the cotton consumed in the Christian world is the
product of the slave labor of the United States.[14] It is this monopoly
that has given to slavery its commercial value; and, while this monopoly
is retained, the institution will continue to extend itself wherever it
can find room to spread. He who looks for any other result, must expect
that nations, which, for centuries, have waged war to extend their
commerce, will now abandon that means of aggrandizement, and bankrupt
themselves to force the abolition of American slavery!
This is not all. The economical value of slavery, as an agency for
supplying the means of extending manufactures and commerce, has long
been understood by statesmen.[15] The discovery of the power of steam,
and the inventions in machinery, for preparing and manufacturing cotton,
revealed the important fact, that a single island, having the monopoly
secured to itself, could supply the world with clothing. Great Britain
attempted to gain this monopoly; and, to prevent other countries from
rivaling her, she long prohibited all emigration of skillful mechanics
from the kingdom, as well as all exports of machinery. As country after
country was opened to her commerce, the markets for her manufactures
were extended, and the demand for the raw material increased. The
benefits of this enlarged commerce of the world, were not confined to a
single nation, but mutually enjoyed by all. As each had products to
sell, peculiar to itself, the advantages often gained by one were no
detriment to the others. The principal articles demanded by this
increasing commerce have been coffee, sugar, and cotton, in the
production of which slave labor has greatly predominated. Since the
enlargement of manufactures, cotton has entered more extensively into
commerce than coffee and sugar, though the demand for all three has
advanced with the greatest rapidity. England could only become a great
commercial nation, through the agency of her manufactures. She was the
best supplied, of all the nations, with the necessary capital, skill,
labor, and fuel, to extend her commerce by this means. But, for the raw
material, to supply her manufactories, she was dependent upon other
countries. The planters of the United States were the most favorably
situated for the cultivation of cotton; and while Great Britain was
aiming at monopolizing its manufacture, they attempted to monopolize the
markets for that staple. This led to a fusion of interests between them
and the British manufacturers; and to the adoption of principles in
political economy, which, if rendered effective, would promote the
interests of this coalition. With the advantages possessed by the
English manufacturers, "Free Trade" would render all other nations
subservient to their interests; and, so far as their operations should
be increased, just so far would the demand for American cotton be
extended. The details of the success of the parties to this combination,
and the opposition they have had to encounter, are left to be noticed
more fully hereafter. To the cotton planters, the co-partnership has
been eminently advantageous.
How far the other agricultural interests of the United States are
promoted, by extending the cultivation of cotton, may be inferred from
the Census returns of 1850, and the Congressional Reports on Commerce
and Navigation, for 1854.[16] Cotton and tobacco, only, are largely
exported. The production of sugar does not yet equal our consumption of
the article, and we import, chiefly from slave labor countries,
445,445,680 lbs. to make up the deficiency.[17] But of cotton and
tobacco, we export more than _two-thirds_ of the amount produced; while
of other products of the agriculturists, less than the _one forty-sixth_
part is exported. Foreign nations, generally, can grow their provisions,
but can not grow their tobacco and cotton. Our surplus provisions, not
exported, go to the villages, towns, and cities, to feed the mechanics,
manufacturers, merchants, professional men, and others; or to the cotton
and sugar districts of the South, to feed the planters and their slaves.
The increase of mechanics and manufacturers at the North, and the
expansion of slavery at the South, therefore, augment the markets for
provisions, and promote the prosperity of the farmer. As the mechanical
population increases, the implements of industry and articles of
furniture are multiplied, so that both farmer and planter can be
supplied with them on easier terms. As foreign nations open their
markets to cotton fabrics, increased demands for the raw material are
made. As new grazing and grain-growing States are developed, and teem
with their surplus productions, the mechanic is benefited, and the
planter, relieved from food-raising, can employ his slaves more
extensively upon cotton. It is thus that our exports are increased; our
foreign commerce advanced; the home markets of the mechanic and farmer
extended, and the wealth of the nation promoted. It is thus, also, that
the free labor of the country finds remunerating markets for its
products--though at the expense of serving as an efficient auxiliary in
the extension of slavery!
But more: So speedily are new grain-growing States springing up; so
vast is the territory owned by the United States, ready for settlement;
and so enormous will soon be the amount of products demanding profitable
markets, that the national government has been seeking new outlets for
them, upon our own continent, to which, alone, they can be
advantageously transported. That such outlets, when our vast possessions
Westward are brought under cultivation, will be an imperious necessity,
is known to every statesman. The farmers of these new States, after the
example of those of the older sections of the country, will demand a
market for their products. This can be furnished, only, by the extension
of slavery; by the acquisition of more tropical territory; by opening
the ports of Brazil, and other South American countries, to the
admission of our provisions; by their free importation into European
countries; or by a vast enlargement of domestic manufactures, to the
exclusion of foreign goods from the country. Look at this question as it
now stands, and then judge of what it must be twenty years hence. The
class of products under consideration, in the whole country, in 1853,
were valued at $1,551,176,490; of which there were exported to foreign
countries, to the value of only $33,809,126.[18] The planter will not
assent to any check upon the foreign imports of the country, for the
benefit of the farmer. This demands the adoption of vigorous measures to
secure a market for his products by some of the other modes stated.
Hence, the orders of our executive, in 1851, for the exploration of the
valley of the Amazon; the efforts, in 1854, to obtain a treaty with
Brazil, for the free navigation of that immense river; the negotiations
for a military foothold in St. Domingo; and the determination to acquire
Cuba. But we must not anticipate topics to be considered at a later
period in our discussion.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] See Appendix, Table I.
[15] It may be well here to illustrate this point, by an extract from
McQueen, of England, in 1844, when this highly intelligent gentleman was
urging upon his government the great necessity which existed for
securing to itself, as speedily as possible, the control of the labor
and the products of tropical Africa. In reference to the benefits which
had been derived from her West India colonies, before the suppression of
the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves had rendered them
comparatively unproductive, he said: "During the fearful struggle of a
quarter of a century, for her existence as a nation, against the power
and resources of Europe, directed by the most intelligent but
remorseless military ambition against her, the command of the
productions of the torrid zone, and the advantageous commerce which that
afforded, gave to Great Britain the power and the resources which
enabled her to meet, to combat, and to overcome, her numerous and
reckless enemies in every battle-field, whether by sea or land,
throughout the world. In her the world saw realized the fabled giant of
antiquity. With her hundred hands she grasped her foes in every region
under heaven, and crushed them with resistless energy."
In further presenting the considerations which he considered necessary
to secure the adoption of the policy he was urging, Mr. McQueen referred
to the difficulties which were then surrounding Great Britain, and the
extent to which rival nations had surpassed her in tropical cultivation.
He continued: "The increased cultivation and prosperity of foreign
tropical possessions is become so great, and is advancing so rapidly the
power and resources of other nations, that these are embarrassing this
country, (England,) in all her commercial relations, in her pecuniary
resources, and in all her political relations and negotiations." . . . .
. . "Instead of supplying her own wants with tropical productions, and
next nearly all Europe, as she formerly did, she had scarcely enough, of
some of the most important articles, for her own consumption, while her
colonies were mostly supplied with foreign slave produce." . . . . . .
"In the mean time tropical productions had been increased from
$75,000,000, to $300,000,000 annually. The English capital invested in
tropical productions in the East and West Indies, had been, by
emancipation in the latter, reduced from $750,000,000, to $650,000,000;
while, since 1808, on the part of foreign nations $4,000,000,000 of
fixed capital had been created in slaves and in cultivation wholly
dependent upon the labor of slaves." The odds, therefore, in
agricultural and commercial capital and interest, and consequently in
political power and influence, arrayed against the British tropical
possessions, were very fearful--six to one. This will be better
understood by giving the figures on the subject. The contrast is very
striking, and reveals the secret of England's untiring zeal about
slavery and the slave trade. Indeed, Mr. McQueen frankly acknowledges,
that "If the foreign slave trade be not extinguished, and the
cultivation of the tropical territories of other powers opposed and
checked by British tropical cultivation, then the interests and the
power of such states will rise into a preponderance over those of Great
Britain; and the power and the influence of the latter will cease to be
felt, feared and respected, amongst the civilized and powerful nations
of the world."
But here are the figures upon which this humiliating acknowledgement is
made. The productions of the tropical possessions of Great Britain and
foreign countries, respectively, at the period alluded to by Mr.
McQueen, and as given by himself, stood as follows:
SUGAR--1842.
British Possessions. | Foreign countries.
West Indies, cwts. 2,508,552| Cuba, cwts. 5,800,000
East Indies, " 940,452 | Brazil, " 2,400,000
Mauritius,(1841) " 544,767 | Java, " 1,105,757
------------------| Louisiana, " 1,400,000
Total 3,993,771 | ------------------
| Total 10,705,757
COFFEE--1842.
West Indies, lbs. 9,186,555 | Java, lbs. 134,842,715
East Indies, " 18,206,448 | Brazil, " 135,000,800
------------------ | Cuba, " 33,589,325
Total 27,393,003 | Venezuela, " 34,000,000
| ------------------
| Total 337,432,840
COTTON--1840.
West Indies, lbs. 427,529 | United States, lbs. 790,479,275
East Indies, " 77,015,917 | Java, " 165,504,800
To China from do. " 60,000,000 | Brazil, " 25,222,828
------------------| ------------------
Total 137,443,446 | Total 981,206,903
[16] See Appendix, Table II.
[17] Table III. For Statistics up to 1859, see chapter VI. and Appendix.
[18] See Appendix, Table II.
CHAPTER VI.
Foresight of Great Britain--Hon. George Thompson's
predictions--Their failure--England's dependence
on Slave labor--Blackwood's Magazine--London
Economist--McCullough--Her exports of cotton
goods--Neglect to improve the proper moment for
Emancipation--Admission of Gerrit Smith--_Cotton_,
its exports, its value, extent of crop, and cost
of our cotton fabrics--_Provisions_, their value,
their export, their consumption--_Groceries_,
source of their supplies, cost of amount
consumed--Our total indebtedness to Slave
labor--How far Free labor sustains Slave labor.
ANTECEDENT to all the movements noticed in the preceding chapter, Great
Britain had foreseen the coming increased demand for tropical products.
Indeed, her West Indian policy, of a few years previous, had hastened
the crisis; and, to repair her injuries, and meet the general outcry for
cotton, she made the most vigorous efforts to promote its cultivation in
her own tropical possessions. The motives prompting her to this policy,
need not be referred to here, as they will be noticed hereafter. The
Hon. George Thompson, it will be remembered, when urging the increase of
cotton cultivation in the East Indies, declared that the scheme must
succeed, and that, soon, all slave labor cotton would be repudiated by
the British manufacturers. Mr Garrison indorsed the measure, and
expressed his belief that, with its success, the American slave system
must inevitably perish from starvation! But England's efforts signally
failed, and the golden apple, fully ripened, dropped into the lap of our
cotton planters.[19] The year that heard Thompson's pompous
predictions,[20] witnessed the consumption of but 445,744,000 lbs. of
cotton, by England; while, fourteen years later, she used 817,998,048
lbs., nearly 700,000,000 lbs. of which were obtained from America!
That we have not overstated her dependence upon our slave labor for
cotton is a fact of world-wide notoriety. _Blackwood's Magazine_,
January, 1853, in referring to the cultivation of the article, by the
United States, says:
"With its increased growth has sprung up that mercantile navy, which now
waves its stripes and stars over every sea, and that foreign influence,
which has placed the internal peace--we may say the subsistence of
millions in every manufacturing country in Europe--within the power of
an oligarchy of planters."
In reference to the same subject, the _London Economist_ quotes as
follows:
"Let any great social or physical convulsion visit the United States,
and England would feel the shock from Land's End to John O'Groats. The
lives of nearly two millions of our countrymen are dependent upon the
cotton crops of America; their destiny may be said, without any kind of
hyperbole, to hang upon a thread. Should any dire calamity befall the
land of cotton, a thousand of our merchant ships would rot idly in dock;
ten thousand mills must stop their busy looms; two thousand thousand
mouths would starve, for lack of food to feed them."
A more definite statement of England's indebtedness to cotton, is given
by McCullough; who shows that as far back as 1832, her exports of cotton
fabrics were equal in value to about two-thirds of all the woven fabrics
exported from the empire. The same state of things, nearly, existed in
1849, when the cotton fabrics exported, according to the _London
Economist_, were valued at about $140,000,000, while all the other woven
fabrics exported did not quite reach to the value of $68,000,000. On
consulting the same authority, of still later dates, it appears, that
the last four years has produced no material change in the relations
which the different classes of British fabrics, exported, bear to each
other. The present condition of the demand and supplies of cotton,
throughout Europe, and the extent to which the increasing consumption of
that staple must stimulate the American planters to its increased
production, will be noticed in the proper place.[21]
There was a time when American slave labor sustained no such relations
to the manufactures and commerce of the world as it now so firmly holds;
and when, by the adoption of proper measures, on the part of the free
colored people and their friends, the emancipation of the slaves, in all
the States, might, possibly, have been effected. But that period has
passed forever away, and causes, unforeseen, have come into operation,
which are too powerful to be overcome by any agencies that have since
been employed.[22] What Divine Providence may have in store for the
future, we know not; but, at present, the institution of slavery is
sustained by numberless pillars, too massive for human power and wisdom
to overthrow.
Take another view of this subject. To say nothing now of the tobacco,
rice, and sugar, which are the products of our slave labor, we exported
raw cotton to the value of $109,456,404 in 1853. Its destination was, to
Great Britain, 768,596,498 lbs.; to the Continent of Europe, 335,271,434
lbs.; to countries on our own Continent, 7,702,438 lbs.; making the
total exports, 1,111,570,370 lbs. The entire crop of that year being
1,305,152,800 lbs., gives, for home consumption, 268,403,600 lbs.[23] Of
this, there was manufactured into cotton fabrics to the value of
$61,869,274;[24] of which there was retained, for home markets, to the
value of $53,100,290. Our imports of cotton fabrics from Europe, in
1853, for consumption, amounted in value to $26,477,950:[25] thus
making our cottons, foreign and domestic, for that year, cost us
$79,578,240.
In bringing down the results to 1858, it will be seen that the imports
of foreign cotton goods has fluctuated at higher and lower amounts than
those of 1853; and that an actual decrease of our exports of cotton
manufactures has taken place since that date.[26] But in the exports of
raw cotton there has been an increase of nearly a hundred millions of
pounds over that of 1853--the total exports of 1859 being 1,208,561,200
lbs. The total crop of 1859, in the United States, was 1,606,800,000
lbs., and the amount taken for consumption 371,060,800 lbs.[27]
Thus, while our consumption of foreign cotton goods is not on the
increase, the foreign demand for our raw cotton is rapidly augmenting;
and thus the American planter is becoming more and more important to the
manufactures and commerce of the world.
This, now, is what becomes of our cotton; this is the way in which it so
largely constitutes the basis of commerce and trade; and this is the
nature of the relations existing between the slavery of the United
States and the economical interests of the world.
But have the United States no other great leading interests, except
those which are involved in the production of cotton? Certainly, they
have. Here is a great field for the growth of provisions. In ordinary
years, exclusive of tobacco and cotton, our agricultural property, when
added to the domestic animals and their products, amounts in value
$1,551,176,490. Of this, there is exported only to the value of
$33,809,126; which leaves for home consumption and use, a remainder to
the value of $1,517,367,364.[28] The portions of the property
represented by this immense sum of money, which pass from the hands of
the agriculturists, are distributed throughout the Union, for the
support of the day laborers, sailors, mechanics, manufacturers, traders,
merchants, professional men, planters, and the slave population. This is
what becomes of our provisions.
Besides this annual consumption of provisions, most of which is the
product of free labor, the people of the United States use a vast amount
of groceries, which are mainly of slave labor origin. Boundless as is
the influence of cotton, in stimulating slavery extension, that of the
cultivation of groceries falls but little short of it; the chief
difference being, that they do not receive such an increased value under
the hand of manufacturers. The cultivation of coffee, in Brazil, employs
as great a number of slaves as that of cotton in the United States.
But, to comprehend fully our indebtedness to slave labor for groceries,
we must descend to particulars. Our imports of coffee, tobacco, sugar,
and molasses, for 1853, amounted in value to $38,479,000; of which the
hand of the slave, in Brazil and Cuba, mainly, supplied to the value of
$34,451,000.[29] This shows the extent to which we are sustaining
foreign slavery, by the consumption of these four products. But this is
not our whole indebtedness to slavery for groceries. Of the domestic
grown tobacco, valued at $19,975,000, of which we retain nearly
one-half, the Slave States produce to the value of $16,787,000; of
domestic rice, the product of the South, we consume to the value of
$7,092,000; of domestic slave grown sugar and molasses, we take, for
home consumption, to the value of $34,779,000; making our grocery
account, with domestic slavery, foot up to the sum of $50,449,000. Our
whole indebtedness, then, to slavery, foreign and domestic, for these
four commodities, after deducting two millions of re-exports amounts to
$82,607,000.
The exports of tobacco are on the increase, as appears from Table VIII
of Appendix, showing an extension of its cultivation; but the exports of
rice are not on the increase, from which it would appear that its
production remains stationary.
By adding the value of the foreign and domestic cotton fabrics,
consumed annually in the United States, to the yearly cost of the
groceries which the country uses, our total indebtedness, for articles
of slave labor origin, will be found swelling up to the enormous sum of
$162,185,240.[30]
We have now seen the channels through which our cotton passes off into
the great sea of commerce, to furnish the world its clothing. We have
seen the origin and value of our provisions, and to whom they are sold.
We have seen the sources whence our groceries are derived, and the
millions of money they cost. To ascertain how far these several
interests are sustained by one another, will be to determine how far any
one of them becomes an element of expansion to the others. To decide a
question of this nature with precision is impracticable. The statistics
are not attainable. It may be illustrated, however, in various ways, so
as to obtain a conclusion proximately accurate. Suppose, for example,
that the supplies of food from the North were cut off, the manufactories
left in their present condition, and the planters forced to raise their
provisions and draught animals: in such circumstances, the export of
cotton must cease, as the lands of these States could not be made to
yield more than would subsist their own population, and supply the
cotton demanded by the Northern States. Now, if this be true of the
agricultural resources of the cotton States--and it is believed to be
nearly the full extent of their capacity--then the surplus of cotton, to
the value of more than a hundred millions of dollars, now annually sent
abroad, stands as the representative of the yearly supplies which the
cotton planters receive from the farmers north of the cotton line. This,
therefore, as will afterward more fully appear, may be taken as the
probable extent to which the supplies from the North serve as an element
of slavery expansion in the article of cotton alone.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Paganism has, long since, attained its maximum in agricultural
industry, and the introduction of Christian civilization, into India,
can, alone, lead to an increase of its productions for export.
[20] 1839.
[21] ENGLAND AND SLAVERY.--In the _London Times_ of October 7th, 1858,
there is a long and very able and candid article on the subject of
cotton. The proportions of the article used by different nations are
thus stated:
Great Britain, 51.28 France, 13.24 Northern Europe, 6.84 Other foreign
ports, 5.91 Consumption of the U. S., 23.58
Thus it appears that England uses more of the raw material than all the
rest of the world. After giving the great facts the writer uses the
following language:
"An advance of one pence per pound on the price of American cotton is
welcomed by the slave-owner of the Southern States as supplying him with
the sinews of war for the struggle now waging with the Northern
abolitionists. This mere advance of one pence on our present annual
consumption is equivalent to an annual subscription of sixteen millions
of dollars toward the maintainance of American slavery."--_American
Missionary._
[22] See the speech of the Hon. Gerrit Smith, on the "Kansas-Nebraska
Bill," in which he asserts, that the invention of the _Cotton Gin_
fastened slavery upon the country; and that, but for its invention,
slavery would long since have disappeared.
[23] This is only the consumption north of Virginia.
[24] This estimate is probably too low, being taken from the census of
1850. The exports of cottons for 1850 were $4,734,424; and for 1353,
$8,768,894; having nearly doubled in four years.
[25] These figures were taken from the official documents for the first
edition. They vary a little from the revised documents from which Table
VII is taken, but not so as to affect our argument.
[26] See Table VII, in Appendix.
[27] See Table VI, in Appendix; and in this connection it may be
explained that the _crop year_ ends August 31st.
[28] See Table II, in Appendix. We have of course to limit our
statements in relation to some of these amounts to the figures used in
the first edition, because they can only be ascertained from the census
tables of 1850. While it will be found that the exports of bread-stuffs
and provisions have increased considerably, it will be seen from Table
VIII that it is not in a greater ratio than the exports of cotton and
tobacco. To show that the statement as it stands was a fair one at the
time, it is only necessary for the reader to look at the last named
table to see that the three years preceding 1853 exported considerably
less than that year.
[29] See Table III, Appendix.
[30] These estimates have not been recast and adapted to 1859, for the
third edition, because, as will be seen from Tables VII, VIII and X,
there has been no great change in the amount of these commodities
consumed since 1853.
CHAPTER VII.
Economical relations of Slavery further
considered--System unprofitable in grain growing,
but profitable in culture of Cotton--Antagonism of
Farmer and Planter--"Protection," and, "Free
Trade" controversy--Congressional Debates on the
subject--Mr. Clay--Position of the South--"Free
Trade," considered indispensable to its
prosperity.
BUT the subject of the relations of American slavery to the economical
interests of the world, demands a still closer scrutiny, in order that
the causes of the failure of abolitionism to arrest its progress, as
well as the present relations of the institution to the politics of the
country, may fully appear.
Slave labor has seldom been made profitable where it has been wholly
employed in grazing and grain growing; but it becomes remunerative in
proportion as the planters can devote their attention to cotton, sugar,
rice, or tobacco. To render Southern slavery profitable in the highest
degree, therefore, the slaves must be employed upon some one of these
articles, and be sustained by a supply of food and draught animals from
Northern agriculturists; and before the planter's supplies are complete,
to these must be added cotton gins, implements of husbandry, furniture,
and tools, from Northern mechanics. This is a point of the utmost
moment, and must be considered more at length.
It has long been a vital question to the success of the slaveholder, to
know how he could render the labor of his slaves the most profitable.
The grain growing States had to emancipate their slaves, to rid
themselves of a profitless system. The cotton-growing States, ever after
the invention of the cotton gin, had found the production of that staple
highly remunerative. The logical conclusion, from these different
results, was, that the less provisions, and the more cotton grown by the
planter, the greater would be his profits. This must be noted with
special care. _Markets_ for the surplus products of the farmer of the
North, were equally as important to him as the supply of _Provisions_
was to the planter. But the planter, to be eminently successful, must
purchase his supplies at the lowest possible prices; while the farmer,
to secure his prosperity, must sell his products at the highest possible
rates. Few, indeed, can be so ill informed, as not to know, that these
two topics, for many years, were involved in the "Free Trade" and
"Protective Tariff" doctrines, and afforded the _materiel_ of the
political contests between the North and the South--between free labor
and slave labor. A very brief notice of the history of that controversy,
will demonstrate the truth of this assertion.
The attempt of the agricultural States, thirty years since, to establish
the protective policy, and promote "Domestic Manufactures," was a
struggle to create such a division of labor as would afford a "Home
Market" for their products, no longer in demand abroad. The first
decisive action on the question, by Congress, was in 1824; when the
distress in these States, and the measures proposed for their relief, by
national legislation, were discussed on the passage of the "Tariff Bill"
of that year. The ablest men in the nation were engaged in the
controversy. As provisions are the most important item on the one hand,
and cotton on the other, we shall use these two terms as the
representatives of the two classes of products, belonging, respectively,
to free labor and to slave labor.
Mr. Clay, in the course of the debate, said: "What, again, I would ask,
is the cause of the unhappy condition of our country, which I have
fairly depicted? It is to be found in the fact that, during almost the
whole existence of this government, we have shaped our industry, our
navigation, and our commerce, in reference to an extraordinary war in
Europe, and to foreign markets which no longer exist; in the fact that
we have depended too much on foreign sources of supply, and excited too
little the native; in the fact that, while we have cultivated, with
assiduous care, our foreign resources, we have suffered those at home to
wither, in a state of neglect and abandonment. The consequence of the
termination of the war of Europe, has been the resumption of European
commerce, European navigation, and the extension of European
agriculture, in all its branches. Europe, therefore, has no longer
occasion for any thing like the same extent as that which she had during
her wars, for American commerce, American navigation, the produce of
American industry. Europe in commotion, and convulsed throughout all her
members, is to America no longer the same Europe as she is now,
tranquil, and watching with the most vigilant attention, all her own
peculiar interests, without regard to their operation on us. The effect
of this altered state of Europe upon us, has been to circumscribe the
employment of our marine, and greatly to reduce the value of the produce
of our territorial labor. . . . . The greatest want of civilized society
is a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the products of
the labor of its members. This market may exist at home or abroad, or
both, but it must exist somewhere, if society prospers; and, wherever it
does exist, it should be competent to the absorption of the entire
surplus production. It is most desirable that there should be both a
home and a foreign market. But with respect to their relative
superiority, I can not entertain a doubt. The home market is first in
order, and paramount in importance. The object of the bill under
consideration, is to create this home market, and to lay the foundation
of a genuine American policy. It is opposed; and it is incumbent on the
partisans of the foreign policy (terms which I shall use without any
invidious intent) to demonstrate that the foreign market is an adequate
vent for the surplus produce of our labor. But is it so? 1. Foreign
nations can not, if they would, take our surplus produce. . . . . 2. If
they could, they would not. . . . . We have seen, I think, the causes of
the distress of the country. We have seen that an exclusive dependence
upon the foreign market must lead to a still severer distress, to
impoverishment, to ruin. We must, then, change somewhat our course. We
must give a new direction to some portion of our industry. We must
speedily adopt a genuine American policy. Still cherishing a foreign
market, let us create also a home market, to give further scope to the
consumption of the produce of American industry. Let us counteract the
policy of foreigners, and withdraw the support which we now give to
their industry, and stimulate that of our own country. . . . . The
creation of a home market is not only necessary to procure for our
agriculture a just reward of its labors, but it is indispensable to
obtain a supply of our necessary wants. If we can not sell, we can not
buy. That portion of our population (and we have seen that it is not
less than four-fifths) which makes comparatively nothing that foreigners
will buy, has nothing to make purchases with from foreigners. It is in
vain that we are told of the amount of our exports, supplied by the
planting interest. They may enable the planting interest to supply all
its wants; but they bring no ability to the interests not planting,
unless, which can not be pretended, the planting interest was an
adequate vent for the surplus produce of all the labor of all other
interests. . . . . But this home market, highly desirable as it is, can
only be created and cherished by the protection of our own legislation
against the inevitable prostration of our industry, which must ensue
from the action of FOREIGN policy and legislation. . . . . The sole
object of the tariff is to tax the produce of foreign industry, with the
view of promoting American industry. . . . . But it is said by the
honorable gentleman from Virginia, that the South, owing to the
character of a certain portion of its population, can not engage in the
business of manufacturing. . . . . The circumstances of its degradation
unfits it for manufacturing arts. The well-being of the other, and the
larger part of our population, requires the introduction of those arts.
"What is to be done in this conflict? The gentleman would have us
abstain from adopting a policy called for by the interests of the
greater and freer part of the population. But is that reasonable? Can it
be expected that the interests of the greater part should be made to
bend to the condition of the servile part of our population? That, in
effect, would be to make us the slaves of slaves. . . . . I am sure that
the patriotism of the South may be exclusively relied upon to reject a
policy which should be dictated by considerations altogether connected
with that degraded class, to the prejudice of the residue of our
population. But does not a perseverance in the foreign policy, as it now
exists, in fact, make all parts of the Union, not planting, tributary to
the planting parts? What is the argument? It is, that we must continue
freely to receive the produce of foreign industry, without regard to the
protection of American industry, that a market may be retained for the
sale abroad of the produce of the planting portion of the country; and
that, if we lessen the consumption, in all parts of America, those which
are not planting, as well as the planting sections, of foreign
manufactures, we diminish to that extent the foreign market for the
planting produce. The existing state of things, indeed, presents a sort
of tacit compact between the cotton-grower and the British manufacturer,
the stipulations of which are, on the part of the cotton-grower, that
the whole of the United States, the other portions as well as the
cotton-growing, shall remain open and unrestricted in the consumption of
British manufactures; and, on the part of the British manufacturer,
that, in consideration thereof, he will continue to purchase the cotton
of the South. Thus, then, we perceive that the proposed measure, instead
of sacrificing the South to the other parts of the Union, seeks only to
preserve them from being actually sacrificed under the operation of the
tacit compact which I have described."
The opposition to the Protective Tariff, by the South, arose from two
causes: the first openly avowed at the time, and the second clearly
deducible from the policy it pursued: the one to secure the foreign
market for its cotton, the other to obtain a bountiful supply of
provisions at cheap rates. Cotton was admitted free of duty into foreign
countries, and Southern statesmen feared its exclusion, if our
government increased the duties on foreign fabrics. The South exported
about twice as much of that staple as was supplied to Europe by all
other countries, and there were indications favoring the desire it
entertained of monopolizing the foreign markets. The West India planters
could not import food, but at such high rates as to make it
impracticable to grow cotton at prices low enough to suit the English
manufacturer. To purchase cotton cheaply, was essential to the success
of his scheme of monopolizing its manufacture, and supplying the world
with clothing. The close proximity of the provision and cotton-growing
districts in the United States, gave its planters advantages over all
other portions of the world. But they could not monopolize the markets,
unless they could obtain a cheap supply of food and clothing for their
negroes, and raise their cotton at such reduced prices as to undersell
their rivals. A manufacturing population, with its mechanical
coadjutors, in the midst of the provision-growers, on a scale such as
the protective policy contemplated, it was conceived, would create a
permanent market for their products, and enhance the price; whereas, if
this manufacturing could be prevented, and a system of free trade
adopted, the South would constitute the principal provision market of
the country, and the fertile lands of the North supply the cheap food
demanded for its slaves. As the tariff policy, in the outset,
contemplated the encouragement of the production of iron, hemp, whisky,
and the establishment of woolen manufactories, principally, the South
found its interests but slightly identified with the system--the coarser
qualities of cottons, only, being manufactured in the country, and, even
these, on a diminished scale, as compared with the cotton crops of the
South. Cotton, up to the date when this controversy had been fairly
commenced, had been worth, in the English market, an average price of
from 29 7/10 to 48 4/10 cents per lb.[31] But at this period, a wide
spread and ruinous depression both in the culture and manufacture of the
article, occurred--cotton, in 1826, having fallen, in England, as low as
11 9/10 to 18 9/10 cents per lb. The home market, then, was too
inconsiderable to be of much importance, and there existed little hope
of its enlargement to the extent demanded by its increasing cultivation.
The planters, therefore, looked abroad to the existing markets, rather
than to wait for tardily creating one at home. For success in the
foreign markets, they relied, mainly, upon preparing themselves to
produce cotton at the reduced prices then prevailing in Europe. All
agricultural products, except cotton, being excluded from foreign
markets, the planters found themselves almost the sole exporters of the
country; and it was to them a source of chagrin, that the North did not,
at once, co-operate with them in augmenting the commerce of the nation.
At this point in the history of the controversy, politicians found it an
easy matter to produce feelings of the deepest hostility between the
opposing parties. The planters were led to believe that the millions of
revenue collected off the goods imported, was so much deducted from the
value of the cotton that paid for them, either in the diminished price
they received abroad, or in the increased price which they paid for the
imported articles. To enhance the duties, for the protection of our
manufacturers, they were persuaded, would be so much of an additional
tax upon themselves, for the benefit of the North; and, beside, to give
the manufacturer such a monopoly of the home market for his fabrics,
would enable him to charge purchasers an excess over the true value of
his stuffs, to the whole amount of the duty. By the protective policy,
the planters expected to have the cost of both provisions and clothing
increased, and their ability to monopolize the foreign markets
diminished in a corresponding degree. If they could establish free
trade, it would insure the American market to foreign manufacturers;
secure the foreign markets for their leading staple; repress home
manufactures; force a large number of the Northern men into
agriculture; multiply the growth, and diminish the price of provisions;
feed and clothe their slaves at lower rates; produce their cotton for a
third or fourth of former prices; rival all other countries in its
cultivation; monopolize the trade in the article throughout the whole of
Europe; and build up a commerce and a navy that would make us ruler of
the seas.
FOOTNOTE:
[31] This includes the period from 1806 to 1826, though the decline
began a few years before the latter date.
CHAPTER VIII.
Tariff controversy continued--Mr. Hayne--Mr.
Carter--Mr. Govan--Mr. Martindale--Mr.
Buchanan--Sugar Planters invoked to aid Free
Trade--The West also invoked--Its pecuniary
embarrassments for want of markets--Henry
Baldwin--Remarks on the views of the
parties--State of the world--Dread of the
Protective policy by the Planters--Their schemes
to avert its consequences, and promote Free Trade.
TO understand the sentiments of the South, on the Protective Policy, as
expressed by its statesmen, we must again quote from the Congressional
Debates of 1824:
Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "But how, I would seriously ask, is
it possible for the home market to supply the place of the foreign
market, for our cotton? We supply Great Britain with the raw material,
out of which she furnishes the Continent of Europe, nay, the whole
world, with cotton goods. Now, suppose our manufactories could make
every yard of cloth we consume, that would furnish a home market for no
more than 20,000,000 lbs. out of the 180,000,000 lbs. of cotton now
shipped to Great Britain; leaving on our hands 160,000,000 lbs., equal
to two-thirds of our whole produce. . . . . Considering this scheme of
promoting certain employments, at the expense of others, as unequal,
oppressive, and unjust--viewing prohibition as the _means_, and the
destruction of all foreign commerce as the _end_ of this policy--I take
this occasion to declare, that we shall feel ourselves, justified in
embracing the very first opportunity of repealing all such laws as may
be passed for the promotion of these objects."
Mr. Carter, of South Carolina, said: "Another danger to which the
present measure would expose this country, and one in which the
Southern States have a deep and vital interest, would be the risk we
incur, by this system of exclusion, of driving Great Britain to
countervailing measures, and inducing all other countries, with whom the
United States have any considerable trading connections, to resort to
measures of retaliation. There are countries possessing vast capacities
for the production of rice, of cotton, and of tobacco, to which England
might resort to supply herself. She might apply herself to Brazil,
Bengal, and Egypt, for her cotton; to South America, as well as to her
colonies, for her tobacco; and to China and Turkey for her rice."
Mr. Govan, of South Carolina, said: "The effect of this measure on the
cotton, rice, and tobacco-growing States, will be pernicious in the
extreme:--it will exclude them from those markets where they depended
almost entirely for a sale of those articles, and force Great Britain to
encourage the cottons, (Brazil, Rio Janeiro, and Buenos Ayres,) which,
in a short time, can be brought in competition with us. Nothing but the
consumption of British goods in this country, received in exchange, can
support a command of the cotton market to the Southern planter. It is
one thing very certain, she will not come here with her gold and silver
to trade with us. And should Great Britain, pursuing the principles of
her reciprocal duty act, of last June, lay three or four cents on our
cotton, where would, I ask, be our surplus of cotton? It is well known
that the United States can not manufacture one-fourth of the cotton that
is in it; and should we, by our imprudent legislative enactments, in
pursuing to such an extent this restrictive system, force Great Britain
to shut her ports against us, it will paralyze the whole trade of the
Southern country. This export trade, which composes five-sixths of the
export trade of the United States, will be swept entirely from the
ocean, and leave but a melancholy wreck behind."
It is necessary, also, to add a few additional extracts, from the
speeches of Northern statesmen, during this discussion.
Mr. Martindale, of New York, said: "Does not the agriculture of the
country languish, and the laborer stand still, because, beyond the
supply of food for his own family, his produce perishes on his hands, or
his fields lie waste and fallow; and this because his accustomed market
is closed against him? It does, sir. . . . . A twenty years' war in Europe,
which drew into its vortex all its various nations, made our merchants
the carriers of a large portion of the world, and our farmers the
feeders of immense belligerent armies. An unexampled activity and
increase in our commerce followed--our agriculture extended itself, grew
and nourished. An unprecedented demand gave the farmer an extraordinary
price for his produce. . . . . Imports kept pace with exports, and
consumption with both. . . . . Peace came into Europe, and shut out our
exports, and found us in war with England, which almost cut off our
imports. . . . . Now we felt how _comfortable_ it was to have plenty of
food, but no clothing. . . . . Now we felt the imperfect organization of
our system. Now we saw the imperfect distribution and classification of
labor. . . . . Here is the explanation of our opposite views. It is
employment, after all, that we are all in search of. It is a market for
our labor and our produce, which we all want, and all contend for. 'Buy
foreign goods, that we may import,' say the merchants: it will make a
market for importations, and find employment for our ships. Buy English
manufactures, say the cotton planters; England will take our cotton in
exchange. Thus the merchant and the cotton planter fully appreciate the
value of a market when they find their own encroached upon. The farmer
and manufacturer claim to participate in the benefits of a market for
their labor and produce; and hence this protracted debate and struggle
of contending interests. It is a contest for a market between the
_cotton-grower and the merchant_ on the one side, and the _farmer and
the manufacturer_ on the other. That the manufacturer would furnish this
market to the farmer, admits no doubt. The farmer should reciprocate the
favor; and government is now called upon to render this market
accessible to foreign fabrics for the mutual benefit of both. . . . .
This, then, is the remedy we propose, sir, for the evils which we suffer.
Place the mechanic by the side of the farmer, that the manufacturer who
makes our cloth, should make it from _our_ farmers' wool, flax, hemp,
etc., and be fed by our farmers' provisions. Draw forth our iron from
our own mountains, and we shall not drain our country in the purchase of
the foreign. . . . . We propose, sir, to supply our own wants from our own
resources, by the means which God and Nature have placed in our
hands. . . . . But here is a question of sectional interest, which elicits
unfriendly feelings and determined hostility to the bill. . . . . The
cotton, rice, tobacco, and indigo-growers of the Southern States, claim
to be deeply affected and injured by this system. . . . . Let us
inquire if the Southern planter does not demand what, in fact, he denies
to others. And now, what does he request? That the North and West should
buy--what? Not their cotton, tobacco, etc., for that we do already, to
the utmost of our ability to consume, or pay, or vend to others; and
that is to an immense amount, greatly exceeding what they purchase of
us. But they insist that we should buy English wool, wrought into cloth,
that they may pay for it with their cotton; that we should buy Russia
iron, that they may sell their cotton; that we should buy Holland gin
and linen, that they may sell their tobacco. In fine, that we should not
grow wool, and dig and smelt the iron of the country; for, if we did,
they could not sell their cotton." (On another occasion, he said:)
"Gentlemen say they _will_ oppose every part of the bill. They will,
therefore, move to strike out every part of it. And, on every such
motion, we shall hear repeated, as we have done already, the same
objections: that it will ruin trade and commerce; that it will destroy
the revenue, and prostrate the navy; that it will enhance the prices of
articles of the first necessity, and thus be taxing the poor; and that
it will destroy the cotton market, _and stop the future growth of
cotton_."
Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, said: "No nation can be perfectly
independent which depends upon foreign countries for its supply of iron.
It is an article equally necessary in peace and in war. Without a
plentiful supply of it, we cannot provide for the common defense. Can we
so soon have forgotten the lesson which experience taught us during the
late war with Great Britain? Our foreign supply was then cut off, and we
could not manufacture in sufficient quantities for the increased
domestic demand. The price of the article became extravagant, and both
the Government and the agriculturist were compelled to pay double the
sum for which they might have purchased it, had its manufacture, before
that period, been encouraged by proper protecting duties."
Sugar cane, at that period, had become an article of culture in
Louisiana, and efforts were made to persuade her planters into the
adoption of the Free Trade system. It was urged that they could more
effectually resist foreign competition, and extend their business, by a
cheap supply of food, than by protective duties. But the Louisianians
were too wise not to know, that though they would certainly obtain
cheap provisions by the destruction of Northern manufactures, still,
this would not enable them to compete with the cheaper labor supplied by
the slave trade to the Cubans.
The West, for many years, gave its undivided support to the
manufacturing interests, thereby obtaining a heavy duty on hemp, wool,
and foreign distilled spirits: thus securing encouragement to its hemp
and wool-growers, and the monopoly of the home market for its whisky.
The distiller and the manufacturer, under this system, were equally
ranked as public benefactors, as each increased the consumption of the
surplus products of the farmer. The grain of the West could find no
remunerative market, except as fed to domestic animals for droving East
and South, or distilled into whisky which would bear transportation.
Take a fact in proof of this assertion. Hon. Henry Baldwin, of
Pittsburgh, at a public dinner given him by the friends of General
Jackson, in Cincinnati, May, 1828, in referring to the want of markets,
for the farmers of the West, said, "He was certain, the aggregate of
their agricultural produce, finding a market in Europe, would not pay
for the pins and needles they imported."
The markets in the Southwest, now so important, were then quite limited.
As the protective system, coupled with the contemplated internal
improvements, if successfully accomplished, would inevitably tend to
enhance the price of agricultural products; while the free trade and
anti-internal improvement policy, would as certainly reduce their value;
the two systems were long considered so antagonistic, that the success
of the one must sound the knell of the other. Indeed, so fully was Ohio
impressed with the necessity of promoting manufactures, that all capital
thus employed, was for many years entirely exempt from taxation.
It was in vain that the friends of protection appealed to the fact, that
the duties levied on foreign goods did not necessarily enhance their
cost to the consumer; that the competition among home manufacturers, and
between them and foreigners, had greatly reduced the price of nearly
every article properly protected; that foreign manufacturers always had,
and always would advance their prices according to our dependence upon
them; that domestic competition was the only safety the country had
against foreign imposition; that it was necessary we should become our
own manufacturers, in a fair degree, to render ourselves independent of
other nations in times of war, as well as to guard against the
vacillations in foreign legislation; that the South would be vastly the
gainer by having the market for its products at its own doors, to avoid
the cost of their transit across the Atlantic; that, in the event of the
repression or want of proper extension of our manufactures, by the
adoption of the free trade system, the imports of foreign goods, to meet
the public wants, would soon exceed the ability of the people to pay,
and, inevitably, involve the country in bankruptcy.
Southern politicians remained inflexible, and refused to accept any
policy except free trade, to the utter abandonment of the principle of
protection. Whether they were jealous of the greater prosperity of the
North, and desirous to cripple its energies, or whether they were truly
fearful of bankrupting the South, we shall not wait to inquire. Justice
demands, however, that we should state that the South was suffering from
the stagnation in the cotton trade existing throughout Europe. The
planters had been unused to the low prices, for that staple, they were
compelled to accept. They had no prospect of an adequate home market for
many years to come, and there were indications that they might lose the
one they already possessed. The West Indies was still slave territory,
and attempting to recover its early position in the English market. This
it had to do, or be forced into emancipation. The powerful Viceroy of
Egypt, Mehemet Ali, was endeavoring to compel his subjects to grow
cotton on an enlarged scale. The newly organized South American
republics were assuming an aspect of commercial consequence, and might
commence its cultivation. The East Indies and Brazil were supplying to
Great Britain from one-third to one-half of the cotton she was annually
manufacturing. The other half, or two-thirds, she might obtain from
other sources, and repudiate all traffic with our planters. Southern
men, therefore, could not conceive of any thing but ruin to themselves,
by any considerable advance in duties on foreign imports. They
understood the protective policy as contemplating the supply of our
country with home manufactured articles to the exclusion of those of
foreign countries. This would confine the planters, in the sale of their
cotton, to the American market mainly, and leave them in the power of
moneyed corporations; which, possessing the ability, might control the
prices of their staple, to the irreparable injury of the South. With
slave labor they could not become manufacturers, and must, therefore,
remain at the mercy of the North, both as to food and clothing, unless
the European markets should be retained. Out of this conviction grew the
war upon Corporations; the hostility to the employment of foreign
capital in developing the mineral, agricultural, and manufacturing
resources of the country; the efforts to destroy the banks and the
credit system; the attempts to reduce the currency to gold and silver;
the system of collecting the public revenues in coin; the withdrawal of
the public moneys from all the banks as a basis of paper circulation;
and the sleepless vigilance of the South in resisting all systems of
internal improvements by the General Government. Its statesmen foresaw
that a paper currency would keep up the price of Northern products one
or two hundred per cent. above the specie standard; that combinations of
capitalists, whether engaged in manufacturing wool, cotton, or iron,
would draw off labor from the cultivation of the soil, and cause large
bodies of the producers to become consumers; and that roads and canals,
connecting the West with the East, were effectual means of bringing the
agricultural and manufacturing classes into closer proximity, to the
serious limitation of the foreign commerce of the country, the checking
of the growth of the navy, and the manifest, injury of the planters.
CHAPTER IX.
Character of the Tariff controversy--Peculiar
condition of the people--Efforts to enlist the
West in the interest of the South--Mr.
McDuffie--Mr. Hamilton--Mr. Rankin--Mr.
Garnett--Mr. Cuthbert--the West still shut out
from market--Mr. Wickliffe--Mr. Benton--Tariff of
1828 obnoxious to the South--Georgia
Resolutions--Mr. Hamilton--Argument to Sugar
Planters.
The Protective Tariff and Free Trade controversy, at its origin, and
during its progress, was very different in its character from what many
now imagine it to have been. People, on both sides, were often in great
straits to know how to obtain a livelihood, much less to amass
fortunes. The word _ruin_ was no unmeaning phrase at that day. The news,
now, that a bank has failed, carries with it, to the depositors and
holders of its notes, no stronger feelings of consternation, than did
the report of the passage or repeal of tariff laws, then, affect the
minds of the opposing parties. We have spoken of the peculiar condition
of the South in this respect. In the West, for many years, the farmers
often received no more than _twenty-five cents_, and rarely over _forty
cents_, per bushel for their wheat, after conveying it, on horseback, or
in wagons, not unfrequently, a distance of fifty miles, to find a
market. Other products were proportionally low in price; and such was
the difficulty in obtaining money, that people could not pay their taxes
but with the greatest sacrifices. So deeply were the people interested
in these questions of national policy, that they became the basis of
political action during several Presidential elections. This led to much
vacillation in legislation on the subject, and gave alternately, to one
and then to the other section of the Union, the benefits of its favorite
policy.
The vote of the West, during this struggle, was of the first importance,
as it possessed the balance of power, and could turn the scale at will.
It was not left without inducements to co-operate with the South, in its
measures for extending slavery, that it might create a market among the
planters for its products. This appears from the particular efforts made
by the Southern members of Congress, during the debate of 1824, to win
over the West to the doctrines of free trade.
Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "I admit that the Western people
are _embarrassed_, but I deny that they are _distressed_, in any other
sense of the word. . . . . I am well assured that the permanent prosperity
of the West depends more upon the improvement of the means of
transporting their produce to market, and of receiving the returns, than
upon every other subject to which the legislation of this government can
be directed. . . . . Gentlemen (from the West) are aware that a very
profitable trade is carried on by their constituents with the Southern
country, in _live stock_ of all descriptions, which they drive over the
mountains and sell for cash. This extensive trade, which, from its
peculiar character, more easily overcomes the difficulties of
transportation than any that can be substituted in its place, is about
to be put in jeopardy for the conjectural benefits of this measure. When
I say this trade is about to be put in jeopardy, I do not speak
unadvisedly. I am perfectly convinced that, if this bill passes, it will
have the effect of inducing the people of the South, partly from the
feeling and partly from the necessity growing out of it, to raise within
themselves, the live stock which they now purchase from the West. . . . .
If we cease to take the manufactures of Great Britain, she will assuredly
cease to take our cotton to the same extent. It is a settled principle
of her policy--a principle not only wise, but essential to her
existence--to purchase from those nations that receive her manufactures,
in preference to those who do not. We have, heretofore, been her best
customers, and, therefore, it has been her policy to purchase our cotton
to the full extent of our demand for her manufactures. But, say
gentlemen, Great Britain does not purchase your cotton from affection,
but from interest. I grant it, sir; and that is the very reason of my
decided hostility to a system which will make it her interest to
purchase from other countries in preference to our own. It _is_ her
interest to purchase cotton, even at a higher price, from those
countries which receive her manufactures in exchange. It is better for
her to give a little more for cotton, than to obtain nothing for her
manufactures. It will be remarked that the situation of Great Britain
is, in this respect, widely different from that of the United States.
The powers of her soil have been already pushed very nearly to the
maximum of their productiveness. The productiveness of her manufactures
on the contrary, is as unlimited as the demand of the whole world. . . . .
In fact, sir, the policy of Great Britain is not, as gentlemen seem to
suppose, to secure the _home_, but the _foreign_ market for her
manufactures. The former she has without an effort. It is to attain the
latter that all her policy and enterprise are brought into requisition.
The manufactures of that country are _the basis of her commerce_; our
manufactures, on the contrary are to be _the destruction of our
commerce_. . . . . It can not be doubted that, in pursuance of the
policy of forcing her manufactures into foreign markets, she will, if
deprived of a large portion of our custom, direct all her efforts to
South America. That country abounds in a soil admirably adapted to the
production of cotton, and will, for a century to come, import her
manufactures from foreign countries."
Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, said: "That the planters in his section
shared in that depression which is common in every department of the
industry of the Union, _excepting those from which we have heard the
most clamor for relief_. This would be understood when it was known that
sea-island cotton had fallen from 50 or 60 cents, to 25 cents--a fall
even greater than that which has attended wheat, of which we had heard
so much--as if the grain-growing section was the only agricultural
interest which had suffered. . . . . While the planters of this region do
not dread competition in the foreign markets on equal terms, from the
superiority of their cotton, they entertain a well-founded apprehension,
that the restrictions contemplated will lead to retaliatory duties on
the part of Great Britain, which must end in ruin. . . . . In relation to
our upland cottons, Great Britain may, without difficulty, in the course
of a very short period, supply her wants from Brazil. . . . . How long the
exclusive production, even of the sea-island cotton, will remain to our
country, is yet a doubtful and interesting problem. The experiments that
are making on the Delta of the Nile, if pushed to the Ocean, may result
in the production of this beautiful staple, in an abundance which, in
reference to other productions, has long blest and consecrated Egyptian
fertility. . . . . We are told by the honorable Speaker (Mr. Clay,) that
our manufacturing establishments will, in a very short period, supply
the place of the foreign demand. The futility, I will not say mockery of
this hope, may be measured by one or two facts. First, the present
consumption of cotton, by our manufactories, is about equal to one-sixth
of our whole production. . . . . How long it will take to increase these
manufactories to a scale equal to the consumption of this production, he
could not venture to determine; but that it will be some years after the
epitaph will have been written on the fortunes of the South, there can
be but little doubt." . . . . [After speaking of the tendency of
increased manufactures in the East, to check emigration to the West, and
thus to diminish the value of the public lands and prevent the growth of
the Western States, Mr. H. proceeded thus:] "That portion of the Union
could participate in no part of the bill, except in its burdens, in
spite of the fallacious hopes that were cherished, in reference to
cotton bagging for Kentucky, and the woolen duty for Steubenville, Ohio.
He feared that to the entire region of the West, no 'cordial drops of
comfort' would come, even in the duty on foreign spirits. To a large
portion of our people, who are in the habit of solacing themselves with
Hollands, Antigua, and Cogniac, whisky would still have 'a most
villainous twang.' The cup, he feared, would be refused, though tendered
by the hand of patriotism as well as conviviality. No, the West has but
one interest, and that is, that its best customer, the South, should be
prosperous."
Mr. Rankin, of Mississippi, said: "With the West, it appears to me like
a rebellion of the members against the body. It is true, we export, but
the amount received from those exports is only apparently, largely in
our favor, inasmuch as we are the consumers of your produce, dependent
on you for our implements of husbandry, the means of sustaining life,
and almost every thing except our lands and negroes; all of which draws
much from the apparent profits and advantages. In proportion as you
diminish our exportations, you diminish our means of purchasing from
you, and destroy your own market. You will compel us to use those
advantages of soil and of climate which God and Nature have placed
within our reach, and to live, as to you, as you desire us to live as to
foreign nations--dependent on our own resources."
Mr. Garnett, of Virginia, said: "The Western States can not manufacture.
The want of capital (of which they, as well as the Southern States, have
been drained by the policy of government,) and other causes render it
impossible. The Southern States are destined to suffer more by this
policy than any other--the Western next; but it will not benefit the
aggregate population of any State. It is for the benefit of capitalists
only. If persisted in, it will drive the South to ruin and resistance."
Mr. Cuthbert, of Georgia, said: "He hoped the market for the cotton of
the South was not about to be contracted within a little miserable
sphere, (the home market,) instead of being spread throughout the world.
If they should drive the cotton-growers from the only source from whence
their means were derived, (the foreign market,) they would be unable any
longer to take their supplies from the West--they must contract their
concerns within their own spheres, and begin to raise flesh and grain
for their own consumption. The South was already under a severe
pressure--if this measure went into effect, its distress would be
consummated."
In 1828, the West found still very limited means of communication with
the East. The opening of the New York canal, in 1825, created a means of
traffic with the seaboard, to the people of the Lake region; but all of
the remaining territory, west of the Alleghanies, had gained no
advantages over those it had enjoyed in 1824, except so far as steamboat
navigation had progressed on the Western rivers. In the debate preceding
the passage of the tariff in 1828, usually termed the "Woolens' Bill,"
allusion is made to the condition of the West, from which we quote as
follows:
Mr. Wickliffe, of Kentucky, said: "My constituents may be said to be a
grain-growing people. They raise stock, and their surplus grain is
converted into spirits. Where, I ask, is our market? . . . . Our market
is where our sympathies should be, in the South. Our course of trade,
for all heavy articles, is down the Mississippi. What breadstuffs we
find a market for, are principally consumed in the States of
Mississippi, Louisiana, South Alabama, and Florida. Indeed, I may say,
these States are the consumers, at miserable and ruinous prices to the
farmers of my State, of our exports of spirits, corn, flour, and cured
provisions. . . . . We have had a trade of some value to the South in
our stock. We still continue it under great disadvantages. It is a
ready-money trade--I may say it is the only money trade in which we are
engaged. . . . . Are the gentlemen acquainted with the extent of that
trade? It may be fairly stated at three millions per annum."
Mr. Benton urged the Western members to unite with the South, "for the
purpose of enlarging the market, increasing the demand in the South, and
its ability to purchase the horses, mules, and provisions, which the
West could sell nowhere else."
The tariff of 1828, created great dissatisfaction at the South. Examples
of the expressions of public sentiment, on the subject, adopted at
conventions, and on other occasions, might be multiplied indefinitely.
Take a case or two, to illustrate the whole. At a public meeting in
Georgia, held subsequently to the passage of the "Woolens' Bill," the
following resolution was adopted:
_Resolved_, That to retaliate as far as possible
upon our oppressors, our Legislature be requested
to impose taxes, amounting to prohibition, on the
hogs, horses, mules, and cotton-bagging, whisky,
pork, beef, bacon, flax, and hemp cloth, of the
Western, and on all the productions and
manufactures of the Eastern and Northern States.
Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, in a speech at the Waterborough
Dinner, given subsequently to the passage of the tariff of 1828, said:
"It becomes us to inquire what is to be our situation under this
unexpected and disastrous conjunction of circumstances, which, in its
progress, will deprive us of the benefits of a free trade with the rest
of the world, which formed one of the leading objects of the Union. Why,
gentlemen, ruin, unmitigated ruin, must be our portion, if this system
continues. . . . . From 1816 down to the present time, the South has
been drugged, by the slow poison of the miserable empiricism of the
prohibitory system, the fatal effects of which we could not so long have
resisted, but for the stupendously valuable staples with which God has
blessed us, and the agricultural skill and enterprise of our people."
In further illustration of the nature of this controversy, and of the
arguments used during the contest, we must give the substance of the
remarks of a prominent politician, who was aiming at detaching the sugar
planters from their political connection with the manufacturers. We have
to rely on memory, however, as we can not find the record of the
language used on the occasion. It was published at the time, and
commented on, freely, by the newspapers at the North. He said: "We must
prevent the increase of manufactories, force the surplus labor into
agriculture, promote the cultivation of our unimproved western lands,
until provisions are so multiplied and reduced in price, that the slave
can be fed so cheaply as to enable us to grow our sugar at _three cents
a pound_. Then, without protective duties, we can rival Cuba in the
production of that staple, and drive her from our markets."
CHAPTER X.
Tariff controversy continued--Tariff of 1832--The crisis--_Secession_
threatened--Compromise finally adopted--Debates--Mr. Hayne--Mr.
McDuffie--Mr. Clay--Adjustment of the subject.
THE opening of the year 1832, found the parties to the Tariff
controversy once more engaged in earnest debate, on the floor of
Congress; and midsummer witnessed the passage of a new Bill, including
the principle of protection. This Act produced a crisis in the
controversy, and led to the movements in South Carolina toward
secession; and, to avert the threatened evil, the Bill was modified, in
the following year, so as to make it acceptable to the South; and, so
as, also, to settle the policy of the Government for the succeeding nine
years. A few extracts from the debates of 1832, will serve to show what
were the sentiments of the members of Congress, as to the effects of the
protective policy on the different sections of the Union, up to that
date:
Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "When the policy of '24 went into
operation, the South was supplied from the West, through a single
avenue, (the Saluda Mountain Gap,) with live stock, horses, cattle, and
hogs, to the amount of considerably upward of a million of dollars a
year. Under the pressure of the system, this trade has been regularly
diminishing. It has already fallen more than one-half. . . . . In
consequence of the dire calamities which the system has inflicted on the
South--blasting our commerce, and withering our prosperity--the West has
been very nearly deprived of her best customer. . . . . And what was
found to be the result of four years' experience at the South? Not a
hope fulfilled; not one promise performed; and our condition infinitely
worse than it had been four years before. Sir, the whole South rose up
as one man, and protested against any further experiment with this
system. . . . . Sir, I seize the opportunity to dispel forever the
delusion that the South can find any compensation, in a home market, for
the injurious operation of the protective system. . . . . What a
spectacle do you even now exhibit to the world? A large portion of your
fellow-citizens, believing themselves to be grievously oppressed by an
unwise and unconstitutional system, are clamoring at your doors for
justice: while another portion, supposing that they are enjoying rich
bounties under it, are treating their complaints with scorn and
contempt. . . . . This system may destroy the South, but it will not
permanently advance the prosperity of the North. It may depress us, but
can not elevate them. Beside, sir, if persevered in, it must annihilate
that portion of the country from which the resources are to be drawn.
And it may be well for gentlemen to reflect whether adhering to this
policy would not be acting like the man who 'killed the goose which laid
the golden eggs.' Next to the Christian religion, I consider _Free
Trade_, in its largest sense, as the greatest blessing that can be
conferred on any people."
Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "At the close of the late war
with Great Britain, every thing in the political and commercial changes,
resulting from the general peace, indicated unparalleled prosperity to
the Southern States, and great embarrassment and distress to those of
the North. The nations of the Continent had all directed their efforts
to the business of manufacturing; and all Europe may be said to have
converted their swords into machinery, creating unprecedented demand for
cotton, the great staple of the Southern States. There is nothing in the
history of commerce that can be compared with the increased demand for
this staple, notwithstanding the restrictions by which this Government
has limited that demand. As cotton, tobacco, and rice, are produced only
on a small portion of the globe, while all other agricultural staples
are common to every region of the earth, this circumstance gave the
planting States very great advantages. To cap the climax of the
commercial advantages opened to the cotton planters, England, their
great and most valued customer, received their cotton under a mere
nominal duty. On the other hand, the prospects of the Northern States
were as dismal as those of the Southern States were brilliant. They had
lost the carrying trade of the world, which the wars of Europe had
thrown into their hands. They had lost the demand and the high prices
which our own war had created for their grain and other productions;
and, soon afterward, they also lost the foreign market for their grain,
owing, partly, to foreign corn laws, but still more to other causes.
Such were the prospects, and such the well-founded hope of the Southern
States at the close of the late war, in which they bore so glorious a
part in vindicating the freedom of trade. But where are now these
cheering prospects and animating hopes? Blasted, sir--utterly
blasted--by the consuming and withering course of a system of
legislation which wages an exterminating war against the blessings of
commerce and the bounties of a merciful Providence; and which, by an
impious perversion of language, is called 'Protection.' . . . . I will
not add, sir, my deep and deliberate conviction, in the face of all the
miserable cant and hypocrisy with which the world abounds on the
subject, that any course of measures which shall hasten the abolition of
slavery, by destroying the value of slave labor, will bring upon the
Southern States the greatest political calamity with which they can be
afflicted; for I sincerely believe, that when the people of those States
shall be compelled, by such means, to emancipate their slaves, they will
be but a few degrees above the condition of slaves themselves. Yes, sir,
mark what I say: when the people of the South cease to be masters, by
the tampering influence of this Government, direct or indirect, they
will assuredly be slaves. It is the clear and distinct perception of the
irresistible tendency of this protective system to precipitate us upon
this great moral and political catastrophe, that has animated me to
raise my warning voice, that my fellow-citizens may foresee, and
foreseeing, avoid the destiny that would otherwise befall them. . . . .
And here, sir, it is as curious as it is melancholy and distressing, to
see how striking is the analogy between the colonial vassalage to which
the manufacturing States have reduced the planting States, and that
which formerly bound the Anglo-American colonies to the British
Empire. . . . England said to her American colonies 'You shall not trade
with the rest of the world for such manufactures _as are produced in the
mother country_.' The manufacturing States say to their Southern
colonies, 'You shall not trade with the rest of the world for such
manufactures as _we produce_, under a penalty of forty per cent. upon
the value of every cargo detected in this illicit commerce; which
penalty, aforesaid, shall be levied, collected, and paid out of the
products of your industry, to nourish and sustain ours.'"
Mr. Clay, in referring to the condition of the country at large, said:
"I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an imperfect
sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the
country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extended; the arts
flourishing; the face of the country improved; our people fully and
profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibiting tranquillity,
contentment, and happiness. And, if we descend into particulars, we have
the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt; land rising slowly
in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready, though not an
extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry;
innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand
hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities
expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment;
our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign
and coastwise, swelled and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior
animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless steamboats;
the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly
redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing,
embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select
the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the term of
seven years were to be selected, of the greatest prosperity which this
people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present
Constitution, it would be exactly that period of seven years which
immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824.
"This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and
distress to brightness and prosperity, has been mainly the work of
American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing
it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry.
The foes of the American system, in 1824, with great boldness and
confidence, predicted, first, the ruin of the public revenue, and the
creation of a necessity to resort to direct taxation. The gentleman from
South Carolina, (General Hayne,) I believe, thought that the tariff of
1824 would operate a reduction of revenue to the large amount of eight
millions of dollars; secondly, the destruction of our navigation;
thirdly, the desolation of commercial cities; and, fourthly, the
augmentation of the price of articles of consumption, and further
decline in that of the articles of our exports. Every prediction which
they made has failed--utterly failed. . . . . It is now proposed to
abolish the system to which we owe so much of the public prosperity
. . . . . Why, sir, there is scarcely an interest--scarcely a vocation
in society--which is not embraced by the beneficence of this system. . .
. . The error of the opposite argument, is in assuming one thing, which,
being denied, the whole fails; that is, it assumes that the _whole_
labor of the United States would be profitably employed without
manufactures. Now, the truth is, that the system _excites_ and _creates_
labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates
additional ability to consume; which acts on all the objects
contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. . . . . I could extend and
dwell on the long list of articles--the hemp, iron, lead, coal, and
other items--for which a demand is created in the home market by the
operation of the American system; but I should exhaust the patience of
the Senate. _
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