THE
INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES, ETC.,
V OF THE
SOUTHERN AND WESTERN STATES :
EMBRACING A VIEW O TD1^,, , ; j J !, > >V J ^ , - 7^,
COMMERCE, AGRICULTURE, MANUFACTURES, INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS,
SLAVE AND FREE LABOR, SLAVERY INSTITUTIONS, :k
PRODUCTS, ETC... OF THE SOUTH,
HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL SKETCHES OF THE DIFFERENT STATES AND CITIES OF
THE UNION STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES,
FROM THE EARLIEST PERIODS, COMPARED WITH OTHER LEADING POWERS THE
RESULTS OF THE DIFFERENT CENSUS RETURNS SINCE 1790, AND RETURNS OF THE
CENSUS OF 1850, ON POPULATION, AGRICULTURE AND GENERAL INDUSTRY, ETC.,
WITH AN APPENDIX.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
BY J. D. B. DE BOW,
H M
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, ETC., IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA.
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF DE BOW S REVIEW,
MERCHANTS EXCHANGE. NEW-ORLEANS ;
167 BROADWAY, NEW-YORK ; AND EAST BAY AND BROAD STREETS, CHARLESTON.
1853.
7,
V
-75-3
The two opening papers in the volume, upon Southern Direct Trade and Commerce,
are from the pen of Lieut. M. F. Maury ; the one on Southern Industry is by Gov.
Hammond ; those on the Future of the South and Southern Industry are by Thos. P.
Kettell; The South s Position in the Union was contributed by Dr. Cartwright ;
South, How Affected by her Slave Institutions, by D. J. McCord ; South, Value of Life
in, by Dr. J. C. Nott ; South Carolina Capabilities, Gov. Seabrook ; the two papers on
Sugar, pp. 195, 207, are by J. P. Benjamin ; that on Turpentine, page 350, by Edwin
Heriot ; on United States Immigration, by J. B. Auld ; on Virginia, by R. G. Barnwell.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18i2, by J. D. B. DE Bow, in the Clerk s Office
of the District Court of the United States.
INDEX TO VOL. III.
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE, by Lieut. Maury 1
SOUTHERN COMMERCE Its Extension by Sea, 14
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY Progress of; Prospects of Cotton Interests, Position of South
Carolina, Influence of Mechanic Arts and Manufactures, What the South is Capable of in Cot
ton Man^i&ettrresrLabor at the South, Facilities for Steam and Water Power ; Employment
for the Poorer Classes, Etc 24
SOUTH Future of. 37 "
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY, -- 45
SOUTH Position in the Union Emancipation, Abolition, Natural Law of Slavery, Physical
Characteristics of Negroes, Fatal Results of Substituting White Labor for Biack at the
South - 53
SOUTH How Affected by her Slave Institutions Slavery at the South, and the Elements of
Character and Civilization it Developesum British Authority, and how they Compare with
those of the North, 62
SOUTH AND THE UNION Resources and Wealth of the South, and What she has Con
tributed to the Growth of the~Nation.* 70
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 76
SOUTH Value of Life in - 83
SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION Resolutions 92
" " " Report of R. Y. Hayne 92
" " " " ofGeo.McDuffie 103
" " " of F. Elmore Ill
SOUTHERN DIRECT TRADE TO THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE ,. 117
SOUTHERN FOREIGN COMMERCE .. 119
SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL RESOURCES COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE
NORTH 120
SOUTH AND THE NORTH 123
SOUTH Her mode of Convincing the North on the Slave Question 123
SOUTHERN WEALTH 124
SOUTHERN RESOURCES 124
SOUTH Tonnage Slave and Free States 125
SOUTH Public Domain of... 126
SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN TROOPS IN THE REVOLUTION 127
" " MEXICAN WAR 128
SLAVES-See Negroes.
SLAVES Fugitive at the North 128
SLAVES Dangers which Environ Slavery in the Union 130
SLAVERY NORTH AND SOUTH - 130
SLAVE TRADE 131
SLAVE TRADE OF AFRICA 133
SOUTH CAROLINA Minerals, Etc 134
SOUTH CAROLINA Statistics (See Charleston) 135
SOUTH CAROLINA.. Agricultural and Physical Capabilities, Territory, Climate. Soil, Navi
gation, Health, Minerals, Manures, Products, Etc 136
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA 139
SAVANNAH Commerce 144
SAVANNAH Statistics of 145
ST. LOUIS Commercial Advantages of 145
ST. LOUIS, AND THE PROSPECTS OF MISSOURI, (See Missouri) 146
ST. LOUIS History of 149
ST. L OU IS Statistics of and Commerce 151
STEAMSHIPS Prospectus for Establishing a Line of Propeller Steamers between New-Or
leans and Liverpool 153
STEAM BOILER EXPLOSIONS 153
STEAMBOAT DISASTERS IN THE WEST 155
STATISTICS Science of , 157
STATISTICAL BUREAUS IN THE STATES 157
SILK AND SILK CULTURE Origin, Early History. Progress Manufacture, Silk in the
United States ; Advantages of the South for the Silk Industry ; Communications from Practi
cal Men, Etc 160
SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES, by Ely 188
SUGAR Cultivation and Manufacture of 195
SUGAR Manufacture, Etc 207
SUGAR MANUFACTURE Crystallization of Sugar Chemical and other Doctrines of
Sugar 213
SUGAR Its Cultivation, Manufacture and Commerce Vegetable Principles, Properties of
Cane Sugar, Molasses, Treacle, Cane Juice, Saccharine Matter, Analysis of Sugar Cane, Varie
ties of Sugar Mills, Etc 249
IV INDEX.
SUGAR CANE Extracts from a Memoir on the Structure and Composition of the Sugar
SUG AR b C ANE ay c e ULTURE * ON THE MOST "SUCCESSFUL ESTATES- " 266
SUGAR PLANTERS Notes for JJJ
SUGAR INDUSTRY OF LOUISIANA
SUGAR OP FLORIDA - - JJJ
SUGAR Production and History ~ 77
SUGAR The Early History of. -
SUGAR CULTURE IN TEXAS 284
SUGAR OF LOUISIANA 285
SUGAR CROP OF LOUISIANA 28( 5
SUGAR TRADE OF UNITED STATES 2!
SUGAR Imports of - 2i
SUGAR MANUFACTURE IN LOUISIANA 290
SUGAR CULTURE IN THE EAST INDIES 299
SUGAR CULTURE IN THE WEST INDIES - 307
SUGAR ESTATES OF CUBA - 311
SUGAR TRADE OF THE WORLD
SUGAR Process of Culture, Manufacture, Etc 3!
TEXAS Climate, Rivers, Lands, Products, Animals, Minerals, Government, Etc 3i
TEXAS Sugar Lands 3
TEXAS Resources, Products, Etc . 335
TEXAS Brazos Country - 337
TE XAS Her Natural Advantages - - 338
TEXAS Growth of. r - 339
TEXAS Gal veston, Etc 341
TOBACCO Prize Essay on the Culture and Management of , 341
TOBACCO Cuba 345
TOBACCO Growth and Consumption of, in United States -. 34t>
TURPENTINE BUSINESS OF NORTH CAROLINA 350
TURPENTINE Process of Manufacture, Profits, Etc., 350
TURPENTINE BUSINESS IN GEORGIA 354
TEA CULTURE IN THE SOUTH - 355, 350
UNION Its Stability British Policy in Regard to Tropical Products and the Slave Trade,
Commercial Advantages of the South, What the North Gains out of the South, Etc 356, 357
UNITED STATES Progress of the Republic- Growth of States and Population 367
" Early and Growing Commerce of 378
" Commerce and Navigation Progress of from 1790 386
Population. Debt, Loans, Revenues. Etc. since 1790 391
Centre of it Moving West 393
Territorial Extent of 393
Sea and River Shore Line 395
Immigration into - 395
Operation of the Laws of Population in Europe and United States 400
Population from Earliest Times, with all the Census Returns--. 400
Census of 1850 Analysis of Growth of Population every Ten Years
Population, Square Miles, Density of Regions North, South, East and
West, Etc 420
Census Statistics Comparative Tables ..- 423
Finances, and of the States, Debts, &c. 433
Commercial Navigation Compared with Great Britain 434
Tariffs Internal Improvements, &c., Copy-right and Patent-right 436
VIRGINIA Early History Education, Schools and Colleges, Government, Resources. Inter
nal Improvements, Slavery 453
VIRGINIA GOLD MINES 461
VIRGINIA COMMERCIAL CONVENTION Resources, Industry and Improvements of
Virginia, her Contest for the Trade of the West, and Proposed Foreign Trade 462
VINEYARDS OF THE SOUTH T. : 468,. 471
WESTERN VALLEY Progress of the Great West in Population, Agriculture, Arts and
Commerce _ 475
WEST Commerce and Resources of, Etc .* 511
WEST Advantages for Manufactures 513
WESTERN HUNTERS AND TRAPPERS... " 516
WISCONSIN Progress and Resources , .".". . .[ . , . . 518
WISCONSIN Mineral Resources \ m 519
WEST INDIA ISLANDS Position, Importance"," Etc".""Cuba" "porto" Rico"," MartinYquV,
1 rench, British, Danish, Swedish, Dutck West Indies, Etc. Etc 519
f A r P ^i T S X T Can * d ;? n Commerce. 551 Cuba Trade, 551-Coast Trade of Pennsylvania, 552-Commerce
of Lmted States with Great Britain 553-Cotton Crop of United States. 555-Kmigration from Great
Britain, 5oo-Mob,le Commerce 18ol-2, 555-Mexico in 1852, 557 -Massachusetts in 1852, 558-Manu-
INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES, ETC.,
OF THE
SOUTHERN AND WES,TEEN !. STATES.
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN
TRADE. Some twelve or fifteen years ago
there was a move at the South in favor of knew well ; he was an enterprising, go-ahead
* fellow. Requicscat ! Captivated with the
idea of subsidizing the French in the noble
enterprise, he petitioned the Virginia legisla
ture to grant him the charter for an Atlantic
Steam Navigation Company. He wanted no
privileges, no favors, but simply the charter ;
direct trade. Conventions were held at
various places, and resolutions were passed
binding the merchants of the South, like the
oath which old Neptune administers to sail
ors when crossing the line " Never to kiss
the maid when they can kiss the mistress,
unless they like the maid the best :" " never
to eat hard bread when they can get soft, un
less they prefer the hard." So our conven
tions resolved, that southern merchants should
never buy in the North, when they could pur
chase at the South, unless they could buy
cheaper at the North.
We thought then, that much might be
done to recover back to the South its lost
trade. But we were of opinion that it could
not be done merely by taking sailors oaths,
or by pasisin? Neptunian resolutions. It could
not, we thought, be done, unless merchants
would put their hands in their pockets; but
this they were not prepared to do. And so
the impulse then given to southern commerce
ended, we believe, with a cargo or two of
sugar that, was imported from the W T est In
dies into Norfolk direct, instead of being car
ried right by the capes of Virginia to New-
York, and then sent from there back to Nor
folk.
We mind the time well when these con
ventions- took place ; our heart was in the
move, and our spirit went along with the
3very time. It was in 1837-8,
_ there when the British government
was about writing Q. E. D. to the practical
demonstration which the " Sirius," the " Liv
erpool," and the " Great Western," were just
then giving to the great problem of Ocean
We did succeed in impressing one, gentle
man, at least, with our notions. Him we
for he was sure that with
delegates
alonsj
Steam Navigation.
France, the French, and tho Kins
of the
French, were burning with the desire not to
be outdone by England. They had the
money ready, and were looking for a port
on this side to which they might start an
opposition line of steamers. It was then
proposed that the South should offer to take
part of tne stock, provided the French would
select Norfolk as the terminus for their line
and thus get the line into the hands of Ame
ricans, for we "felt it in our bones," that,
even at that day, we could beat John Bull.
VOL. in.
simply
the charter and his
energies, he could gain the French over as
allies and induce them to select Norfolk for
the American terminus of their line.
The legislature refused the charter. The
French, meeting with no sympathy on this
side, receiving no overtures from the South
to send their boats to Norfolk, proceeded to
build their vessels. They selected New- York
for their American station, and sent over
their steamers filled with officers and ser
vants so bedizened with " toggery," that
passengers could not tell one from the other.
Finally, after a trip or two, one of these
steamers, loaded down with passengers and
freight, put to sea from New-York, and after
getting fairly out into blue water, discovered
that the sugar had been forgotten. The cap
tain made a speech at the breakfast table the
next morning, and offered to put back for
sugar if the passengers would say so : but it
was too late. The passengers had already
become sour. This sugar business broke up
the line. Johnny Crapo retired from the
contest, and left the field to John Bull, to be
by him enjoyed without a competitor for
some ten or twelve years.
No human sagacity could penetrate clearly
enough into the future then, to see all that
has since actually turned up in the way of
ocean steam navigation and steamship enter
prises ; but there is little or no doubt that,
had the suggestions of this journal, at the
time they were made, been adopted by the
advocates of direct trade in the South that,
had the legislature of Virginia granted that
ocean steam navigation charter, Norfolk
would at this day have been the centre of
steamship enterprise for the United States.
The French steamers would have been
built there ; they would have been com
manded and controlled by Americans who
would never forget their sugar, nor make
their passengers sour.
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
This would have established foundries, ma
chine-shops, and ship-yards at Norfolk, and
have placed her ten or fifteen years ahead of
New-York in the steamship business. Nor
folk would fhen have been enabled to get the
contracts from the government for establish
ing tho 9 e.rbes of *pl,eri.dtd- .steamers that are
now giyiug such a treni MV-htu.* impetus to the
.
business, the trade, travel and traffic of New-
York- The jmes tj> the isthmus would have
bgiooged U>, Norfolk. Here w ov.13* probably
have been the Havre and Bremen lines. And
the Old Dominion might have claimed also
what is now the ^Collins liiie."
Geographically speaking, Norfolk is in a
position to have commanded the business of
the Atlantic seaboard. It is midway the
coast. It has a back country of surprising
fertility of great capacity and resources ;
and as far as the approaches from the sea are
concerned, its facility of ingress and egres?,
at all times and in all weathers, there is from
Maine to Georgia, from the St. John s to the
Rio Grande, nothing like Norfolk.
The waters which flow past Norfolk into
the sea, divide the producing from the con
suming states of the Atlantic slope the agri
cultural from the manufacturing the ice
ponds of the North from the cotton fields at
the South the potato patch from the rice
plantation the miner from the planter. And
these same waters unite at this one place the
natural channels that lead from the most fa
mous regions in the country for com, wheat
and tobacco, to the great commercial marts.
In order to satisfy any one of the vast natu
ral advantages which Norfolk has over any
other Atlantic seaport, let us compare the
back country which naturally belongs to this
ancient borough and modern city, with that
which naturally belongs to New- York. We
hope the reader will refer to a map of the
United States, and with his pencil trace a
line on it to include all the country which is
drained into the Hudson River: for that is
the back country which naturally belongs to
the city of New-York.
Now let him, in like manner, draw another
line to include within it all the country that
is drained into the Chesapeake Bay ; for this
is the back country which naturally belongs
to Norfolk. To do this, he will begin and
run along upon the ridge the " Divide," the
western people call it between the Dela
ware and the Chesapeake.
Banning thence northwardly, his pencil-
mark will include all of Pennsylvania that is
in the valley of the Susquehanna all of
Maryland this side of the mountains the val
ley of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, ihc
York and the James rivers, with the valley
of the Roanoke and a great part of the State
of Norlh Carolina, whose only outlet to the
sea is via Norfolk.
Such is the back country that nature has
given to Norfolk for her commercial founda
tion ai)( l S uch to New- York for the corner
stone of her commercial edifice.
Virginia saw these advantages, and slept
upon them. She knew that Nature had
placed them there, and made them hers. She
never dreamed that man could take them
a.\ av. But man has. The enterprise of man
has extended the back country of New- York
from the sea to the lakes ; from the waters
of Long Island Sound to the waters of tho
Gulf of Mexico. It has turned the commerce
of the St. Lawrence down the Hudson, and
placed the mouth of the Mississippi ab much
at Sandy Hook as it is at the Balize.
Thus did New- York while Virginia was
sleeping. Just as she was beginning to wake
up, chance and the course of events threw in
her way the steamship enterprise of the
French. Her merchants, however, could not
get their hands in their pockets, or rather
they stood with their hands in their pockets
for ten years, and quietly looked on while
New-York was projecting her plans, display
ing her enterprise, and monopolizing all
those steam advantages ; and now that New-
York has got fairly under way, they in the
South are again rousing up the people and
calling their conventions in favor of steam
ships and direct trade. Better late than
never. We welcome the move with all our
heart, and mean to support it with all our
strength save and except the Neptunian
resolutions. We do not go for them.
We do not wish to discourage the move
for a line of steamers from Norfolk to Europe,
as great as the odds against Norfolk now are.
We know that there are business men in the
South, who, if once they put their hands in
their pockets and their shoulders to the
wheel, have energy, enterprise and capacity
enough for anything that energy, enterprise
and capacity can effect.
While we do not wish to discourage that
move, therefore, we have a proposition to
make, which, by timely adoption, will, we
think, do much towards recovering for the
South her lost advantages, and that with
interest. This proposition is another steam
ship enterprise It may meet the i ate of the
former one, but if so, the end of the next fif
teen years will show its rejection to be a
piece of short-sighted policy, more to be
deplored than all the inaction heretofore
observed by Virginia with regard to her
natural resources and commercial advantages.
The South wants to regain her direct
trade. Let us first examine how the South
came to lose it, and the North to get it. We
shall then know the better how to proceed,
aad what to do towards recovering it.
The course of navigation from Europe to
this country used to be down along the coast
of Africa to the region of the north-east trade
winds. These winds are fair winds for get
ting to the westward. Ships took them, and
with them ran over to the United States;
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
3
falling in with the southern coast first, and
making the land of Charleston or the capes
of the Carolinas or of Virginia, they would
then take a fresh departure fir New-York,
Boston, or their port of destination, wherever
it was, among the New- England states.
This made of Charleston and Norfolk a sort
of relay station, and placed them on the way
side of the commercial highway, leading from
Old to New-England.
It was rarely that vessels were found in
those days to sail more than four or five
knots under the most favorable circum
stances. About two miles the hour was the
average rate of speed for merchantmen in
those days. It was not so fast as the gulf
stream would carry a log.
Along the route now pursued by vessels
bound from Liverpool to New-York, the
winds are adverse, and the gulf stream has
days past we have sounded for the Grand
Bank, but have not found it."*
Two weeks after that, viz., on the 31st,
when they did find bottom, he remarks :
" The weather, the wind, the discovery of
our longitude, give us all fine spirits this
morning."
A modern vessel would sail across the At
lantic while the frigate " Sensible" was seek
ing her longitude.
Such was the course of navigation, such
the difficulties in the way of trade across the
Atlantic prior to 1796, that Charleston and
Norfolk, of necessity, became the half-way
houses, the great entrepots of traffic, the
points of communication between Europe
and the " colonies."
From 1776 dates a new era in the political
affairs of this country and from 1796
twenty years after and so on at intervals of
twenty years, dates regularly a new era in
the affairs of commerce and navigation.
Then, in 96, it was made known to navi-
to be stemmed nearly all the way. The mer
chantmen of the last century were incapable . ? , _ _ _
of beating up against wind and tide both ; ga tors how, by dipping a thermometer into
consequently the northern passage was closed i tne water as t } iey approached our shores,
to them, and the usual route was to follow they mi ht tell Aether they were in or out
the track of Columbus pass through the
Sargasso Sea, catch the north-east trades, and
getting*on the parallel of some southern port
in America, to steer due west until they
made the laud.
If the merchantman of that day, after thus
making her land-fall, ascertaining her posi
tion and keeping away for her port, met a
north-west gale or a snow-storm, as in winter
she was very apt to do off New-York or Bos
ton, her coarse was to run back south, and
to lie in Charleston until the next spring,
waiting for good weather and a fair opportu
nity for going northward again.
Though the existence of the gulf stream
was known more than two centuries ago, the
fact that its waters were warmer than those
of the sea along side of it, and the idea that
this difference of temperature could be made
available for longitude at sea, was not pro
mulgated to navigators until 17967.
This is an epoch in navigation, and from
it commences an era in the course of trade
between the old world and the new.
In those days, if the mariner at sea could
lay his out-spread hand down upon his chart,
and say that it certainly covered the place of
his ship, he was called a " lucky dog," and
entitled to be considered a navigator.
We beg leave to illustrate, and to instance,
as we go along : In 1779, when John Adams
was returning to the United States from his
first mission to France, he came in a French
man-of-war, and men-of-war were much bet
ter navigated in those days than merchant
men. After leaving the shores of France,
they did not discover their longitude until
they got soundings in the waters of America.
We quote from his diary.
" Saturday, 17th." It was July. " Three
of the gulf stream whether they were on
this or that side of it, and consequently
know their longitude. This was a discovery.
It was hailed as such by the whole sea-faring
community. Works were written on " Ther
mal Navigation ;" and the streaks of hot and
cold water in and near the gulf stream, were
likened to blue and red ribbons, which Pro
vidence had stretched on the green bosom of
the Atlantic, to warn the navigator of his
approach to our shores, and to tell his longi
tude.
At that time, too, great improvements in
naval architecture were about to take place.
The keels of the fastest ships that we have
in our navy at this day were laid then.
These discoveries and improvements ena
bled ships bound from Europe to approach
the coast of the United States with the gulf
stream for a beacon ; and they, moreover,
enabled merchantmen, by being swift of
foot, to turn the windward better, and con
sequently to beat over from Europe against
the gulf stream and the prevailing westerly
winds of the direct route.
Thus traders began to come direct to our
northern ports, instead of first touching at
the southern for a land- fall and good weather.
Thus Charleston ceased to be a half-way
house, and was made an outside station.
The South, quietly and in silence, looked
on while this revolution was making its
changes.
After another period of twenty years, viz.,
in 1816, another era in commercial affairs,
and the business of the sea, was commenced.
In that year, Jeremiah Thompson, Isaac
226-
Life and Works of John Adams, Vol. III. pp.
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE,
Wright, and others in honor of whom the
city of New- York should erect a monument
commenced the system of packet ships.
They put three vessels of 300 or 400 tons
each, on the line to Liverpool, to sail on
stated days regularly once a month, or
thereaway. The croakers all thought,
and many .said, that these ships would be
" no go " that they were entirely too large,
and that often the day of sailing would ar
rive when there would be neither freight nor
passengers to take. But the staid old
Quaker who was in the concern knew what
he was about. He sailed on the regular day,
and gave his captains the postage upon all
the letters conveyed to and fro, and for a
quick passage he promised them a new gown
for their wives, sometimes a new coat for
themselves.
The " Liners," as the packet ships of
New-York came to be called, went on in
creasing in numbers and size and in favor
with merchants and ship-owners, until the
sea became white with their sails, and New-
York the focus from which they diverged to
all ports of the world, and to which they all
returned.
Opposition lines were got up to Liverpool,
and independent ones established to London
and Havre. Besides these, lines of packet
ships, packet brigs, and packet schooners
were established between New- York and
every seaport town in the United States.
They all had their regular day of sailing,
and daily fleets of them were to be seen
going out and coming into the harbor of
New-York.
Having their regular days of sailing for
New- York, they would bring anything at
any rate of freight that would pay for putting
in and taking out, rather than return empty.
Hence they would take for a mere song, pine
wood from Virginia, naval stores from North
Carolina, stones from New-England, ores
from Cuba, &c., which last were again taken
without freight to England, because Cuba
ores served for ballast.
Thus the packet system built up New-
York, and made her the great central mar
ket for all the surplus produce of all sorts
from all parts of the seaboard. Whatever
the country produced for sale, samples of it
were brought by the packets to the wharves
of New-York, and thus the warehouses of
that city became an immense variety store,
in which is to be found whatever is to be
bought or sold in the United States.
The packet ships carried the mails across
the Atlantic. They made New- York the
point of communication with the Old World ;
and they controlled the business of dispatch
for the whole country. They were the
" Adams Express " of the day. The mer
chants of the North and the South all sent by
them for their spring and fall fashions their
light goods, small parcels all special orders
were executed in that way. So completely
had they monopolized everything for New-
York, in the way of foreign business, travel,
and correspondence, that in the year 1837.
when they had served out their twenty years,
there was not a single vessel that cleared
from Boston for Liverpool. But they had
run their twenty years, and another era in
the business of commerce was about to arise.
In 1837 commenced the era of Ocean Steam
Navigation, though twenty years before that
the South had sent out an avant courier from
Georgia ; but the South rested content with
the honor of being the first to stride across
the Atlantic under steam. This was the
time 37 when the idea was thrown out
that Virginia should offer to co-operate with
the French and invite them to send their
steamers into Norfolk.
The steamers, contrary to all expectations,
gave an impulse to the packet ships, the
packet ships re-acted upon the steamers, and
both greatlyincreased in numbers and enlarged
the business of the country. Boston got its
line of steamers, sent its ships to Liverpool,
and recovered all the trade, and more, too,
that it had lost when steamers first began to
Pty-
The steamers, it was found, so far from
interfering with the regular " Liners, 1 created
a business of their own. New-York looked
on quietly for ten years, before she under
stood this matter, or began to move in it.
But New-York, during the interval, was
feeling the way with English capital, as in
the meantime Norfolk might have done with
French. Finally, New-York got the federal
government committed to the tune of many
millions for her steamship enterprise. Thus
backed up, New-York launched her ocean
steamers, and now leads the world in that
navigation.
There is room for opposition both to
Europe and the gulf, but New-York is a
powerful competitor, and the odds are now
greatly in her favor.
It is curious to look back at the important
commercial and political events which have
taken place regularly at intervals of double
decades, one after the other.
We commence with 1776 : every genera
tion continues in the majority for about
twenty years. When the people, therefore,
who had the ascendency in 76, had passed
into the minority, their successors the next
generation signalized the occasion and their
accession to the majority, by turning the
Atlantic coast, in a commercial point of view,
upside down ; by removing Charleston from
the half-way to an outside station on the
road between the old world and the new
for at that period the direct trade of Charles
ton alone was greater than that of New-
York and all thc^ New-England States toge-
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
ther. The philosopher, with no other in
strument than the water-thermometer, did
all this.
When this generation had fretted out its
sway of twenty years in the majority, had
reached its sere and yellow leaf, and passed
into the minority, its successor signalized
its installation by the establishment of the
packet system a system which is at the
bottom and the top of New- York s commer
cial ascendency, operating as a sort of first
principle among the real causes of the great
business prosperity of that city.
If we were asked to trace back to the very
source those influences which first obtained
expression in the construction of the Erie
canal, we should point to the water-thermo
meter and the packet system. It was on
account of the prosperity, the commercial
advantages, power and influence, that New-
York derived from these, that she was ena
bled to undertake that work. Each new
work added more and more to her power and
wealth ; but the key to it all, the very foun
dations of that wealth and power, commenced
with the water-thermometer and were laid
in the packet system. The water-thermo
meter and the packet system gave her the I
power to remove the commercial mouth of i
the. St. Lawrence from the Straits of Belle-
isle to Sandy Hook to turn the Mississippi
valley upside down, causing the produce
thereof to flow north and enter the sea under
the highlands of Neversink.
These are go-ahead times, and the rising
generation is crowding so fast upon us of the
Ocean Steam Navigation era, that, though
we have but five years of our allotted time
left to run, we doubt whether our successor
will not crowd us out before the full term of
our double decade shall have expired.
Before 1857, we hope to see the Isthmus
pierced with commercial thoroughfares and
great national highways before 57, we
hope to see the proposition which we have to
make, in full blast, recovering and restoring
back to the South in ten-fold measure, all its
lost advantages its foreign commerce, its
direct trade, its importing business, and
commercial prosperity.
Great Britain and Europe are not the only
countries in the world with which commer
cial intercourse is desirable ; nor are they
the only ones whose trade can enrich and
make prosperous.
Let the South not forget to look to the
South. Let her study the immensity of the
commercial resources which lie dormant in
that direction. Let her see if she have not
the ability now to hasten and assist the de
velopment of them ; and being developed, to
command, to reap, and enjoy them.
Behold the valley of the Amazon, and the
great river-basins of South America. Unex
plored there, is a wilderness of treasures ;
all the elements of the most valuable com
merce are there, and they are of easy deve
lopment.
We hope the reader will consult the map
as he follows us in what we are about to say.
Of more than twice the size of the Mis
sissippi valley, the valley of the Amazon is
entirely inter-tropical. An everlasting sum
mer reigns there. Up to the very base of
the Andes, the river itself is navigable for
vessels of the largest class. The Pennsyl
vania 74 might go there.
A natural canal through the Caciquiari
connects it with the Orinoco. Giving drain
age and fertility to immense plains that cover
two millions of square miles, it receives from
the north and the south innumerable tributa
ries, which, it is said, afford an inland navi
gation up and down of not less than seventy
or eighty thousand miles in extent. Stretched
out in a continuous line, the navigable
streams of that great water-shed would more
than completely encircle the earth around at
its largest girth.
All the climates of India are there. In
deed, we may say, that from the mouth to
the sources of the Amazon, piled up one
above the other, and spread out, Andean-
like, over steppe after steppe in beautiful un
broken succession, are all the climates, and
all the soils, with the capacities of produc
tion, that are to be found between the regions
of everlasting summer and eternal snow.
The valley of the Amazon is the place of
production for India-rubber an article of
commerce which has no parallel as to the
increase of demand for it, save and except
in the history of our own great staple since
the invention of the cotton gin. We all re
collect when the only uses to which India-
rubber was applied were to rub out pencil
marks and make trap-balls for boys. But it
is made into shoes and hats, caps and cloaks,
foot-balls and purses, ribbons and cushions,
boats, beds, tents, and bags ; into pontoons
for pushing armies across rivers, and into
camels for lifting ships over shoals. It is
also applied to a variety of other uses and
purposes, the mere enumeration of which
would make us tedious. New applications
of it are continually being made. Boundless
forests of the syringatree are found upon the
banks of this stream, and the exportation of
this gum, from the mouth of that river, is
daily becoming a business of more and more
value, extent and importance.
In 1846-7, pontoons for the British army
in India, and tents for the American army
in Mexico, were made in New-England from
the India-rubber of the Amazon. It is the
best in the world.
The sugar-cane is found there in its most
luxuriant growth, and of the richest saccha
rine development. It requires to be planted
but once in 20 years.
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
There, too, are produced, of excellent qua
lity and in great profusion, coffee and tobac
co, rice and indigo, cocoa and cotton, with
drugs of virtues the most rare, dyes of hues
the most brilliant, and spices of aroma the
most exquisite.
Soils of the richest loam and the finest
alluvians are there ; the climates of India, of
the Moluccas and the Spice Islands, are all
there ; and there, too, lying dormant, are the
boundless agricultural and mineral capacities
of the East and West, all clustered together.
If commerce were but once to spread its
wings over that valley, the shadow of it
would be like the touch of the magician s
wand those immense resources would
spring right up into life and activity.
In the fine imagery of their language, the
Indians call the Amazon the " King of Riv
ers/
line
Now look
land in Central America, and cut the conti-
It empties into the ocean under the
Nature has scooped out the
nent nearly in two there, that she might
plant between the mouth of the " King of
Rivers" and of the "Father of Waters," an
arm of the sea capable of receiving the sur
plus produce which the two grandest river
basins on the face of the earth are some day
to pour out into the Gulf of Mexico and the
Caribbean Sea. These two sheets of water
form the great commercial lap of the South.
This sea and gulf receive the drainage of all
the rivers of note in both continents, except
the La Plata on the south, and Columbia on
the west, the St. Lawrence and those of the
Atlantic seaboard on the east.
Excluding the inhospitable regions of Pa
tagonia on the south, and Labrador
the
the natural receptacles, for the surplus pro
duce of nearly three-fourths of the whole
extent of arable land in the two Americas.
Moreover, these two marine basins of the
south are also the natural outlet, north and
south, for the productions of not less than
70 of latitude. The Mississippi runs south,
and crosses parallels of latitude; it conse
quently traverses a great diversity of cli
mates, and floats down to the gulf a great
variety of produce a large assortment of
staples. Its tributaries flow east and west ;
and each one contributes to the main stream
itself many productions that are peculiar to
its own latitude and climate.
The Amazon flows east. It runs along a
parallel of latitude. Save and except the
changes due to elevation, its climates are the
same, and its banks, from source to mouth,
are lined with the same growth. Its tribu
taries run north and south, and the products
supplied by one of these, to the main stream,
are duplicates of the products to be contri
buted by all.
In our river valley, winter and summer,
spring and autumn, mark the year and divide
the seasons : in the other, the seasons are the
wet and the dry, and the year is all summer.
One valley is in the northern hemisphere,
the other in the southern. When it is seed
time on one side, the harvest is ripe on the
other.
The Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico
are twin basins. They are seas Mesopota-
mian, and wholly American. The great
equatorial current having its genesis in the
Indian Ocean, and doubling the Cape of
Good Hope, sweeps by the mouth of the
Amazon, and after traversing both Caribbean
north, and referring only to the agricultural Sea and Gulf of Mexico, it meets with the
latitudes, the two Americas cover an area of gulf stream, and places the commercial outlet
land, in round numbers, of about ten millions
of square miles. To not less than six of this
ten, this sea and gulf are the natural outlet.
Of these six, about two-thirds are inter-trop
ical, producing a variety of articles to which
the other parts of the continent never can
offer competition. Nature has so ordered it.
With scarce the exception of a " ten mile
square," the whole |of this immense Carib
bean water-shed, which is nearly double the
area of Europe, is composed of fine, rich ara
ble land. The rainless coasts of Peru, the
sandy plains of Lower California, the great
salt desert of the north, and the Sahara-like
desert of Atacama at the south, all lie with-
ofthat river almost as much in the Florida
Pass as is the mouth of the Mississippi River
itself. Two travelers may set out from the
Yucatan Pass ; one north for the sources of
the Missouri, the other south for the head
waters of the Amazon. If, when the former
reaches the base of the Rocky Mountains,
he will cut a tree down, and let it fall in the
river, so that it will drift with the current
without lodging by the way, it will meet in
the Straits of Florida one cut and cast in the
Amazon, by the other traveler, from the sides
of the Andes, and floated down that river in
like manner. The natural route of the drift
wood from both to the open sea, is through
out it ; they fall within the other four of the the Gulf of Mexico, around the peninsula & of
tPTl TnilllATtGl TnoiT- nro nt-ii -! "Kir* . r-^Jl T7M i i A j ji *,!,.. ; .
ten millions. They are unarable ; and,
therefore, as they are unfit for cultivation,
they should be, in this classification, arrang
ed with the inhospitable regions of Patagonia
Florida, and so out into the Atlantic through
the gulf stream.
These twin basins are destined by Nature
to be the greatest commercial receptacles in
and Labrador. So classing these barren I the world. No age, clime, nor quarter of the
places, we discover the startling fact, that j globe, affords any parallel or anv conditions
these two rivers are the natural outlets, and of the least resemblance to these which we
the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico are find in this sea or gulf.
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
What other arm of the ocean is between
two continents with opposite seasons!
Whore is there another gulf stream uniting
the waters of an Amazon with the waters of
a Mississippi an extra-tropical with an in
ter-tropical river and placing the commercial
outlet of both before the doors of one and the
same people 1 Where in the wide ocean, or
the wider world, is there another Mesopota-
mian Sea, that is the natural outlet for a
system of river basins draining an extent of
arable and fertile lands greater than the
continent of Europe can contain that yield
all the productions of the torrid and the tem
perate zones and that are so situated withal,
that from opposite hemispheres, with their
opposite seasons, they will deliver into the
markets a crop every six months 1 Famine
can never visit such a land. The double
chance of a crop in double hemispheres frees
it from any such liability.
In consequence of the winds and currents
of the sea, the course of navigation from the
mouths of these two rivers, as well as from
all parts of the gulf and Caribbean Sea, is
such, as to compel every vessel that trades
in their markets, whether it be with the pro
duce of the great Amazonian valley at the
south, or the mighty valley of the west we
repeat, the course of navigation is such as to
compel every vessel so freighted for Europe,
for Africa, for India nay, for Rio de Janeiro
and for South America itself, to pass the
very offings of our southern ports on their
way to market.
From the Gulf of Mexico, all the great
commercial markets of the world are down
hill. A vessel bound from the Gulf to Eu
rope, places herself in the current of the gulf
stream, and drifts along with it at the rate,
for part of the way, of 80 or 100 miles a-day.
If her destination be Rio, or India, or Cali
fornia, her course is the same as far north as
the Island of Bermuda.
And when there shall be established a
commercial thoroughfare across the Isthmus,
the trade winds of the Pacific will place Chi
na, India, New-Holland, and all the islands
of that ocean, down hill also from this sea of
ours. In that case, the whole of Europe
must pass by our very doors on the great
highway to the markets both of the East and
West Indies.
This beautiful Mesopotamia!! Sea is in a
position to occupy the summit level of navi
gation, and to become the great commercial
receptacle of the world. Our rivers run into
it, and float down with their currents the
surplus articles of merchandise that are pro
duced upon their banks. Arrived with them
upon the bosom of this grand marine basin,
there are the currents of the sea and the
winds of heaven so arranged by nature, that
they drift it and waft it down hill and down
stream to the great market places of the
world.
To one who has never studied the course
of the winds and currents of the sea, and the
influence which they exert upon the routes
which vessels must pursue in order to accom
plish their voyages to and fro across the ocean,
it appears startling to be told that the shores
of the southern states, of Florida and the Ca-
rolinas, are on the way-side of vessels bound
from the mouth of the Amazon, the Orinoco
and the Magdalena rivers to Rio de Janeiro
as well as to Europe. The way out upon
the high seas from the mouth of these rivers,
and from that of the Mississippi, is practically
one and the same.
To a vessel under canvas, Norfolk is not
half as far, in point of time, from the mouth
of the Amazon, as is Rio in Brazil.
On account of the winds and currents of
the Atlantic, a vessel bound from the Ama
zon to Rio, has first to sail to the northward
until she reaches the northern parallel of 25
or 30 before she can begin to stand south.
It is the same, no matter what be her desti
nation, provided it be not the West Indies,
nor any of the ports in the Caribbean Sea,
or Gulf of Mexico.
Norfolk and Charleston may be called
half-way houses from the Amazon and the
Gulf, to New- York, to England and Europe,
and to all ports in Africa, South America,
India, and around Cape Horn. Indeed, they
are the half-way houses from Amazonia to
all the markets of the world, the way to
which is across the seas.
We wish to fix attention as to the great
advantages which our geographical and phy
sical position gives us of the United States,
in contending for the commerce to which the
valleys of the Amazon, the Orinoco and the
Magdalena are destined at some day to give
rise.
Before we submit the proposition which
we design to make to the merchants of the
South in particular, and to the people of
these United States in general, we wish to
call attention to another physical condition
which nature has connected with the South
American trade, and particularly with the
commerce to which her river basins are to
give rise. And that is, that not only do none
of these river basins, but none of the conti
nents of the southern hemisphere, afford
the contrasts for forming sea-faring commu
nities among their inhabitants. Who ever
heard of Brazilian seamen, or of the "mari
ners of Peru 1" We have heard of the Gau-
chos, the Llaneros, and the horsemen of
South America, but never of its seamen.
In order to become sailors, people must
use the sea ; and that they may use it, fami
liarity with it from boyhood and in early life
is one of the pre-requisites. Preliminary to
this pre-requisite is a deeply-articulated
8
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
shore-line a sea-front richly indented with
bays, bights, gulfs and harbors, thrusting
themselves far up into the country on one
hand, with capes, promontories and peninsu
las pushing far out into the sea on the other
thus increasing the length of water line
thus bringing the inhabitants and the sea
into close proximity and into the presence of
each other.
Let any one of our readers who lives be
tween the tide-water and the Blue Ridge,
cast about him, in his neighborhood, and tell
how many boys and young men have left it
and their country-life to become sailors ;
small, indeed, is the number. Even there
the people are too far from the sea to take to
it for a living.
Now let him take the map and look at the
stiff, rigid shore-line, not only of South
America, but of the southern continent gene
rally, and then let him compare their almost
isleless coasts with the finely articulated and
beautifully contrasted shore-lines of the
northern hemisphere ; the Gulf of Mexico
with its gems ; the peninsula of Florida ; its
string of islands ; the sounds, and bays, and
gulfs at the north ; the Mediterranean, reach
ing a thousand miles and more back into the
heart of the continent ; the Red Sea, separat
ing it almost in two ; the Baltic and the
Black; the gulfs and bays and bights and
peninsulas of India and China. Let him
look at these physical features ; let him con
trast the two hemispheres in this respect,
and see how much more maritime in feature
one is than the other ; let him study these
features on a map of the world, and he will
perceive how that nature has decreed that
the seat of maritime power, strength and
greatness shall be in the northern, not in the
southern, hemisphere.
Another condition required in the consti
tution of sea-faring communities is a nig
gardly soil, or other sources of a scanty live
lihood to the laboring man. In these days,
men forsake the land for the sea only, when
the sea affords better means of living than
the land.
Where in the history of the world did the
people of any nation ever become maritime
in their habits, when their climates were
mild, their soil kind, and lands cheap!
There is no such instance on record. Who
ever heard of bodies of men forsaking the
cheap lands and beautiful climates of the
Mississippi valley to become mariners, only
that they may wring from the seas a hard-
earned, coarse, sometimes scanty and often
dangerous subsistence 1 ?
If the Mississippi valley do not produce
seamen enough to fetch and carry its own
produce across the ocean, and to do its own
commerce, much less will that of the Amazon
with its softer climales and more benignant
soils.
Therefore, whatever be the extent of
the business which the Amazon may have
to offer commerce, the fetching and the
carrying of it must be done by sailors
from our own side of the equator. Why
may they not be Virginia and Carolina
sailors 1 Those states have along the sea
shore pine barrens poor enough to drive
men, women and children all to sea for a
living.
In the Amazonian trade, the winds for us
are fair to go and fair to come. And we of
the Atlantic sea-coast are the only people for
whom they are favorable both ways.
The voyage from the capes of Virginia or
from Charleston to the Amazon, is the most
certain voyage, as to the length of time, triat
is to be found between any two ports in the
Atlantic Ocean. In eighteen or twenty days,
a sailing vessel can go and come, the year
round. The N. E. trade winds carry her
there ; and they bring her back. They are
" soldier s winds." Therefore, among the
inducements which the South has to move
her in the matter of commencing to establish
commercial relations and business ties in
that direction, is the future one of com
peting, in her own vessels and with her own
sailors, for the carrying trade of that magni
ficent water-shed.
The proposition, therefore, which we
have to make, is with regard to a line of
steamers from Norfolk," Charleston or
Savannah, to the mouth of the Amazon.
Para is its "New-Orleans." It is the
city at its mouth. It has a population of
some 15,000 or 20,000 inhabitants. There
is a line of steamers already in operation
from Kio to Para.
From Savannah to Para, the distance is
about 2,500 miles ; from Para to Rio, 2,100.
This, at the rate of the best performance of
Collins steamer " Baltic," would give for
the passage between Rio and the United
States thirteen days for coming and thirteen
for going.
The time occupied now in going and
coming by sailing vessels, is about ninety
days.
Suppose we lengthen this computed pas
sage, and base our estimates upon the sup
position that the time to Rio, by this line of
steamers, will readily require twenty instead
of thirteen days, viz. : ten to Para and
ten thence to Rio.
The effect of such a communication would
be to turn the whole correspondence and
travel connected with the Atlantic slope of
South America, through Norfolk, or what-
eve*r port may be selected for the American
terminus of the line. No European nation can
successfully compete with us in this line of
steamers, because their distance from Para
is more than double ours.
Now it should be recollected that our com-
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
mercial transactions with Brazil and the
valley of the Rio de la Plata, are already
worth more than they are with any of the
countries of Europe, except Great Britain
and France.
At this instant, the " Levee" at Para
affords foreign commerce enough from the
valley of the Amazon to give annual freight
to a fleet of fifty sail. But this is nothing to
what it will do when the stimulants of
civilization, agriculture, navigation and
commerce shall be applied to that prodigious
wilderness of wealth.
Of more than twice the area of the Mis
sissippi valley, that of the Amazon is much
more bountiful. There the labor of one day
in seven is enough to crown the board of the
husbandman with plenty.
The vegetable kingdom sits enthroned
there in surpassing grandeur, sublimity and
power. Its energies are in ceaseless display,
its forces in perpetual activity, vigor and
health. There, is there no falling of the
leaf; no season of repose in the vegetable
economy : and consequently, no period for
the decay of vegetation ; no time for the
development of noxious gases and pesti
lential miasmata. As soon as these are
evolved from one plant, they are absorbed by
another in the perpetual summer ; the result
is, a climate of great salubrity.
The display there of the vegetable force is
terrific. Here with us, as we travel along
the sea-shore, we see the vegetation stand
ing back and separated from the water by
the battle-ground between the waves and the
land. Strewed with debris, and covered
with fragments thrown up from the bottom
of the sea, or uprooted from the base of the
hills, this field of battle with us is a sandy,
barren waste. In it, no subject of the
vegetable kingdom is permitted to take root ;
and not a member of the whole animal
family is able to gather even the most scanty
means of subsistence from it. The scene of
the most perfect desolation to be found on
the face of our planet, is the field of strife on
our shores between the waves and the winds
and the dry land.
In Amazonia, the mineral gives place to
the vegetable kingdom in the conflict, and a
new combatant enters the field. The forces
of the vegetable kingdom there, march down
for the fight to the very water s edge. A
storm arises ; the waves come and beat back
the vegetation, bearing it down and heaping
upon it piles of sand and shells cast up
from the depths below. In a few days the
tremendous power of vegetation recovers,
and is seen marching down over the sand
banks and piles of fragments, and planting
its foot again upon the water, in the water
and under the water, and pushing out its
advance-poses in lines of green far into the
sea.
The lilies of the valley attain such gi
gantic vigor and proportions that a single
leaf will float a man.
If there be such a display of vegetable
growth in the wild state, of what is such a
climate not susceptible when it shall be
assisted by the arts of cultivation ?
Peruvian bark cascarilla and cinchona,
as the Spaniards call it is found in the
valley of the Amazon, and nowhere else. It
is cut from the banks of one of its navigable
tributaries, packed upon the backs of Pe
ruvian sheep carried up beyond the
clouds into the regions of perpetual snow
on mountain tops, and transported beyond
the Andes, 600 miles to the Pacific Ocean ;
arrived there, the ceroon, which, at the place
of production in the great Amazon basin,
was worth only a few pence, now commands
from eighty to one hundred dollars.
Thus the world is supplied, over the
mountains and around Cape Horn by sheep,
asses and ships, with that drug. Were
steam once to force its way up the Amazon,
this drug would come down the river and
pass by our doors on its way to market.
That trade, in its present state, is worth
upwards of half a million annually. The use
of quinine is increasing, and the demand
therefore for the bark must continue to
increase.
On the steppes of the Andes, where they
serve as a water-shed for the Amazon, are
to be found flocks numbering thousands of
sheep covered with fleeces of the finest and
the rarest wool ; and yet it is scarcely worth
the shearing, so great are the difficulties of
getting it to market. Nevertheless, were it
possible to place this wool on a raft that
would keep the current, and were it to be
thus launched on the stream where the
flocks go to drink, it would drift down the
Amazon ; and being delivered by it to the
winds and currents of the sea, it. might,
I without other guide, be found in the gulf
stream off Cape Hatteras ; so direct is the
natural route even from the remote corners
of that valley to this country.
Such are the physical conditions which
invite the South to the study of the com
mercial resources, the advantages of trade,
and the interests to her navigation in that
quarter.
In the valley of the Amazon are mines of
silver and gold of inimense yield. There,
too, are found and wrought the great quick
silver mines of the world ; and there, too,
situated far down towards the Atlantic in
that valley are the mines of diamonds, of
gems and precious stones, which have
dazzled princes, lent splendor to the crowned
heads of Europe, and added brilliancy to the
pageants of all people.
There is now on the statute books of
Portugal a royal ordinance forbidding any of
10
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
the productions of India to be cultivated in
Brazil. This was when Brazil was Portu
guese ; and when Portugal was apprehen
sive lest the spices of Brazil would injure
her eastern commerce and possessions.
The cinnamon of Amazonia is superior to
that of Ceylon ; its gums and ornamental
woods are said to be of surpassing beauty,
variety, excellence and value.
Men of science who have studied the
physical conditions of Amazonia and India,
and who have compared the climatology of
the two regions, are of opinion, that in this
magnificent wilderness of America are to
be found both soil and climate suitable for
the production of every spice, gum, resin
and drug that is grown in the East.
The spirit which moved men in the days of
knight-errantry, which drove them in the time
of the crusades, and which, at a later period,
carried them across the seas, and conducted
them to the New World in search of ad
venture and geographical discovery, is still j
as rife in this country as ever it was in the J
world. But it has assumed a new character :
it has doffed the tinsel array of former times,
and laid aside the pomp and circumstance
with which it was wont to influence the
imaginations of men, to dazzle their minds,
bewilder their judgments and beguile their
energies. Guided now by the lights of
knowledge and improvement, which or
nament the age in which we live, this active,
restless and misdirected spirit of former
times has been tamed down. Eminently ,
utilitarian in its character, it now goes abroad I
with commerce, and seeks adventures in the
fields of honest industry achievements in
the paths of peace.
It is this spirit, which, if once permitted
upon the wings of free navigation to enter
the grand river basins of South America, I
will cause the wilderness there to blossom,
and the whole land to smile under the til
lage and the worship of a peaceful and
happy population.
Therefore, let the South look to the South
for trade and commerce ; let her, in the i
peaceful Christian spirit of the day, cultivate j
with Brazil the relations of friends and j
neighbors ; let her foster, by all means in
her power, liberal commercial relations with
a region which has such vast possessions,
such countless treasures, such infinite re
sources, to make valuable its future com
mercerich and great the people who are to
enjoy it.
There is no colonizer, civilizer, nor Chris-
tianizer like commerce.
Encourage commerce, therefore, with the
valley of the Amazon, and you encourage its
settlement, and its cultivation, and the
development of its resources. And in doing
this you keep bright also that precious chain
with golden links, which binds nations to
gether in peace and friendship.
In the whole domain of future commerce,
the greatest boon for the people of the
United States is the settlement of Amazonia.
We are bound to enjoy largely of the com
merce to which such settlement is to give
rise.
The people who go there will, for many
generations yet to come, be dependent upon
the United States for their manufactories,
for articles of fancy and luxury, and for all
varieties of merchandise, save and except
those articles and they are in their unelab-
orated state which they may dig from the
mine, or gather from the field or the forest.
The climate there is unfavorable for the
workshop, and the soil will readily yield to
the husbandman the richest of harvests
wherewith, by exchange and barter, all his
wants may be satisfied.
What would any of the maritime nations
not give for a monopoly of the commerce of
the valley of the Mississippi as it now is
and what is that commerce now, compared
to what that of the valley of the Amazon
must be 1
Settlements there, will transfer the pro
ductions of India and place them in
Amazonia at our feet ; so that, the ships of
all nations that may flock there to buy and
carry them away, will have to pass by our
gates.
Surely an enterprise that has for its future
the possibility of such results an enterprise
which has for its object the lilting up of the
Indies and the setting of them down within
a week, by steam, at our very doors surely
an enterprise which looks to such a revolu
tion in the commerce of the world to such
a carrying trade, and to such a monopoly of
it to ourselves cannot fail to find favor with
every true-hearted American, whether he
come from the North or the South, the Bast
or the West.
The beginning, it may be said, is too small
for the end the means proposed not ade
quate to the result. Not so : the fall of an
apple was the beginuing of a science. Have
we not seen how, by dipping a thermometer
in the sea, our Atlantic coast, as it regards
the course of navigation and trade with Eu
rope, was turned end for end ? And how,
by Jeremiah Thompson s packet ship of 300
tons, and the enterprise of New-York, the
Mississippi valley has been turned upside
down, and the commercial rnouth of the St.
Lawrence River lifted up, and brought by
canal and railway down to Sandy Hook ?
We do not mean to commit ourselves to the
position that a line of steamers from Norfolk
to Para would be self-sustaining now. We
have been speaking of the future, and main
taining that the establishment of the Ymenmo
would give the South many and great pro-
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
11
spective advantages that the South, perhaps,
never would enjoy to the full extent, unless
she commence now, and prepare foundations
suitable for that magnificent commercial
structure, which is certainly at some day to
arise out of that valley.
To encourage the enterprise now, there is
the currying of the Brazilian and the Buenos
Ayrean mails. The correspondence between
the United States. Para, Rio, Montevideo, arid
the Argentine Republic, is extensive ; and
the revenue to be derived for the transporta
tion of these mails would, with or without
previous contract, go far towards supporting
the line; and the sources of all its business,
freight, passengers, and mail matter, would
rapidly increase.
So far, geographical position only is in fa
vor of the South. The facts we have stated,
the arguments we have used, commend the
enterprise as strongly to the North as to the
South ; and if the South do not make haste
soon to take it up and embark in it, we rnay
rest assured the North will not be slow. The
contract for carrying the mails would protect
those who may be first to embark in this
field from competition fora few years, which,
while the company is getting a foothold, is no
small consideration.
It is useless, because the attempt would be
vain, to draw a picture of what commerce
and navigation with the Amazon, or on the
Amazon, or up the Amazon, or down the
Amazon, would do in a few years; or how
the silver from the mines of Potosi and Pasco,
the gold of Peru and Bolivia, and copper and
tin, would all flow down the Amazon to the
Atlantic, instead of crossing the Cordilleras to
the Pacific. We are now informed of gold
diggings, placers and washings, on the eastern
slopes of the Andes, that would vie with
those of California. They are in the Indian
country of Amazonia; but the energy and en
terprise to fight, dig and wash, are not to be
found among the people there. This, how
ever, we regard as among the least valuable
of tho immense resources of that valley. Sub
dued to commerce, it would be a boon in
deed.
There is, moreover, another point of view
in which the valley of the Amazon, with its
magnificent and interesting future, presents
itself to the American mind.
That view we will hastily sketch, present
ing only the main features of it.
That valley is a slave country. The Euro
pean and the Indian have been contending
with its forests for 300 years, and they have
made no impression. If ever the vegetation
there be subdued and brought under if ever
the soil be reclaimed from the forest, the rep
tile, and the wild beast, and subjected to the
plow and the hoe, it must be done by the
African, with the American axe in his hand.
It is the land of parrots and monkeys.
Wherever they are found, there the African
delights to dwell ; and he alone is equal to
the task which man has to accomplish with
the axe in the valley of the Amazon.
At the North, the spirit of emancipation
has been pressing the black man down to the
South. He is now confined almost upon the
waters of the gulf. In the South, the same
spirit has pressed him up to the North, and as
signed to him the valley of the Amazon as his
last resting-place upon this continent. When
that valley is subdued and peopled up, it is
not for us to divine what will happen it is
too far away in the midst of the future for
our ken. Sufficient is it for us to know, that
even then God, in his own wise providence,
will order the destiny of the black and the
white race to be fulfilled, whatever it may
be.
Therefore, humanly speaking, and humanly
perceiving, the settlement of the valley of the
Amazon, its relations to this country, its
bearings upon our future commerce and insti
tutions, appear to be so close, so intimate,
and withal so potential, that the destiny of
the United States seems to be closely con
nected with, wrapped up in, and concealed
by this question.
Storms will come at sea, and crises will
arise on the land-, but no mariner or states
man ever escaped the one or avoided the
other by failing to prepare for them. When
the ship is too much pressed knowing that
she may be the prudent seaman has all,
ready provided and at hand, the means of
relieving her. In doing this, he considers the
safety of the vessel, of the cargo, and of all
on board. We propose to follow his exam
ple with regard to the ship of state.
The institution of slavery, as it now exists
in this country, fills the minds of its statesmen
with anxious solicitude. What is to become
of it ? If abolished, how are so many people
to be got rid of? If retained, how are they
to be controlled ? In short, when they have
increased and multiplied according to the
capacity of the states to hold them, what is to
be done with them, whether they be bond or
free ?
The "slave states," so called, have the
black lines drawn about them. There will
soon be no more Mississippi lands to clear,
no more cotton fields to subdue, and, unless
some means be devised of getting rid of the
negro increase, the time must come and
sooner or later it will come when there will
be an excess in these states ot black people.
This excess will be brought about by the
operation of two causes natural increase of
the blacks on one hand, and emigration of
the whiles on the other. The slaves may go
from one slave state to another, but they can
not go out of the slave territory. Therefore,
in the slave terrritory must they remain obe-
| dient to the command, " increase and multi-
! ply." As their numbers spread, and as their
abor becomes less and less valuable as in
re
labt
12
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
process of time it seems likely to do owners
will sell or leave their negroes behind, and
emigrate to other parts thus, by their ab
sence, increasing the proportion of blacks to
true ; but they did not command the master
to let the slave go free. Before the time
came round for the slave to go free, he had,
most cases, been taken off to the South,
whites. |and sold there; so that the so-called emanci-
The New-England States and the Middle | pation at the North was simply a transfer to
States did not emancipate their slaves; they j the South of the slaves of the North an act
banished them. They passed their post-natal j of banishment ; nothing more,
and prospective laws of emancipation, it is)
Statement from the Census Tables of the Free Colored Persons
Southern States :
1800. 1810.
.17,317.... 19,488...
.51,923.... 91,402
in the Neiv-England and in the
1790.
New-England 13,156 .
Southern States 27,983 .
1820.
20,756.
1830.
1S-10.
21,331.... 22,634
. .115,373 .... 156,633. . . .183 , 766
New-England
Southern States
Per cent, of increase.
...3.1 1.2 0.6
...8.5 7.6 2.3
....0.3 0.6
....3.5 1.8
Besides their natural increase, the free
blacks of New-England receive large acces
sions to their numbers from the free colored
emigrants and runaway slaves from the South.
It isVell known that the tide of emigration of
the free men of color flows North ; there
never has been a reflux of it towards the
South.
Thus, what is taken from the South by
emigration is added to the North ; and there
fore, in a comparison of the free colored sta
tistics between the two sections, the whole
amount of emigration from the South appears
as a double difference. It is subtractive on one
side of the equation, and additive on the
other.
Bearing these statements in mind, it ap
pears from the above-quoted statistics, that
comparatively but few slaves ha,ve ever been
emancipated at the North ; that as between
the New- England and the southern states,
the southern have been the principal scene
of emancipation; that notwithstanding the
emigration from the South, the South has,
within the fifty years between 1790 and
1840, doubled the number of her free blacks
nearly six times; whereas the New-England
states have not, in the same interval, doubled
theirs once ; and that, moreover, during the
period of prospective and post-natal emanci
pation at the North, ten slaves received their
freedom at the South to one at the North.*
The decrease of emancipation at the South,
between the first and the last decade of the
above table the falling off from 85 to 18 per
cent, in the sources both of emancipation and
* In drawing this comparison, allowance should
be made for the emigration of free blacks from New-
England to Canada, and the North Western states
and also for the circumstances that after the free
l:i\vswent into effect in the New-England states,
there remained no more slaves to emancipate. But
making allowance for all this, and arguing from the
supposition that the natural increase of free persons
of color is the same North as South, we shall still
be left with the conclusion that the South has eman
cipated many more slaves than the North ever did,
considering the matter rateably.
natural multiplication taken together is de
cisive as to the practical increase at the South
of the difficulties in the way of setting the
slaves free, la their own mute style, these
figures proclaim with unutterable eloquence
the injury and the wrong which fanatics,
styling themselves the friends of the black
man, have inflicted upon his race. With a
free colored population of 27,933 in 1790, the
South in the next ten years, by natural in
crease and emancipation, swelled this class by
23,940. The natural increase due the basis
of 1830, (150,633,) is nearly six times that
due the basis of 1790 (27,983.) It ought to
be, certainly; yet what do we t-ee in the
above figures ? Why, that with the large
basis of 1830, the decennial increase is but
27,138 only 3,193 more from 106,000 in
1830, than from 27,000 in 1790! Why, the
free colored race must have fallen off wonder
fully in its powers to " increase and multi
ply," or emancipation must have become
much less in vogue among southern people
now than formerly.
Not only do these figures and facts, but the
statute-books also, show that the practical
difficulties of emancipation have been greatly
increased at the South. We see that from
1790, the increase of the free colored popu
lation at the South has fallen off from the
average annual rate of 8.5 to less than 2 per
cent. More properly speaking, the ratio in
which it has fallen off is as 8.5 to 1.8.
The South could not, if she would, banish
her slaves, and then tell the world that that
is emancipation, for she has no place of
banishment to send them to.
In the spirit of truth and candor, we do not
think we venture too far when we assert it
as a probability, that neither New-England
npr the middle states would have passed
when they did the emancipation ants which
sent their slaves into banishment, if they had
not had the South or some other place to
send them off to.
Now, suppose that Maryland and Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, should
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
13
wish to pass post-natal free laws, or a law of
the so-called emancipation, cau it be ima
gined that the remaining slave states would
permit the slaves from those states to be
crowded down upon them to be brought
there and sold, as those of the New-England
states were when they were emancipated.
We know the free states would not permit
the liberated slaves to come over, in any con
siderable numbers, into their borders. The
new constitution of Indiana, so far as she is
concerned, is conclusive upon that point.
It is not to be supposed that the states
in question will ever emancipate, if the lib
erated slaves are to stay where they are.
Emancipation and citizenship both, to the
slaves of the southern states, is rather too
much to expect from any one of them.
There are in the United States at this time,
about three millions of slaves owned by less
than three millions of people. We shall not
use too large a figure if we set down the av
erage value of each slave at $400, or in the
aggregate at twelve hundred millions of dol
lars. Total emancipation it makes no odds
how gradual even if commenced now, would
cost these three millions of American citizens
or, in a large sense, the people of the fif
teen slave states, 1,200 millions of dollars.
Did ever any people incur such a tax 1 His
tory affords no example of any. The slave
population increases at the rate of 2| per
cent, per annum. Therefore, unless an out
let be found for the slave population as
slaves the difficulties of emancipation in
these United States, so far from decreasing
with time, will become greater and greater,
and that, too, they are doing at a tremendous
rate, and with a frightful ratio, as year after
year rolls round.
The fact must be obvious to the far-reach
ing minds of our statesmen, that unless some
means of relief be devised, some channel af
forded, by which the South can, when the
time comes, get rid of the excess of her slave
population, she will be ultimately found
with regard to this institution, in the predi
cament of the man with the wolf by the ears
too dangerous to hold on any longer, and
equally dangerous to let go.
To our mind, the event is as certain to hap
pen as any event is which depends on the
contingencies of the future, viz. : that unless
means be devised for gradually relieving the
slave states from the undue pressure of this
class upon them unless some way be opened
by which they may be rid of their surplus
black population the time will come it
may not be in the next nor in the succeeding
generation but, sooner or later, come it will,
and come it must when the two races will
join in the death struggle for the mastery.
The valley of the Amazon is the way ; in
this view, it is the safety valve of the Union.
It is slave territory and a wilderness. One
among the many results of thisline of steam
ers, is the entire suppression of the African
slave trade with Brazil, by a substitution
therefor of a slave emigration from the
United States. At least so it appears to us.
The negroes from the Middle* and the New-
England states, who, under the emancipation
laws of those states, were forced into the
markets of Virginiaand other southern states,
did not thereby become more of slaves than
they were before. There was a transfer of
the place of servitude that was all. Not a
slave the more was made. But he that was
taken from the north to the south remained
in the country. Suppose he had been sent to
South America instead of to South Carolina,
it would have still been the same to him ;
but how different to the country ! There
would in that case have been a transfer of
the place of servitude, as before ; but. accord
ing to the anti-slavery tenets of fanaticism,
a curse the less would have remained upon
the country.
This subject opens to the imagination a
vista ; in it the valley of the Amazon is seen
as the safety-valve of the South, and this line
of steamers as a strand, at least, in the cord
which is to lift that valve whenever the pres
sure of this institution, be that when it may,
shall become too powerful upon the machine
ry of our great ship of state.
As in the breaking away of the storm, a
streak of clear sky is welcomed by the mari
ner whose ship has been endangered by the
elements, so, this Amazonian vista is to us.
It is the first and the only streak of light, to
our mind s eye, that the future throws upon
the final question of slavery in this country.
Every steamship has her safety-valve ; but
every steamship is not obliged to use it al
ways. It is there in case of necessity. So
with the valley of the Amazon : we need not
go there ourselves, nor send our slaves there
immediately ; but it is well to have the abil
ity to go or to send, in case it may become
expedient so to do.
This line of steamers, by the commercial
ties which it will establish, by the business
relations which it will beget, by the frequent
intercourse which it will bring about between
the valley of the Amazon and the southern
states, will accomplish all these great results,
and more, too.
The subject is immense its magnitude
oppresses us. We commend it to the serious
consideration of our merchants and states
men ; and in so doing, we venture, though
with diffidence, to ask the question : Will not
one or more of the states most concerned in
the successful issue of the enterprise, give it
encouragement 1 M. F. Maury.
* Calling Middle States, New- York, New-Jersey,
and Pennsylvania, only.
14
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTEN
SION BY SEA. Most of the railroads run
across the ridges, and go from valley to
valley. In one sense, our navigable water
courses may be considered as inclined planes,
and the river craft as gravity cars, which,
taking advantage of a physical principle, con
vey the produce to market at a cheap rate
along the natural descents of the country.
Hence the very striking feature in our inter
nal improvement system : the railroads and
navigable rivers cross at right angles. This
is the rule. The Hudson river railroad, and
some of those which are either in contempla
tion or in process of actual construction in
the south are the exceptions which make that
rule general.
Can the steam-car on the land successfully
compete in the transportation of merchandise
with the gravity car on the water 1
This is one of the questions which will no
doubt command the deliberations of the con
vention. Its members will be far better able
to judge than I am, whether the condition of
your part of the country be such that rail
ways may run along parallel with your mag
nificent water courses, and live.
But in considering it, it should not be for
gotten that this is an age of advancement and
improvement.. It was but a few years ago only
that it was said, and the world believed, that
the power of steam could not compete with
the free winds of heaven in propelling ves
sels to and fro across the ocean. And I am
not prepared to say that railways may not com
pete with the Mississippi in the transporta
tion of merchandise, as well as of trav
elers.
Times have greatly changed : you all can
recollect, gentlemen, when the price of cot
ton depended upon which way the wind
blew. If easterly winds prevailed so as to
prevent the arrival of the cotton fleet in Liv
erpool, up went the staple. Some swift-
footed packet was dispatched over with the
intelligence, and he who could outride the
mail, and reach your markets first, made his
fortune. But steam and the telegraph have
done away with this. There is no more room
for that sort of enterprise, as it used to be
called. New-York and New-Orleans, with
the forked tongue of the lightning, now talk
daily together about the price of cotton and
everything else ; and there is no more-chance
for the merchant to display his enterprise by
getting control of private and peculiar sources
of information. All information now as to
the state of markets, is common.
Salem once had command of the tea-trade.
Her merchants, ascertaining that the stocks
on hand were small, and the sources of im
mediate supply scanty, would club together
and buy up, for a speculation, all the tea in
the country. But now, a cargo of tea ar
rivesthe fact is known. The telegraph
passes the word fore and aft through every
state, and asks who wants "?
If Salem merchants should demand one
farthing more than those of New- York are
willing to take, the telegraph would give the
order to New-York. And so with every other
article known to commerce.
Southern and western merchants now, by
reason of steam and lightning, can stay at
home, send out orders, and get from France
and England their supplies much sooner than
a few years ago they could get them from
Baltimore, New- York or Philadelphia, after
having gone there to order them. The conse
quence is, that southern and western mer
chants do this ; and there are now in that
section of the country, houses engaged in
importing from abroad.
The fact is, the producer and consumer
are much nearer together than they used
to be ; consequently, the factor does not
keep the large stocks of former times on
hand. He draws from the sources of sup
ply just in proportion as the channels of de
mand are glutted or free.
The chances of speculation are small, and
profits are brought down to the smallest
figure.
All these circumstances have impressed
themselves upon the business of the coun
try, imparted new features to it, and made
necessary important changes in the mode
and means of conducting it.
These changes, and the causes of them,
have powerful bearings upon the subjects
which the convention is called to take into
consideration.
They, arid the operations of the ware
housing system, have caused men of busi
ness to establish in St. Louis, Cincinnati,
and Louisville, &c., foreign importing- houses.
The duties collected in these three cities for
the current year, amount to nearly half a
million, and the value of the foreign mer
chandize imported direct to. upward of a mil
lion and a half. These importers and the
warehousing system are^recoverincr back to
the South a portion of the direct trade. The
duties collected at Charleston this year are
greater than they have ever been ; and Char
leston imports largely of Havana cigars for
New-York.
It is true that the quantity of produce
coming to New-Orleans in search of a mar
ket, has fallen off; and, consequently, the
number of vessels arriving and departing,
has decreased. This is what has alarmed,
and justly alarmed, the people of New-Or-
Jeans. The cry is, " What s the matter I
Here, there is decline, where there ought to
be robust, vigorous health ; depletion, where
we ought to look for habits plethoric and
full. What is it that has brought our city
to this state of decline "?" It appears to me
that a satisfactory answer to this question is
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
15
a necessary preliminary to the treatment of
the case to the application of remedies.
It is in the domestic trade, I apprehend,
that the great falling oft* has taken place ;
or rather, I should say, it is in the export
trade by sea, whether domestic or foreign,
and not in the imports by sea, where the
decline is ; and if a decline in the quantity
of produce going out of the mouth of the
Mississippi has taken place, why, of course,
a decline in the quantity delivered at New-
Orleans from the upper country has pre
ceded.
To satisfy myself as to the correctness of
these views with regard to the import trade
of the Mississippi River, I called upon the
Commissioner of Customs, who has obli
gingly furnished me with the following tabu
lar statement of the gross revenue collected
at New-Orleans, &c., for the last five years :
GOVERNMENT RECEIPTS FOR CUSTOMS.
1847...
New-Orleans
....,...$1,021,357 08...
Cincinnati
$31,793 04.
St Louis
$52,751 69
Louisville
$8 752 98
1848
1,714,880 43
56 874 79
60 618 38
1849
1850
1,594,742 27...
1,924,698 41."..
41,859 65.
133,838 76
54,334 04...
122 914 91
. . . 26,663 26
59 go i QO
1851 . . .
...2,296,636 08...
.. 149.187 15.
. 211. 526 19
fi4 7CK 97
" The revenue collected at Cincinnati, St. Louis,
and Louisville, and other ports similarly situated,
was derived from importations of foreign merchan
dise at New-Orleans.
" The importations of coffee (free) at New-Or
leans, do not appear in this statement.
" The returns since 1st July, 1851, compare favor
ably with last year up to the present date.
" Dec. 15th, 1851. C. W. R."
There are other places in the valley where
duties are collected also ; but this table
shows a regular, steady, and business-like
increase in the direct importations of foreign
merchandise into the Mississippi valley by
way of New-Orleans. The duties upon it
have increased during the five years ending
with the 30th June last, in round numbers,
from $1,715,000 to $2,722,000, or at the
average rate of nearly 12 per cent, per
annum.
Now, the reason that the export sea-trade
of New-Orleans has decreased, and its foreign
trade increased, if traced back to first princi
ples, will be found depending for an expla
nation upon steam and lightning, upon the
improvements of navigation and ship-build
ing, and upon the obstructions to navigation
at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
In consequence of the first of these, a
punctuality and a certainty have been given
to commercial transactions, which, as before
stated, have broken up almost entirely those
transactions which were formerly known as
" commercial speculations." Punctuality in
filling orders and delivering goods where
they are required, is now a vital principle to
wholesome commerce. Dealers and factors
are brought down to the smallest margin for
commissions and profits. Merchants will
tell you that profits now consist in parings
made by close cutting : a little here, and a
little there. Therefore, to save the handling
of the produce of the Mississippi valley, once
on its way to market, is profits.
Hence, all that produce which used to be
shipped from New-Orleans to New- York,
and then re-shipped thence for European
markets, and all that foreign merchandise
which used to be imported into New- York,
and sent thence to New-Orleans, is begin
ning to go and come direct to New-Orleans,
in order to save the transhipment. Many of
the agencies that used to be employed be
tween the producer and consumer, have
been stricken down by the lightning ; and
the tendency of steam and the telegraph is to
bring the producer and consumer more and
more into direct intercourse.
In evidence of this, we may point to the
importing houses that are springing up in the
cities of the valley. In St. Louis, for exam
ple : there, the wholesale merchants do not,
as formerly, buy of the Eastern importer, and,
of course, pay him his fees, commissions and
profits ; but they are beginning now to go
direct to the foreign producer, as the eastern
importer does, and order direct ; thus saving
the expenses of an agency, or the part of one
at least.
The enterprise of Illinois has created
another mouth to the Mississippi, and placed
it in Lake Michigan. Much of the produce
which formerly touched at New-Orleans on
its way to market, now goes through that
canal ; and for certain articles, its influence
is felt even on the plantations in the state of
Louisiana ; for some articles, even from there,
are turning about and flowing up stream :
sugar is one, molasses another.
Before this canal was opened, the sugar of
Louisiana, in order to reach the consumer in
the lake country, had to go down to New-
Orleans, then round by sea to New- York,
then up to the lakes, and so across by water,
boxing the compass to get to Chicago. Now
that canal is beginning to supply that whole
region of country with sugar and molasses,
j which it attracts up the Mississippi.
This lessens the receipts of freight at New-
Orleans ; but it benefits both producer and
consumer ; and it is not, I apprehend, any
part of the objects of the convention to inter
fere with a business so legitimate and proper
as this is, and which all the railways in the
world can no more bring back than they can
stop up that canal. It is the object of the
16
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
convention to assist the sugar and the mo
lasses to get to Chicago by railway, if sugar
and molasses shall prefer that, to water car
riage.
We buy Virginia hams here in Washing
ton now that are cured in Terre Haute, on
the Wabash. By the old and natural roads
to market that could not be ; the route of the
ham would have been down to New-Orleans,
thence by ship to New-York, and thence back
by a packet into the capes of Virginia, and
so up the Potomac to Washington a two or
three months voyage, during which, in con
sequence of the climates through it must have
passed, and the stowage it must encounter,
it probably would have come to life again. At
any rate, it would have been alive, by the time
it reached this place.
Now, in consequence of these rail-roads,
which have been tapping the Mississippi val
ley, the " Wcstphalias" of Terre Haute can
reach here in a week by paying cent a Ib.
They come up the Ohio, instead of going
down ; and across by rail-road, instead
around by water.
The commercial history of this ham is that
of much produce in the valley of the Upper
Mississippi. Here, therefore, in these tap
ping railways, is to be found another of the
silent causes which have lessened the deli
veries of produce at New-Orleans.
To add to the deleterious effects upon New-
Orleans of this tapping of the Mississippi
River at the other end of its valley, and on
the eastern side, are the bars at the Balize,
and the influence which the depth of water
there exercises the baneful influence which
the bar there exercises upon the models and
the sailing qualities, and, in fact, upon the
whole economy of the ships that are built for
on the other. Those cotton ships are not
good provision and assorted-cargo carriers.
The clippers are for that. The new models
beat steam. One of them (the Flying Cloud)
has been known to sail 430 statute miles in
one day, and upwards of 1,100 miles in three
consecutive days. These ships cannot come
to New-Orleans. The bar will not admit
them ; and one of them can go to California
and return while a " cotton droger" is get
ting around Cape Horn.
Besides, the winds are such, that a vessel,
bound from New-Orleans to Brazil or Cali
fornia, has to go out of the gulf into the gulf
stream, and then steer northwardly, till she
reaches the parallel of 35 or 40, so that it
is not greatly out of her way to touck at New-
York. Hence, most of the trade with Cali
fornia in produce of the Mississippi valley is
carried on by the way of New-York, on ac
count, of the bar at the mouth of the Mis
sissippi.
In all these circumstances are to be found
)f I lamps for our feet, and lights for our eyes, as
we attempt to devise the ways by which en
terprise and energy may restore to New-Or
leans all the advantages which their absence
from her high places has suffered to be taken
away from her, or to be withheld, because
never enjoyed.
The objects of the convention, as set forth
in the committee s circular of November 4th,
1851, " are, as far as possible, to bring about
a concentration and unity of effort in all these
states, in the extension of their rail-road
systems, and in bringing into more active
connection their population and their in
dustry."
But it seems to be the wish of the commit
tee that I should confine my attention to " the
the New-Orleans trade. And it is bad for the extension of southern and western commerce,
owners to be compelled to build ships that
will not answer equally well for all trades.
The best carriers, therefore, cannot come to
New-Orleans. If they could, New-Orleans
would soon find her merchants shipping the
produce that lines the levee direct to its fo
reign port of destination. As it is, the in
genuity of ship-builders has contrived models
for cotton ships.
These are immense carriers, and can take
cotton to England at rates which a few years
ago would have been considered ruinous to
owners.
These vessels being once loaded and over
the bar into blue water, will take cotton to
Liverpool nearly as cheap as they will to
New- York or Boston. The voyage is short,
and perhaps the chances for a return cargo
are better in Liverpool ; therefore, they go
direct.
In these facts and circumstances, and in
this view of them, we can see the operation
of causes which tend to increase the foreign
export trade on one hand, and to decrease it
the home and foreign trade, &c. r There
fore, being invited out to sea, I shall let the
rail-roads, which it is the special object of the
convention to encourage, alone. I take my
departure from the premises above stated,
and treat of extending the commerce of the
Mississippi valley, &c., by sea.
The apparent decline in the business of
New-Orleans is, as I have already intimated,
due to the effects of the telegraph and rail
road, and to the improvements in steam,
ship-building, and navigation. This is the
root of the matter. What, then, are the
steps which the South and West ought to
take what are the measures which they
ought to adopt, in order to insure to them
that degree of commercial wealth and pros-
ferity, which their resources and their geo
graphical position entitle them to expect
The answer to this question lies under
several heads, and the principal of them are
these :
1st A liberal policy on the part of New-
Orleans, touching fees of various kinds, to
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
17
which the produce that comes there shall be
subjected.
^ 2d Embankments, to confine the Missis
sippi River in its channel.
3d To deepen the water on one of the
bars in the passes of the river.
4th The establishment of lines of sea-
steamers.
5th Attention to the mineral resources
of our region of country, and a free use
of its manufacturing facilities.
6ih The opening of commercial highways
across the Isthmus.
7th The establishment, in the Mississippi
valley, of a navy yard, depot, and workshops,
which in war shall have strength, capacity,
and resources enough to give us command of
the Gulf of Mexico, and control of the com
merce passing through it.
8th The free navigation of the Amazon
River, and the building up there of those busi
ness relations and friendly ties, which hold
nations together in the bonds of peace and
friendship.
These are the measures the means are
simple : they consist in a firm reliance upon
our own abilities, with a determination to
perform our part in the matter, and to require
the government to do its part as well.
Such are the questions which I propose to
consider, except in so far as the proposed
rail-roads may be involved in the case. That,
as already remarked, I leave to wiser heads.
It the people of the South and West will
be but true to themselves if they will put
their shoulders to the wheel, and, as one man,
appear, in the persons of their representatives
here, in the halls of Congress, and insist upon
fair, even-handed justice in the appropriations
for public works, that course of legislation
will follow, which long ago ought to have
been adopted with regard to the Mississippi
River, and kindred subjects.
I do not present these measures, or any of
them, as substitutes or rivals to the proposed
system of railways ; nor do I hold them up as
measures which will, ought, or should divert
attention from the railways. There will be
ability enough in the Convention to treat all
of these measures, and to present each one to
the public in its true bearings upon the com
mon weal ; and there is energy with enter
prise enough in that region to carry them all
on together.
II. The drowned lands in the Mississi
ppi
valley have been ceded to the states in which
they lie, upon condition that those states, in
reclaiming them, will confine the river within
its banks.
The reclamation of these lands would im
prove the climate of a vast region of country,
and make it much more salubrious ; it would
add vastly to the wealth of those states by
giving value to the lauds, and greatly increase
their commercial resources by bringing im
mense regions of these vacant lauds under
VOL. iu. 2
cultivation; and it would also vastly improve
the navigation of the river.
An object of so much importance to the
health and prosperity of so many people, in
so many states, is certainly worth looking
after; and the work, when done, should be
done in the most thorough anl effective
manner.
Therefore let us pray Congress for the ap
pointment of an engineer who shall plan the
work ; and for the enactment of a statute re
quiring the states to have the work done
according to that plan.
This work is to last for all time. Suppose,
therefore, merely for the sake of illustration,
that one of the states above Louisiana should
be unfortunate in the adoption of a plan ; that
after having let the work, accepted it, and
parted with the lands, experience should
prove the plan to be bad or the work to be
useless. Louisiana then is overflowed in spite
of herself ; and her works, which we will
suppose were really sufficient, are thus in
danger of being rendered of no avail.
The prosperity of the valley is to be great
ly affected by this work of embankment,
drainage, and reclamation ; and. therefore,
the best talents that the country affords should
be employed to direct it.
III. More than fourteen feet water cannot
now be counted upon in crossing any of the
bars at the Balize. Vessels drawing sixteen
feet are sometimes dragged over them through
the mud.
As for the ability of New-Orleans, or the
people who send their produce there on its
way to market, to avail themselves of the im
provement in ship-building, as long as the
passes of the river are obstructed by bars, it
is out of the question. The sailing qualities
of ships are according to their models; their
models are regulated by their draught ; and
their draught is controlled by the depth of
water on the bar. Therefore, the people of
the great valley of .the West, the men whose
labors and whose enterprise have put the
heart of the country where it is, and who
supply all those great staples out of which the
business of commerce raises revenue for the
government therefore, I say, those people
must be doomed to second and third rate ships
to do business for them upon the great
waters, because that government will not do
its duty. Had the people of the Mississippi
valley been true to themselves, no represent
ative of theirs would have ever been found
recording his vote more than once against an
appropriation for keeping the mouth of that
river free and open for ships of the largest
class.
A year or two ago, the Secretary of the
Navy was kind enough to yield to my solici
tations, and to direct a series of observations
to be conducted upon the habits of the Missis
sippi River, at Memphis. This series com
menced 1st March, 1850, and was continued
18
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
daily for a year, by Robert A. Marr, Passed
Mid. U. S. Navy; a most intelligent officer,
and a patient and indefatigable observer.
His attention was directed, among other
things, to the volume of water, as well as the
quantity of sediment, borne down the river
by Memphis.
His observations were most carefully made.
According to them, and upon the supposition
that the year gave a fair average, there go by
Memphis daily, 471,550 cubic yards of sand
and mud, or silt, as it is called.
Because the river runs faster at Memphis
than it does at and below New-Orleans, and
because, as the current slackens, the silt is
precipitated, we are, I presume, correct in
the inference, that the waters of the Missis
sippi River are more heavily laden with silt
as they pass Memphis, than they are when
they reach the Balize.
Now we know very well, and we derive
the knowledge from many years of observa
tion, that the Mississippi River does not raise
its bottom, below New-Orleans, at the rate of
more than a few inches in a year, if at the rate
of an inch.
To cross the bar at either of the passes, a
vessel has only to sail a few hundred yards.
Suppose the bar were to rise up at the rate of
one or two feet, instead of a few inches in the i
year ; the channel-way across the bar for
ships need not be more than 300 or 400 feet
wide ; and how much dredging would it take
to excavate annually a layer of mud one or
two feet deep, from a channel-way a quarter
of a mile long, by 300 or 400 feet wide?
This is the matter about which the govern
ment has, for the last twenty years, been hav
ing examinations made. Examinations will
never satisfy. Let us make the experiment.*
I have no doubt whatever as lo the practi
cability of deepening one or more of the bars
of the mouth of the Mississippi, and by dredg
ing, of keeping any required depth of water
there. A gale might now and then interfere
with it. But it is a case in which experi
ment, and experiment alone, can properly
decide. It is worth the trial. I hope, there-
fore, that the delegates to the Convention, and
the people whom they represent, will take
the matter in hand, and not rest till Congress
causes the experiment of deepening one of
the bars at the mouth of the Mississippi to be
made. This is no New-Orleans question : it
is not confined to the valley, nor to the people
of the South and West. It is a great national
concern. The people of Missouri, Iowa, and
Tennessee, of Maine, Massachusetts and Tex
as, are as much interested in this matter as
are those of Louisiana.
sea.
IV. Steamships are the railways of the
Notwithstanding there be fine navigable
* See an article upon this subject, in one of the
Louis " Westem ^eview," published at St.
streams and good turnpike roads leading into
a city, it is found, by ample experience, that
a few rail-roads, well placed and brought
into the same city, will vastly increase its
business, and, hence, its prosperity.
What is singular about these railways is,
that they do not interfere with the turnpikes
nor the river trade. They create a business
of their own.
So it is with lines of steamships. They do
not interfere with the coasters and the sail
ing packets, which answer to the turnpike and
river craft of the interior. But they also
create a business of their own. Look what
the European steamers have done for New-
York and Boston. So far from interfering
with the business under canvas, from those
cities, they have stimulated it, and made it
more active. Ever since steamers began to
ply between New- York and Liverpool, the
New-York packet ships have been increasing
both in number and size. And it is as idle
for us of the South and West to repose upon
the great commercial advantages which na
ture has vouchsafed to New-Orleans, or that
region of country, by reason of her own geo
graphical position, and the geographical
position of the Gulf of Mexico it is as idle, I
say, for the people to rest quiet, and expect
the proper lines of steamers to come to them,
as it has been for them to rest quiet upon the
advantages which the Mississippi River gave
them, while around them was enterprise and
activity. Other cities and sections tapped
the Mississippi valley, and sent rail-roads
there for their own benefit and advantage.
They may also, from the same motives, send
their steamships to ply about New-Orleans.
The people of New-Orleans have waked up
to the reality of their position in one of those
respects. The watchful are never caught
asleep twice ; and it is time they were begin
ning to be up and doing in the other.
VI. As soon as there is a commercial
thoroughfare across the Isthmus, which will
unload, handle, and transport the breadstuff s
with the other heavy produce of the Missis
sippi valley, across the Isthmus, and put it
on board ships in the Pacific for less than it
costs to get it as far as Cape Horn, on the
way, that moment is the Gulf of Mexico
raised to the summit level of this world s
commerce.
All nations will then be down hill from the
Gulf; and the people who inhabit the great
valley of the West, and who pass its produce
down through the Mississippi River into the
Gulf, and deliver it there to the winds of
heaven, or the currents of the sea, may then
take their choice, and go with it by down
stream or fair-wind navigation, to any market
place upon the sea-shore in the wide world.
Then, New-Orleans, instead of New- York,
should glut the markets of California and Peru
with breadstuff s, cucuyos and merchandise.
Then, the valley of ihe West, instead of the
coal mines of England and the mines of Penn-
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
19
sylvania, should supply the vast demands
which the Pacific Ocean has, and the far
greater whic i it will have, for coal. It will
give New-Orleans the command of a better
coffee market than any she now has ; and she
can then send coffee, along with Louisiana su
gar, up to that other mouth of the Mississippi
which Illinois enterprise has discovered in
Lake Michigan.
Therefore, let the people of the South and
West take time by the forelock, and wake up
Tennessee and Kentucky, and other parts, to
their duty, in that great manufacturing and
mining region which nature has fitted them
to be.
The people of South America and Califor
nia, and the isles of the Pacific, will depend
on them for merchandise ; for the ports and
outlets to market of the western people ; and
southern states will then be the half-way
house on the great market-ways. England
and Europe, to reach the " grand ocean," as
the French navigators style the Pacific, will
have to pass by our very doors as they go,
and come within call as they return.
A magnificent future is that which com
merce, by the laws of trade, and the decrees
of nature, holds in store for the people of the
South and West. If we will only do our
part, the prize is won, and the wealth and
the power are ours also.
VII. Should there ever be. and doubtless
there will be, several such highways across
the Isthmus; and should war ever again occur
among maritime nations, is it to be supposed
that the belligerents, be they who they may.
will look on and see us quietly enjoying all
the advantages of these thoroughfares, and
becoming thepeby a head and shoulders taller
than all the nations in the world ? No,
never.
Moreover, we are bound by that golden
cord which never has, and as far as it de
pends upon the people from my part of the
country, whom I now address which never
can be tarnished or weakened by the faith
of this great nation, are we bound to main
tain the neutrality of those highways.
That we may do this that we may be
true to ourselves, and secure in the posses
sion of that great edifice of commerce, of
wealth, grandeur and power, the keystone of
which you have assembled to put in, the
naval supremacy and command of the Gulf
of Mexico, a mare clausum, and an American
sea, is a sine qua non It will never do to
let Great Britain, or any other power, com
mand that sheet of water with her ships of
war.
To whom shall its defences be entrusted,
but to us of the South and West, who have
so much at stake there 1 It is well known
that we will fight hard for our cotton hags.
Therefore, fortify the Tortugas, and build
up the navy-yard at Memphis. The South
and the West have been thimble-rigged out
of that navy yard. The law made it a naval
depot, or dockyard. It has been converted
into a rope-walk, and thereby it has become a
by-word and a reproach, if not an eyesore to
its friends.
I repeat here what I have recently had
occasion officially to say upon the same sub
ject ;
" The enterprise of American citizens is
about to open one or more commercial high
ways across the Isthmus. The access to
them lies through American waters. They
will be the channels of communication be
tween the distant shores of the nation its
great highways from one part of the Union
to the other.
" The faith of the nation has been pledged,
touching the neutrality of some of these com
munications. The country will expect its
navy to keep them open in war, and to pre
serve unsullied the national faith.
" The way to these thoroughfares, and the
road to market from the Mississippi valley,
run side by side through the Gulf of Mexico.
" No system of measures for providing for
the common defence can be considered either
complete or effective, unless it secure the
command to us of this mare clausum. Its
commercial importance, already great, will,
in a few years more, be paramount.
" Already the natural outlet for millions,
it is destined to surpass all other arms of the
sea for its commerce, its wealth, and its na
tional importance.
" The currents and winds at sea are such
as to unite, in the Florida Pass, the commer
cial mouth of the Amazon with that of the
Mississippi.
" The market-way across the seas, from
the valley of the Amazon, the Orinoco, the
Magdalena, the Atrato, the Coatzacoalcos,
the Rio Grande and the Mississippi, passes
through or upon the borders of this sea.
" The works are projected which will turn
in that direction the commerce of the East ;
and all the ships engaged in it, whether
from Europe or America, will sail through
the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, pass
ing by our doors both coming and going.
"Through the Gulf of Mexico and Carib
bean Sea, the country requires safe conduct
in war for its mails, its citizens, and their
merchandise, as they pass to and fro from
one part of the Union to the other.
" The natural outlet to a system of river
basins, that include within their broad di
mensions 70 degrees of latitude the most
fertile lands in either hemispheres, and an
area of them exceeding in extent the whole
continent of Europe this arm of the ocean
that is spread out before our southern
doors, occupies that position upon which the
business of commerce is to reach its summit
level.
" Here is to be the scene of contest be-
20
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
tween maritime nations in war. Here are
the gateways of the ocean ; and the power
will hold the keys thereof that has the naval
supremacy in the Gulf of Mexico.
" The great sea-fights of this country are
probably to take place here."
In the valley of the Mississippi nature has
placed the means, and our free institutions,
the men for defending that gulf and the
interests connected therewith. Unless we
avail ourselves of these resources, it will
be difficult and expensive to command it in
war.
Therefore, in providing a system of na
tional defences for our interests in that
quarter, one of the first steps is to complete
the navy-yard at Memphis, and make of it
an establishment worthy of its objects, and
capable of giving force and effect, in time of
war, to the immense naval resources, power
and strength of the great valley of the West.
To Memphis, Pensacola, and the fortifi
cations at Key West and Tortugas, ought to
be mainly entrusted the defences of the Gulf
of Mexico.
It has been said, " It is too expensive to
build a navy-yard at Memphis ; piles will have
to be driven at the edge of the river ;" yet it
is not too expensive to drive them in the bot
tom of the sea at New-York, and build there
a dock, which the Secretary of the Navy, in
his last annual report, tells the country has
cost $2,146,255.
I do not comprehend the logic which
makes it too expensive to provide for the
common defences in the Gulf of Mexico, the
most vital part in our whole system, when it
has been by no means too expensive to pro
vide defences for the Atlantic. Provide as
effectually, or as ineffectually, we care not
which, for the common defence of the Gulf
as for that of the Atlantic. All we want is
justice, even-handed, impartial justice.
According to the report of the Secretary of
War, just presented to Congress, on "the
subject of fortifications, the amount expend
ed upon the army and navy, exclusive of
dock-yards, in providing for the common de
fence since 1816, has amounted to upwards
of seventy-five millions of dollars. How
much of this has been expended upon gulf
defences, or for the benefit of the people
whom I address 1 ? Precious little. We all
know the Atlantic states have enjoyed a dou
ble benefit : first, of having the works in them;
and secondly, of drawing the money for them
from the South and West, and spending it
in the North and East.
To me, gentlemen, it is immaterial whe
ther a proper naval establishment at Mem
phis will cost one or twenty millions of dol
lars to found it. Let us have it, I say, if it
be necessary. If the country want it, and i
great interests of state demand it, shall a
nation like this expose itself to injury and
insult because it cannot afford to supply the
necessary means of defence to any part of it"?
Let us have an establishment there worthy
of its object and of the people whose pur
poses it is to subserve. It should be the
pride and the boast of the entire Mississippi
valley. In times of peace it would stand you
in the place of a great university for teaching
the higher branches of many of the mechanic
arts to your young men.
The workshops connected with such an
establishment would be filled with appren
tices whom the government pays while
,hey are learning their trade.
These workshops would draw to your
section of country many of the most skilful
nechanics. They would stimulate the in
dustrial pursuits of that region, and assist in
;he development of its mineral resources.
These are some of the advantages which
such establishments carry along with them
n peace, and make their presence so greatly
;o be desired along the Atlantic borders.
You have assembled to plan foundations
for your future commerce ; to provide the
means for defending that commerce, appears
o me to be intimately and necessarily con
nected with the subject of your deliberations.
Hence the reason for calling your attention
;o a suitable naval establishment at Mem
phis.
VIII. The free navigation of the Amazon
s the greatest commercial boon that the
people of the South and West indeed, that
he people of the United States can crave.
That river-basin is but a continuation of
he Mississippi valley. The Mississippi takes
its rise near the parallel of 50 north latitude,
where the climates are suited to the growth
of barley, wheat, and the hardy cereal grains.
The river runs south, crossing parallels of
latitude, and changing with every mile its
climate, and the character or quality of the
great agricultural staples which are produced
on its banks.
Having left behind it the regions for pel
tries, wheat and corn ; for hemp and tobac
co ; for pulse, apples, whiskey, oil and cot
ton ; and having crossed the pastoral lands
for hogs, horses and cattle, it reaches, near
the latitude of 30, the northern verge of the
sugar cane.
Thence expanding out into the gulf, with
all these staples upon its bosom, to be ex
changed for the produce of other climes and
latitudes, it passes on to Key West and the
Tortugas ; and there at that commercial
gateway to the ocean, which opens out upon
tha Tropic of Cancer, it delivers up to the
winds and the waves of the sea for the distant
markets, the fruits of its teeming soil and
multitudinous climes.
Then comes in the great valley of the
Amazon ; taking up the agricultural produce
and staples which the Mississippi had just
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
21
reached, and pushing the variety beyond the
equator, it increases, and far down into the
other hemisphere diversifies the wonderful
assortment, until sugar and coffee, rice and
indigo, drugs and spices, cocoa and cotton,
cochineal and tobacco, India rubber, dye-
woods, peltries, flax and wool, gums, various
ornamental woods, mines of silver, gold and
precious stones, of new varieties, kinds and
virtues, have been reached, and added to the
list of countless treasures, boundless com
mercial capacities, and dazzling resources, of
these two magnificent water-sheds.
Save and except tea, which is the only ar
ticle of commerce that is gathered from the
field, the forest or the mine, that is not to be
found in one or the other of these two river
basins, everything that is grown or cultivated
upon the face of the earth is to be found in
equal, if not in greater perfection and abun
dance, in one or the other of these valleys,
than in any other part of the world.
One of these is in the rear of New-Orleans
the other, in its front. It is for this
convention to say whether these two rivers
shall be united in the bonds of commerce or
not.
The Amazon, with its tributaries, is said
to afford an inland navigation, up and down,
of not less than 70,000 miles. The country
drained by that river, and water courses con
nected with it, is more than half as large as
Europe, and it is thought to contain nearly
as much arable land within it a.s is to be
found on that continent. It has resources
enough to maintain a population of hundreds
of millions of souls.
The navigation on that river is at present
such, that the people of the upper country
can make but one trip in the year. They
have there, in their delightful climate of an
everlasing spring, the calm season and the
trade-wind season. The trade-winds blow
up the river. In the calm season, the na
tives, in their rude bungaloes, loaded with
the produce of the upper country, drift down
with the current. Arrived with their stuff at
Para, they sell almost for dollars what they
got for cents at the place of production.
Having completed the business of the sea
son, they wait for the S. E. trade-winds to
set in ; with them they return, and complete
the business and the trading for the year.
To afford the Convention an idea of the
business carried on, by sea, with Para, I
quote returns of exports for the year ending
Dec. 31st, 1850, which Mr. Norris, the Amer
ican Consul for that port, has had the kind
ness to furnish me :
EXPORTS FROM THE PORT OF PARA FOR THE YEAR ENDING DEC. 31, 1850,
Sana- Cleaned India Isin-
Spice, parilla, Annatto, Rice, Cocoa, Balaam Cotton, Rubber, glass,
Arro- Arro- Arro- Tapioca, Arro- Arro- Copaiva, Arro- Arro- Arro-
bas bos bas Alquieres baa bss Canadas baa baa bat
To the United States.. ....58. .1,638. .. ,3,254. .. .3,990. .. .28,479. .. .1,130. ... ....50,069....
Total Exports 1,633. 4,558. .6,655. . . .7,595. . .82,606. . .283,753. . . .1,837. . . .3,132. . . .79,335. . . . 834
Tonka
(Jus-
To the United States
Rica in Beans, India Rubber Sugar, Dry
Nuts, Husk, Arro- Shoes, Arro- Hides,
AJqueirei Alqneires bas Pairs bag No.
.21,889.... ....74.... 143,247..,. ... .11,581 ... .10,196. ... ....
Green Grass ran,
Hides, Rope, Arro-
No. Inches bai
Total Export 47,528. . . .63,676. . . .92. . . .240,999. . ..9,551 . . . .26,463. . . .12,670. . . .5,581 ... .93
This is a growing business.
A friend who has crossed the Andes, and
is now on his way home, down the Amazon,
informs me that parts of the Puna country,
of Peru and Bolivia, and in which the wa
ters of the Amazon take their rise, are
already over-populated ; that portions of the
Amazonian water-shed, over which he had
passed, are " rich in flocks of sheep ; and all
that is wanted is a close market (which the
free navigation of the Amazon would give)
to induce the shepherds to raise millions."
No other part of the world grows wool like
this. It is peculiar.
He reports fine sugar and coffee planta
tions there, with cotton growing wild ; also,
there are cinnamon groves, and forests of the
tree from which the Peruvian bark, which
affords quinine and physic to the world, is
taken ; and being put on the back of these
sheep and asses, is transported from the
head navigable waters of the Amazon, 600
miles, among the clouds and snow-capped
mountain-ranges, to the Pacific.
It now goes west, and when it arrives at
the seaport town of Arica, it is worth an
nually, half a million. With the right to
send an American steamboat up the Amazon,
all this stuff would come east and flow down
that river.
With the free navigation of the Amazon,
a steamer might load at St. Louis with the
produce of those high latitudes, and de-.
liver its cargo right at the foot of the Andes,
where the Amazon leaps down from the
mountain into the plains below. With a
portage easy to overcome by the hand of
improvement, she could then ascend the
steppes of the Andes, travel several hundred
miles farther up, and deliver her cargo with
in hail of Cuzco and the mines of Peru.
The free navigation of that river is ja-
22
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
eluded, I conceive among the subjects, with
regard to which the committee has invited
me to express my views to the Convention ;
and I hope the Convention will deem it not
unworthy of their careful consideration.
Considering the softness of its climates,
the fertility of its soils, and the lavish hand
with which nature stands ready to fill for the
husbandman the horn of plenty there ; and
when man is thus surrounded, considering
that his industrial energies are for the most
part addressed to the tillage of the earth ;
and considering, moreover, the character of
the people who inhabit that valley of the
South, and the character of the people who j
inhabit this of the North ; we are struck
with the fact and it is a physical fact that
the valley of the Amazon is but a commer
cial appendage of the Mississippi ; and that
it rests with us and the course of policy
which we may pursue, whether this physi
cal fact shall be converted into a practical
one ; and whether the South will suffer the
geographical advantages of its position with
regard to that region to go by default, as it
has similar advantages in other cases.
Attention to this subject cannot be given
too soon, or too earnestly.
Its importance is great. Legions of ben
efits and advantages are to flow from it ;
many of them are palpable and obvious ;
some are dim in the mists of the future ; but
all of them are certain. In short, as a com- j
mercial matter, the free navigation of the
Amazon is the question of the age. As
time and use shall develop its bearings, our
children will weigh the effects upon the
prosperity of the country, of the free navi
gation of the Amazon with the acquisition of
Louisiana. They will place them in the
balance together to contrast and compare
them; and on considering the effects of
each, they will dispute and wrangle as to
which of the two has proved the greater
blessing to their country.
I inclose, herewith, a pamphlet, entitled
" Commercial Conventions Direct Trade,
&c./ in which the subject of steam com
munications with the mouth of the Amazon,
but no further, is treated.*
The question which I propose for the es
pecial consideration of the Covention, relates
to the free navigation of the Amazon itself
to the right of the people of the United
States to send their steamboats to that river,
to ply up and down it, as they do upon the
waters of their own Mississippi, and to buy,
sell, and get gain on the banks thereof.
Commerce, so far as climate and soil are
concerned in ministering to its wants and in
imparting health and activity to its influ
ences, is based upon an exchange of the
* This paper is published in preceding pages of
ibis volume.
produce of one latitude for the produce of
another, and for this simple reason : that the
planter who grows sugar in Louisiana, does
not wish to exchange it for Brazil or any
other sugar. He may exchange it for Brazil
coffee, or for Brazil anything else that is not
sugar.
For this reason, Europe, for hundreds of
years past, has been struggling for the com
merce " of the East ;" and for no other rea
son, than that latitudes and climates, and
consequently wants and produce, that are
not to be found or satisfied in Europe,
abound in " the East."
In a commercial sense, the valleys that are
drained by the " father of waters," and the
" king of rivers," as the Amazon is called,
are complements of each other. What one
lacks, the other supplies. Together, they fur
nish all those products and staples which
complete the list of articles in the circle of
commerce.
The right of our people to go with their
Mississippi steamers into the Amazon. will>
when exercised, draw emigrants to that val
ley, who, being there, will become our cus
tomers ; and as soon as the proper impulse is
given to their commerce and their industrial
pursuits, we shall find there at our doors,
instead of away on the other side of the
world, all the productions of u the East."
In short, " the East," in one sense, will be
brought within eight or ten days sail of
New-Orleans, instead of being removed to
the distance of four or five months off, as it
now is.
Several nations, as Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador,
and Brazil, are the owners of the Amazon
and its navigable tributaries
Brazil is the principal owner. All the
lower Amazon is hers ; and she has given
none of the upper countries as yet the right
of way through it to and from the sea.
The question then is, do the people who
are represented in this Convention set any
value upon the right to steam and trade up
and down the navigable streams of that
magnificent water-shed ! At present the
country is for the most part a wilderness,
of howling monkeys and noisy parrots ; its
boundaries are fringed with settlements ; but
only here and there, when you leave the
outskirts of the valley and begin to penetrate
into the interior, are the traces of civilized
man to be found.
To obtain this right is the work of di
plomacy. But the states and people who
have been invited to this Convention, may
by their action, influence that diplomacy.
Brazil may be invited to give the free nav
igation of this river away as a boon to civil
ization, and make it common to the world.
But it is not to be supposed that Brazil will
part with such a jewel without a considera
tion.
SOUTHERN COMMERCE ITS EXTENSION BY SEA.
23
Shall it be bought with a sum of money 1
Or shall the free navigation of the Missis
sippi be offered to Brazil in exchange for the
free navigation of the Amazon 1
By our own laws, an English vessel, or
the vessel of any other nation at peace with
us, is as free to sail up the Mississippi River,
land and take in a cargo at St. Louis, and to
come down again, as she is to go up the
Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore, or the Dela
ware to Philadelphia.
But do such foreign vessels go up to St.
Louis 1 No. Why 1 Because when they
arrive at New- Orleans with their cargoes of
foreign merchandise, which they have
brought across the seas, they find it cheaper
to send it up in one of our river-boats, than
to take it up themselves ; and, therefore,
though foreign vessels, by our own laws,
may go up and come down, yet the free navi
gation of the Mississippi, to this extent, has
proved of no practical value to any of them.
Would they go up farther if they could 1
Still the time was, when the free naviga
tion of the Mississippi River was a question
of deep and absorbing political interest to
us ; and we may infer, therefore, that the di
plomatists of the country would act, when
the proper time comes, with more confidence
touching the offer to Brazil of the free navi
gation of the Mississippi for that of the
Amazon, after having learned the opinion
and wishes upon the subject of the people
of the Mississippi valley.
Admitted upon the Amazon with their
boats, our people would desire to participate
there in what is called with us " the river
trade ;" for considering that the habits of
the Amazonians are not at all aquatic, it is
not by any means probable, that Brazilian
enterprise would be sufficient to supply the
boats and boatmen requisite for this river
trade. She cannot do it now.
But are we prepared to let Brazilian capi
tal, and Brazilian subjects, compete with our
own people for the business the river trade
of our own Mississippi waters 1 We
should ask nothing of Brazil which we are
not willing to render to Brazil. Are we pre
pared, therefore, to offer to admit Brazilian
subjects to an equal participation with our
own citizens, of the trade of the Mississippi
River, on condition that she will admit our
citizens to an equal participation with her
own subjects in the river-trade of the Ama
zon and its tributaries 1
That is the question as to which I desire
to draw an expression of opinion from the
Convention, because I believe that that opin
ion, being regarded as the opinion of the
people of the Mississippi valley, would have
a bearing upon the subject, as one of a practi
cal nature, and of paramount importance.
Suppose that the United States should de
clare that the citizens and subjects of all
nations should have the same rights to build
and launch boats on the Mississippi River
that our people have ; that the right to take
freight from one landing or town to another,
and to trade up and down the river, should be
as perfect and as complete to the foreigner of
whatever nation, as it is to the American cit
izen what would be the effect]
Such a surrendering of the "coasting
trade," as the river-trade may be properly
called, might possibly induce a few foreign-
i to send over their capital and build boats.
But these boats, to compete with our own
boats, would have to be manned by our own
watermen officered by our own people.
And such a law, therefore, might interfere
with American owners.
But, instead of such a privilege being of
fered to all nations, suppose it were Joffered
only to Brazil, in exchange for like privileges
to our own citizens upon her rivers what
would be the result then]
Why, this : Brazil has not even the ener
gy among her own subjects to put boats upon
her own rivers, where they have the monopo
ly of trade and navigation ; much less would
her subjects have the enterprise to come here
and put boats upon the Mississippi, to run in
competition with our own. On the other
hand, we, who have the enterprise, the ener
gy, the skill in boat-building, would, with
the knowledge, over all the world, which we
have in steamboat river navigation, go to the
Amazon, and enjoy there something like a
practical monopoly. For it is not to be sup
posed that, if we offer to divide our Missis
sippi River trade with her subjects, on con
dition that she will make a like division to us
of her Amazonian trade it is not, such be
ing the conditions, to be supposed, I say,
that any other nation would on either side
be admitted into the arrangement. There is
but one Mississippi River, and but one Am
azon, in the world ; and there is no equiva
lent for the free navigation of the one, but the
free navigation of the other. Therefore, no
nation on the earth can buy and sell a com
mercial jewel of such value.
The question, thus narrowed down, is
simply this : In enlarging and exteading
the foundations of the commercial system,
which is to make of the United States the
greatest nation the world ever saw, and of
the Mississippi valley the heart and centre of
it are you willing to give the free naviga
tion of this river for that of the Amazon 1
The subject of the free navigation of the
Amazon and its tributaries, is a vast one. I
have barely touched it. Nor is it necessary
for me to attempt a discussion of it : do it
justice, I could not. To go into the merits
of it, either with the committee, or before
the Convention in whose behalf I have been
drawn into the subject, I have not the time ;
and if the time, not the abilities. I merely
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
d to put the question, and to subscribe
myself, gentlemen of the committee, a man
of the Southwest, and one who, having the
interests of his country greatly at heart, is,
with his feeble power, at the service of the
committee and Convention in all things for
good. Lieut. M. F. Maury.
SOUTHERN INDUSTRYPROGRESS OF.
PROSPECTS OF THE COTTON INTEREST, PO
SITION OF SOUTH CAROLINA; INFLUENCE OF
MECHANIC ARTS AND MANUFACTURES ; WHAT
THE SOUTH is CAPABLE OF IN COTTON MANU
FACTURES; LABOR AT THE SOUTH; FACILITIES
FOR STEAM AND WATER POWER; EMPLOY
MENT FOR THE POORER CLASSES, ETC. The
Institute whose first annual exhibition is
about to be opened, is something new in
South Carolina. If it succeeds in its purposes,
a new era in our history will be dated from
this anniversary. Hitherto our state has been
as purely agricultural as a civilized commu
nity can ever be ; and for the last sixty years
our labor has been chiefly devoted to the
production of one market crop. The value
of this agricultural staple has been for many
years gradually declining, and for the last se
ven or eight has not afforded to our planters
an average net income exceeding four and a
half per cent, per annum on their capital.
Within the last few months prices have some
what rallied ; but there is not the slightest,
ground on which to rest a hope that they
will ever hereafter, for any series of years,
average higher than they have done since
1840 : on the contrary, it is inevitable that
they must fall rather lower. The consump
tion of cotton, even at late average prices,
cannot keep pace with our increasing capa
city to produce it ; and the article may, there
fore, be said to have fairly passed that first
stage of all new commercial staples, in which
prices are regulated wholly by demand and
supply, and to have reached that, in which,
like gold and silver, its value, occasionally
and temporarily affected by demand and sup
ply, will in the main be estimated by the j
cost of production. Now, on lands that en-
able the planter to produce an average crop
of two thousand pounds of ginned cotton for
each full hand, or for every thousand dollars
of capital permanently invested, he may re
alize seven per cent, per annum on his capi
tal, at a net price of five cents per pound, or
five and a half to six cents in our southern
ports. There is an abundance of land in the
South and south-west, on which, unless the
seasons change materially, or the worm be
comes an annual visitor, all the cotton which
the world will consume for many generations
to come may be grown at this rate. We
have ample slave labor to cultivate it, and
the result is inevitable that the average of
prices must soon settle permanently about
this point.
If these views are correct, what are we to
do in South Carolina ? But a small portion
of the land we now cultivate will produce
two thousand pounds of ginned cotton to the
hand. It is thought that our average produc
tion cannot exceed twelve hundred pounds,
and that a great many planters do not grow
over one thousand pounds to the hand. A
thousand pounds, at five cents net, will yield
about two per cent, in cash, on the capital
invested, and twelve hundred pounds but
three per cent, after paying current planta
tion expenses. At such rates of income our
state must soon become utterly impoverished,
and of consequence wholly degraded. De
population, to the utmost possible extent,
must take place rapidly. Our slaves will go
first, and that institution from which we have
heretofore reaped the greatest benefits will
be swept away ; for history, as well as com
mon sense, assures us, beyond all chance of
doubt, that whenever slavery ceases to be
profitable it must cease to exist.
These are not mere paper calculations, or
the gloomy speculations of a brooding fancy j
they are illustrated and sustained by facts,,
current facts of our own day, within the
knowledge of every one of us. The process
of impoverishment has been visibly and pal
pably going on, step by step, with the decline
in the price of cotton. It is well known that
for the last twenty years, floating capital, to>
the amount of five hundred thousand dollars
per annum, on the average, has left this city
and gone out of South Carolina, seeking and
finding more profitable investments thau
were to be found here. But our most fatal
loss, which exemplifies the decline of our
agriculture, and the decay of our slave sys
tem, has been owing to emigration. The
natural increase of the slaves in the South,
since the prohibition of the African slave
trade, has been thirty per cent, for every ten
years. From 1810 to 1820, the increase ia
South Carolina was a fraction above that rate.
From 1820 to 1830, it was a fraction below
it. But from 1830 to 1840, the increase was
less than seven per cent, in ten years ; and
the census revealed the painful and ominous
fact, that the number of slaves in South Caro
lina was eighty-three thousand less than it
should have been. No war, pestilence, or fa
mine, had visited our land. No change of
climate or of management had checked the
natural increase of this class of our popu
lation. There can be no reasonable doubt,
that the ratio of its increase had been as fully
maintained here as elsewhere. But. the fact is,
that, notwithstanding the comparatively high
average price of cotton from 1830 to 18 40, these
slaves had been carried off by their owners
afc the rate of eight thousand three hundred!
per annum, from a soil producing to the hand!
twelve hundred pounds of cotton, on the]
average, to one that yielded eighteen hundred I
pounds. And there is every reason to appre-i
hend that the census of next year will show*)
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
25
ithat the whole increase of the last decade,
which must amount to one hundred thou-
pand, has been swept off by the still swelling
tide of emigration.
Under these circumstances, the question
may well be asked again, what are we to do
in South Carolina ? for it is but too obvious
that something must be done, and done
promptly, to arrest our downward career.
To discuss this question fully in all its bear
ings, and give a satisfactory answer, would
consume more time than can be allowed on
this occasion ; but I trust its importance will
be my excuse, if I trespass by a somewhat
elaborate examination of some of its essential
features. ,_- .*
The first tgmedyfor our decaying pros
perity which naturally suggests itself is, the
improvement of our agricultural system ; and
ofTaTe ""years" a great deal has been said upon
this subject. That it is susceptible of great
improvement is very clear ; but it is equally
and lamentably true that little or nothing has
as yet been done. It must be owned, that
neither our agricultural societies nor our agri
cultural essays have effected anything worth
speaking of. And it does seem that, while
the fertile regions of the south-west are 6 s pen
to Ihe cotton planters, it is vain to expect
them to embark, to any extent, in improve
ments which are expensive, difficult, or
hazardous. Such improvements are never
made but by a prosperous people, full of en
terprise, and abounding in capital, like the
English, or a people pent up within narrow
limits, like the Dutch. Our cotton region is
too broad, and our southern people too homo
geneous for metes and bounds, to enforce the
necessity of improving any particular locality,
and our agriculture is now too poorly com
pensated to attract superfluous capital, or
stimulate to enterprise. It is clear that capi
tal, enterprise, some new element of pros
perity and hope, must be brought in among j
us from some yet untried or unexhausted re
source, before any fresh and uncommon en
ergy can be excited into action in our agri
cultural pursuits. In fact, if prices had not
gone down, and our lands had not worn out,
it may be said, with great truth, that we
have too long devoted ourselves to one pur
suit to follow it exclusively much longer with
due success in all those particulars which
constitute a highly prosperous and highly
civilized community.
It is a common observation, that no man of
one idea, no matter how great his talent and
his perseverance, ever can succeed ; for both
human affairs and the works of nature are
complex, exhibiting everywhere an infinite
variety of mutual relations and dependencies,
many of which must be comprehended and
embraced in searching after truth, which is
the essential basis of all real success. So if,
guided by the light of history, we look back
over the long track of time, we shall find that
ncutiation devoted exclusively to one pursuit
has been prosperous or powerful for any ex
tended period. liven tin; warlike Spartniia
zealously promoted agriculture. And Rome
began to decline from the moment that she
ceased to draw her soldiers and her generals
from her fields and vineyards. But a people
wholly agricultural have ever been, above all
others, in all ages, the victims of rapacious
tyrants, grinding them down, in ancient
times, by force of arms ; in modern, by cun
ning laws. The well-known fact suggests
the obvious reason, and the reason illustrates
our present condition and apparent prospects.
The mere wants of man are few and limited.
The labor of one can supply all that the earth
can yield for the support often. If all labor,
there is useless superabundance ; if few labor,
there is corrupting sloth. And if advancing
civilization introduces new wants, and the
elegancies and luxuries, as well as the neces
saries of life, are to be obtained, the products
of agriculture are the least profitable of all
articles to barter. Besides that most nations
strenuously endeavor to supply them from
their own soil, they are usually so bulky and
so liable to injury that they can seldom be
transported far, and never but at great ex
pense. Tt is only when an agricultural people
are blessed with some peculiar staple of
prime importance, nowhere else produced so
cheaply, that they can obtain, habitually, a
fair compensation by exporting it. But in
the j3re.se nt state of the world, when science
and industry, backed by accumulated capital,
are testing trie capacity of every clime and
soil on the globe, and the free and cheap
communication which is now growing up be
tween air the ends of the earth enables
wealth and enterprise to concentrate rapidly
on every favored spot, no such monopoly can
be long enjoyed if sufficiently valuable to at
tract the cupidity of man. South Carolina
and Georgia were, for some years, almost the
only cultivators of cotton in America. As
late as 1820, these two states grew more than
half the whole crop of the Union. They now
produce about one-fifth of it. Such is the
history of every agricultural monopoly in
modern times.
But we may safely go further and assert,
that even when a people possess a permanent
anoTexclusive monopoly of a valuable agricul
tural staple, for which there is a regular, ex
tensive, and profitable foreign demand, if they
limit their industrial pursuits to this single
one they cannot become great and powerful.
Nay, they cannot now attain the front rank
of nations, if they also pursue, as we do, most
of the other branches of agriculture, and
maintain, as we do not, an independent gov
ernment of their own, and exercise the power
of making war and peace. The types of man
have been infinitely varied by his wise Cre-
ator. Our minds are as diverse as our forms
and features, The tastes, the talents, an3
26
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
the physical capacities with which we are
endowed, are as widely different, and as
strongly marked for their appropriate pur
suits, as those pursuits have been diversified
by Providence. War and public affdirs call
into action a large proportion of the highest
qualities of man, and these, sustained by a
simple husbandry, did, in ancient times,
make some nations powerful and prosperous.
But war is no longer profitable. National
pillage is at an end, and territorial aggran
dizement, a doubtful benefit at best, is both
uncertain in its tenure, and costly to main
tain. Now and henceforth, national grandeur,
to be real and lasting, must be based upon
the arts of peace. And in these noble arts
the competition of nations has become so
keen and persevering, that every one must
develop, to the full extent, its natural advan
tages, and keep in constant play each and all
of the natural endowments of each and all its
citizens, or it will fall rapidly behind in the
arduous but steady march of progress. The
soils and climates of Italy, Spain, and the low
countries, are as prolific, and the native ge
nius of their people is, doubtless, equal to
what it was in the days of Augustus, Charles
the Fifth, and Van Tromp ; yet they have
sunk from the highest almost to the lowest
point in the scale of nations. But their pur
suits are no longer diversified as they once
were. Their ships have been swept from
the seas their armies from the land. Their
manufactures have been superseded, and
commerce has deserted their ports, while
they have introduced no new industrial avo
cations to supply their losses. All the en
dowments of the whole people being no
longer taxed to full and wholesome action,
they have languished in idleness, and national
decay has, of necessity, followed. So with
us. Our agriculture, though it might embrace
a wide range in such a climate as ours, and
furnish us with highly compensating exports,
cannot, even with the assistance of public af
fairs, absorb all the genius, anddraw out all the
energies of our people. The infinite variety of
gifts which it has pleased God to bestow on
man, must be stimulated into useful action by
an equal variety of adequate rewards. It is
to the never-ceasing demands of advancing
civilization, in all its stages, for new arts, new
comforts, and new luxuries, more knowledge,
and wider intercourse of men with one another,
that we owe all the discoveries and inven
tions which have ameliorated the condition of
humanity. And every new conception, every
new art, every new combination of pursuits,
industrial and intellectual, which has ex
panded the genius, and augmented the power
of man and nations of men, has rendered it
more and more impossible for an individual
of one idea, or a people of one occupation, to
attain prosperity and influence.
Since, then, even a flourishing agricul
ture could not of itself make us permanently
rich or great, the greatest improvements that
could be made in our present decaying sys
tem, would be but a partial and insufficient
remedy for the evils under which we labor.
We must take a wider range, and introduce
additional pursuits, that will enlist a broader
interest, that will absorb all our redundant
capital, and awaken all the intellect and
energy now dormant in our state. On this
occasion, however, we will confine our dis
cussion to new industrial pursuits. If we
look around us we shall see that those
^nations only are powerful and wealthy.
Vhich, in addition to agriculture, devote
.themselves to commerce and manufactures ;
and that their wealth and strength are nearly
In exact proportion with the extent to
fwhich they succeed, in carrying on together
these three great branches of human in
dustry. The principle of the Trinity, per
fected in the Deity, seems to pervade all the
works of nature and the affairs of man.
Time divides itself into three parts three
lines are necessary to inclose space a
proper government must be distributed
among three fundamental departments, and
the industrial system of a people must, if it
would flourish, embrace agriculture, manu
factures and commerce, and cherish each in
just proportion. Commerce, experience
shows us, is the hand-maid of manufactures.
Agriculture does not create it, as our own
example proves, for we have literally none
we may call our own. With eight millions
of agricultural exports, South Carolina has
scarcely a ship, or a sailor, afloat upon the
seas. The Institute, whose anniversary we
have met to celebrate, was founded, in part,
for the purpose of assisting to lift the
mechanic arts from the low condition they
have hitherto occupied in South Carolina
and the South, and to stimulate our people
to avail themselves of the manufacturing and
commercial resources they possess. These
resources are little known and less appre
ciated, but it is demonstrable that our
southern states possess natural advantages,
which enable them to compete successfully
with any other, in manufacturing the prin
cipal articles now required for the neces
sities, the comfort and the luxury of man.
While, with our abundant materials for ship
building, our noble bays and rivers, and our
shore line of twenty thousand miles of sea-
coast, we have only to make the attempt, to
obtain, beyond rivalry, the entire command,
of at least our own commerce. In the dis
tribution of these natural advantages, the
share which has fallen to South Carolina is
not inferior to that of any of her sister states.
And the present stagnant and retrograding
condition of our uncompensated industry,
loudly appeals to us to make an effort to
secure the full enjoyment of them.
But there are difficulties, serious difficul-
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
ties to be overcome, ere this can be effected
and stnnge to say, these difficulties are
(almost wholly of a moral character. There
;ls no want of genius, or energy, or skill, or,
as yet, even of capital, in South Carolina
We have all these, perhaps, in full propor
tion to our natural advantages. But igno
rance and prejudice are to be encountered
petty interests, false reasoning, unsound
calculation, and perhaps, above all, certain
traditional habits of thought and action.
The ancient and illustrious calling of
agriculture, which, while it cherishes and
promotes a generous hospitality, a high and
perfect courtesy, a lofty spirit of indepen
dence, and uncalculating love of country, and
all the nobler virtues and heroic traits of
man, is apt to engender a haughty contempt
of all mechanic arts, as uncreative in their
nature and entirely devoted to petty details,
which cramp the genius and character, and
are wholly inconsistent with those grander
aspirations which make the capacious intel
lect and exalted soul. The agriculturist, it
is said, is the sole producer the mechanic
only shapes and changes commerce simply
transfers. These distinctions are only
verbal mere words without any philosophi
cal or rational meaning. God alone creates.
Ke provides the agriculturist with his
mighty machine, the earth, and his all-
powerful agents, air, water, heat. Operating
with these, the cultivator changes a seed
into a plant, with leaves, blossoms, bolls and
cotton. The mechanic invents, almost
creates his own machine, and by the aid of
science, decomposing the very elements, he
compels their energies, long cunningly hid,
to perform the tasks he sets them in perfect
accordance with his will. The agriculturist
has converted seed into cotton of little value
as it passes from his hands. The mechanic
converts it into cloth, fit for immediate and
indispensable use ; but first he has converted
wood and iron into machinery, that can per
form the labor of a thousand men ; he has
turned water into steam to give it life, and
has spun from the produce of a single seed,
a thread more than a hundred and sixty
miles in length. Which is the most wonder
ful work 1 Which requires the most com
prehensive genius 1 Which is the nearest
approach to the creative power 1 Whoever,
by the application of capital, industry or
skill, adds value to any article, is, to that
extent, undoubtedly a producer. The mer
chant who transports the cloth from Charles
ton to California, and thereby enhances its
value, is a producer, as well as the manu
facturer who has made cloth from cotton,
and the planter who has made cotton from
seed.
It is true, as charged, that the mechanic
art deals extensively in minute details. In
the construction of machinery, it is neces
sary that its smallest parts should be as
perfectly adapted as its largest, to the end in
view ; and the nicest care is necessary in
keeping it in operation. And so throughout
the whole mechanic range. Thread by
thread the cloth is woven. The Smith s
work is wrought blow by blow. The car
penter removes a shaving at a time. The
ship grows as the spikes are driven. But
the same attention to detail is requisite in
every other avocation, in every line of busi
ness, in every branch of science, in every de
partment, public and private, of human
affairs, and the neglect of it is everywhere
attended with the same utter failure of
valuable results. Of all the causes which
have combined to impair the agriculture of
South Carolina, the most injurious, per
haps, is the habitual want of personal atten
tion to details by the planters themselves s
and the impossibility of procuring subordi
nate agents, who will bestow that thorough
and systematic care on small matters, which
is absolutely indispensable to successful
husbandry.
It is certain that many of the most re
nowned men and nations of antiquity, looked
upon manufactures, trade, commerce and all
the mechanic arts with aversion and con
tempt The citizens of Sparta were pro
hibited from engaging in them. Aristotle
denounced them. Plato excluded them, as
far as possible, from his republic. The Greeks
and the Romans left them to foreigners and
slaves. Cicero was disgusted with the idea
" that the same people should become, at
once, the lords and factors of the universe."
France, in later times, forbade her noblemen
to engage in trade, and even, in the last
century, as great a philosopher as Montes
quieu, thought that England had impaired
her greatness by permitting her noblemen
to do it. Thus this prejudice and fallacy is
of ancient date and illustrious descent. Yet
none could be more absurd, more false, more
fatal to all who have adhered to it, in
dividually or nationally, in modern times.
Modern civilization took its rise in Italy, and
the first clear dawn of it reveals to us Venice
and Genoa, commercial and manufacturing
cities, at the opposite outlets of the fertile
plains of Lombardy, leading the van of
progress. The first established era of refine
ment, is still known as the age of the
Medicis the merchant princes of Florence.
The commercial and manufacturing league
of the Hanse Towns next civilized the north
of Europe, and from them it was that Eng
land learned those arts of agriculture,
manufactures and commerce, which have
made her the most powerful nation that ever
figured on the globe, and her people, truly
and emphatically, and grandly, too, the
" the lords and factors of the universe."
Shall we, following the false lights of
28
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
other ages, or the silly impulses of ignorant
prejudice, disdain a career as great and
glorious as that of England] Or shall we,
individually, shrink from a strict and faith
ful attention to details, in all our pursuits,
from the preposterous belief, that such a
course is inconsistent with greatness of
intellect and magnanimity of soul 1 Bacon
said, with profound truth, that "he that
cannot contract the sight of his mind, as
well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a
great faculty." The truly great man con
tracts and expands his views with equal
facility, and sweeps, with the same ease, the
narrow denies of detail and the broad fields
of generalization. Caesar, it is said, could
call by name every soldier in his army.
Charlemagne, whose achievements made the
epoch commonly recognized as separating
modern from ancient history, took care to
have the superfluous eggs _and garden
vegetables of his private estates sent to,
market. Alfred, the founder of the British
monarchy, translated the fables of ^Esop,
and wrote others himself. Napoleon won
his mighty battles by calculating steps and
counting minutes. Those overwhelming
armies with which he crushed, so often, the
combined powers of continental Europe,
were concentrated on a given spot, at a
given hour, by orders issued months before
to many corps separated by hundreds of
leagues, in which not only the precise route
of each was pointed out, but their daily
marches, their halts, their rendezvous, the
obstacles they would encounter, and the
movements by which they were to be over
come, were all accurately and minutely
designated. Can we then say, that it is
only narrow minds and dull spirits that
stoop to investigate and carry out details 1
The idea is ridiculous.
" It is also said, that where manufactures
and commerce flourish, morals are corrupted
and free institutions do not prosper. It is un
doubtedly true, that when men congregate in
cities and factories, the vices of our nature
are more fully displayed, while the purest
morals are fostered by rural life. But, on
the other hand, the compensations of as
sociation are great. It develops genius,
stimulates enterprise, and rewards every
degree of merit. It is not true that these
pursuits are hostile to political freedom.
The truth is the reverse. Honest husband
men, scattered far and wide over the sur
face of the country, are slow to suspect, and
still slower to combine in opposing, schemes
of usurpation. A steady loyalty and an
earnest aversion to change, are their in
variable characteristics. Merchants anc
manufacturers, next to lawyers, have always
been the first " to snufl tyranny in thf
tainted breeze," and foremost in resisting it
The commercial and manufacturing peoplt
of the North, in these states, would not
bear, for a day, the aggressions on their
rights, to which we of the South have been
for years habitually submitting. The first
battles for popular liberty, in modern times,
were fought in Holland and Flanders ; and
the indomitable free spirit of the sturdy
tradesmen and artisans of Ghent and Bruges
will ever be renowned in history.
But it is strenuously contended that the in
troduction of manufactures in the South
would undermine our free-trade principles,
and destroy the last hope of the great agri
cultural interest. It is susceptible of demon
stration, that the consequences would neces
sarily be precisely the reverse. The manufac^
uring people of the North desire a high tariff
:or no other purpose but to compel the non-
manufacturing people of the South to buy
rom them, in preference to foreigners. If
the South manufactures for itself, the game
is completely blocked. We will, of course,
use the productions of our own looms and
work-shops, in preference to any others ;
and the North will then clamor, as the Eng
lish manufacturers are now clamoring, for
entire free trade, that they may exchange
their industrial products, on the most
favorable terms, with foreign nations. This
result is as inevitable as it is obvious.
While it is the object of this Institute to
promote all the mechanic arts, and every
branch of manufactures, every one is aware,
that the advantages we possess for manufac
turing cotton are so superior, that far the
greater portion of the capital and enterprise,
that may be embarked in manufactures, will
be absorbed in this branch, until it reaches its
maximum production. By establishing this
manufacture, we shall lay the foundation of
many others in fact, of all others which we
can profitably carry on. All these manufac
tures, and the entire range of mechanic
arts, pressingly demand, and are wholly en
titled to, the utmost consideration and en
couragement from the South ; but, on ac
count of its transcendent importance, and
because we are now nearly, if not quite,
prepared to engage in it extensively, I shall
confine my observations almost exclusively
to the manufacture of cotton, and examine,
so far as time allows, its prospects and bear
ings on state and individual interests. Al
ready the South, through the almost un
noticed enterprise of a few of her citizens,
more than supplies her own consumption of
coarse cotton, and ships both yarn and cloths,
with fair profit, to northern markets. Yet
the political influence of the manufacturers
of the South is nothing. It cannot send a
single representative to Congress perhaps
not even to a state legislature. To augment
that influence to a point that would make it
felt, manufacturing must be so extended that
a foreign market would be indispensable ;
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OP.
for the home market, now nearly supplied,
would soon be glutted, and the moment a
producer goes into the foreign market, he
hoists the banner of free trade. If our
Southern manufacturers stop where they
now are, content with supplying home con
sumption, they will desire a high tariff; but,
if they aspire to competition with the world,
they will contend for the lowest duties upon
all importations. This is exemplified, not
only by the present state of things in Eng
land, but by the fact that our northern man
ufacturers, now wrestling with the British in
China and Brazil, are violently opposed to
any duty on tea and coffee, for which they
exchange, in those countries, their cotton
cloths. The heavy expenses of the British
government compel it to tax these articles.
This gives our manufacturers a great advan
tage, and shows the value, even in our for
eign intercourse, of a cheap government at
home.
But the great question is, can we compete
with other nations ? Can we, of the South,
manufacture cotton here on such terms as to
enable us to triumph over the immense capi
tal, the far-farned cheap labor and practised
skill of the great nations who are now so far
ia advance of us in this branch of industry ? I
do not speak of the northern states, because,
ia the very first effort, we have driven them
from our markets, and have already com
menced the contest with them for their own,
in the only class of goods we have yet at
tempted. It is clear they cannot stand a mo
ment in our way, when we have once fairly
started for the prize.
There is a small amount of cotton manu
factured into the finest stuffs, by the hand
labor of the most wretched and ill-compen
sated operatives in the world. For this we
will not contend, since the paupers of Eu
rope have scarcely yet wrested it from the
starving Hindoos. Skill, capital, cheapness
of labor, of raw material, of buildings, ma
chinery, motive power and transportation,
combined with fitness of climate and security
of property, constitute the elements of cheap
and profitable manufacturing. All these we
must consider in estimating our ability to
compete with others in supplying cotton
goods for the great markets of the world.
As regards skill, it is a mistake to suppose,
that, in manufacturing cotton by machinery,
any great dt.-gree of it is necessary in the ope
rative. In a few months, an intelligent youth
may learn all that is requisite in most de
partments ; and, in a few years, he may per
fect himself in the whole art. We need not
go beyond the limits of our own state
scarcely of this city to have experimental
proof of this. But skill belongs to capital.
In six months, with sufficient funds, we may
draw from any and every quarter of Europe
and the North, on reasonable terms, the full
amount and precise kind of skill we may
desire, with as much certainty as we could
bring, by order, a cask of wine or a bale of
woolens. And capital follows profits. In
the present age, wherever on the globe it
can be practically and satisfactorily demon
strated that ample and secure returns are to
be obtained from its investment, thither capi
tal will soon flow, and skill be found to
manage it. If it can be shown that more can
be made by cotton factories in the South than
elsewhere, and that property is secure with
us, it would be vain to attempt to prevent
the concentration here of capital for the pur
pose, unless the laws absolutely forbid the
erection of them. We have all seen what an
enormous amount of capital has been in
vested in cotton planting, within the last
thirty years, in consequence of its being
thought highly profitable. Not less than
$500,000,000 have been so invested, in that
period, notwithstanding the most vigorous
measures have been openly made during
nearly the whole of it, from various and pow
erful quarters, not merely to make insecure
the planter s profit, but to annihilate his pro
perty and desolate his country. But, here
tofore, under equally formidable circum
stances, the profits from manufacturing have
been far greater than from planting cotton,
and the personal superintendence of the capi
talist far less laborious. In fact, this manu
facture cannot fail, wherever it can be ex
perimentally shown that it may be carried on
with the greatest success, to attract capital,
in preference to all others; for it has hitherto
afforded, and still affords, the largest returns
on its investments of any other permanent
industrial pursuit the world has ever known.
It is well known that a great proportion of
the largest fortunes amassed in England, in
the last seventy years of unparalleled accu
mulation, has been made by cotton manufac
turers. So numerous and influential has this
successful class become, that they are fami
liarly distinguished there by a distinct and
appropriate name : they are called " cotton
lords." It is understood, that thirty-three
and one-third per cent, is not a very uncom
mon profit on their capital. This is the rea
son, and a sufficient one, that the consump
tion of cotton in England augmented from
100,000,000 pounds in 1816, at the com
mencement of peace, to 600,000,000 in 1846,
being an increase of six-fold in thirty years.
For the same reason, the consumption in the
factories of the United States increased, du
ring the same period, from some 32,000,000
pounds to above 190,000,000 pounds, being
about the same proportion. Since 1846, after
the reduction of duties by the act of that
year, the increase of factory consumption has
been beyond all precedent. It was, last
year, 45,000,000 pounds greater than the
year before ; and for the first six months of
this year, the ratio of increase was still larger.
It declined during the last six months, in con
sequence of the temporary high price of cot-
30
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
ton. These facts show, not only the immense
profits derived from manufacturing cotton,
but they prove that they have been as great
in our northern states as in England, since
the factory consumption has increased in
both with an extraordinary coincidence of
equal ratio unless, indeed, our northern
capitalists are content with less profit than
those of England, which will not readily be
believed. What their precise gains have
been, we have no certain data for estimating.
They have always been seeking to enhance
them by government protection, and, accord
ing to their own statements, have been car
rying on a ruinous business. Yet they have
amassed sufficient wealth to ape, at great
expense, the style of the English grandees,
and have won for themselves a title also
that of " lords of the loom and spinning
jenny" while manufacturing towns have
been springing up at the North, and growing
off, as if by magic, into cities. In the South
a few factories have fairly got under way.
They have had to struggle with the obstacles
incident to every new business, and with
prejudices, some of which I have glanced at.
Experience has not demonstrated what profit
can be regularly counted on, though it has
been highly encouraging to all who have
judiciously embarked in them. It is an im
portant and well-ascertained fact, that, du
ring the past year, the comparative increase
of factory consumption has been greater in
the southern states than in England, or else
where. A.nd it is confidently believed, from
the successful experiments which have been
made, that, if all our natural advantages for
manufacturing cotton were properly deve
loped, under the social and political approba
tion of the state and the South, the profits
arising from it would be so great, throughout,
the cotton region, as to attract abundant capi
tal and skill from almost every other quarter.
England is the great dread of all those who
turn their attention toward manufacturing.
Her capital, her enterprise, her pauper labor,
her vast commerce and indomitable energy,
have hitherto broken down, or held in check,
the cotton manufacturers of the old world.
If they have thriven in this country, and kept
pace with her in the ratio of increase, it may
be said, with great truth and force, that thus
far we have done little more than supply our
home market with the coarser fabrics, and
that a high protective duty has been deemed
necessary to enable us to do this ; that the
only two foreign markets in which our manu
facturers have attempted to contend seriously
with her, pay for our goods in articles that
enter the United States free of duty, which is
equivalent to a direct bounty to our manu
facturers, paid by our government ; and that
it yet remains to be shown, that we can
compete with the English in the open and
equal markets of the world. I do not believe
that our northern manufacturers can ever do
it, for reasons which time does not permit
me to detail. But it is believed that southern
factories may with complete success. Whether
they can or not, depends, of course suppos
ing capital and skill abundant upon which
can manufacture cheapest ; for, transportation
from our ports to foreign markets will be but
little, if anything, more expensive than from
her own.
The means of making a comparison be
tween the cost of manufacturing cotton ia
England and this country, especially in the
South, are not abundant, but we have some
special facts in point, and a vast body of
general ones that may be brought to bear
directly on the question. A practical manu
facturer, Mr. Montgomery, of Glasgow, who
is now in this country, and who had previ
ously written several treatises on cotton spin
ning, published at Glasgow, in 1840, a work
on the comparative advantages of colton manu
facturing in Great Britain and the United
States. It is regarded, I believe, as good
authority on both sides of the water. In that
work he estimates the cost of a faciory in the
United States, containing 5,000 spindles and
128 looms, at about $104,000, including the
buildings, motive power and all other ma
chinery. The expense of working it a fort
night, he puts down at $1,954. He exhibits
the cost of a similar factory in England, which
amounted to but $44,000, and the charges per
fortnight were only $1.123. Notwithstanding
this striking difference in the cost and charges
of the two factories, on summing up and in
cluding the value of the goods produced, and
the price of the raw material, Mr. Montgo
mery demonstrates that the final cost of
manufacturing cotton is three per cent, in
favor of this country. This important con
clusion is owing to two items. First, the 128
looms here turned out 16,000 yards of cloth
every fortnight more than the same number
did in Great Britain : and, secondly, the
charges on the raw material, from the south
ern seaport to the northern factory, were only
eleven per cent., against twenty-sev*en and a
half per cent., the charges to the British manu
facturer. Supposing a southern factory to
have been erected at the same cost as a
northern, and worked at the same charges,
the difference in our favor, inasmuch as the
eleven per cent, expenses would be saved to
us, would amount to nine per cent, over the
British an advantage, against which compe
tition could not long be maintained in any
equal market. Since Mr. Montgomery wrote,
the English have abolished the duty on cot
ton, which he estimated at four and a half
per cent. This placed them nearly on a
footing with the North, but still left six per
cent, in favor of the South. Since then, they
have increased their speed in England, but it
has been by an increased outlay for power.
If they have reduced the cost of manufac
turing, it has been by improvement in ma
chinery, of which it is in our power to avail
ourselves almost immediately. But in this
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
31
country, wbere the prices of numerous items
used in a cotton factory have not yet, by any
means, reached the minimum, the cost and
charges of such an establishment as Mr.
Montgomery describes, have fallen largely
since 1840. According to Leonard s IVinci-
fia, published last year, a factory running
,000 spindles and 140 looms, may be put up
at the North now twenty-five per cent,
cheaper than Mr. Montgomery s estimate ;
can be worked at charges twelve and a half
per cent, less, and will turn out ten per cent,
more cloth. In addition to this, the average
price of cotton has, for some years, been
about half the price at which Mr. Montgo
mery s eslimate was made, while charges
have fallen very little, if any, and cannot
now amount to less than an average of thirty-
three and a half per Cent, to the British manu
facturer, notwithstanding the abolition of the
duty. These facts seem to prove, that com
petition with England, in this line of manu
factures, is not likely to turn out near so dis
astrous as we have been taught to believe by
northern alarmists, deeply interested to spread
such opinions in this country. They give us
also some idea of the causes which have led
to eo rapid an increase latterly, in the con
sumption of raw cotton in America. The
conclusion might be drawn that even the
North may, in the long run, triumph over
Great Britain. But our northern brethren
have one, to mention only one, fatal and omi
nous disqualification for carrying such a con
test to extremes. With them, owing to their
social and political condition, the tendency
of wages is constantly to rise. If they are
lowered much, or lowered long, the security
of property is at an end. They can substitute
no labor for that which is virtually entitled to
suffrage, and their governments, controlled by
those who live by wages, have no power to
Erotect capital against the demands of labor,
owever unjust. In the South it is wholly
different; and so soon as experience shall
enable us to handle our own resources skil
fully, it will be found, besides, that we have
as great advantages over the North and over
England, in cheapness of motive power of all
kinds, and in facilities for constructing build
ings and machinery, as we> have in the raw
material to be manufactured.
The great item of cost in manufacturing,
next to the raw material, is that of labor.
And the final result of the great struggle,
for the control and enjoyment of the most
important industrial pursuit of the world,
will probably depend on its comparative
cheapness. We are forever told of the " pau
per labor" of Europe, and for the reason I
have just given, the North is, perhaps, ex
cusable for never having been able to look
with composure at this bugbear. The cheap
ness of labor is undoubtedly much influenced
by density of population, though labor is
deafer in Massachusetts, with a popula
tion of one hundred, than it is in South Car
olina, with a population of twenty-two, to
the square mile. Ultimately, however, the
value of labor must depend on climate and
soil. Wherever men can work the most,
and under a just and secure government
live at lea&t expense, there, in the long run,
labor must be the cheapest. In England,
factory labor is now limited by law to sixty
hours a week. In our northern states, the
average of available weekly labor is esti
mated at seventy-three and a half hours ,
in the middle states, at seventy-five and a half
hours ; and the further south we come, the
more it is susceptible of increase. Cold, ice
and snow, rarely present impediments to
working in the cotton region, and the steady
heat of our summers is not so prostrating
as the short, but frequent and sudden, bursts
of northern summers. IXjdriveji jto^thatjie-
cessity, there is no doubt we can extend our
hours of labor beyond any of our rivals. The
necessary expenses of the southern laborer
are not near so great as are those of one in
northern latitudes. He does not require as
much nor as costly clothing, nor as expen
sive lodgings, nor the same quantity of fuel,
nor even an equal amount of food. All the
fermented and distilled liquors which, in
cold climates, are in some sort necessaries,
are here uncalled-for and injurious indul
gences. Corn and bread and bacon, as much
as the epicure may sneer at them, with fresh
meat only occasionally, and a moderate use
of garden vegetables, will, in this region
at least, give to the laborer greater strength
of muscle and constitution, enable him to
undergo more fatigue, and insure him longer
life and more enjoyment of it, than any
other diet. And these, indeed, with coffee,
constitute the habitual food of the great body
of the southern petple. Thirteen bushels of
corn, worth now, even in the Atlantic south
ern states only about $6 on the average, and
one hundred and sixty pounds of bacon, or
its equivalent, worth about $9. is an ample
yearly allowance for a grown person. Gar
den vegetables bear no price except in cities.
If sugar and coffee be added, $18, or at most,
19, will cover the whole necessary annual
cost of a full supply of wholesome and pal
atable food, purchased in the market. Such
provisions, and in fact all sound provisions,
are dearer in Europe and the North, than
they are with us much dearer than they
could be well afforded here, if a steady and
sufficient market gave encouragement to
their production. It may, indeed, be safely es
timated that each arable acre in the southern
states can, with proper culture, maintain a
human being, and that we might support
within our limits at least 200,000,000, in a
far better condition than the operatives and
peasantry of Europe now are. Such are our
vast prospects for the future. The precise
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OP.
cost of maintaining a laboring man at th
North, I have not seen stated. But there ar
abundant statements in England, not differ
ing materially, for they have scientifically
reduced the sustenance of their so mud
dreaded pauper labor" to the exact poin
that will enable it to perform the allottee
task. The Edinburgh Review, of 1842
stated that a gallon of flour per week, jus
half our allowance of corn, was indispensa
ble, and the average price of that was esti
mated at eighteen pence. At this rate th<
British workman pays for bread alone, abou
$18 50 a year, or full as much as will fur
nish here an ample supply of bread, meat
sugar and coffee. The prices of provision!
cannot materially fall in England, for she is
largely dependent on foreign supplies, anc
becoming daily more so ; while here, even in
South Carolina, with a certain market for
corn at twenty-five cents a bushel at the
barn, it would be cultivated, in preference to
cotton at six cents in our ports. All these
facts show that while wages have fallen al
ready in Europe to the lowest possible
point, we have a large margin left for their
reduction here, should circumstances de
mand it, and that we have no reason to
dread her " pauper labor" in the future. We
have only to lift our mechanic arts from
their present neglected condition, and learn
to avail ourselves of the resources which
Providence has lavished on us, to sweep
over every obstacle which such labor may
now present, to our immediate enjoyment of
the entire monopoly of our own great staple.
In fact, the average rate of factory wages
in the South is already lower than at the
North, and but little higher than it is in Eng
land. As soon as operatives can be trained
here to take the places of those necessarily
brought from a distance, at extra cost, to fill
the higher departments of manufacturing es
tablishments, the average of wages, and of
all charges for working, will, of course, fall
considerably. And let it not be forgotten
that, as I have already stated, notwithstand
ing our almost entire want- of experience,
and all the disadvantages which our few and
widely-scattered factories newly erected
among a people wholly unused to such pur
suits having no faith in them in fact,
strongly prejudiced against them must, of
course, labor under, they already produce
better yarn and cloths, of the qualities at
tempted, than the northern manufacturers,
and are successfully competing with them
at their own doors. Mr. Leonard, in the re
cent work to which I have referred, states
the cost of yard-wide No. 14 sheeting at
5.26 cents per yard, at northern factories,
with cotton at 6 cents per pound there. The
Graniteville factory, in this state, had not
been in operation nine months, before it
turned out precisely the same cloth, at 4.81
cents per yard, with cotton at seven cents a
pound here. And these very goods, made at
this establishment, at this rate, have recent
ly taken the first premium at the exhibition
in Philadelphia. Thus, in addition to sound
theoretical reasoning, we have strong prac
tical proofs to lead us to the conviction,
that the cotton region is entirely competent
to convert the whole cotton crop into goods
of all descriptions, at a cost so low as to dis
tance all competition. And the South has
only to address herself earnestly to the great
work to accomplish it, in a space of time
that no one, not intimately acquainted with
our people, would deem credible, if sug
gested now. Great Britain spins two-thirds
of the amount of our cotton crop. It is es
timated that she employs $200,000,000 in
the gigantic operation. On this data we may
safely calculate that $400,000,000 invested
here would enable us to consume all the raw
material we produce. These figures seern
enormous, but they should not startle us.
Within the last twenty years the South,
while she has fallen off in no other branches
of industry, has invested $400,000,000 in
cotton planting ; $50,000,000 in sugar
planting, and not less than $50,000,000 in
"actories and railroads. Why then should
t be questioned that she could, in twenty
years more, herself furnish the capital to
nanufacture all her cotton ?
The immense benefits the South would
derive from such a result, are not generally
appreciated. Few have the remotest, idea
of them. Indeed, they would be so vast as
o defy all previous calculation. Little
more than half a century has elapsed," said
Mr. McCulloch, in 1833, " since the British
cotton manufacture was in its infancy, andit
low forms the principal business which is
carried on in the country, affording an ad
vantageous field for the accumulation and
jmployment of millions and million!? of capi-
al, and of thousands upon thousands of
workmen. The skill and genius by which
hese astonishing results have been achieved,
tave been one of the main sources of our
ower ; they have contributed, in no com-
non degree, to raise the British nation to
he high and conspicuous place she now oc-
upies. Nor is it too much to say, that it was
he wealth and energy derived from the cot-
on manufacture, that bore us triumphantly
hrough the late dreadful contest, at the
ame time that it gives us strength to sustain
urdens that would have crushed our fathers,
nd could not be supported by any other
eople." If the manufacture of a portion
f the raw material produced by our labor
nd our soil and in 1833 she manufactured
ut a fourth of what we now produce was
f such incalculable advantage to England,
what imagination can assign a limit to the
ower and prosperity we should enjoy, -to
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
33
the height of grandeur we might attain, if
we manfully put our sickles into the field,
and reap for ourselves, by our own industry
and enterprise, the whole harvest, which the
cotton plant, the inestimable gift from
Heaven to us, is capable of yielding 1
But to bring the subject more nearly
home to ourselves, and our immediate inter
ests, let us briefly consider what advantage
South Carolina would derive from manufac
turing the cotton she produces, and how far
she is capable of doing it. The value of
the cotton manufactures of Great Britain in
1846, an average year, was, according to the
best authority, in round numbers, $205,000,-
000. The quantity of raw material consumed
was about 600,000,000 pounds, and the ave
rage price paid by the manufacturer is stated
at ten cents per pound, which is equivalent,
say to seven cents in this city. Now the ave
rage annual production of South Carolina is
about 100,000,000 pounds, and if, to make
our calculations clear, we assume that the
whole of it was, as it might have been, man
ufactured in Great Britain, in 1848, the value
of the fabrics made of our crop was, to the
manufacturer there, one-sixth of the whole,
or $34,000,000. But we, in South Carolina,
obtained only $7,000,000 for it ; intermedi
ate agents got about $3,000,000, and the
British manufacturer realized, for his share,
$24,000,000. These are not speculations or
conjectures. They are recorded facts, which
may be verified by reference to unquestion
able documents. If we had manufactured
our own crop in South Carolina, we
should have received as the reward of our in
dustry, in addition to the $7,000,000 which
we did realize, all of the $24,000,000 which
fell exclusively to the British manufacturer.
If, looking to the future, we estimate the
price of cotton in this city at six cents per
pound, or $6.000,000 for our whole crop,
and reduce the value of it. when converted
into goods, to $20,000,000, clear of charges
beyond this port, we shall still, by manufac
turing it here, increase our net income by the
immense sum of $14.000,000 per annum.
How would the failing industry of South
Carolina recuperate under an increased an
nual expenditure of $14,000,000 within her
limits 1 How would her cities grow, and
new one spring into existence 1 How would
her marshes be drained, and her river swamps
be dyked in, until pestilence was driven
from her land, and virgin fields of exhaust-
less fertility, conquered for her agriculture ?
What rail-roads would be built along her
thoroughfares, and what steamships would
be launched upon her waters 1 How many
colleges, and schools, and charities, would
be founded and endowed 1 How would her
strength be consolidated at home, and her
influence abroad augmented and extended 1
I am not conjuring up ideal visions to ex
VOL. III.
cite the imagination. All these things have
jeen actually done. They have been, in our
own times, and under our own eyes, carried
out and made legible, living, self-multiply
ing and giant-growing FACTS in Old Eng
land and New-England ; and they have been
mainly accomplished by the incalculable
profits which their genius and enterprise have
realized on the products of OUR LABOR. But
the question will naturally be asked, can
South Carolina manufacture 100,000,000
pounds of cotton 1 Has she, without draw
ing from abroad, which is not desirable if it
can be obviated has she the capital, the mo
tive powers of machinery, and the opera
tives, that will enable her to do it to advan
tage 1 The answer is, yes ! and the truth
of it may be demonstrated in a few words.
To manufacture this amount of cotton, $40,-
000,000 of capital would be an ample and
liberal investment, that would cover all con
tingencies, if made judiciously. Now, for
the want of profitable investment, a much
larger amount of South Carolina capital has,
within the last twenty years, actually left
our state, and been lost to us forever. And
that, without diminishing our agricultural
productions, or foreign exports, which have
increased considerably in quantity, if not in
value, since 1830. I have already shown,
that from 1830 to 1840, upwards of 80,000
slaves were carried from our state, and it
may be assumed as certain, that full as
many have gone within these last ten
years. These 160,000 slaves, at $400 each,
were alone worth $64,000,000. But for
each one of these slaves, at the very
least, $100 worth of land and other prop
erty must have been sold here, and the
cash proceeds transferred with them be
yond our borders. This would amount to
$16,000,000 more. And if to this be added
the $10,000,000 which, made here by mer
cantile and other pursuits, has been sent else
where for investment, as has undoubtedly
been done, we have, without computing in
terest, the immense sum of $90,000,000, of
which, within these last twenty years, South
Carolina has been drained, in currents which
still flow, and bid fair to flow deeper and
broader every year. No one is to be blamed
for the transfer of this vast amount of capital.
No one is under obligation to make or keep
unprofitable investments. It is not to be ex
pected. It never will be done to any great
extent by enlightened and enterprising men.
But if we had embarked in manufactures
twenty years ago, as successfully as others,
and afforded to capital here returns of thirty,
or twenty, or even ten per cent., not a dollar
of that $90,000,000 would have left the state.
The slaves might have gone, and the lands
they cultivated might have been sold but
the enterprising owners would have re
mained here, and the full cash equivalent, of
3
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
this property would have remained with
them. In their hands, it would not only
have sufficed to erect all the factories re
quisite to spin our entire crop, but the vast
overplus of $50,000,000, would have con
structed and paid for thousands of miles of
rail-road, and built fleets of steamships and
merchant vessels, sufficient to carry our aug
mented commerce in direct lines to all the
great marts of the world. If we begin now,
and, instead of removing, sell, for a time, the
superfluous increase of our slaves, the pro
ceeds, added to the floating capital otherwise
accumulated, will enable us to accomplish all
these objects in a much shorter period than
twenty years, and bring in upon our state a
flood-tide of prosperity, that will cover every
hill and valley every bog and barren with
deposits more valuable than those of Califor
nia.
But if ample capital were supplied, have
we in South Carolina sufficient water power,
advantageously located, or can we, on rea
sonable terms, generate steam power to
manufacture our whole crop 1 The immense
pine forests which line our rail-roads and na
vigable streams, will, if judiciously managed,
furnish fuel for all the factories we shall
want, at $1 25 a cord, for generations yet to
come. At this rate, fuel can be supplied as
cheaply as the best Cumberland coal, at S3
a ton, or 12 cents a bushel, which is cheaper
than the same quality of coal is furnished to
the English factories. The cost of steam
engines, enhanced now only by the charges
of transportation, will be proportionably re
duced as the mechanic arts advance, under
the fostering spirit of manufactures and com
merce. As to water power, without looking
further, the sand-hill streams, which course
through the pine barrens of our middle coun
try the healthiest region, take the year
round, on the surface of the globe are, it is
well ascertained, capable of putting in motion
millions of spindles and their complemented
machinery spindles enough to consume
several times the amount of our crop. These
streams fall from eight to fifty feet in the
mile, are subject to no back water, or unman
ageable freshets, and, being fed by perennial
springs, are rarely affected seriously by
drought. Innumerable mill sites, with
large tracts of land, may now be purchased
on them, at from fifty cents to a few dollars
an acre. The building of factories on them
would instantly enhance the value of other
parts of a tract which might be sold, beyond
the whole cost of the original purchase and
expenditure for dams, so that ample water
power may be obtained here for absolutely
nothing. Four rivers navigable for steam
boats, and several others navigable for large
craft, flow through this region to the sea,
while three rail-roads already traverse it, and
a fourth is partly under contract. The
cheapest transportation may therefore be
commanded, and every necessary of life is
proportionably cheap. Above the falls, the
rivers themselves, and their numberless tri
butaries, afford an almost inexhaustible sup
ply of water power, while provisions, at low
rates, are abundant.
With capital, motive powers, cheap provi
sions, and convenient transportation at our
command, it would only remain to obtain
i operatives, on fair terms, to render our capa
city to manufacture our cotton crop, com
plete. For this purpose, about thirty-five
thousand, of all ages, would be requisite.
There is no question but that our slaves
might, under competent overseers, become
efficient and profitable operatives in our fac
tories. It may be of much consequence to
us, that this fact has been fully tested, and
is well known and acknowledged, as it would
give us, under all circumstances, a reliable
source. But to take, as we should have to
do, even three-fourths of the required num
ber from our cotton fields, would reduce our
crop at least one-third a reduction that
would seriously affect the great results we
have in view. It would also enhance the
prices of labor and provisions ; not so much
by the legitimate and profitable process of
increasing the demand, as by diminishing the
supply ; and it would curtail the relative
power of the agricultural class. If purchased
by the factories the only feasible plan of
using them their cost would add fifty per
cent, to the capital required for manufac
turing. While, in their appropriate sphere,
the cultivation of our great staples, under a
hot sun and arid miasma, that prostrates the
white man, our negro slaves admit of no sub
stitute, and may defy all competition, it is
seriously doubted, whether their extensive
and permanent employment in manufactures
and mehanic arts, is consistent with safe and
sound policy. Whenever a slave is made a
mechanic, he is more than half freed, and
soon becomes, as we too well know, and all
history attests, with rare exceptions, the most
corrupt and turbulent of his class. Where-
ever slavery has decayed, the first step in the
progress of emancipation has been the ele
vation of the slaves to the rank of artisans
and soldiers. This is the "process through
which slavery has receded, as the mechanic
arts have advanced ; and we have no reason
to doubt, that the same causes will produce
the same effects here. We have, however,
abundant labor of another kind which, unable
at low prices of agricultural produce to com
pete with slave labor, in that line, languishes
for employment ; and, as a necessary conse
quence, is working evil to both our social and
political systems. This labor, if not quite
so cheap directly, will be found in the long
run, much the cheapest ; since those who are
capable of it, will, whether idle or employed,
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
35
l nevitably, in one way or another, draw their
support from the community. According to
the best calculation, which, in the absence of
statistic facts, can be made, it is believed, that
of the three hundred thousand white inhabi
tants of South Carolina, there are not less
than fifty thousand, whose industry, such as
it is, and compensated as it is, is not, in the
present condition of things, and does not
promise to be hereafter, adequate to procure
them, honestly, such a support as every white
person in this country is, and feels himself
entitled to. And this, next to emigration, is,
perhaps, the heaviest of the weights that
press upon the springs of our prosperity.
Most of these now follow agricultural pur
suits, in feeble, yet injurious competition with
slave labor. Some, perhaps, not more from
inclination, than from the want of due en
couragement, can scarcely be said to work at
all. They obtain a precarious subsistence,
by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing,
sometimes by plundering fields or folds, and
too often by what is, in its effects, far worse
trading with slaves, and seducing them to
plunder for their benefit. If the ancient phi
losopher had the slightest grounds for saying
that it would require the plains of Babylon to
support, in idleness, five thousand soldiers
and their families, we may infer how enor
mous a tax it is on our resources, to main
tain to the extent we do now, and are likely
to have to do, directly and indirectly, our un
employed, or insufficiently employed poor.
From this class of our citizens, thirty-five
thousand factory operatives may certainly be
drawn, as rapidly as they may be called for,
since boys and girls are required, in large
proportion, for this business. Nor will there
be any difficulty in obtaining them. Ex
perience has shown that, contrary to general
expectation, there exists no serious prejudice
against such labor among our native citizens,
and that they have been prompt to avail
themselves, at moderate wages, of the oppor
tunity it affords of making an honest and
comfortable support, and decent provision for
the future. The example thus set of con
tinuous and systematic industry, among those
to whom it has heretofore been unknown,
cannot fail to produce the most beneficial ef
fects, not only on their own class, but upon
all the working classes of the state. And,
putting aside the immense contribution of
manufactures to the general prosperity, it
would be one of the greatest benefits that
could possibly be conferred on the agriculture
of South Carolina, to convert thirty-five thou
sand of her unemployed or insufficiently com
pensated population into active and intelli
gent workmen, buying and paying for the
products of her soil, which their families
consume.
But it has been suggested, that white fac
tory operatives in the South would constitute
a body hostile to our domestic institutions.
If any such sentiments could take root among
the poorer classes of our native citizens, more
danger may be apprehended from them, in
the present state of things, with the facilities
they now possess and the difficulties they
have now to encounter, than if they were
brought together in factories, with constant
employment and adequate remuneration. It
is well known that the abolitionists of Ame
rica and Europe are now making the most
strenuous efforts to enlist them in their cru
sade, by encouraging the exclusive use of
what is called " free labor cotton," and by in
flammatory appeals to their pride and their
supposed interests. But all apprehensions
from this source are entirely imaginary. The
poorest and humblest freeman of the South
feels as sensibly, perhaps more sensibly than
the wealthiest planter, the barrier which
nature, as well as law, has erected between
the white and black races, and would scorn
as much to submit to the universal degrada
tion which must follow, whenever it is broken
down. Besides this, the factory operative
could not fail to see here, what one would
suppose he must see however distant from
us, that the whole fabric of his own fortunes
was based on our slave system, since it is
only by slave labor that cotton ever has been, or
ever can be, cheaply or extensively produced.
Thus, not only from natural sentiment and
training, but from convictions of self-interest,
greatly strengthened by their new occupa
tion, this class of our citizens might be relied
on to sustain, as firmly and faithfully as any
other, the social institutions of the South.
The fact cannot be denied, that property is
more secure in our slave states than it is at
present in any other part of the world; and
the constant and profitable employment of all
classes among us will increase, rather than
diminish that security.
There seems, then, to be no impediment
whatever to our embarking, at once, in the
manufacture of our cotton, and to the full
extent of consuming our entire crop, in com
petition with the world. We have at hand,
and within our grasp, all the elements neces
sary for erecting and carrying on manufactu
ring establishments ; and we have the raw
material on the spot, and at a cost one-third
below our European, and one-eighth below
what our northern, rivals are compelled to
pay for it ; and we have it, also, in far better
condition. When it reaches our factories, it
will not have been compressed often not
put in bales ; it will not have been drenched
in rains and rolled in the mud of wharves,
nor bleached and rotted by exposure, in its
long travels by land and sea. It must, there
fore, necessarily, make smoother, stronger,
and more durable fabrics, of all descriptions,
here, than can be made of it elsewhere. And
this is fully exemplified by the fact, that both
36
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY PROGRESS OF.
the factory in this city and that at Granite-
ville have, in the very first year of their ope
rations, carried off the highest prizes at
northern exhibitions.
The greatness of a nation mainly depends
on the greatness of its natural advantages,
and the use it makes of them. The highest
gifts of heaven avail nothing in fact, if pro
fuse, they become curses unless judiciously,
skilfully and energetically appropriated. The
wealth of England, which equals all that is
fabled of the East, and the extent and power of
her empire, are all due, in the first instance,
chiefly to a wise and vigorous development
of her natural resources. Surrounded by the
ocean, commerce was evidently a vocation
for her. Possessed of mines, in which coal and
iron are interstratified, she was invited to
manufactures. So soon as she had consoli
dated union and peace within her borders,
she bent herself earnestly to these great pur
suits, and devoted to them her genius, indus
try, and enterprise, until, at length, she has
circled the globe in her giant arms shakes
every bearing tree on its surface, and draws
into her lap the most precious fruits of all its
climes. When the steam-engine and power-
loom, the saw-gin and slave labor, combined
to develop the greatest of all industrious pur
suits, she was prepared to take the lead in it
at once, and distance every competitor, to the
present day ; and McCulloch has exaggerated
nothing, in estimating the value of this pur
suit to her. Great as England was, sixty
years ago, when she received the first bale of
cotton from our shores, and much as she had
done, her power and achievements before
bear no comparison with what she has ac
complished since, and is able to accomplish
now. To speak only of her industrial opera
tions : while all her manufactures have in
creased, even woolens, linens and silks, in
spite of the substitution of cottons and her
annual production of iron has risen from one
hundred thousand to a million of tons her
consumption of raw cotton has grown from
some 1 5,000,000 Ibs. to over 600,000,000 Ibs.
per annum, and the yarn and fabrics she
makes of it exceed in value now all her other
manufactures together. It is this unparalleled
manufacture, thus seized and appropriated,
that has finally made her commerce equal to
that of all other nations, and London the
sole centre of the exchanges of the world ;
while it has so stimulated her agriculture,
that she would now be largely exporting pro
visions, if it had not also, notwithstanding
her extraordinary wars in every quarter of
the globe, and the millions she has lost by
emigration, doubled her population in the
last fifty years an event which has never
happened within a century before.
Yet this manufacture, whose astonishing
fesults of every kind seom more like enchant
ment than reality and in tracing whose ac
tual history, we feel as if we were perusing
some story of magic, in which fairies and
genii make kings of peasants, and build
gorgeous cities of marble and palaces of
gold this wonderful manufacture belongs
of right to us. God, in his bounty, has ma
nifestly designed it, and all for attendant
benefits, for the people of the cotton-growing
region. And he has given us, also, every
physical advantage necessary to its full de
velopment. We have as much sea shore as
England. We command the gulf, appro
priately called the great " Heart of the
Ocean," and through which, brushing our
shores, in a few years more, almost the
whole commerce of the globe will pas- s. We
have coal and iron. We have, besides, im
mense forests and noble streams without
number. W r e have capital and labor, and
the raw material is peculiarly ours. It only
remains for us to prove to the world, that
we have the courage to claim our own, and
the genius and energy to maintain the rights
and secure the blessings which a kind Pro
vidence has bestowed upon us.
I trust it will not be supposed, that, while
thus advocating the encouragement of the
mechanic arts, and extensive manufacturing
among us, I look upon them in any other
light, than as means, not ends ; or, that I
regard them even as the highest means. A
profound philosopher of antiquity has said,
that " occupations of utility and necessity
ultimately terminate in the pursuit of the
beautiful and true." Of this there cannot
be a doubt ; nor that these occupations exer
cise a most important influence on the edu
cation, character and destiny of every indi
vidual and every community of men. W T ho-
ever is incapable of faithful and persevering
industry is not capable of anything great.
But the proper cultivation of the inind and
morals must, in the main, be directed by a
higher conception of the useful ard the ne
cessary, than would confine them to the
mere exercise of any manual or mechanic
art. And in training up a truly great peo
ple, no effort must be spared to enlarge all
the faculties of the intellect, and to purify
and elevate every sentiment of the heart.
These are the springs and guides which
finally sustain and direct all political, social
and industrial institutions, and raise a nation
to true prosperity and grandeur. But I see
no incompatibility between the pursuits I
have endeavored to recommend, and the ex
ercise of the highest powers of the human
mind, and the cultivation of the noblest sen
timents that dignify our nature.
Nor would I be thought, by any means,
desirous to see the mechanical and manufac
turing spirit and influence prevail over the
agricultural, in this state, or in the South.
Of all the industrial pursuits of man, there
is none so free from vicious contamination,
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
37
in all its relations and tendencies, as agri
culture ; none which, if properly conducted,
requires closer observation of natural facts,
more rigid analysis of causes and effects, or
the exercise of higher powers of generaliza
tion ; none better calculated to impress on
man the duties of this life, and lift him to the
habitual contemplation of another. Political
ly, it is nearly impossible that agriculturists
can combine arid act in concert, but on the
basis of truth, of virtue, and of right. If
they are slow to reform, they are conserva
tive of all that is pure in every institution.
It is, therefore, of the utmost importance in
all governments especially in one so demo
cratic as our own and in all social sys
tems especially where, as in ours, so much
equality prevails that the preponderating in
fluence should be agricultural. Arid with its
immense and necessarily permanent supe
riority in wealth and numbers, there should
be no serious apprehension that any other
interest can override it here. If that should
happen, it would prove that the agriculturists
were not true to themselves ; that they no
longer cherished those frugal and industri
ous habits, and that manly spirit, which are
their appropriate characteristics ; and that
they neglected to cultivate those high and
virtuous sentiments, and to imbibe for them
selves, and instill into their children, that
knowledge and love of knowledge, which
constitute, after all, the only genuine sources
of real and enduring power. Gov. Ham
mond.
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE. The
position which the Southern United States
hold to the commercial and industrial world,
is one of the most remarkable phenomena of
modern times. When we reflect upon the
origin of black servitude in America ; its
comparatively valueless results as long as
Great Britain derived direct profit from the
African trade ; its sudden and wonderful
change when, coeval with our national in
dependence, it began to weave that, thread of
cotton which has gradually enveloped the
commercial world, and bound the fortunes of
American slaves so firmly to human progress,
that civilization itself may also be said to de
pend upon the continual servitude of the
blacks in America. With the independence
of America ceased the profits which Liver
pool and London had derived from the Afri
can slave-trade. Simultaneous with that
loss of profit, the philanthropy of Wilber-
force was awakened ; and continued and
persevering efforts were from that moment,
through the space of half a century, made to
bring about the enfranchisement of all blick
slaves. These efforts have been measurably
successful with all countries where the num
ber and importance of the blacks were incon
siderable, France and England afford nota
ble examples of the folly of emancipating a
race incapable of freedom ; and the mind of
the devout person who contemplates the con
dition of the ci-devant slave colonies of those
two powers, must become impressed with
the fact that Providence must have raised up
those two examples of human folly for the
express purpose of a lesson to these states,
to save which from human errors it has, on
more than one occasion, manifestly and di
rectly interposed. It was doubtless the fact
that, at the era of the Revolution, many of
the southern states began to feel the burthen
of unproductive slaves, and that a growing 1
disposition to be clear of them manifested
itself simultaneously with the mammon-
prompted philanthropy of England. A great
danger was thus springing up, when the in
ventions of the cotton-gin, the carding-ma-
chine, the spinning-jenny, and the steam-
engine, combined to weave that network of
cotton which formed an indissoluble cord,
binding the black, who was threatened to be
cast off, to human progress. It may be well,
in this connection, to make a hasty sketch
of the progress which black emancipation,
under English tutelage, has made. The
forcing of Africans upon these colonies by
the English government, against the earnest
remonstrances of the colonies, Virginia in
particular, was a main reason in the list of
grievances, why the authority of the crown
should be thrown off. When this was ac
complished, the discontinuance of the slave
trade was decreed, and the traffic declared
piracy by the United States. The English
government followed this example, and the
republican government of France emanci
pated suddenly the blacks of St. Domingo,
giving over that fine island to the horrors of
black civil war and plunder. From that time
up to 1823, but little progress was made.
In that year Mr. Buxton introduced a bill
into Parliament for the abolition of slavery.
Mr. Canning amended it on its passage, so
as to prepare for gradual emancipation.
Lord Bathurst notified the colonial legisla
ture of the fact. This induced lively remon
strances on the part of the colonists, but
these did not deter the government from
taking those preliminary steps in 1831,
which resulted in the bill presented by Lord
Stanley in 1833, and which was adopted
June 18, and sanctioned by the crown
August 28, 1833. The principles of the
bill were briefly these : After the 1st August,
1834, slavery ceased ; all blacks above the
age of six years became apprentices, under
three heads 1st. Rural Apprentices, at
tached to the soil. 2nd, Rural Apprentices,
unattached. 3rd. Non-Rural Apprentices.
The two first classes were to work six years
for their masters without pay, and the third
class four years. The labor was limited to
45 hours per week, The blacks could fay-
38
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
their time of apprenticeship of their masters,
if they had the means. The power of punish
ment was transferred to the magistrates.
The compensation for the blacks was to be
attherate of their average value in each island,
between the years 1822 to 1830. Thus the
whole number of slaves was 780,993, and their
value, 45,281,738. This sum was paid in
full in cash and work. Thus f ths in money,
amounting to 20,000,000, and the remain
ing four-sevenths iu the right to the work of
the prsedials six years without pay, and non-
prredials four years, The number of claims
was, for praadials attached, 5,562; do, un
attached, 1,708 ; non-prediah, 9,075. The
average valuation was 44 15s, ; the average
money paid for each slave, 19 15s. 4|d.
The work of a slave generation in the West
Indies was valued at 7ith years, and the years
of apprenticeship assigned were considered
fou -sevenths of the pay.
Although the British government, with its
usual self sufficient insolence, laid claim to the
full merit of paying for the slaves, these had
to contribute a large share of the remunera
tion for themselves. This arrangement, how
ever, dissatisfied everybody. The slaves, who
had hoped for immediate emancipation, were
very impatient under this regulation, while
the government agents so harassed the plan
ters, that they were glad to sell out the time
of the apprentices.
In Jamaica, from August, 1834, to August,
1839, $300,000 were paid by apprentices to
masters for unexpired time; and. finally,
when the four years of uon-praedial service
had expired, the planters abandoned the re
maining two years of the prsedials, and Au
gust, 1838, was a clay of jubilee.
The valuators then reported the number of
praedials at 218,669 ; non-praedials, 37,144
total apprentices, 2:55,813. Free children,
under six years, 38.899: aged, 15,656 total,
310,368, against 309,167 apprentices and 38,-
754 free children, returned in 1834 ; showing
an increase of 145 children, and a decrease of
53,354 apprentices.
The first use of freedom was a prompt re
fusal to work at all ; some demanded $1, $2,
and $3 per day. and the best authorities show
that the islands are fast sinking back to a
state of savage nature.
.The productions of the island are yearly
diminishing, notwithstanding an increased
consumption of, and advance in the price of
sugar in England. As the exports of the
West Indies fall, the markets they afford for
the sale of British goods become circumscri
bed. In 1836, they took 3.786,458 of Brit
ish goods; in 1848, 1.434,477 only.
Simultaneously with their West India ex
periment, the British government exerted all
its influence with the small nations of Europe
to procure the nominal emancipation of such
black slaves as were of no material import
ance,, either to the several, states, or to any
considerable interests in any of them. Those
efforts which have been made by the English
ministry to manufacture in Europe freedom
for slaves, as they manufactured a claim
against Greece, and a king for the Mosqui
toes, by means of new clothes and old rum,
serve only as a severe sarcasm upon the whole
system of European governments.
All the nations of Europe, including Eng
land, contain absolute and miserable slaves,
deluded with the name of freemen. Not the
most advanced of these races has reached the
degree of improvement, politically and physi
cally, that marks the black race in the south
ern United States. From the nature of their
geographical position, it results, that although
most of the nations of Europe contain races
whose life, liberty and property are at the
mercy of masters, without appeal from their
caprice, yet none of these are black. In the
United States, none but black hold A subordi
nate position; hence no kind of slavery iu
Europe is bad except black.
In this view, the English government,
after it set rum Sambo astride of a cask of
Jamaica, with the style and title of King of
the Mosquitoes, used its influence to induce
the little piratical nations of Europe which
possessed black slaves, to free them, and get
their pay out of the skins of the white slaves.
The Danish government, followed the English
example of turning slaves into apprentices
without wages.
In 1846 the Swedish government paid
$50,000 to free the few blacks in the island of
Saint Bartholomew, which amounted simply
to turning adrift a few useless negroes. The
most brilliant triumphs of this nature were,
however, in Tunis, Egypt, and Bohemian
Wallachia. In the last-named country, there
is a population of 1,747,815 souls, including
Goths, Gepidne, Huns, Lombards, Tartars,
Turks, and Gipsies. These are all slaves,
most abject, and miserable, hardly above the
savage condition the women being compel
led to do the labor, living in under- ground
caverns, and using dry dung as fuel to cook a
scanty meal. These poor creatures are owned
by a nobility and clergy, who are exempted
from taxes and the payment of private debts.
The most inconsiderable in numbers and
lowest in the social scale, are the Gipsies, of
whom there are about 150,000, owned by in
dividuals and the government, the latter hold
ing about 60,000". They pay 30 piastres, or
$210 per annum, per head, for the privilege
of being at large, upon binding themselves
not to quit the c mntry. In 1846 the govern
ment was induced to waive its ownership of
the"se poor creatures, who are but strolling-
vagabonds, and this " triumph of philanthro
py" was proclaimed throughout Europe as a
long stride towards universal freedom, and an
example to the United States, although the
slavery of all those not belonging directly to
the government remains as before.
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
39
The next "grand triumph" of freedom was a
successful negotiation, in 1847, with the Pacha
of Egypt, for the release of his black
slaves. The population of Egypt numbers
2,500.000 ; the larger proportion being Arab
Egyptians, and are all the property of the
Pacha. There is in Egypt no personal liberty
whatever. The government claims and en
forces its right to the labor of every man,
willing or not willing; and no labor is per
formed unless under the immediate direction
of the government officers, from whom alone
the individual can procure supplies. Amidst
this community, of slaves, there are Caucasian
men and women, white slaves to the rich,
and a few negro slaves brought from Nu-
midia.
The English philanthropy bad such an
effect upon the Pacha as to induce him, March,
1847, to free the last named, allowing tne
rest to remain as before !
Soon after, similar influences began to work
in the Barbary states, where the absolute de
pendence of all persons, in life, liberty and
property, upon the nod of the Bey, makes life
valueless to a man. The trade of these poor,
creatures, who send three caravans a year
into the interior, involves the bringing back
occasionally a few negro slaves. As these
were no particular benefit to the Bey, who
owns the whole 2,500,000 people, he was in
duced by the English agent, for a small con
sideration, to follow the illustrious example of
that ultra-democrat, the Pacha of Egypt, and
alter the style of the servitude of those blacks,
and Exeter Hall had another " triumph," and
again the United States were bnde to imitate j
the glorious example of the Mediterranean
pirates.
The experience of the French government
in its dealings with the black race, has been
even more unfortunate than has been that of
the English. The bloody disasters which
overtook the once magnificent, possession of
St. Domingo, have, for more than half a cen-
tnry, remained a monument of black brutali
ty. Taught somewhat by that lesson, the
French government, in 1831, by a law of
that year, provided for gradual emancipation
in its remaining colonies.
Under the operation of that law, the num
ber of slaves diminished from 294,481 to
253,956, in 1835. The productions of the
islands were not. however, materially check
ed, and the system seemed to work well. The
revolution of February, 1848, repealed the
error towards the blacks committed by that
of 1791, and slavery was suddenly abolished.
That the same bloody results have not fol
lowed, is because the home government
promptly laid the islands under martial law,
as the only means of preserving the whites
from massacre. The presence of a sufficient
force is all that stays for the moment a war
of races.
In relation to labor, the consequences are
the same as in Jamaica, viz., a prompt aban
donment of work at any price. In 1836,
4,932 hands produced in Martinique 6,056,-
990 Ibs. of sugar, or one hhd. each ; in 1849,
the proceeds averaged one hhd. to 34 hands.
The official returns of the French government
for 1849, are not yet received ; those, how
ever, for 1847 and 1843, the last being the
year of abolition, are as follows :
IMPORTS FROM AND EXPORTS TO THE WEST INDIA
COLONIES FROM FRANCE.
Imports Exports Total
1847 73,347,168. .39,954,084. . 113,301,252
1848 35,992,153. . 19,239,604. . 55,231,757
Decrease. . . .frs. 37,355,015. .20,714,480. . 58,079^495
This shows a decline of more than one-half
in the first year, and for 1849 it is greater, as
indicated by customs returns. The sugar im
ported into France fell off one-half, and was
made up by receipts of foreign slave sugar.
The experience in relation to St. Domingo
will be confirmed in the other islands.
We have thus stated roughly the course of
abolitionism, in order to understand the lesson
which it conveys. It is this. The black race
has inhabited the African continent as long at
least as the whites have occupied Europe,
and the yellow and red races Asia. All these
have more or less advanced from the rudest
savage state, in manner and degree, according
to their inherent intellectuality. The black
race, however, has made no progress what
ever. They were without invention, almost
without language, and destitute of the facul
ties or the wish to advance. These beings,
or such of them as had, by the fortune of in
ternal wars, become the victims of their can
nibal captors, were rescued from that fate to
become the forced cultivators of the soil in
the newly discovered countries of America.
A few years of that compulsory labor was
supposed by the English government so to
have changed their natures, that, made free,
they would not resume the indolent and
savage habits which had marked the race
since the creation, but would become so per-
severingly industrious for wages, as to enable
their employers to compete with the slave
owners of Cuba and Brazil, in supplying
Europe with sugar, coffee and cotton ; keep
in employ one-fourth the people of Great
Britain ; maintain her merchant marine, and
enable her to continue her commercial and
mnnufacturing supremacy. The erroneous-
ness of this view has, by experiment, now
been proved to all the world.
The experiment has been sufficiently tested
by emancipation, in the manner we have
sketched, in the colonies of France and Eng
land, and by increase of free blacks among
the whites of the United States; and it has
been proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt,
that the black race cannot even maintain the
position to which they are raised by a few
years of servitude, without continued coer-
40
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
tion. Left to themselves, they will not work,
no matter how great may be the inducements
or facilities, but sink back mentally to the
dark superstitions of their cannibal natures.
This truth has not only been demonstrated,
but admitted by the best English authorities,
even those which formerly were the most
hopeful advocates of black equality. The
policy of the English was, and continues to
be, in relation to its West Indies, to cause
them to be abandoned by the whites, and be
come entirely black colonies, in the sole pos
session of the descendants of slaves.
Already, however, the rapidly sinking con
dition of the colonies has convinced the think
ing men of England, that the scheme is impos
sible ; that to abandon them to the blacks, is
to abandon them to worse than a state of
nature ; and means of retracing the unfortu
nate steps taken appear to be earnestly sought
for.
In contemplating these facts, there pre
sents itself this important consideration,
viz., the four articles which are most neces
sary to modern civilization, sugar, coffee,
cotton and tobacco, are products of compul
sory black labor. Whenever coercion has
been removed from that labor, its productions
have ceased, and the experiments to prove
this fact conclusively, have been made in |
localities where the results, although inju- 1
rious to the experimenters, have not much af- j
fected the general interestsof mankind.
England itself, at this moment, by a sort of
retribution, is in some sort the slave of
southern blacks. She it was that created
American black slavery, and her existence
has now come to depend upon its products.
There are few persons who reflect upon the
immense superstructure of wealth and power
which is reared upon the foundation of
American slave culture of cotton. The
United States trade is almost altogether based
upon that industry. Although the cotton
manufactures are made at the North, they
are based upon slave labor. Some approxi
mation may be arrived at, taking the last
year, 1850.
EXPORTS FROM THE UNITED STATES, 1850.
Southern
produce exported
Cotton, raw 71,984,616...
manufactures
Tobacco 9,951.223
Rice 2,631,557...
Naval stores 1,142,713...
Sugar 23,037...
Hemp 5,633...
4,734,424
Provisions from New-
Orleans 3,523,809 138,691,990
And other articles from
the South 6,000,000
Total 99,997,012
Northern and Western
exports 34,903.221
Total exports 134,900,233
Under the head of " other articles from the
South," are embraced corn and flour from.
Virginia, manufactured tobacco, snuff, and
there might also be included gold to the
extent of & 1 ,000,000 pet annum ; but we have
not included gold in the exports. The pro
visions from New-Orleans embrace flour,
pork, bacon, lard, beef and corn, exported to
foreign ports direct from New-Orleans, and
which are purchased from the north-western
country for sugar, tobacco and cotton sent
up the river, an operation equivalent to an
annual export of those articles The value
is thus given in the New-Orleans price cur
rent, and it will be observed that the whole
amount exported from the Union of these
articles is $19,146,658, consequently one-
fifth of the whole export of farm produce
goes from New-Orleans. It is thus appa
rent that 75 per cent, of the exports of the
Union are the product of slave labor in
northern ships, and that consequently, as the
imports of the country are paid for in the ex
ports, 75 per cent, of the importations are
the remuneration for the product of slave
labor. Inasmuch as that the whole ex
ports and imports of the country, taken to
gether, are derived 75 per cent, from the
slave labor, the same ratio of freight is de
rived by the shipping, which is owned as
follows :
Owned
South..
North . .
UNITED STATES TONNAGE.
Registered Enrolled Total 1848.
159,956 334,845 494,797....
Total 18bO Increase
.... 743,805 249,008
....2,791,649 133,405
1,201,930 1,456,314 2,658,244
Total 1,361,886 1,791,159 3,153,041 3,535,454 482,413
in
of
The registered tonnage is that engaged i
the foreign trade, and the enrolled that
the coasting trade. Although much the
largest portion is owned at the North, the
result of the comparison is, that the increase
to the South in the last two years has been
double that of the North, and/moreover, that
increase of the South has been 50 per cent.
of what was owned in that section in 1848,
a marked step in advance. According to the
official returns, the 2,700,000 tons" of the
United States ships engaged in foreign trade,
make one voyage in a year ; that is to say,
two passages, one out and one home. The
freights will average $12 per ton each way ;
this gives $64,800,000 freights earned in a
year, of which $48, 600,000 is earned by
northern ship-owners by carrying slave pro-
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
41
ducts and their proceeds. The coasting
transportation of southern products by
northern vessels will give $7,000,000, mak
ing 855,600,000 earned by the ship-owners.
To earn this money, it requires that ships
should be built, and the census return for
1840 showed the value of ships built in the
Union for that year to be $7.016,094; and
as the Treasury Reports showed the tonnage
built in that year to be 120,988, which gives an
average of $55 per ton, the census was pro
bably correct. Of the $7,016,094, less than
$300,000 was in slave states ; all the rest
was expended at the North among all those
who live by that manufacturing, lumber-men
who float the monarchs of the forest to the
seaboard for the shipwrights to fashion, ar
chitects, shipwrights, blacksmiths, sheathers,
caulkers, riggers, cordage and sailmakers,
with their backers, the hemp and flax grow
ers, and canvas weavers. Thus affording
immense employment to busy ship-yards,
until the ship "a taunto" has passed the
hands of cabinet makers and upholsterers,
and is ready for her cargo, which employs
gangs of stevedores, cartmen, shopmen and
clerks, with premiums to insurance offices,
until, her shipping articles complete, under
the command of a thriving pilot, 20 stout
seamen, whose families are provided with
" draw bills" for their wages, sheet home her
canvas to the breeze, and she seeks in for
eign climes a profit upon her southern cargo,
to remunerate the outlay of capital that has
created her and given activity to so many in
terests.
The privilege which the northern states
have thus enjoyed in being free carriers for
southern produce to Europe, as well as of
bringing it to their own water-courses for
conversion into goods to be re-carried to the
South, and sold at a profit above the cost of
the raw material, with freights, insurance,
exchange, commissions and wages superad-
ded, has formed the marked distinction which
is manifested between the present condition
of New-England and Canada. Why is it
that the latter, possessed of English enter
prise and capital, and endowed with large
expenditures on such public works as the
Welland and Rideau canals, are impoverish
ed, idle and retrograding, while New-Eng- [
land is advancing with rapid strides to wealth
and power I Clearly because the latter en
joys freely the right to carry and manufac
ture the products of slave-labor, from which
Canada is excluded. This fact, and the fear
of being deprived of the privilege involved,
has excited much interest of late in New-
England ; and C. Haskett Derby, Esq., a
well-known factory and rail-road speculator,
undertook, in the last October number of
Hunt s Magazine, to reply to the able pam
phlet entitled, the " Union, and how to save
it," and published in Charleston. Mr. Der
by s reply had very little force, and we refer
to it here merely as an illustration of a single
point. The pamphlet showed, that as the
exports of the country are mostly from the
South, the proceeds returning in shape of
goods belong to the section whence emanated
the means of paying for them, and the duties
exacted from these goods were therefore
taken from the South. Mr. Derby remarks :
" Let us examine his theories as to duties. It is
a very simple one. Not that the South has directly
paid such duties, for they have been paid principal
ly at the North ; but the whole theory rests upon
the fact that the duties are paid on imports ; that
the South supplies nearly two-thirds the exports of
the Union ; and the duty being levied on the pro
ceeds, are paid not by the consumer, but by the
South."
This is slightly misstated ; the South is both
the consumer of the goods and producer of
the means of paying for them. Again, says
Mr. Derby:
"Take a case in point. A New-England ship
sails for Charleston with a cargo of granite, ice,
fish, and manufactures. She exchanges them for
lumber, rice and cotton. She then sails for Liver
pool, makes freight and profit ; then to Cardiff",
where the proceeds are invested in slate or iron,
and returns to Boston. What has the South to do
with these imports ? They have been bought by the
North and paid for how do they belong to, and
how are they to be divided among the producers of
the exports ? "
The question is not of a few stones, a lit
tle ice, and a few fish, but of that large
amount combined in the last enumerated
word, " manufactures," and which Mr. Derby
slurs over so glibly. Now the robbery consists
precisely in that operation. The manufac
tures" which this New-England ship carries
to Charleston, as the means of buying cotton,
are raised in value 30 per cent, by the pre
sent tariff, and by the old tariff 80 per cent. ;
that is to say, Liverpool being the largest
market, regulates the price of cotton. Fair
cotton is now fourteen cents, and certain
Lowell sheetings 7 cents per yard ; that is
to say, two yards of the latter are given for
one pound of cotton. But the English will
give three yards for one pound. The tarift
says, no ; and the government, for every
three yards imported, takes one. It is not
only the duties upon the articles actually
imported, of which the South pays so large
a share, but upon a corresponding advance
caused by the duty upon all northern manu
factured articles ; that is to say, one-third of all
the produce sold by the South to the North,
and paid for in manufactured goods, is con
fiscated to the use of the manufacturers.
Mr. Derby makes the following very strange
assertion :
" But does the slave use the costly linens, silks,
woolens, liquors, coffee, sugar, tea, and other valu
ables from abroad 1 Clad in coarse attire, eating
his coarser fare, he little knows of such luxuries,
Our imports now average at least ninety dol
lars per head lor our white population. Tue slave
42
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
cannot average one-third of this amount. The great
consumers are the whites, both southern and
et us allow for this difference, and the con
sumption of foreign imports in the slave states will
fall below three-tenths of the entire importation.
The slave states will consequently be found to pay
less than three-tenths of the entire duties, less than
their ratio under the Constitution."
The white population of the Union, by the
present census, will be about 17,000,000.
"Ninety dollars per head" would give for
imports $1,530,000,000, say one thousand
five hundred and thirty millions. The actual
imports are $163,000,000. So much for his
accuracy of calculation. But, says he, the
imports are luxuries which slaves don t use.
We cannot see how that alters the fact. If
by means of a high tariff the northern manu
facturer obtains one third of the southern
produce for nothing, he may, of course, buy
luxuries, or, as we have lately seen done,
buy the office of minister to England, and
become the toady of dukes, or indulge his
taste in any way. Let us take an illustration
from the Massachusetts census.
NUMBER OF COTTON AND WOOLEN FACTORIES, SPIN
DLES AND LOOMS IN MASSACHUSETTS.
Cotton. Woolen.
Factories Spindles Factories Spindles
1840 ...... 276 ...... 624,540 ...... 144 ...... 113,457
1850 ....... 337 ...... 1,220,752 ...... 191 ...... 208,848
It appears that the number of spindles has
doubled, consequently the consumption of
cotton has doubled, and of wool the increase
has been 80 per cent. The capital invested
in cotton has risen from 817,414,079 to
$35,000,000, and the persons employed from
21,000 to 35,000. The South has had to
pay the North 30 per cent, more for woolen
as for other goods, than they would have
been furnished for by the other customers
for rice, cotton and tobacco ; and it is the
operation of this tribute which has caused
the factories to double in ten years. Of the
chief staples of the South, the productions,
exports and home consumption of the last
year have been nearly as follows :
Home Total
Exported Consumption Production
Cotton .......... 71,984,616. .33,615,386. . 105,600,000
Tobacco ......... 9,951,223. 5,048,777.. 15.000,000
Rice ............. 2,631,887. 400,000.. 3^031,557
Naval stores ..... 1,142.713. 800,000.. 1,942,713
u & ar ........... 23,037. 12,396,150.. 12,419,147
Hemp ..... .. ..... 5,633. 690,207.. 695.840
Total ...... $85,738,779. .52,950,520. . 138,689,297
The largest portion of this home consump
tion has been exchanged with the North and
West ; with the latter on equal terms, re
ceiving breadstuff s, provisions, &c., in ex
change. With the North there has been re
ceived merchandise, enhanced one-third in
value by the operation of the tariff, or, as
Mr. Derby expresses it, that produce has
been purchased by the North in exchange for
manufactures. The southern produce was
given at its cash value in the markets of the
world, while the manufactures of the North
were taken at a fictitious value, created by
the operation of the tariff. If, after purchas
ing on such terms, the northern merchant
chooses to export that produce, Mr. Derby
asserts the South has not been fleeced, be
cause the identical articles brought back do
not go to the individual planters. To illus
trate : Suppose fair cotton is twelve cents
per lb., regulated by the cash price in Liver
pool, and that for one lb. of such cotton the
Manchester man will give three yards of a
certain description of cloth, valued at eight
cents. A New- England manufacturer asks
twelve cents for the same cloth, and gets it,
because Congress imposes four cents per
yard on the Manchester cloth. The northern
merchant then sends two yards of cloth, and
obtains one lb. of cottou ; he then sends
abroad the cotton and buys silk with it. Mr.
Derby says the South has nothing to do with
this luxury ! Yet the trade is based upon the
southern product, which has been obtained
by the North., under the operation of the
tariff, cheaper than it otherwise could have
been. In the same manner, a vast northern
capital operates upon the same bases. We
have seen that the shipping is mostly owned
at the North, and draws its revenue from the
southern freights at an average of $10 per
ton. The northern shipping is worth $111,-
665,960. The capital invested in commercial
houses is $81,000,000, including dry goods
and tobacco-shops; in cotton factories, $105,-
000,000 ; in machine-making and other trades
incident to factories, $2,000,000 ; in rail-roads
dependent upon factory prosperity, $30,000,-
000. These items make together $329,665,-
960 of capital employed at the North, which
depends altogether upon slave labor, and
which would be annihilated and valueless in
the event of emancipation, as was the pro
perty of the West Indies. Large as is this
northern interest in the United States depen
dent upon slave labor, it is far inferior to the
British interest, also dependent upon slaves.
One-half of the whole external trade of Great
Britain is dependent upon cotton. Thus, the
declared value of cotton goods exported in
1849 was 26,890,794, say $130,000,000;
and the whole export was 58,848,042, say
$290,000,000. The cotton goods manufactured
constituting so large a portion of the exports,
of course the imports of which, raw cotton,
was 12,838,850, or $54,000,000, purchased
with those goods, are dependent upon the
same basis. The immense shipping interest
also derives its support from the same source.
The amount of British capital directly invested
in cotton is, by the best authorities, given as
follows :
Capital employed in
The purchase of raw material 12.838,850
Wages of operatives 12,000,000
Hand-loom weavers 7.000,000
Mils, looms, &c 35,000,000
Total 66,838,850
Or in United States money $320,826,4"
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
43
The number of factory operatives and hand-
loom weavers and bleachers, 1,300,000, and
the number of persons dependent on the
manufacture, 2,200,000. If we add to the
capital directly invested in cotton the pro
perty which depends upon it in a collateral
manner, the result is not far from $700,000,-
000, and on the continent, $200,000,000,
making, probably, $1,230,000,000 of property,
with 7,000,000 of people, which depend for
their existence upon keeping employed the
3,000,000 negroes in the southern states.
When we reflect upon the vastness of this in
dustrial fabric, reared upon the frail founda
tion of black labor, and find persons rashly
meddling with the only incentive to that
labor, the most stupendous example of hu
man fully presents itself.
The time is, however, rapidly approaching,
when the South and West will manufacture
the greatest proportion of their own raw pro
ducts ; and that large shipping interest in
Europe and the North which depends upon
the transport of the raw products, will find
itself confined to the carrying of goods ; while
the markets of the world will come to de
pend upon the Mississippi valley for wrought
fabrics, as they have hitherto done for the
raw material. New-Orleans may become the
Liverpool of America, communicating by the
father of waters with that vast region which
is to be the Manchester of the world.
The essential difference between the posi
tion of the cotton manufactures in the United
States and Great Britain may be illustrated
by a few figures. The consumption in the
United States last year was given at 595,269
bales, say 238,107,600 Ibs.. which is very
nearly the quantity which Great Britain
manufactured in 1827, that was 249,804,396
Ibs. The difference is in the quantities con
sumed at home, and this is indicated in the
value exported as follows :
CONSUMPTION OF COTTON AND VALUE OF FABRICS
EXPORTED IN UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN.
Value of
Cotton Goods
Cotton, Iba Value exported
G. B., 1827 ...249,804,396.. $34,972,615.. $84,658,382
U. S., 1850. . . .238,107,600. . 26,787,105. . 4,734,424
Thus it appears that the consumption of
cotton goods in England was very small, al
most the whole of the manufacture was ex
ported. In the United States, last year, an
equal quantity was manufactured, and more
than the whole of it consumed, because a
considerable quantity was imported in addi
tion. This is an important difference. The
English manufacture had grown up during a
war, and when there were no manufactures
in any other nation ; she had the supply of
the world, but not the means of consuming
herself. Since then, manufactures all over
the world have sprung up, and the United
States have built up and supplied a market
at home equal to the whole English manu
facture for the world in 1827. The Ameri
can market has, however, become plutted
by home competition. The following figures
give the cotton consumed in the United
States at three periods :
CONSUMPTION OF COTTON PER HEAD IN THE
UNITED STATES.
Cotton, per head.
Cotton, Ibs Population eqvml to yards
1830.. 50,804,800.. 12,866,020.... 4 Ibs... ,..12
1840.. 118,357,200.. 17,069,453.... 7 " 21
1850.. 238,107,600. .22,000,000... 10? " 32&
Such has been the progress of cotton manu
facture and consumption in this country for
twenty years ! It has increased from 12 to
32^ yards each for a population that has in
creased 10,000,000, or nearly doubled. In
a late English return, the weight of cotton
spun in 1849, in England, is given at 626,-
7 10,660 Ibs. ; net weight of yarn, 558,163,-
700 Ibs. ; weight of yarn exported in goods
and yarn, 421,742,935 Ibs. ; weight con
sumed at home, 136,420,765. This, among
a population of 31,000,000, gives an average
of 4| Ibs. each, or 13 yards, being over 19
yards per head less than the United States
consumption. These figures show, in a most
remarkable degree, not only the superior
condition of the people of the United States,
but the over-wrought state of the cotton
manufacture, which is now in a depressed
state, yet cannot compete with England by
exporting to neutral markets, because the
scale of production has been under a system
of protection which forbids sales on a fair
footing with English goods.
It is evident, from the primary fact that a
large portion of the industrial prosperity of
both Old and New England depends upon a
staple drawn from the southern states of
America, that the seat of manufactures has
occupied a wrong locality that is to say, it
has, in relation to facility of production, oc
cupied a position disadvantageous^ situated
when purely economical principles are taken
into account. For the most ready produc
tions of manufactured goods, it is necessary
that all the materials of which they are com
posed should be found, together with the mo
tive power, in neighborhoods capable of pro
ducing the best and cheapest food for the
support of the operatives, and that all these
circumstances should exist, and be easily ac
cessible. It has, however, hitherto never
been the case that all these means have been
combined in any one locality. England has
possessed the most of them, and, in the
earlier years of her progress, sufficient to
supply her demands. Her geographical po
sition is such, surrounded by the ocean, that
no wind can blow from any quarter of the
compass without favoring her commerce.
From which point soever the breeze pro
ceeds, it is fair for the arrival of some of her
ships, and for the departure of others. This
facility of communication before the age of
SOUTH THE FUTURE OF THE.
steam, gave her immense advantages, as it
made her ports the depot for the raw produce
of all countries, and the source whence, after
being wrought up by English industry, goods
were derived by all nations. With such ad
vantages, the business of England could not
but increase, until the demands of her opera
tives for food and raw materials exceeded the
capacity of her own soil to supply them.
The cost of these things to consumers would
then naturally be enhanced by the cost of
transportation and duties on the additional
quantities imported, and thus an enhanced
cost was occasioned at a moment when the
competition of foreigners reduced the price of
the fabrics. The mere fact of a larger trans
portation of raw produce was regarded as a
rd, in a political view, inasmuch as that,
employing more shipping, it fostered that
navy on which England depended ; but if
that cost carried prices beyond the point at
which foreigners could compete, it defeated
its own object. The government, therefore,
removed duties on raw produce, on food, and
iinally abolished the navigation laws, in or
der that all those things might be supplied in
England at cheaper rates. The virtual effect
of these measures was to extend the breadth
of English soil, because they placed at the
command of her people the products of vast
tracts of land in other regions. Gradually,
however, the countries which produced the
most of those raw products, came to work j
them up into goods, and by this competition j
to reduce the prices of fabrics ; and the Eng
lish returns show that, while the quantities
of food and raw material imported were im
mensely increased, the value of goods made
from them was not increased. In the year
1842, the policy of admitting food and raw-
materials began to be adopted ; we have
compiled a table of the progress of the
country since that year. In this connection
it may be well to allude to the financial diffi
culties of the English government which led
to this change. For many years prior to
1842 the revenue was deficient, and every
means had been adopted to swell the amount.
In 1840, the Chancellor, Mr. Baring, had
caused to be imposed an additional duty of
five per cent, upon all imports. By his cal
culation that amount would cover the deficit.
The result was the reverse. The customs,
after the imposition of the five per cent,, did
not yield so much as before. The ministry
changed, and Sir Robert. Peel s principle was
adopted. This was by remitting duties to
promote a larger consumption of the taxed
articles, and, by so doing, to enable the peo
ple to pay. Since that time, duties, amount
ing to nearly 11,000,000, say $50,000,000.
have been remitted, and the aggregate cus
toms revenue has increased $10,000,000.
In order to show the details of which the
table is composed, we annex the following,
showing the actual quantities of food and
leading raw materials imported for consump
tion in 1836, and for the last three years c
QUANTITIES OF FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS IMPORTED INTO GREAT BRITAIN.
Animals...
...No .
1836
1847 1848
219,679 203,440...
17,203 7,717 ..
90,530 211 315
1849
.... 185,235..
12 ?82
1850, 8nas. to
Sept- 5.
98,742
9,346
Hams
Bacon
. . . cwt . .
none. ..
1,433 .
. 384,325 .
295,040
105,918
211,239
208,592
320,504
181,170
..,.4.206,784
590.510
161,733
215,088
Beef
Butter ...
Cheese ...
Rice
Pork
Sugar
Molasses. .
Tallow....
u
1 222
112,683
314,126
354,802
.. 144,857...
.. 294,427...
.. 441.635..
.... 144,638..
.... 282,501 . ,
.... 397,648..
.... 925,316..
.... 347,352..
. .6,925,8"> t,.
...1,062,661..
...1,468,719..
.... 185,838 .
n
ii
a
143,149..
134,643..
98,227...
29..
3,856.562..
. 622 479
...1,560,402 996,372...
235,798 254,070 . . .
....8,209,527 6,869,931...
949,823 517,534...
....1,099,275 1,498,359...
..342,040...
1 005 276
Lard
Total.,.. " 5,863,020 18,944,168 11,547,757 12,187,136 6,506,106
Cocoa Ibs...
Coffee ,
Pepper "
Tea ..
Tobacco
Pimento " . .
1,084,170 5,716,375 6,442,986 7,769,234 1,063,129
23,275,041 37,472,153 37,153,450 34,431,506 20,967,150
2,359,573 2,967,000 3,125,545 .3,296,079 1,906,734
.... 36,574,004 46,326,582 47,774,755 53,460,751 34,334.900
21,803,775 26,545,020 27,098,314 27,488,621 18,109,321
344,458 1,366,625 2,338,200 3,881,800 21,500
Total " 85,461,026 120,391,755 123,933,250 129,327,991 177,596,234
420,024 12,303,751 6,327,244 11,862,900 6,089,098
326,407,692 486,951,800 717,443,100 758,841,600 485,877,200
Flour and Grain in quarters.
Cotton " ; _^. 5
Wool " . . .~42 ,7i8 ,514 . . .
S lk " 5,658,211...
Hemp 72,352,200 . . .
Flax 81,916,100. ..
. 62,592,598 69,343,477 75,100,883 55,350,864
. . .5,603,915 9,593,724 7,021,761 4,981,676
.91,301,100 95,177,100 119,127,300 55,137,040
.118,460,012 164,666,100 203,009,900 114,102,675
r tal - " 531,237,896 764,849,425 .. . .1,053,321,701 . . . .1,163,092,444. . . .715,469,451
If we now taie the cwts. and Ibs. together in Ibs. for each year, we have results as fol
lows :
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
45
Aima!.
No.
1836 none
1842 5,340
1843 2,100.
1844 8,008.
1845 28,675.
1846 122,458 .
1847 219,679.
1848 203,440.
1849 185,235.
Flour and (Train
in quarters.
... 420,024
..2,572,620
1,379,290
....2,780,392
1,308,260 ..
4,056,414 ....
12,303,751
6,327,224....
11, 882,900.. ,.
Food,
Ibs.
Raw Material!,
EL
772,275,871 670,868,216
778,971,593 732,507,490
........ 599,362,269 884,287,381
843,214,168 922,924,124
948,615,050 1,038,859,643
961,234,984 741,607,365
1,576,810,655 704,849,425
1 ,433,305,932 1 .053,221 ,501
1,490,480,220 1,163,092,444
This increase of food and raw materials
imported for the use of English operatives is
almost incredible. The dye stuffs, of which
the weight for 1849 was 185,249,650 Ibs., are
not concluded. If we estimate the cost of
transportation at the simple freight now cur
rent, it will give a high figure. Freights are
now very low a bushel of grain is carried
from New- York to England for 10 cents, and
3 Ibs. of cotton for one cent. If we take
these two figures as the average for all the
freights, it will be far within the mark ; the
cost will then stand as follows :
Quarters, Freight,
Grain. Dollars.
1842 ........... 2,582,620 .......... 2.058,096
1844 .......... 2,280,392 .......... 2,224,314
1849 .......... 11,882,900 .......... 9,506,320
Food and Materials,
Ibs.
1,511,479,083 ......
.. 1 ,766,138,292 ......
2,653,672,672 ......
Freight, Total
Dollars. Freight.
....5,038,268 7,696,359
....5,887,127 8,110,441
. . . .8,345,242 17,851,562
If we now compare these freights with the
declared value of textile fabrics, we have re
sults as follows :
1849 1844 1849
Freights $7,096,369. . .8,111,541. .17,831.562
Value Exports. .$150,765,298.190,925,705.193,991,780
As compared with 1844, the amount of
freights has increased $9,700,000, while the
value of the goods has risen but $3,000,000.
Thus, without taking into account the price
of the articles, the freight account is 6,700,000
or 3^ per cent, against the English manufac
turer : and that difference, as seen in the
table, is constantly increasing. The effect of
the famine year, 1847, was to enhance the
import of food and diminish that of raw ma
terials, since when both items are more than
ever.
It is now very apparent, from the general
principles evolved in these tables, that Eng
land cannot continue to increase her demands
for food and materials brought from a dis
tance, and compete with those countries
which have all these things within themselves,
and with which the freight amount is nothing.
What a strange absurdity it is to see silk
going from China and France ; cotton from
the southern United States ; wool from
Australia ; coffee and sugar from Brazils ;
wheat from New-York, Michigan, Odessa
and Poland ; hemp and flax from St. Peters
burg ; pork and lard from Ohio and Illinois,
all concentrating in Lancashire, to be returned
in the shape of goods to the localities whence
they came ! Such a state of things never
could have been brought about but for the
geographical position of England giving her
control of the ocean. The progress of inter
nal improvements making land carriage
equally favorable with that by water, has de
veloped regions like the valley of the Missis
sippi, where all those articles which the
marine of England seeks in every section of
the world, exist together, of the best qualities
and in limitless abundance ; land and its pro
duce, raw materials and motive power, lie in
juxtaposition, and goods can there be turned
out in such a manner that England s freight
account alone will be a prodigious profit to
the manufacturer.
The position of New-England is very simi
lar to that of old England. We find coal and
iron going thither from Pennsylvania ; sugar,
cotton, pork and flour, from New-Orleans ;
wool and food from Illinois and Wisconsin,
to be sent back in the shape of goods. It
was the water-power and industry of New-
England that made the cost of transportation
light ; but improvements in steam machinery-
has made power " locomotive," and motive
power is now existent in the midst of those
materials which nature has with such prodi
gality bestowed upon the South, and the
blacks are equally serviceable in factories as
in fields. There are conditions which shadow
forth the greatness and power of the South,
and as she rises in power and wealth she will
elevate the black race with her. She will
have, however, to encounter the jealous ha
tred of rivals whose philanthropy will be de
veloped as her prosperity increases. It is,
however, through the long lesson of industry
taught by white surveillance, that the great
work of regenerating the black race can be
accomplished. T. P. Kettell.
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY. It has be
come very apparent within the last fifteen
years, that the leading object of southern
industry is far less productive than it was in
the infancy of the cotton culture ; that is to
say, the average prices of cotton have not
been maintained, even although the produc
tion has not largely increased since 1840.
This diminished value of production appears
to be progressive, growing out of causes
46
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
which have developed themselves in the
thirty-five years of peace which the world at
large has enjoyed since 1815. In all that
time, communication with distant countries
has been multiplied, new sources of supply
-and demand have been opened, and great
as has been the improvement in the demand
for those articles which constitute the mate
rials of manufacturing industry, the raw
materials have been supplied in greater
abundance, causing a continued fall in the
values of each. Taking England as the
workshop of the world, we may construct a
table of raw materials imported from time to
time.
IMPORTS RAW MATERIALS INTO ENGLAND.
1835
1840.
1845.
1850 . . .
Hemp Flax Silk
72 352.200. . . . 81,916,100 . . .4,027.649
. 82,971 ,700 .... 1 39,301 .600 .... 3,860,980 .
103,416,400 .... 159,562.300 . . . 4.058,737 .
117,971,100 . . . .204,928,700. . . .4,942,417,
Wool Total Ibs. Cotton
.41,718,514. . . . 196,013,963 . . . .326,407,692
.50,002,976. . . .276,137,356. . . .531,197,817
.59,813,855. . . .325,851,292. . . .682,107,700
72,674,483. . . .400,516,700. . , .714,502,600
1851, 10 mos. . . . . . . . . . .117,504,000 . . . 98,645,300. . . ,3,863,651 . . . .69,921,106 . . . .290,637,556. . . .666,223.760
Thus each of the five great materials of j
textile fabrics was greatly increased in sup- j
ply, and some of them in a greater proportion I
even than cotton. From 1835 to 1850 the j
last rather more than doubled in quantity, j
that is to say, in the last year the import j
was 388 millions pounds greater than in j
1835. So, also, of the four articles, the import
was 204 millions pounds greater. It will be
observed, that this is only the increased re
ceipt of raw materials into the workshops of
England. Those of the continent have re
ceived similarly increased quantities. Now,
if we compare the quantities of those articles
which England has derived from the United
States in each year, we have results as
follows :
Cotton export
U. S, to G. B.
1835 ...270,084,400...
1840 494,915,090...
1845 605,144,686 . . .
1850 431,531,091 . . .
1851
Q. B. import cotton s
Ibs.
Four other articles,
Ibg.
Total import,
raw material, Ibs.
In 1835 the United States furnished one-
half of the raw material of English manufac
ture ; in 1850, about one-third only. Not
withstanding the continued fall in prices,
other raw materials work more and more
into fabrics which but a short time since were
exclusively cotton, and the same operation
apparent in this table of English consump
tion manifests itself also in all the markets
of the continent, as well as in the United
States. Through its means, the profits of
the cotton culture are materially reduced, as
also are the profits of English manufactures
under general competition.
It will be observed of three principal ma
terials, silk, cotton, and wool, that the
events of the last quarter of a century have
tended to promote supply more particularly
in the last ten years, in which time the Chi
nese trade has been brought into greater regu
larity in supplying silk, and Australia has
become the great wool country, while the
United States cotton power has been emi
nently developed. In the same period, also,
the industry of Russia has received a more
intelligent development, supplying greater
quantities of hemp and flax at cheaper rates.
All these sources have enhanced the supply
of raw material for textile fabrics fifty per
cent in ten years, and, perhaps, somewhat
faster than the demand for the goods pro
duced would take them up. The influence
of one material upon the other has been c^n-
326,407,692 .196,013.963 522,421,655
531,197,817 276,137.856 807,335,073
682,107,200 325,851.292 1,007,958,992
714,502,600 400,510,700 1.115,009,300
. , . . . 666,223,760 290,537,056 956,760,816
tinually made more effective by the ingeni
ous combinations of the cheapest among
them into the new fabrics. Thus, fabrics of
silk and wool, wool and cotton, silk and
cotton, - silk, cotton and wool, have all
assumed different textures and different pro
portions of each material, according to the
relative cheapness of each ; consequently,
the price of any one has always been checked
by that of the others, and the value of ail
has been influenced by collateral circum
stances. Thus, the strange operations of
the so-called republican government of
France, in 1848, injured the trade of the
world. The genius of republicanism is in
dividual, state and national independence ;
the intelligent and self-dependent exercise of
the individual faculties make up the sum of
a nation s prosperity. The great evils which
overtake France and the other countries in
Europe flow from centralization. The go
vernment, by means of taxes, absorbs the
sum of the nation s earnings into the national
treasury, and disburses it thence in the sup
port of officers, cliques, and interests. It
was supposed that when the revolution took
place, that this state of things would be done
away with ; that the onerous taxes under
which the people groaned would be remitted,
and that a cheap government would permit
the individual energies of the people to de-
i yelop themselves. Instead of this, a most
[ iniquitous and ignorant clique of demagogues
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
47
gained power, increased the taxes, and gave
a new impulse to the pernicious centraliza
tion. Thus, under the absurd pretence of
employing people, the government ordered
10,000,000 fr. worth of silk, in one order, at
Lyons. They paid for it Si per yard out of
the public treasury, and sold it at auction at
25 cents per yard. That silk was bought
mostly by New- York houses, and may now
be seen and recognized by its rich tri-color,
supplanting cotton material in linings for
garments. This is one item only out of a
vast number of fallacies committed by the
most disgusting demagogues that ever bur
lesqued government. Such operations des
troy the profits of regular industry, by inter
fering with those immutable laws which
cannot be disturbed without inflicting injury
upon regular business, and that injury has
been more or less apparent in the present
year.
A singular combination of circumstances
seems now likely for a time to reverse that
course of events which, for so long a time,
has multiplied the raw materials. Among
the most prominent of these are the gold
discoveries of California, Sandwich Islands
and Australia. The tendency of this, par
ticularly in the latter country, is to check if
not destroy the wool crops in those regions
the shepherds having very generally desert
ed their flocks for the gold regions.
The case of the Australian colonies, (for
this purpose they may all be considered as
one,) are as different as can possibly be
imagined ; besides the usual occupations of
agriculture, they have, as everybody knows,
become a field for pastoral enterprise on a
scale of unequaled magnitude. The sheep, !
which constitute their principal wealth, are
divided into flocks counting from four
hundred to a thousand in number, each of
which is intrusted to the care of a single
shepherd. Two of these flocks are generally
driven together to the same station, where
a third person resides, whose duty it is to
change the hurdles and watch the sheep by
night. The country being infested by wild
dogs, it is absolutely necessary that some
one should always be present with the sheep, |
in order to protect them from this cause of
destruction, and the force required for this [
purpose is about three men to every twelve
hundred sheep. Now, in the year 1848, the
number of sheep in New South Wales and
Port Philip exceeded eleven millions six
hundred thousand, not to speak of the flocks
of South Australia or Van Diemen s Land.
It is not, probably, unreasonable to calcu
late, that in the three years which have
elapsed since this return was made, the
number of sheep has increased to at least
fourteen millions. This enormous amount
of property exists from day to day by virtue
of the unceasing care and attention bestowed
upon it by the shepherds, under a rigid sys
tem of central superintendence ; without
that care, it could not exist for a single week.
Now, let our readers imagine the effect
which must be produced on the mind of the
proprietors of these fourteen millions of
sheep by the information that a gold field
has been discovered, which is certain to
attract away from their existing engagements
every shepherd and hut-keeper in their em
ployment. It will be vain to attempt to re
tain them by offers of increased wages. One
employer of labor may compete with another,
but who can bid against the imaginary
riches of an El Dorado, in which every ad
venturer expects to find a splendid fortune
impatiently awaiting his acceptance.
Nor is this all. The shearing of the sheep,
which takes place about the month of Octo
ber, is an operation not generally intrusted
to the shepherds, but to persons who travel
round the country for the purpose. Shear
ing cannot be long deferred in Australia
without ruin to the fleece, from the presence
of a seed of a particular grass, well known
to the purchasers at our wool sales. If the
fleece is not shorn before November, it is
very greatly deteriorated in value. Now,
those professional sheep-shearers are exactly
the persons who, from their itinerant way
oflife and reckless habits, will be the first to
swell the ranks of the gold-finders. Add to
this, that the reckless and desperate charac
ters who, having served their sentence of
transportation, now swarm in all the Aus
tralian colonies, will flock to the gold-field
as a common centre, not so much with a
view to labor as to profit by those opportuni
ties of plunder which such a scene of confu
sion and excitement must necessarily afford,
and we have enumerated causes quite
sufficient to overthrow a social and economi
cal system far more firmly established than
that of New South Wales.
In China, the production of silk threatens
to undergo change in the next year, in con
sequence of the apprehended convulsions in
British India. That infamous government
is, it is well known, supported almost en
tirely by the fiendish opium trade ; and even
the mercenary philanthropy of the English
is so shocked by it, that there is very little
doubt but that the charter of the East India
Company, which expires in May, 1853,
will fail to be renewed. A company so pow
erful, having at its control 350,000 troops,
will not, however, relinquish its power. It
can conquer China, and throw open the
opium trade, by which its consumers may
from 5,000,000 be increased to 50,000,000,
and the speedy depopulation of even that
country, which counts its inhabitants by
hundreds of millions, may be effected. The
appalling crime of poisoning a tchole nation
to become possessed of its country, is actu-
48
ally in contemplation by the English philan
thropists. ,.
In Russia, the threatening aspect of Euro
pean politics is such as to threaten a dis
turbance of that inland peace which has so
fostered and developed the flax culture.
These events, which may diminish the sup
ply of three great staples, are, however,
likely to promote a greater supply of cotton.
The emancipation of India, and the applica
tion of English capital to cotton production
and transportation, we are assured by Mr.
Bonvncre, in the work before us, would pro-
J o . J , , _ / A i TTi 4.^,1
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
alluded, the southern United States have felt
the increasing necessity of varying the pro
ductions, by producing more food to supply
the plantations wilh necessaries, in order to
obviate the purchase of them, and something
like a retrograde movement has manifested
itself in respect of cotton. In the early his
tory of the cotton trade, indigo and many
other productions entered into the industry
of the planters; but these were speedily all
absorbed in the superior profits of cotton,
which has, as we have seen, gradually di
minished in profit before the increasing com-
tnVf Ie IJnited petition of mh7r raw materials, aud the in-
duce a supply equal to that of the Unit d 8kilfulneM of the ir application.
States in quantity and quality ; and the di-
Otcitco ill uu**xv*vj <.* -* vj...-.-j ,
minution of the quantities already sent to
China would throw back upon the European
merchants an increased supply to encounter
the enhanced production of Egypt and Tur
key, where the sultan has, by the distribu
tion of seed and other modes of encourage
ment, sought to engage his subjects in the
culture, and with more or less success. The
French in Algiers are also not without a
certain degree of success in that culture,
while the high prices of the past year have
drawn such quantities from the British and
the West Indies, as to afford striking evi
dence of the ability of those regions to sup
ply under continued high prices.
& ^ therefore> manilest . ed itself a de-
vsire to raise other articles, in order to divide
the labor and expenses of the plantation.
Possibly to this lact, added to the deteriora
tion of many cotton lands, may be ascribed
ihe stationary character of the production
since 1840. In the last five years the num
ber of bales produced has been 11,306,844,
an increase of ten per cent., only, over the
previous five years.
It is to be considered in this connection
that the products of the slave states have not
increased materially per hand in the present
century, exclusive of the cotton crop. If we
take a table of the export values of the lead-
i i _t .1 t ___
[y under continued high prices. m g southern staples with the total number
During the course of the competition from O f slaves, the total production will appear to
the other raw materials to which we have i ue nea rly as follows :
Naval
Storei
1800
1810
1830 . . .
1840.
460,000
473,000.
292,000
321,019
Rice Tobacco
.2,455,000.. 6,220,000..
.2,626,000.. 5,048,000..
.1,714,923.. 8,118,188..
Sugar
Cotton Total $
.. 5,250,000.. 14,385,000.
.. 15,108,000.. 23,255,000.
,500,000.. 26,309,000.. 37,934,111.
1,986,824.. 8,833, 11 2.. 3,000,000.. 34,084,883.. 45,225,838.
1,942,076. .9,883,957.. 5,200,000.. 74,640,307.. 92,292,260.
1850 1,142,713.. 2,631,557.. 9,951,023.. 14,796,150.. 101,834,616.. 130,556,050.
1851 . .
.1,063,842.. 2,170,927.. 9,219,351. .15,385,185.. 137,315,317.. 165,034,517.
No.
SlBVCB
893.041 .
1,191,364.
1,543,688.
2,009,053.
2,487,355.
,3,179,509.
,3,200,000.
Produc
tion TJCI
hand
.16 10
.19 50
.24 63
.22 66
37 11
.43 51
.51 90
These figures for naval stores, tobacco and
rice, are the export values, and not the whole
production, of which there is no accurate re
cord. The figures lor cotton are the crop
valued at the export rate in official returns.
Those for sugar and molasses are those of the
New-Orleans prices current. As all these
products are the results of slave labor, in
addition to what supplies food for consump
tion, they are very nearly the exchangeable
values produced per hand, and the increase
has been pretty regular, with the exception
of the decade 1820-30, during which the op
pressive tariffs of 1816-24-28 were in opera
tion. The increase by this scale has been
iu fifty years $27 41 each hand, and the com
forts of the workers have increased in a simi
lar ratio. If, now. we deduct cotton from
the aggregates, it appears that the production
per hand in 1800 was $11, and in 1350, $8,
a decline of $3 per hand. Probably one
reason of the decline is the less rigorous
treatment of the blacks. Their natural idle
ness of temper has been more indulged, and
they have been more liberally supported ;
consequently there has been an absence of
those devastating insurrections which were
so frequent in the West Indies, and which
led to abolition.
The average production of the cotton states
per hand and per head of the whole popula
tion was as follows :
1800...
1810.
SUves
893,041 . . .
1,191,364...
Product
per hand
$16 10.,
..19 50
1820
1830
1840
1850
1,543,688...
2,009,053...
2,487,355...
3,179,589...
24 63.
22 66 .
37 11.
43 15.
Whites
.1,702,980....
.2,208,785
Total Population
including
free blacks
...2,621,361....
.3,480,904....
Product
per head
$6
.2,842,340....
.3,660,558....
.4,632,640
4,502,224....
5,848,303....
7,384,434
.""*. 8
,. 8
11
.6.432.669...
...9.630.889
. 13J<
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
Thus cotton has been the main article for
employing the blacks, as it has alao been of
northern industry. The manufacture of cot
ton at the North has now reached the same
extent as had that of England in 1830. Thus
the quantity consumed in the United States
in 1350 was 609,237 bales per census, which,
at 400 pounds per bale, gives 243,694,800
pounds. M CulIoch gives the extent of the
English coton trade in 1880 ; and if we as
sume his figures as the rare for the manufac
ture of the same quantity in the United
States, the result is as follows:
M CULLOCH S COTTON TRADE.
1830.
240,000,000 Ibs. cotton, 7d 7,000,000
Wages, 800 weavers, spinners, bleachers,
22 10s. per year 18,000,000
100,000 engines, machinists, smiths, <fec.,
at 30 each , 3,000,000
Wages, superintendence, machine mate
rials, coals, &c., and profits, &c 6,000,000
Total 34,000,00
Value goods exported 19,428,664
Value consumed at home . 14,571,336
UNITED STATES COTTON TRADE.
1850.
243,694,800 Ibs., 11^ c $26,775,000
Wages per Census.
33,151 males $7,846,536
59,136 females 8,440,968
16,287,504
80,000 engineers, &c., at $400 32,000,000
Wages, metals, profits, fcc 35,000,000
110,062,504
4,734,424
$105,328,080
By this calculation, the value of cotton
goods made in the United States is $110,062,-
504, from the same quantity of cotton which
yielded a value of $173,000,000 in England
in 1830. This calculation gives the raw cot
ton at the actual export average of the year,
which was not quite so high as the price in
England in 1831, but does not embrace the
cost of transportation to the factories. McCul-
loch gives the average wages of spinners,
weavers and bleachers, at about $2 00 each
per week. The American wages are $3 00
for girls, including board, and $4 00 male
and female. The average wages of other
parties employed are higher in the United
States than in England. The census value
of the cotton goods made in the Union is
$61,869,184, or forty-four millions less than
that arrived at as above. The census can,
however, in no degree, be depended upon,
at least as far as the tables which have yet
appeared afford evidence by analysis. This
result follows, however, that England sold
more than half her whole manufacture, while
the United States consumed the whole of the
same quantity made, and they found a market
VOL. III.
among those who produced they
and the producers of the raw u..
for the wrought ^oods prices enhanceu . ^
the tariS 30 per cent, above what the same
goods could have been purchased for else
wherethat is to say, on $105.328,000 worth
of goods, $40,000,000 tribute was paid to the
manufacturers by the consumers of goods.
By these means it is that the aggregate pro
duction of the southern states averages, on
data furnished by the census of 1840, $58 per
head of all the population, while those of the
New-England states average $84 per head.
The manufacturers, almost with one accord,
assert that they cannot continue operations
without a tariff which shall enable them to
obtain such prices from the consumers of
goods as will enable them to pay high wages
to operatives that is to say, slave labor must
pay the high wages of white labor at the
North. Suppose now, that slave labor did
not exist, that neither raw material was fur
nished to manufacturers from the South, nor
a market afforded to them for their wrought
fabrics, would the wages of the North ave
rage as high as they have hitherto done ? If
the process was reversed, and the North had
to pay the South 30 per cent, advance on
their products, the average of the southern
products would by so much be enhanced,
and that of the North be diminished in the
same ratio that is to say, from an average
of $84 per head at the North, production
would sink to an average of $60, and the
average southern production from $58 would
rise to 71 per head ; instead of being $24 less,
it would be $11 per head more than the ave
rage of northern productions.
The object of the work of Mr. Bonynge,
which we have now under notice, is to bring
about some such result as this, viz., by diver
sifying the industry of the South with a greater
variety of products, at least as profitable in
their culture as cotton, to equalize the profits
of the two regions, and cause the industry of
the South to enrich that region as well as the
North. The objects of cultivation which he
proposes to introduce are tea, coffee, indigo,
mango, bamboo, india rubber, cane, lime,
nutmeg, citron, &c. The leading articles are
the three first. The quantities of these arti
cles consumed in the United States, England
and France, are
Coffee 232,000,000 Ibs. . . .
Tea 70,000,000 ...
Indigo 20,000,000 " ...
Total 322,000,000
$98,000,000
Mr. Bonynge has been a successful indigo
planter, and a successful tea planter, in the
East; and he affirms and shows that these
vast crops can be produced in the United
States as profitably as any other product, and
in as great quantities. Indigo, it is known,
was one of the first staple exports of tha
J
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
southern colonies, and still grows wild, wait
ing to receive a little of that improved and
scientific attention which ha* been withheld
from it daring seventy yeijrs. In some lo
calities of the South it still continues to be
raised, and the export returns of the present
year show an export value of $3,000 domes
tic indigo. At the commencement of the
present century, before cotton had absorbed
all the energies of the South, there was ex
ported 134,000 pounds of indigo, at G2 cents
per pound. Since that time the demand for
indigo has increased in the proportion of the
supply of raw materials requiring to be co
lored ; and the East Indies now export
13,000,000 pounds of indigo, which sells on
the spot in Calcutta for $1 to $2 per pound,
and the fine-t descriptions at $2 45 Thus,
the relative value of cotton and indigo has
changed places : the former, in half a cen
tury, has fallen from $1 to 8 cents per pound,
and the latter has risen from 62 cents to $2.
The culture of indigo has been abandoned to
India, where, in spite of the high prices, the
infamy of the government, the robberies by
the officers, the inroads of the Tartars, the
idleness of the people, the uncertainty of the
seasons, conspire to destroy profits. All these
circumstances reduce the chances to one
good year out of three. Mr. Bonynge shows
pretty conclusively, that the plant may be
raised advantageously in the southern states,
without any of these drawbacks upon suc
cess. He describes the process of culture
and manufacture thus :
"The land is plowed or hoed, say some nine
inches deep, and the soil is pulverized, i. e., clods
well broken, roots of grass and weeds carefully
taken away ; then the seed, mixed like flax-seed
with clay, is cast in the ground, and a very light
harrow ; a bush with moderate weight on it is used
often in India. If weeds spring up with the plant, it
would be necessary to take them out ; the plant,
after a few showers, covers over the land, and keeps
down all weeds. It grows even to some six feet
high, varying from four feet to five feet. When it
gets, or before it gets, to its full height, and before
the leaves get yellow in the least, the plant should
be cut, and carried to the factory the same day. All
plants should be cut very early in the morning, and
then placed in the vats, or otherwise not to be heap
ed up to get heated. Each vat may be made to hold
from 5,600 to 8,000 Ibs. of plants. The plant is all
eaced horizontally in the vat, and when filled up,
ardles are laid up on the top of the plant, and
beams are laid across the hurdles ; the ends of the
beams being secured at the side walls of the vat.
The water is then poured in, and the plant is steep
ed for ten hours or upwards, depending on the heat
very much. The water is then drawn off from a
vent, at the bottom of the vat, into another vat built
at the base of the one in which the plant had been
steeped. The beams are then raised off the hurdles,
and the hurdles taken away ; and the steeped plant
is taken out of the vat, and made use of for fire
wood. A large quantity of potash might be obtain
ed from it.
" The water being drawn off from the upper vat
the steeped plant is then beaten up by six men en
tering into it, and beating with their hands until the
coloring matter which is contained in it begins to
show itself in small atoms. The men then got out,
and the indigo or fecula subsides, and soon after the
water is drawn off. There are two vents in the
lower vat ; the upper vent is for drawing off the
water, the lower one for drawing off the indigo, and
a quantity of the water which could not be well
drained off, without disturbing the fecula. The fe
cula is then put into a small vat, either of wood or
masonry, and allowed to rest some time, and then
more of the water is drained off. It is then taken
to be boiled in a boiler generally from six to ten feet
square, and four or five deep, and all froth carefully
skimmed off. It takes five or six hours to boil it.
The boiler is made of copper or iron, as the party
may fancy.
" When boiled, it is let out from a vent in the bot
tom of the boiler into a vat, where the fecula soon
subsides, and more of the water is then drawn off.
It is then filled into square cases, pierced with
small gimlet holes at about two inches apart ; in
the wooden square is placed a cloth fitting to the
square ; and then the boiled indigo, still retaining
a good deal of water, and consequently of a thin
consistency, is filled into the square ; a lid is then
placed on the top of the square, which fits into it,
and all is placed under the press ; and as the lid
is pressed down into the square, it forces the
water through the cloth, and through the holes in
the side of the frame ; then when all the moisture
that can be pressed out is done so, the sides of the
square or box are taken off, and the indigo left on
what had been the bottom. The whole is then di
vided by a board, or measure, into eight parts, and
cut through by a piece of wire, giving sixty-four
squares ; then each square or cake is placed on a hur
dle in the shade to dry. The doors of the drying
house are locked up, and the indigo in that state
takes a month to dry ; when it is packed in a strong,
coarse case, and sent to market.
" In precipitating the indigo, it is not good to use
anything. Lime is destructive, and gum makes it
hard, and liable to crack, which is not liked."
He, then, following his own experience,
gives the cost of culture and manufacture in
India, with the probable expense in Ame
rica :
" I will give the above items in tabular order, with
an estimate of the probable expenses in America :
Cost of 200 to 250 monds,
or 16,000 to 20,000 Ibs.
plant, say $36 00 to 40 00
Three men to fill and
empty 3 vats 15 cents.
Raising water for 3 vats. 25 "
Half of one man s salary
to boil 6 "
Nine men to beat 3 vats. . 45 "
Two men to press the in
digo 10 "
Expenses of conveying
200 monds, say $2 00 "
Fireman 5 "
Wood 30 "
Packing and chest, sixty
cent. 3% mouds 20 "
$3 56 $3 56 to 3 56
Total expenses per 75 Ibs $39 56 to 43 56
To which arc to be added expenses of law-suits, loss
of advances making it at the very lowest, 53 dol
lars.
PROBABLE EXPENSE IN AMERICA.
" It is necessary to ascertain in some way the
produce per acre. Thirty monds would be a good
produce per biggah ; the biggah measures 20 khu-
dams (steps) of five feet each ; the step in India, or
khudam, is the space between where the right foot
is raised from the ground, to where it rests on the
ground again twenty khudams, equal, therefore,
100 feet ; that squared is 10,000 feet 43,560 square
feet in an acre therefore 4% or more biggahs in an
acre, and consequently there would be 130 monds,
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
51
or 10,400 Ibs. of green plant on an acre. The biggah
Was generally calculated five to an acre.
" But as the above is my own experience in mea
suring and weighing, I will here follow it. Now
the ground where I had been cultivating that indigo
was excessively sandyso that at the lowest calcu
lation 130 monds, or 10,400 Ibs. of plant, may be put
down for an acre in America.
For indigo I would give five men to prepare an
acre and sow it, not that the labor is greater than in
cotton ; weeding, one man ; cutting the plant, six
men per acre ; the conveying it to the factory would
cost little, as the factory could have the lands around
it under indigo, which could not be the case in East
India. Therefore,
For preparing and sowing land, 6 men per acre,
at 20 cents $1 20
For weeding, 2 men per acre, at 20 cents 40
Cutting plant, 6 men per acre, at 20 cents 1 20
Conveying to factory, a man and horse, say.. 60
Two men to fill and empty one vat 40
Two men to beat two vats 40
One man to boil six vats, % part of his wages
for two vats 8
Firewood, and man, two vats 28
Packing and chest, 3J6 monds, say 60 cents % 20
Raising water, two men for six vats for one
vat 7
$4 83
As 220 monds of plant make 75 Ibs. of indigo, there
fore as 130 : $4 83 : : 220 : or $8 17 per mond.
" This is not much more than one-sixth the price
it would cost, in India. In America, all the beating
of vats and raising of water could be done by ma
chinery. The sowing of indigo would be from 1st
of April, and the manufacturing would end the mid
dle of September. The indigo plant requires to be
only weeded once, and there can be no hoeing after
the seed be sown. If it is shown that the manufac
turing with labor at twenty cents in America, is
cheaper than in India, where labor is put down at
five cents, it arises from the purchase of the plant.
The indigo fails so often in India from causes
shown, that if the ryot did not get a fair profit when
successful in saving his crop, to pay for former
losses, he could not go on.
" Paying for labor 50 cents per day, the expense
of 75 Ibs. would be,
Preparing and sowing land, 6 men per acre. . . $3 00
" weeding 2 " ... 1 00
Cutting plant 6 3 00
Conveying to factory 1 00
Vats, filling and emptying, 2 1 00
Beating vats 2 - 1 00
Boiling 10
Firewood, &c 25
Packing and chest, 3J monds, 75 cents, 1-5. . 15
Raising water 20
$10 70
" Say 220 monds at 75 Ibs. of indigo. Therefore
as 130 : $10 70 : : 220 : $18 10 for 75 Ibs.
" The lowest description of indigo sells in Cal
cutta for not less than 30 dollars for the 75 Ibs.
The average price for good, for the last years,
would be about 65 dollars for 75 Ibs. ; but the
best Bengal indigo is rarely under 80 dollars,
and from that up to 100 dollars. Some time ago it
had been up as high as 340 Rs. or 170 dollars ; that
is, the sale price obtained by the planter at Calcutta,
for 75 Ibs."
The causes of loss and failure which belong
to India, and which do not pertain to Ame
rica, taken into consideration, the raising and
manufacture of indigo would appear to be far
more profitable than cotton or even sugar,
which has made such progress in the last ten
years. The value of this article to commerce
is very considerable in the United States. It
pays a duty of 20 per cent., and the value
imported is about $1,000,000 for 1,500,000,
or about 70 cents per Ib. average. Into Eng
land, the import averages 9,318,300 pounds,
worth 86,000,000, and into France about as
much more. If in the United States such re
sults as those which the experience of Mr.
Bonynge points out, can be realized, the con
sumption could be immensely promoted, and
the crops of the South become second in im
portance.
But, perhaps, to the American, the most
interesting chapters of Mr. Bonynge s book
are those which treat of the tea trade. The
world has been so accustomed to regard China
as the sole source of supply for that pure,
most healthy, and delicious beverage, that it
is not without some degree of incredulity that
the subject of transferring its culture to our
shores is apparent. Nevertheless, Mr.
Bonynge s experience in the culture, general
intelligence and knowledge of our southern
country, eminently entitles his exposition to
the most profound attention. That gentle
man had four tea plantations in the Assam
country, and was quite successful as far as
making choice tea went. The cause of his
retiring is thus briefly given by himself:
" The Hon. East India Government induced me by
letter, promising me a grant of Koojoo, Buramanjan
and Gin-lang, and protection for myself and people,
to enter the Tartar country of a part of wliich they
had taken possession. On the strength of these pro
mises, I proceeded to the country, with the viexv of
civilizing the people, and also to better myself. I
worked hard in that out-of-the-way country (which,
although larger than some of the United States, has
not yet found a place on the maps of the world) for
five years. During that time, the Tartars took up
arms to drive the British from the country, but
proved unsuccessful. However, government, for
cause or causes not assigned, and without any notice
to me, withdrew the guard from Koojoo, and also
the surrounding guards, and so resigned the coun
try, to all appearance ; and the Tartars, who viewed
me as the then sole representative of the Company,
holding their land on the Company s authority, as
sembled at night and destroyed my property, and
killed several of my servants."
Then follow long extracts from Indian
publications, giving a full account of the
events which ruined his hopes there, and de
termined him to try his fortune in our own
country, not only more peaceful, but possess
ing greater advantages than even China for
that culture. We have not space to copy his
very interesting chapters upon this head, but
commend to our readers the work itself,
which contains also some valuable hints upon
other objects of culture. We will append,
however, the estimated cost of a tea-farm in
the four years, according to the experience of
Mr. Bonynge, in Assam.
"In the fourth year, on the 100 acres, I have
shown that 30,000 Ibs. of tea cost to manufacture ,
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
&c., $1,082 50, being hut 3^ cents per lb., and that,
by use ofmachinery, the quantity might be manufac
tured for 2?^ cents per lb., calculating the expense
of slave labor at 20 cents per diem.
" But calculating it at 50 cents per day, for free
labor, it would be as follows :
Hoeing 100 acres, 2 men per acre $100 OC
Sieves (additional) 50 at 50 cents each 2a 00
Plucking leaves, say 1,200 Ibs. per acre, of
freen leaf, one man 60 Ibs. at 50 cents, or
20,000 Ibs 1,000 00
Manufacturing, one man to 60 Ibs. green
leaf, or 120,000 Ibs 1,000 00
Charcoal and firewood, 10 cents per 100 Ibs.
dried leaf, or 30,000 Ibs 30 00
Packages for 80 Ibs. 50 cents or on 30,000
jj)g 18? 50
Total expense $2,342 05
30,000 Ibs. for $2,343, or 7 4-5 cents per lb.
" This would be a means of not only enriching the
cultivator, but of keeping up the price of labor to
some $180 a year, and would leave the cotton trade
and rice trade to fewer hands. It would give em
ployment to the many, encourage immigration, and
give to all a greater degree of prosperity.
" The trade of a tea-maker might be made an item
the first season, but after the first crop every man in
the business would be au fait. Therefore I do not
put down any item for a tea-maker. The rolling of
the leaves might be done by machinery, and would,
at the first estimate, in which I allow the expense of
a slave at 20 cents a day, be a saving of 1% cents.
per lb. ; or, in the second estimate, wherein I allow
the hire of labor to be 50 cents per day, a saving of
3% cents per lb. Leaving the cost of labor 50 cents,
still, with machinery, simple in its structure, and
therefore of very trifling cost, tea would cost the
planter only 4 7-15 cents per lb."
The general view of the trade between the
countries of Europe and America with China
and the East Indies, is one of great interest.
The oppressive Indian government is sup
ported almost altogether by the sale of its
opium to China and England, and the United
States chiefly supply China with the means
of buying that opium, by purchasing its silks
and teas. Now, the certain mode of destroy
ing English rule in India, and consequently
of upsetting their schemes for supplanting
United States cotton, is to support China in
the production of tea. The national disad
vantages which China labors under from the
absence of roads, the topography of the coun
try, the destitution of wood for tea chests,
and the want of means of transportation,
more than counterbalance the cheapness of
labor, while the land of the South will pro
duce better and larger crops of tea with less
liability of injury from drought. The tea plant
is more hardy than cotton, inasmuch as hard
freezing will not aftect it. The time will un
doubtedly come when the culture and manu
facture will occupy the fields of Virginia and
other southern states, to the great profit of
the owners.
The annual contribution of the United
States to the support of the British East India
Company is about $5,000,000 per annum,
being the value of the tea purchased in China.
This will appear more directly from the fol
lowing balance-sheet of a year s trade with
China, drawn from the treasury reports.
IMPORT AND EXPORT FROM AND TO CHINA, 1850.
EXPORT.
Domestic Produce.
Ginseng, Ibs 367,448 $122,916
Beef, Ibs 1,226 12,872
Butter and cheese, Ibs 40,531 8,178
Pork,&c 17,578
Flour, bbls 3,156 19,280
Corn, bushels 4,172 2,511
Spirits, gallons, 9,951 4,429
Soap, Ibs 77,032 4,430
Bread, Ibs 54,700 2,250
Cotton goods 1,203,997
All others 87,020
Total domestic
Foreign Goods.
. . .". . .. . .1,294,240 .
Silver
Lead, Ibs
All others . . .
.1,485,961
. $25,000
...53,617
...40,639
Total foreign goods 119,256
Total exports $1,565,217
IMPORT.
Tea, Ibs 28,743,378 $4,585,720
Sugar, Ibs ..944,060 27,023
Cotton goods 3,299
Silk goods 1,443,448
Matting .81,423
Tin 105,843
Indigo, Ibs 43,465 14,461
Hemp, cwt ; 435 5,951
Manilla, cwt 6,290 34;587
All other imports 291,717
Total imports $6,593,462
Balance of imports paid by bills ou ) *.- noaotn
London } $0,028,245
Thus, five millions dollars per annum is
paid by bills on London, drawn against United
States cotton, mostly sold in that market, and
diminishes by that extent the amount of
specie drawn from London, or during the
past year has increased the amount sent
there. The London bills given by the United
States dealer for tea, are by the China mer
chants paid over to the East India Company
for opium and by them remitted to Lon
don where they are paid by cotton or gold
sent from the United States. The tea so im
ported is in amount at an average of 16 cents
per lb., and costs 20 cents, freight, &c., in
cluded ; while Mr. Bonynge shows that it
can be raised on our soil for four cents. The
cotton in the Atlantic states costs six cents,
and laid down in Liverpool seven cents, and
sold at that to reimburse tea bills coming
from India at twenty cents per lb. Then,
three Ibs. of cotton, which cost eighteen cents
on plantation, are given for one lb. of tea,
which could have been raised for four cents.
Now, if that tea were raised at home, so as
to supply the 30,000,000 Ibs. per annum,
which the United States requires, there would
not only be a direct saving of $3,600,000
upon this article, but the diversion of employ
ment would add as much to the value of cot
ton. Not only so, but the 80,000,000 Ibs. of
tea which England now requires, would be
drawn from the United States ; and she
SOUTHERN DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE.
53
would be forced, instead of being independent
in respect of cotton, to be still more depen
dent for another tropical product.
The necessity on the part of the South for
introducing some new staples, is involved in
the course of the progress of the great West.
The valley of the Miisissippi will become,
eventually, the great seat of manufacture for
the world ; and the states west of the Alle-
ghanies must produce articles so similar to
those of the Atlantic states, that the actual
interchange of commodities must yearly be
come less. The tea, coffee, and sugar, which
are now imported in northern vessels, and
which find their way west in exchange for
farm produce and raw materials, may all be
raised at the South as successfully as the
last-named, sugar; and while the course of
western industry will gradually separate the
East and West, both will be found in stronger
ties and more absolute dependence to the
South. If to the cotton, rice, and tobacco,
which England and Western Europe now
draw from the South, the great items of tea
and indigo are added and there seems to be no
serious obstacle in the way, while profit lures
to the enterprise then, indeed, will the era of
southern prosperity have dawned, and oscil
lations upon any branch of culture may al
ways be made to relieve any over-production
of the others. The cultivation of sugar is a
remarkable evidence of what may be done.
Pennsylvania boasts that in twenty-five years
her coal production from nothing rose to
$15,000,000 per annum ; but the sugar pro
duction of Louisiana has exceeded it in less
time.
While commending the work of Mr. Bo-
nynge to our readers, we would remark, that
that gentleman has undertaken to supply the
genuine tea plants and the other plants
which he seeks to introduce, to order ; and
quite a number of South Carolina gentlemen
have entered into it with spirit. Kettell.
SOUTH S POSITION IN THE UNION.
EMANCIPATION ABOLITION NATURAL
LAW OF SLAVERY PHYSICAL CHARACTERIS
TICS OF THE NEGRO FATAL RESULTS OF
SUBSTITUTING WHITE LABOR FOR BLACK AT
THE SOUTH, ETC.
NEW-ORLEANS, July, 1851.
DEAR SIR There is shut up in the ar
chives of the science of medicine enough of
hidden knowledge to save the Union now and
forever, if it were brought to light.
Knowledge is not power, unless it is made
active by being set free. Imprisoned in the
dissecting-room, or in the student s closet, it
is like light under a bushel. To be made an
element of political power, the aid of the
politician, the greater the better, is needed to
give it an impulse that will send it to the
cottage of every voter. The object of this
communication, and of the first article in the
Medical Journal, I herewith send you, is
respectfully to call your attention to the re
sult of some scientific investigations that I
faintly hope may be converted into an instru
ment of good to assist in saving the Union,
if brought upon the political arena at this
important crisis.
Some time ago I was appointed by the
Medical Association of Louisiana to make a
report on the diseases and peculiarities of
the negro race. In performing that duty,
the third of a century s experience in treat
ing diseases in a section of country where
the white and black population are nearly
equal, lent me its aid. A vast number of
facts, standing thickly and closely along the
obscure by-paths, that none but southern
physicians travel, have been interrogated, and
the important truth demonstrated, " that the
same medical treatment, under the same ex
ternal circumstances, which benefits or cures
a white man, often injures or kills a negro,
and vice versa." It may not be unworthy a
great statesman to inquire, if what is true in
medicine may not be true in government,
and to investigate the question, whether the
laws and free institutions, so beneficial to
the white man, may not be detrimental and
deteriorating to the negro. That a great
difference exists between the organization of
the white and black man, has long ago been
proved by anatomists.
Scemmerring, for instance, a learned au
thor of the last century. Difference in physi
ology also implies difference in structure.
The practice of the negroes in exposing their
bare heads and backs, through choice, to the
rays of a sun hot enough to blister the skin
of a white man, proves that they are under
different physiological laws from him not
from habit (as such habits cannot be ac
quired,) but from difference in structure.
Comparative anatomy, physiology, and the
phenomena drawn from daily observation,
prove the fallacy of an hypothesis, that fo
reign writers, chiefly English, have been
very industrious in propagating in this coun
try, for the last twenty years, " That there
are no internal or physical differences in man
kind, whether white or black." The recep
tion of this hypothesis, as if it were an es
tablished truth, by a considerable number of
our people, lies at the bottom of all those po
litical troubles that endanger the Union ; as
it takes for granted that the personal free
dom, so ennobling and beneficial to the white
man, would be equally so for the negro.
When this hypothesis was first announced
by Gregoire, in the national assemtn^ v>i
France, Robespierre, to stifle all objections,
cried out, "Perish the colonies, but save the
principle." The prosperous colony of Haiti,
with a population equaling a third of the
United States of that day, was torn from
54
SOUTH S POSITION IN THE UNION".
Franco, not so much by the negroes in
rebellion, as by the French army, under
Southonax, having been instructed by the
home government to carry out Robespiere s
principles. Under that abolition principle,
Haiti became a free negro republic, and in
stead of going up, part passu, with us, im
mediately began to perish, and continued to
perish, until it voluntarily threw itself into
the arms of despotism. The British East
India Company got the indigo culture trans
ferred from Haiti, then making three-fourths
of all the indigo in the world, to the East
Indies, and have ever since monopolized it.
The negroes got liberty, and after shame
fully abusing it for more than half a century,
voluntarily gave it up as a thing of no value
to them.
Nowhere were the doctrines of the French
revolution more strongly denounced than in
Great Britain ; yet, after the practical work
ings of those doctrines were found to enrich
the British East India possessions with a
monopoly of the indigo culture, the same
doctrines were sent across the Atlantic in
almost every English book, newspaper and
periodical, urging us to give the negro liber
ty ; the same thing as to urge us to give up
our cotton and sugar culture, and let British
Asia monopolize it as well as that of indigo.
None know better than our friends, the
British, that free negroes will not work,
(having tried the experiment,) and that white
people cannot endure the hot sun of a cane
or cotton field. To give an hundred millions
per annum for a second-hand abstraction of
Jacobin coinage, would be paying too dearly
for a whistle to amuse the North, and a
sword to pierce the South. The hypothesis
that would place the negro on a political and
social equality with our free white citizens,
is urged upon us by a foreign people, who
have neither social nor political equality
among themselves, and whose laws and
usages make distinctions where Nature makes
none. Yet without annulling the artificial
distinctions, dividing her own subjects into
classes, Great Britain has permitted her pul
pit to be desecrated, and her literature cor
rupted, to break down the distinctions that
Nature has made between the white and the
black races inhabiting the United States ; her
subjects preaching a false French hypothesis
to us, as a sound Christian and republican
doctrine, and taunting us daily as being only
half-way Christians and republicans, because
we do not receive it. Having profited by the
dissensions springing from the seed of their
own sowing in the East Indies and clewhere,
the East India Company, the lords of the
loom and those in their interest, have almost
out-Yankoyed the Yankees, (as they call all
Americans,) being in a fair way to carry
back American manufactures to England,
and the cotton and sugar culture to its old
home in India, by humbugging us with abo
lition literature, abolition divines and agents,
like George Thompson, to give up our glo
rious Union for a vain abstraction of Jacobin
origin. Great Britain would, no doubt, form
most favorable and highly friendly commer
cial alliances with any seceding state or
states, just as long and no longer than it
would take a bitter and bloody civil war be
tween the North and the South to break up
fVmerican manufactures, and to transfer the
agricultural wealth of the South to British
Asia, where she has already hundreds of
thousands of Chinese (according to Leonard
Wray, Esq., the author of the " Efist India
Sugar Planter" a late work published in
London) engaged in the cultivation of sugar
and cotton, the experiments with Hindoo
laborers not having been satisfactory. But
the hypothesis which is undermining our
Union, " that the negro is a white man only
painted black" has no foundation in Truth
or Nature. All history disproves it. The
science of comparative anatomy bears positive
testimony against it ; the dark color not be
ing confined to the skin, but pervading, to a
certain extent, every membrane and muscle,
tinging all the humors, and even the brain
itself, with a shade of darkness.
The statue of the negro in Westminster
Abbey, kneeling before that of Mr. Fox, is at
once recognized as a veritable son of Africa,
although made of the same white marble
thus disproving, by the artist s chisel, the
mischievous sophism which makes color the
only difference.
Observation also proves that the negro is
under different physiological laws from the
white man. The Bible declares the same
thing, as it gave him the significant name
Canaan, or " Submissive knee bender" to
express his nature, and doomed him to slave
ry, as a condition tho most consonant to
that nature. That book gave him but one
commandment, to serve his brethren, to be
their servant of servants clearly implying
that they are responsible for his observance
of the other ten. Domestic slavery is made
a blessing instead of a curso to the Ethiopian
or Canaanite race, by a different conforma
tion of body, cast of mind, and turn of
thought, imparting to that race a fitness for
that institution, and an unfitnesc for any
other. Hence justice, mercy, and the best
interests of the slave race suffered no viola
tion, (as Voltaire vainly thought, and rejected
the Bible as a fable on that ground,) but was
promoted by Joshua taking their country
from them, and reducing them to bondage ;
inasmuch as their organization, not less than
that of children, rendered them unfit for in-
dependance. If both the North and the
South were to study the African character
more closely the natural history of the
: Ethiopian or Canaanite, and what "the BibJe
SOUTH S POSITION IN THE UNION.
55
reveals concerning him our happy and
prosperous confederacy would be in no dan
ger of dissolution. The former would see
that personal freedom is in opposition to the
negro s nature and the latter would per
ceive, that, by the action of a higher law
than the Constitution, or anything that fa
naticism can do in the Union, or out, there
is no more danger of his leaving servitude,
provided it be the proper kind of servitude,
to go in quest of liberty, than the ox his
straw in search of animal food.
The consciences of many of our Northern
people are very tender, because American
liberty, equality, and republicanism do not
come up to the abstract notions of British
and some other writers of what such things
ought to be. Our admirable system of gov
ernment is founded on the Baconian philoso
phy carried into politics, and not on imprac
ticable abstractions. It would not reach the
ideal, impracticable standard of liberty, equal
ity, and republicanism, if the negroes were
turned loose, until the women and children
were allowed to vote, and all political and
domestic restrictions removed from them.
Natural distinctions in society is the rock on
which American republicanism is built
built on any other foundation, it never has
stood, and never can stand. By virtue of
those distinctions that Nature alone has
made, women, children and negroes are as
signed to such places only as best suit their
physical capacities ; nor could a female ora
baby become the head of our government, as
females and babies sometimes do in those
tottering governments founded on artificial
instead of natural distinctions in society.
Nor is our slavery, slavery in the European
sense of the term. It is not like bondage in
Algiers, nor like want created to diminish
wages, stalking about in Great Britain and
Ireland, begging service from door to door,
without food or shelter ; but it is only a re
lation in conformity to the natural adapta
tions of the persons consigned to that condi
tion. Nor are women and children in slave
ry among us, as crazy theorists have assert
ed, but only in a relation or state, in confor
mity to their nature, as the negroes are. To
break up this fitness of things would be to
break up the government. The restraints of
the domestic or fireside government having
been removed by the predominance of im
practicable notions of liberty in France,
mobs of women and boys overawed the Na
tional Assembly at Versailles, in the days of
the French revolution. At a later period,
Bolivar, foolishly trying to improve on the
model government left by Washington,
turned loose the negroes of the republic of
Colombia. Where is the republic of Colom
bia 1 It is not on the map of the world. It
was there, and you remember when. It has
gone. To know how and why, let Nature
be called on to answer. She will say, that
it was when political fanaticism violated her
by disregarding the distinctions which she
had made, that the French republic fell, and
Colombia was blotted out from her place
among the nations.
It would be bad enough to break up our
confederacy for the benefit of a few negroes,
or even of all Africa, at the expense of the
white race ; but it would be madness to do
so to impose on them a thing that has al
ways been ratsbane to their minds and
morals.
It is unnecessary for me to apprise you,
that the great mass of the people North and
South, of both political parties, view with
pride and admiration your patriotic efforts in
the cause of Union, and that you are ac
knowledged here and elsewhere, as every
where within its boundaries, as the chief de
fender of the Union, the laws, and the Con
stitution. Your arguments are amply suffi
cient to preserve the Union against the ac
tion of those who are satisfied with it as it
is, and are only anxious that the obligations
imposed by it be respected by the people of
all the states. But they have no tendency
to restrain that portion of the people at the
North, who believe the Union does too much
for the slaveholding interest in remanding
fugitives from service back into bondage ;
nor those of the South, who believe it does
too little, or worse than nothing, and is about
to be perverted into an engine to crush them.
Both these parties are growing parties, and
will, if not checked, soon out-number the
constitutional or Union party. The belief is
industriously propagated at the North, by
George Thompson & Co., .that the Constitu
tion tolerates injustice in authorizing the
enactment of laws to restore fugitives to the
bondage from which they fled and that all
such enactments are violences offered to the
conscience of a moral and religious people,
being contrary to the higher law of God.
Great numbers are inclined to favor such
opinions, who are not with Mr. Thompson and
his abolitionists, but are willing to carry out
the laws in good faith, until they have an op
portunity to alter or change them. Even
your eloquence cannot long make the North
ern people love an Union requiring them to
do violence to their conscience in. obeying
the requirements of the laws done under it,
if by so doing they believe they are violating
a higher law of God. Nor could you re
strain such, even among your neighbors,
from agitating the repeal of the Fugitive
Slave Law, although you were to lift the
curtain of time, and make them behold with
their eyes the grass growing in the streets of
Boston, their trade and manufactures de
stroyed, the South locked against them, their
56
SOOTH S POSITION IN THE UNION.
best blood flowing in the unnatural strife. I to them nor did they want it nor would
You know that the sons of the Pilgrims are -
made of that stuff to lose all these to save
their conscience conscience is the same
whether pinned to a false Jacobinical French
hypothesis, asserting the negro s right to
liberty and equality, or to the eternal word of
truth, derived from Nature, and revealed in
the Bible, denying that right. Fanaticism,
true religion and patriotism are alike in some
respects, being insensible to the dollar argu
ment, and alike unappalled by the fire or the
sword obstructing the cause that either has
espoused. Although your eloquence has as
much power in the South, yea more than
any other man, it cannot long keep up the
love of union among our people, if that po
litical compact be perverted from its original
intention of securing peace and equality into
an instrument of aggression, in the hands
of an unbridled majority, to rob us of our
equality, and to kick us into a corner to
dwell as submissionists, until the iron
heel of power treads us into the dust. Here,
if not five, as Mr. Clay would say, are two
bleeding wounds requiring to be stanched to
save the Union, if not from immediate, from
ultimate dissolution, and who are to stanch
them 1 The sovereign people 1 They have
long been trying, but they work awkwardly,
not having the requisite knowledge of the
anatomy of the body politic, and not under
standing its internal organization sufficiently
to know, that, from the laws of necessity,
some parts of the complex machinery must
be made to honor and others to dishonor ;
some to gather, and others to consume the
products gathered that, like the human sys
tem, it is composed of elementary organs, as
different in their nature and structure, as the
brain from the stomach, or the muscles from
the bones, and that the stimulus that moves
one will not another being endowed with
different kinds of sensibility. By going
deeply into the organization of our political
institutions, it will be found that domestic
slavery is not a blot or excrescence upon
them, but a component part of their struc
ture, and cannot be excised or cast off
without destroying the organism uniting all
the parts of this confederacy into a grand,
wonderful, and progressive whole, such as
the world never saw before. The reason is,
that the African is not constituted in mind or
body, in the skin or under the skin, like the
white man, but is a being peculiar to him
self, and unlike any other kind of man. So
different was he from the rest of the popula
tion, that when our fathers brought him into
the Union, they retained him in the same posi
tion he occupied anterior to his admission into
it. Nor did the Revolution, the state Constitu
tions, or that of the Federal Union, make any
change in the government of women and
children no political power being accorded
they have accepted of it had it been offered
to them, because its exercise would have
been unsuitable to the sex of the one and
the tender age of the other. As they were
in colonial times, so are they now, and so
are the negroes each of these parties being
left to move in those paths wherein it has
always found its greatest happiness.
It is erroneous to suppose that the cotton
and sugar interest, grown up since the adop
tion of our present Constitution, has perpet
uated domestic slavery in the South, which
otherwise, ere this, would have been volun
tarily relinquished. The extension of the
cotton and sugar culture, so far from being
misfortunes to the slaves, has tended, more
than anything else, to ameliorate their con
dition ; because the product of their labor is
thereby sufficiently valuable to enable their
masters to supply them with all the necessa
ry comforts of life, being prompted thereto, if
not by humanity, by the motives of interest.
The most efficient, and, of course, the most
profitable laborers, are those who are the
most active, healthy, happy, and contented.
To be active, healthy, happy and contented,
there is a higher law, which says, their griefs
shall be inquired into, their troubles remov
ed, and they shall be well fed, lodged and
clothed. Interested motives, if nothing else,
would force the master, whose slaves are
profitable to him, to protect them from what
are called the abuses of slavery, and to be
stow on them every comfort and attention
that the most tender humanity would give.
Everything which enhances the value of the
slave improves his condition ; as it brings
the self-interest of the master the more
strongly to bear in protecting him against
abuses, and in adding to his comforts. On
the other hand, everything that diminishes
his value, or that of his labor, whether it be
the introduction of Chinese laborers into
India, or the exclusion of slave labor from
any state or territory where it would be pro
fitable, operates injuriously against the in
terests of the slave, who may with truth say,
" Save me from my friends, and the laws of
God will make it my master s interest to take
care of me." Slavery, before
at the
time of the formation of our present Union,
was not as good a condition for the blacks of
the South as it is now, because the profits of
that kind of labor were not sufficient to af
ford the laborers the comforts of life they
now enjoy.
Their value was also so inconsiderable
that self-interest was not so watchful as
now, to protect them against gross personal
abuses. But if their labor were ever so un
profitable, they would not be emancipated
in the South, as they have been in the North,
for the plain reason, that, if turned loose,
they would be a tax and a nuisance too heavy
SOUTH S POSITION IN THE UNION.
57
for the white population to bear, and a war
of extermination would be the consequence.
The few that were emancipated in the
northern states have been a nuisance, a tax,
and a burthen to the white inhabitants, half
filling the northern prisons, penitentiaries,
and almshouses. The white population of
the southern states have no other alterna
tive but to keep them in slavery, or to drive
them out, wage a war of extermination
against them, or go out themselves, and
leave their fair land to be converted into a
free negro pandemonium. But why not keep
them in slavery ?
The white and the red ants make slaves
of the black ants, yet they are the very in
sects to which the Holy Scriptures refer us
to learn wisdom. For every negro in slave
ry in the South, there are more than an
hundred thousand negro ants in slavery in
the same region.
Slavery, therefore, of the black to the white
man is not incompatible with the economy
of Nature. The institution cannot be found
ed in sin, or we would not have been re
ferred to the insect slaveholding sinners to
learn wisdom. The products of slave labor
form a very essential part of the wealth and
prosperity, not only of our entire republican
confederacy, but of the world at large ; a
single product of that labor furnishes a cheap
clothing for the inhabitants of the globe,
who, having less to pay for clothing, have
more to expend in purchasing knowledge,
and more time to spare in cultivating the
moral virtues. If it be a sin, it is unlike any
other sin, in doing good to the whole world
instead of evil.* To dispense with the
products of slave-labor would not be much
unlike dispensing with the offices of the liver
in the human system, because it is a dark,
u gly organ, gathering and distributing black,
sluggish blood, without a drop in the por
tal circulation, (as it is technically called, )
reaching the free vital air, as every drop of
blood in every other part of the system is
continually doing in the lungs. Yet unlike
every other organ in the human body, the
liver thrives, by digesting that which every
other part rejects, and sends from it to be |
vivified by the free air in the lungs before it
will drink it in. It is worthy to be remem
bered that our fathers were practical men,
and founded our government on the truths
taught by experience, and rejected the soph
isms of the a priori logic of the illuminati.
Unfortunately those sophisms have outlived
the many republics they have killed.
One of these sophisms which teaches
that " the negro is only a lamp-blacked
white man debased by slavery," has led
many of our northern people to believe that
slavery is sin, and has made some of them
* See Family Library for Natural History of the
Ants and their slavery institutions.
but too willing to kill the world s last hope
of republican institutions, to get rid of a sin
that has no existence as a sin, from any
thing said against it in the Old or New Tes
tament ; but is only inferred to be a sin by
a Jacobinical sophism picked up amongst
the ruins it so largely helped to make of
republican institutions in France, and from
thence exported to America by British agen
cy particularly that of the East India Com
pany, whose charity towards us, in making
us sensible of a new and unpardonable sin
of the deepest dye, which the Bible winked
at and tolerated, would be rewarded by a
monopoly of the cotton and sugar culture,
in their vast conquests in Asia. Are not
the very parties who are now urging our
northern people to set at defiance the Fugi
tive Slave Law, and to agitate its repeal, the
very parties in the interest of the East In
dia Company, who first stimulated our
northern people to commence a system of
aggression against the southern states some
fifteen years ago, by establishing anti slave
ry societies in this country, similar to those
in Great Britain, which played such a con
spicuous part in sacrificing the West India
planters to promote the aggrandizement of
British Asia 1
The slave-labor of the West Indies
coming in competition with East India
sugar, it was policy to give it up to en
courage the larger interest. Hence slavery
was abolished over a territory about half
as large as South Carolina, (the whole of
the British West India Islands only having
seventeen thousand square miles, that of
South Carolina, thirty-three thousand,) and
containing a population not exceeding a
sixth or seventh rate state in our Union,
in order to open a way for the establishment
of the sugar culture on a grand scale in a
vast sugar region in Asia, having a territory
of upwards of one million of square miles,
and one hundred and fifty millions of in
habitants.
The experiment is succeeding. To suc
ceed with cotton, and every other south
ern product in British Asia and New-
Holland, it is foreseen that nothing stands
in the way but the associated or slave-
labor of the United States, Brazil and
Cuba. Already do the East Indies, accord
ing to Leonard Wray, Esq., produce more
sugar than the United States and the British
West India islands together. The same par
ties, who moved the British Parliament to
sacrifice West India interests, have been for
more than fifteen years sowing the seeds of
discord between the North and the South
on the subject of slavery. No sooner was
the policy of abolishing that institution in
the British West India Islands, to extend the
culture of sugar, (throughout a country that
a line from Boston to New-Orleans would
58
SOUTH S POSITION IN THE UNION.
not reach across,) carried into effect, than
forthwith George Thompson, member of
Parliament, the British Anti-Slavery socie
ties, and all the writers, lecturers and
agents in the interest of the East India pro
prietors, with one accord, made a simulta
neous movement on the United States, pro
claiming war against slavery. They boldly
planted the anti-slavery banner in our north
ern states, and instigated the formation of
abolition societies in our country, bound by
their organization to wage an uncompromis
ing warfare against the institutions of the
South.
Has the foreign influence, that presumed
to meddle with American institutions, been
moved thereto by motives of humanity 1
Malcom, the celebrated Baptist preacher
of our own country, who traveled all over
the East Indies, found there ten millions of
people in the most odious personal bondage,
whom the West India emancipation act
expressly reserved in slavery at the very
time that the abovementioned parties were
prosecuting the most violent hostilities
against negro slavery in the United States.
The greater part of those persons in our
country, who would, if permitted, interfere
in the affairs of Cuba, have the political ag
grandizement of that island, the happiness
and best interests of its inhabitants, at
heart. Can the same be said of George
Thompson, member of Parliament, and the
vast multitudes whom Great Britain has
so long permitted, if not incited, to in
terfere with American affairs, in trying
by every means to break down a political in
stitution in the United States, which, if
they could succeed in, that great foreign
power, at peace with us, can hardly help
knowing, will rend our Union into frag
ments, destroy our political strength as a
nation, break up our commerce, manufac
tures, and agriculture, and convert our hap
py land into a field of desolation 1
The foreign enemies of American republi
canism and the interested East India propri
etors, long ago found out that the conscience
of the Puritans is particularly tender on the
subject of southern slavery ; hence they have
been, and still are, continually stinging it by
upbraiding them as guilty of sin for being in
th e> Union with slaveholders, and for not re
sisting, by violence and blood, the execution
of the Fugitive Slave Law.
t The northern people do not want the fu^i-
Jitiyes as constituent parts of their own
society ; they had rather not have them if
their conscience was not continually stun" an d
gored by such John Bulls, as George Thomp.
son, the East India proprietors, and the mem
bers ot the British and Canadian Anti-Slavery
6nciHt.es to keep the poor fugitives as a sign
of their having washed their hand 9 of the sin
and guilt of glavery~a eiga they know would
be. as matters now stand, the death warrant
of our Union. Aggressions on southern rights
and interests, thus brought about, have awa
kened the South to the necessity of adopting
some effectual means of repelling them.
Hence have arisen all the differences between
the two sections.
The southern mind has adopted the a pos
teriori method of reasoning on the slavery
question, and the northern the a priori.
These two methods of considering the sub
ject have brought the two sections to exactly
opposite conclusions. An admixture of the
two modes of reasoning for a long time gave
the great mass of the people, North and South,
mixed and indefinite notions on the merits of
the question. The a priori logic leading them
to look upon domestic slavery as an evil,
while the facts, observations, and experience
of the inductive mode of investigation clearly
proved, that if it be an evil, it is one of those
theoretical evils for which there is no remedy
without incurring greater evils in other
words, no evil at all. Yet the admission of
its being an evil, by distinguished southern
men, prevented the merits of the question
from being looked into by the public" Such
persons contented themselves in waiting on
time and circumstances for some safe and
effectual method of removing the evil, like
many good people are waiting for the millen
nium to remove the evils incident to the rela
tion of master and apprentice, parent and
child, husband and wife.
While Mr. Jefferson was casting about for
some remedy to remove the evil of having
the country filled with a slow-motioned, in
efficient, profitless black population, who, for
want of brisk motion of the body and atten
tion of raind, could not compete with the
white man in the ordinary branches of indus-
ry and the arts, and who were half naked
and starved near his own door, the rich cot
ton, cane and rice fields were opened in the
burning South, where free white labor is
much farther behind slave labor in efficiency,
than the latter behind the former in other
branches of industry in a cold climate. The
slow-motioned, sleepy-headed negro popula
tion, whom Mr. Jefferson did not know what
to do with, and to use a common expression,
"could not earn their salt," suddenly became,
by the introduction of cotton, cane and rice,
superior to the white man in efficiency
benefiting themselves, enriching their mas
ters, the whole South, and the entire Union.
The products of their labor being thrown into
the markets of the world, became a new and
important basis of manufacturing and com
mercial wealth products which their labor
alone could produce, in sufficient abundance
and cheapness, to supply the wants of man
kind.
Neither party, North or South, has viewed
the question of negro slavery in. a philosophi
SOUTH S POSITION IN THE UNION.
59
cal point of view. It has been mere experi
ence on the one side, and mere theory on the
other. You and the rest of our statesmen
have been so well satisfied with the working
of our political system, that you and they
seem to have been content to direct and guide
it, without looking into comparative anatomy
for the physical differences in the population
that would explain the paradox of slavery in
a free republic, and demonstrate the reason
and justice of our political institutions, in not
according to all classes the same privileges.
Much of the knowledge, in regard to the phy
sical differences between our white and black
population, is confined to a few scientific men
in private life, and to those persons in the
South who have had opportunities of acquir
ing it by observation, but have not the requi
site acquirements and opportunities for dif
fusing it.
Knowledge, to be diffused among the mass,
and to be brought into practical use, must
first pass through the alembic of some supe
rior intellect to be refined and purified. I
cherish the opinion, that if you were to seek
for that particular kind of knowledge, (touch
ing the true nature and character of our negro
population, and on which our peculiar south
ern institutions rest as a basis,) you could find
it, and when found, could diffuse it. Its dif
fusion would be like oil on the troubled
waters, quieting the conscience of the North
on the subject of slavery, or at least starting a
new train of thought, that would naturally
lead the northern mind, step by step, to a
quiet conscience and freedom from responsi
bility for negro slavery in the South. North
ern agitation and aggression would cease, and
eouthern agitation and secessionism would
also cease, as soon as the provocations causing
them should be removed, or even a fair pros
pect of their removal, by a new train of
thought started in the North by a northern
political chieftain renouncing the prejudices
of education, and coming out boldly and plain
ly for the truth. South Carolina would not
now stand alone with secessionism on her
banner, if you, a northern statesman, whose
politics have heretofore been in opposition to
the southern majority, had not taken the noble
stand you did take on the laws and Constitu
tion, and boldly ficed northern fanaticism.
Believe me, your course in facing political
death, in defying fanaticism in the North, and
touching it with the spear of Ithuriel, has re
strained the hands ready to unfurl the seces
sion banner in almost every state south, and,
but for you, would have been unfurled ere
this. One step further, and you restrain South
Carolina herself; not by drawing the sword,
but by diffusing thought. By diffusing
thought, you defended the laws and the Con
stitution, by bringing northern patriots into
the field to repel the aggressions of northern
fanaticism.
By diffusing thought, you could bring over
America to your standard, in defending the
mindations on which republicanism, the laws,
the Constitution, and the Union, are construct
ed. To go into an analysis, or to invite an
analysis of the slavery material in that founda
tion, so as to ascertain its different composition,
and nature, would be to take the desired step,
that would do more to strike clown the seces
sion banner in South Carolina, than could
General Scott, at the head of the largest army
that was ever mustered into the service of the
United States.
If South Carolina were to see the northern
people, under a northern leader, discarding
Jacobinical sophisms, and examining into the
question, as our fathers did, for the best po
litical position for the black population, by
the light of experience and the inductive
method of arriving at truth, she would pause
long and deliberately before making the fear
ful experiment of secession, because there
would be grounds of hope that that, method
of investigation would ultimately revolution
ize northern political opinion, by demon
strating that the negro is not a white man
painted black, as they have heretofore sup
posed, but a different being, of a different
nature ; and affected in directly opposite di
rections from the white man by the things
called liberty and slavery. The public senti
ment so predominant at the North, that the
negro can be washed white by personal free
dom, political and social equality, and that it
is a sin and a shame to Christianity, repub
licanism and humanity, to let him remain so
long unwashed, has led to a system of
fanatical aggression at the North, which
South Carolina believes will bring swift and
sure destruction upon her, if she remains in
the Union, and hence she is preparing to leap,
as from a ship on fire, into the gulf of se
cessionism. She is deaf to the recital of the
dangers she may encounter out of the Union,
believing that sure destruction awaits her in
it. But if public sentiment North could be
directed, by the force of some strong and
commanding intellect, into another channel
of thought, calculated to lead to the truth,
she would have hope hope would make her
pause, as she only leaves the Union because
she sees no hope of safety in it. The North
could not object to a consideration of the
question on the higher law basis, and to in
quire into the reasons why our fathers, an
terior to the Revolution, during that period
and at the formation of our present Consti
tution, kept the negro under the same insti
tutions he is still under in the South. These
reasons will be found, not so much in this
inferiority of mind, as in a marked difference
in his disposition and nature from either the
white man or the Indian.
Observing that, by the operation of some
higher law, he was essentially different
from any other human being, they retained
60
SOUTH 7 S POSITION IN THE UNION.
him under institutions compatible to him,
but incompatible to either the white man or
the Indian. Without taking sides in the con
troversy, either for the North or the South,
but only for the truth, you might render the
country a great service, by directing public
attention to the only safe and sure mode of
finding the truth. The truth found would,
no doubt, put South Carolina and Massa
chusetts where they were in the days of the
Revolution, shoulder to shoulder in the
cause of American liberty, power, and pro
gress. A misunderstanding between the
North and the South has arisen, and those
who were foremost in the Revolution for
union and concert to make America strong,
are now foremost in those measures of dis
union and strife, that, if persevered in much
longer, will make her weak and contempti
ble in the eyes of the world. The one party
claims as rights what the other party does
not regard as rights the right of property
in man the right to hold man in bond
age.
The one claims the right by virtue of
Nature s lav.-s, the lessons of experience,
and the laws of necessity. The other denies
the right on the abstract principle, that
presumes that all men are alike, and entitled
to the same privileges and immunities.
Both parties, except that portion under
anti-republican and foreign influence, desire
the truth. Both want justice, and nothing
more. Both are seeking the welfare of the
negro, and wish to reach it without destroy
ing their own the one contending that his
welfare lies in slavery, and the other in free
dom. As the premises cannot be settled by
the parties themselves, it would be better to
refer them to the umpirage of comparative
anatomy, physiology, chemistry, and history.
Comparative anatomy, if interrogated wheth
er the organization of the white and the
black man be the same or not, could put the
question beyond controversy, and leave the
North and the South nothing to dispute about.
Physiology could say whether the laws gov
erning the white and black man s organism
be the same or different. Chemistry could
declare whether the composition of the
bones, the blood, the flesh, skin and the se
cretions, be composed of the same elemen
tary substances, in the same proportions and
combinations, in the two races, or in differ
ent proportions and combinations.
History, likewise, could throw much light
on the subject of what has proved bestlbr
the negro. Mr. Scward and the higher law
advocates in the North could not consistent
ly object to your recommending the higher
law mode of investigation, and settling for
ever this vexed question. I venture to pre
dict that it would show him the higher law,
which keeps the negro in servitude, written
in his organization. The abolition divines,
who preach the higher law, could discover
the same thing that anatomy will reveal,
written in Hebrew in the ninth chapter of
Genesis, and in other places in the Bible.
The common higher law abolitionists, who
have not time to devote to the dissecting-room
or to the Hebrew, could see the higher law
any night of their lives, by looking at a ne
gro asleep, breathing the mephitic air called
carbonic acid gas, manufactured in his own
lungs, being caught and confined by the cov
ering the higher law compels him to put
around his face. The effect of confining,
by covering his face, his own breath, to
breathe over and over again the whole night
and every night of his life, produces certain
effects upon the blood and the brain requiring
the chemist and physiologist to explain. But
that explanation would only be repeating
what comparative anatomy discloses, history
tells, chemistry proves, and the Bible reveals,
that by a higher law than the Union, the
Constitution, or any other human enact
ments, the negro is a slave.
The negro being a slave by Nature, no
legislation is necessary to regulate slavery,
or to say where it shall exist or where it
shall not exist. The institution will regu
late itself under the higher law of Nature, if
that law be not obstructed by unwise legisla
tion. Under the higher law, and not by any
act of the Federal Government, it was abol
ished in the northern states. It proved, by-
experience, to be an evil in those states, be
cause, from the nature of the products and
the climate, it was found to be much less ex
pensive to purchase free white labor than to
be burdened with the cost and care of sup
porting such inefficient, wasteful, and slow-
motioned laborers, as negroes were found
to be.
Hence, after the black population were
somewhat diminished by being sent South,
the balance, not very numerous, were eman
cipated. The emancipation acts of the
northern states were supererogatory, as in
most cases the northern masters were glad
to let their slaves go free before the time
fixed by law, finding them to be a tax and a
vexation.
Delaware and Maryland are now in a tran
sition state, preparatory to becoming free
states selling their slaves to southern plant
ers, until their numbers be so far reduced as
to make emancipation of the balance safe and
practicable.
But if they had no outlet open for thin
ning out their negro population, they would
be compelled to keep them in slavery, and
encounter the evils of a somewhat more in
efficient, careless and expensive class of la
borers, than incur the greater evils of being
SOUTH S POSITION IN THE UNION.
61
overrun by a heavy population of disorderly,
worthless, and unproductive free negroes.
Negro slavery, from natural laws, if not in
terfered with, must ultimately be confined to
that region of country South, where, from
beat of the climate and the nature of the cul
tivation, negro labor is more efficient, cheap
er, and more to be relied on than white la
bor. Virginia is a slave state, yet natural
causes have almost excluded slavery from the
larger half of her territory. Why not, there
fore, give the whole subject up to the higher
law of Nature to regulate ?
If negro slavery, from mistaken notions, be
carried into a state or territory where slave
labor is less efficient and profitable than
white labor, natural causes will correct the
mistake, as they have done in the northern
states and in Alpine Virginia, by forcing it
out again.
On the other hand, no good, but much
evil, will result from prohibiting slavery in
any state or territory, where, from heat of the
climate, arid the products of the country, no
other kind of laborers can do the required
drudgery- work in the sun and live. The la
bor requiring exposure to a mid-day sum
mer s sun, from the laws of the white man s
nature, cannot be performed in the cotton
and sugar region without exposing him to
disease and death ; yet the same kind of labor
experience proves to be only a wholesome
and beneficial exercise to the negro, awaken
ing him from his natural torpor to a new life
ot" pleasure and activity. In Africa, the
West Indies, as well as in this country, expe
rience proves that negroes will not labor un
less compelled by the authority of a master.
The question is, shall the white man bring
disease and death upon himself by perform
ing drudgery-work in the sun, or make the
negroes do the work the sun, which sickens
and kills him, being a luxury to them ? He
in the shade, laboring and managing for their
benefit as well as his own ; they in the sun,
working for the benefit of the common house
hold, of which they form a part, constitutes
the relation of master and slave an institu
tion designed by Nature to be beneficial to
both parties, and injurious to neither. Here,
in New-Orleans, the larger part of the
drudgery-work requiring exposure to the
sun, as rail-road making, street-paving, dray-
driving, ditching, building, &c., is performed
by white people. The sickness and mortality
among that class of persons who make ne
groes of themselves in this hot climate are
frightfully great ; while the mortality among
all those classes enjoying the advantages of
the relation of master and slave, you will be
surprised to hear, is not greater is not as
great as among an equal number in your
own city of Boston. Our tables of mortality,
compared with the cities of the northern
states, prove that the mortality among chil
dren is not as great here as there ; thus show-
in? that the great aggregate mortality of
New-Orleans above that of the northern
cities, is not owing to the climate or locality
being unfriendly to human life, but is mainly
owing to a large class of persons in this city
violating Nature s laws by making negroes
of themselves. Our tables also show that,
in all over fifty, the mortality is less than at
the North for the plain reason, that neither
children nor old persons are much exposed
to the sun. Lest it be thought that all the
advantages of the relation of master and slave
might, at least, be attained for what you call
the colored people, if emancipated under fa
vorable circumstances, permit me to inform
you, that emancipation in this city, many
years ago, took place, from time to time, on
quite a large scale. Great numbers of the
colored people were not only set free, but
were left handsome fortunes likewise. All
of the pure blood, unlike the slaves, diminish
in numbers, and those of the mixed race pro
mise ere long to become extinct;
The excessive mortality in this city is de
rived from the free colored persons who
have no masters to take care of them from
the half free slaves, without masters to look
to them, who are permitted to wander about
and hire their own time, as it is called from
the foreigners who arrive here in a sickly
condition from Europe ; but mainly from the
white people who make slaves of themselves
by performing drudgery-work in the sun.
When the mortality occurring among these
different classes of the population is sub
tracted from the aggregate deaths, the result
s, that there is less mortality among ali that
large class, both of the white and the black
population, who hold the relation of master
and slave, than among an equal number in
the northern cities. This brings me to a very
important truth I wish to communicate to
you, although I know your prejudices, in
common with a large number of the northern
people, are very strong and bitter against
the institution of negro slavery in the South.
You have, no doubt, been accustomed to look
upon the South as very sickly and unfriendly
to human life in comparison to the North,
without divining the true cause for its bad
reputation for unhealthiness abroad. Thirty-
three years of observation and experience in
the treatment of diseases in. the cotton and
sugar region have enabled me to generalize
facts, and to discover the important truth, not
less important in a political than in a medical
point of view, that among all that large por
tion of the southern population holding the
relation of master and slave, the sickness
and mortality are not greater than among an
equal number of people at the North. In
other words, negroes, who have masters to
take care of them, are as healthy in the South
as any people in the world ; and the white
people in the South who have negroes to
work for them, enjoy generally about as good
health, catcris paribus, as those of Penusyl-
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
vania or New-York. On the other hand, all
those negroes who have no masters to take
care of them, and all those white people who
have no slaves to work for them, but make
negroes of themselves by doing drudgery-
work, exposed to the hot summer s sun of
the cotton and sugar region, are cut down by
disease and death like grass before the scythe
of the mower. Hence it would appear, that
in the cotton and sugar region, Nature has
ordained that the negro shall serve the white
man, and the white man shall take care of
the negro.
Obedience to this law being rewarded with
the health, comfort, peace and happiness of
both parties, the security of the state, and
its strength in war, and disobedience pun
ished with disease, death, and anarchy I
will close this long communication, too long,
I fear, for your patience, but too short for the
subject, by an illustration from an actual
matter-of-fact occurrence. A company, in
making a neighboring rail-road running
through the battle-ground below this city,
had a standing order for fifty laborers to be
sent every day during the hot season of the
year to supply the places of the sick and the
dead. Yet a much larger number of negroes
in the same vicinity, at similar kind of work
in the same hot sun, were as healthy as any
people in your native New-Hampshire.
You are thus told everything, in a word,
that J have been trying to tell you, of the im
perative necessity of negro slavery in the
South. Whether in the Union or out, law or
no law, abstractly right or wrong, it is a
question with the people of the South they
will not debate, as it is a question of life or
death. But where does this illustration of
the important truth of the deadly effect of
practical abolitionism, in putting the white
man in place of the negro at hard drudgery-
work in a hoi southern sun, come from ? It
comes as a still, small voice, to whisper to
northern prejudices, that black slavery, South,
is better than white from the field of Ameri
can glory from the very spot where the
physical power of the greatest empire on
earth, imposingly displayed in a well-organ
ized and vast invading army, fell shattered
before the American rifle. Without takin
part for or against slavery in the South, (for
which you nor any other northern man is re
sponsible, or have any right to meddle,) but
only for the truth, and the Union the truth
supports, you have only to make that voice
heard and understood by your countrymen
to gain a greater victory over the snaky-
haired Discord that an artful foreign diplo
macy has engendered between the North and
the South, than you gained over Hulseman
and the Austrinns, or than did Andrew Jack
son over our country s invaders on the same
holy ground that is now speaking to you.
Dr. Cartwright (addressed to Daniel Web
ster.)
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER
SLAVE INSTITUTIONS SLAVERY AT
THE SOUTH WHAT ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER
AND CIVILIZATION IT DEVELOPS, ON BRITISH
AUTHORITY, AND HOW THEY COMPARE WITH
THOSE OF THE NORTH. If there is one sub
ject, (says Mr. Mackay, of the Middle Tem
ple,) " If there is one subject on which, more
than another, misconception prevails in this
country, and on which prejudice overrides
the judgment, and philanthropy discards
from its consideration every notion of practi
cability, it is that of slavery in the United
States. On most questions connected with
America, there is a disposition in many quar
ters to jump at unfavorable conclusions ; but
on no subject so much as on this, is decision
so independent of previous examination into
the circumstances of the case. European
prejudice fastens eagerly upon slavery, as a
welcome crime to charge upon the American
republic ; and philanthropy, in the headlong
pursuit of its end, defeats its own purpose,
by stumbling over the difficulties to which it
is wilfully blind." " Few understand the
merits of the case, because few can examine
into them. In the general cry against Ame
rican slavery there is some justice, but more
of prejudice and mistaken zeal."
Thus speaks Alex. Mackay, Esq., barrister-
at-law of the Middle Temple, and late tra
veler in the United States ; and, no doubt,
when he thus writes, honestly supposes him
self entirely exempt from the overriding pre
judice and misconceptions of which he
speaks. He is, evidently, what is considered
a liberal, intelligent gentleman, apparently
desirous not to misrepresent, but to sustain
himself above the vulgar prejudices of his
country and times. But, notwithstanding,
he, too, sees through a glass darkened and
colored by prejudices that unconsciously
exist in his mind. He, too, thinks slavery
a great evil, a crime, in the South ! Black-
stone should have taught him that there
must be intention to commit, to constitute a
crime. The crime was long ago committed
by his country, and the necessity and evil (if
any evil) has been put upon the South, not
by themselves, but by his country, and for
her benefit, as the Bethune treaty will still
show in black and white. Mr. Mackay thinks
" it hangs about the social and political sys
tem, like a great tumor upon the body,
which, however, cannot be suddenly cut
away without risking a hemorrhage which
would endanger life," and, therefore, very
reasonably concludes that we, whose lives
are in danger, ought to have the right to de-
te"rmine when the experiment should be
made. But our Northern brethren, who, for
good and valuable consideration received,
have signed the titles, and warranted and
guarantied our possession and full enjoy-
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
63
ment of our " tumor," without let or hin
drance, for ever, would now not allow us one
day for consideration, but are resolved, nolens
volens, for an instant operation, though it
should be attended with the trifling contin
gencies of lock-jaw and death. Thus, when
Napoleon was endeavoring to compel the
agriculturists of France to cultivate beet for
sugar, a caricature was published, represent
ing a nurse thrusting a long beet down the
throat of a struggling infant, saying at the
same time, " Take it, honey take it ; your
daddy says it is sugar." People, as well as
children, should be grateful for favors.
The great objection to slavery, say these
our benefactors, is the immorality of our in
stitution. And yet the morals, male or
female, of the South, fear no comparison
with those of the North. We verily believe,
that the principles in excess, as taught by
Dr. Franklin, have been the fruitful source of
Yankee tricks, and have done more to de
grade American character abroad, and to sow
divisions at home, than slavery and the slave
trade combined. But, say these disciples of
Franklin economy, slavery degrades the char
acter of the master, takes away his " soft
sauder," arid while it renders him effeminate,
it at the same time makes him passionate,
ungovernable and vindictive ; arrogant, im
perious and self-willed ; cruel, tyrannical,
sensual, irreligious and voluptuous ; languish
ing, incapable and ignorant ; neglectful of his
duties, moral and political in short, it leaves
him devoid of virtues, divested of charities,
and deprived of the kindly sympathies which
connect man to his fellow-man. This, and
more than this, we have seen repeated over
and over in the northern catalogues of our
demerits. Such might have been the opinion
of the great mass of the people and politicians
of Great Britain in 75, as to the character of
their brethren in the southern slave-holding
colonies of America, and may have helped to
precipitate their government into those un
wise and tyrannical measures which led to
their separation and independence ; but such
could scarcely then have been the opinion of
the people of Massachusetts when they sent
their Josiah Quiiicy to southern slaveholders
to solicit their aid. They were not then re
garded, either in England or America, as in
ferior in the great virtues that distinguish a
free people. Let Mr. Burke speak, for there
can be no higher authority in England or
America. After speaking of that love of free
dom, the predominating feature which char
acterizes and distinguishes the whole of the
American colonies, every one of which were
then slave-holding colonies : " They are,
therefore, not only devoted to liberty, but to
liberty according to English ideas, and on
English principles. Abstract liberty, like
other mere abstractions, is not to be found
every nation has formed to itself sorne/a-
vorife point, winch, ly way of eminence , becomes
the criterion of their happiness." After
speaking of the probability of resistance from
the northern colonies, on account of their dis
like of the Church of England, he proceeds to
say, that the same reason did not apply to
the southern colonies, for the Church of Eng
land formed there a large body, and had a
regular establishment. "There is, however,"
says he, " another circumstance attending
these colonies, which, in my opinion, fully
counterbalances this difference, and makes
the spirit of liberty still more high and
haughty than in those to the northward. It
is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they
have a vast multitude of slaves. These
people of the southern colonies are much
more strongly, and with a higher and more
stubborn spirit, attached to liberty, than
those to the northward. Such were all the
ancient commonwealths ; such were our Go
thic ancestors ; such in our days were the
Poles ; and such will be all masters of slaves,
who are not slaves themselves. In such a
people, the haughtiness of domination com
bines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it,
and renders it invincible." " There is no
way open," says Mr. Burke, " but to com
ply with the American spirit as necessary ;
or, if you please, to submit to it as a neces
sary evil." Can the North not see the appli
cability of this advice to their own encroach
ments upon the spirit of the South, and the
probable result of similar contempt and in
jury 1
The history of our Revolution fully proves
the truth of Mr. Burke s opinion. The
talent, the courage, the patriotism in short,
the virtues, in every relation, brought out by
that event, in the greatest slave-holding
states, challenge comparison with those in
any other colony. Look at the history of the
states, from Maryland inclusive, South, where
slavery then most abounded. They furnished
Washington, Patrick Henry, the Lees, Car
roll, Mason, the Pinckneys, Davy, the Rut-
ledges, Sumter, Marion, Campbell, Shelby,
and a host of others, who may well be con
trasted with any that can be claimed by the
North, although their pension-list is so much
smaller than that of the North. There is
certainly one thing in which the people of
Massachusetts have excelled all at the South
their universal response when the pension-
roll is called. Besides, the South had no
Arnolds ; and from the formation of our
Union to the present day, our Jefferson,
Madison, Randolph, Tazewell, Gaston, Ma-
con, Lowndes, Cheves, Calhoun, McDuffie,
Preston, Legare, Crawford, Forsyth, Troup,
&c., &c., neednotfear a comparison with their
Quincys, Otises, Websters, Adamses, Van
Burens, Clintons, Sewards, Sergeants, Bin-
neys, or any others they can name. The su
periority of southern over northern statesmen,
64
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
from the very origin of the government, has
been admitted by Mr. Alexander Everett, and
the reasons for it assigned not much to the
credit of the North. Our cities are quite as
moral as theirs ; and as large a proportion of
persons of character, education, and good
manners, can be found in southern cities as
in those of the North. If the North excels
the South in some things, the South, in her
turn, excels in others. No doubt the North
excels in manufactures and the mechanic
arts, ship-building and navigation ; but this,
we insist, is owing to position and climate,
and not to any difference growing out of our
institutions ; in other words, the difference of
institutions has grown out of position the
simple result of interest, and nowise the
fruit of " abstract liberty." We, for genera
tions, have been accustomed to our institu
tions, and find them, in our humble opinion,
best for us. Fate has thus placed the Euro
pean and African races together, and thus
live or die, they must, and we solemnly
believe that any attempt to alter that relation
now by the indiscreet hand of a third power,
must produce the greatest calamity which
could befall either. " It is of course perfectly
easy (says the learned and pious Dr. Arnold)
to say that we will have no slaves, but it is
not quite so easy to make all the human in
habitants of a country, what free citizens of
a country ought to be ; and the state of our
rail-road navigators and cotton operatives is
scarcely better for themselves than that of
slaves, either physically or morally, and is
far more perilous to society." " It is," says
the same writer, " the interest of every em
ployer to get as much work as he can done
for the smallest sum possible. Where is
the church most hated 1 Where is the aris
tocracy most hated ] Where is the aliena
tion of the poor from the rich most complete 1
The answer will always be : wherever the
relation between them has been most exclu
sively that of employer and employed. In
other words, where the relation has been
most purely mercenary. / do not say like
that of master and slave, but actually worse."
The Dr. in another place says : " The mix
ture of persons of different races in the same
commonwealth, unless one race has a com
plete ascendency, tends to confuse all the
relations of life, and all men s notions of
right and wrong ; or by compelling men to
tolerate in so near a relation as that of fel
low-citizens, differences upon the main points
of human life, leads to a general carelessness
and skepticism, and encourages the notion
that right and wrong have no real existence,
but are the mere creatures of human opinion."
The same great authority tells us also, that
among the races of men, some are much more
easily distinguished than others ; " being in
capable of taking in higher elements, [by
crossing,] they dwindle away when brought
into the presence of a more powerful life,
and become at last extinct altogether."
To express the belief, with the learned and
scientific Morton and Agassiz, that the ne
gro is a different and inferior race to the
white, seems to be thought by some of our
learned divines, quite a declaration of infidel
ity. Some of the most pious arid learned
gentlemen, lay and clerical, that we know,
think otherwise ; and on the high Christian
authority of the late learned Dr. Arnold, we
feel that we may safely rely, without doing
violence to the piety of any one. Dr. Ar
nold, in his Miscellanies, p. 147, 160, 161,
says, that " he conceives it to be a principle
most important to the right understanding of
the whole of the Old Testament, that the
revelations made to the Patriarchs were only
partial, or limited to some particular points,
and that their conduct must be judged of, not
according to our knowledge, but to theirs."
" It is very true," says he, " that there are
some things in the first chapters of Genesis,
which we cannot understand, and part of it
possibly may be a sort of allegory or parable
of which we have not the key." Similar
views have been expressed by some of the
ablest clergymen in England and America,
as to astronomy and geology. With some,
more bigoted than wise, in our poor opinion,
even the theory of Malthus, on population,
has been considered as sufficient evidence of
the infidelity of that distinguished divine.
But Dr. Arnold comes in there to his rescue
also, for he says, that he thinks God intend
ed man to multiply in excess of food, or with
a tendency that way, as a punishment for his
disobedience, and as a consequence of his
expulsion from the garden of Eden and that
the theory of Malthus is founded in Scrip
ture, instead of being, as some suppose, an
ti-Christian. (Misc. 160, 161.)
Having been long accustomed to its insti
tutions, the South is satisfied with them.
It feels fully competent to manage its own
affairs, and only seeks to maintain its con
stitutional equality. Let the North boast of
its excellence in the various industrial pur
suits ; we do not envy her, but rejoice in
her success. We are content with our agri
cultural products, by which they and the
rest of the world are most cheaply provided :
agricultural products, too, upon which the
lives of many of them depend. Let any one
visit the Narragansett country of Rhode
Island, look into its interesting history, by
Mr. Updike, and inquire into the manners,
habits, and characters of its ante-revolution
ary, and of its present people, and see what
a contrast he will find in favor of the former.
We have seen, known and admired some of
the best specimens of its present inhabitants,
and have heard them acknowledge their ge
neral degeneracy ; and though admitted by
all to be now the very best samples, yet it is
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
65
observed by one of their intelligent old
neighbors of this particular family, " that
although their family had kept up the
standard as well as any, yet that they were
as far below that of their ancestors, both in
body and mind, as those who had depreciated
most were below us." (History of the Narra-
gansett Church, 326.) The reason is appar
ent. It had been the most thorough slave
country in New-England ; the inhabitants
had kept up the habits and education of En
glish gentlemen ; they cultivated their lands,
and made most of the stone walls now ex
isting ; and these old walls may be, now,
distinguished for their decided superiority,
in neatness and durability, over those since
made. They lived in large and commodious
mansions, many of which remain to this
day. with their old aristocratic air, quite su
perior to the little " slice-of-blocks," which
the manufacturer now hurries up around the
factory. They were hospitable and fond of
society, simple in their manners, and ele
vated in their sentiments, surrounded by
slaves, with abundance of horses and the
provisions of life ; they were a noble people
and well may their sons love to dwell upon
their memory, and to snatch from the ruin
ous progress of time every relic and picture
of these olden days, however painful it must
be to them to confess their " degeneracy
from the old Narragansett race."
The revolution, and consequent abolition
of slavery, have rendered desert many sweet
spots in that country, which were once the
gardens and happy residences of the most
polished and elegant people. Her fields are
no longer cultivated. Her inhabitants are
now crowded around her heated factories,
breathing fetid air, instead of the sweetest
that nature affords. Her great men are
gone. Her gentry sadly diminished. Love
ly and interesting country, why could not
these "desultory men, ever pleased with
change " and false philanthropy, have
placed their hands elsewhere than on your
happy lot. 1 We confess, with our good old
English Anglo-Saxon prejudices, we think
that country good for little, whose institu
tions destroy or banish its country gentry, to
make place for the factory and its inmates.
As far as we have seen, we know no coun
try w r hose agriculture is at a lower ebb than
that of such parts of New-England as travel
ers generally see. We have been told that
the system of manufactures would greatly
improve agriculture and the condition of the
agriculturist ; but the provisions for most of
the factory workmen are now imported from
other states, and the neighboring farmer is
undersold, whilst the price of labor is raised
by the competition of the factories and farm
ers. " In a social point of view, (says
Mr. Mackay,) there is this difference in
America, between the North and South ;
VOL. III.
that in the former, society, in its narrower
sense, takes its chief development in towns ;
whereas, in the latter, it is more generally
confined to the rural districts. This differ
ence is chiefly attributable to the different
systems which obtain in the distribution of
property, and to other causes, social and poli
tical, which will be presently adverted to. As a
general rule, in the North and West, (where
there is no slavery,) there is no such thing
as country society, in the ordinary accepta
tion of the term. The land is divided into some
lots, each man, generally speaking, occupy
ing only as much as he can cultivate. The
whole country is thus divided into farms ;
there are few or no estates. The rural po
pulation is, almost without exception, a
working population, with little leisure, if
they had otherwise the means, to cultivate
the .graces of life. As you travel through
the country, you see multitudes of comfort
able houses and good farming establishments,
but no mansions. There is not, in fact,
such a class in existence there, as is here
known as the country gentry. A more un
promising set of materials from which to
construct an elegant social fabric, can
scarcely he conceived, than those northern
and western farmers. Such is the phase
which rural life presents in the North and
West, with a few slight exceptions," &c.
Yet of the 12,113,000 in these free states,
by the census of 1840, " we have not the
more recent one by us," not as many as two
millions live in cities, while of 8,033,400 of
the slave-holding states not more than seven
or eight hundred thousand live in cities. We
have just given Mr. Mackay s account of the
state of society of this great mass of 10,000,-
000 of Northern and Western rural popula
tion. As to the South, he proceeds : " In
the South, on the other hand, things assume
a very different aspect. In the states of
Maryland, Virginia, and the two Carolinas,
Georgia and Florida, as, indeed, in all the
southern states, land is possessed, as is with
us, in larger quantities ; the owners, as in
England, generally living on their estates.
It is thus, that although Baltimore has its
social circle, the chief society of Maryland is
to be found in the country ; whilst in the
same way, the capital of Virginia affords but
a faint type of the society of the state. In
the rural life of these two states, and in that
of South Carolina, [he might well have added
other states, and particularly Georgia, Lou
isiana, Florida, &c.] are to" be found many
of the habits and predilections of colonial
times, and a nearer approach to English
country life than is discernible in any other
portion of the republic. The country is di
vided into large plantations, containing, in
many instances, many thousands of acres, on
which reside the different families, in large
and commodious mansions, surrounded by
5
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
multitudes of slaves, and by all the appli- ] of gain, and envious of those who are more
ances of rural luxury. It is thus that, re
moved as they are from the necessity of
labor, and being interrupted in their retire
ment only by the occasional visits of their
friends and neighbors, the opportunity is
afforded them of cultivating all those s< ci>il
qualifies which enter into our estimate of a
country gentry. In the society of the south
ern Atlantic states, but particularly in that of
the three last mentioned, there is a purity of
tone and an elevation of sentiment, together
with an ease of manner and a general social
aplomb, which are only to be found in a truly
leisure class. Any general picture of Amer-
successful than himself. The former I speak
of the opulent and educated, [usually, here,
those owning the greater number of slaves,
and most in communication with them,] is
distinguished by a highmindedness, generosity
and hospitality, by no means predicable of
his more eastern
neg
hbors." " In oint of
manner, the southern gentlemen are decided
ly superior to all others of the Union there
is more spirit and vi.va.eity about them, and
far less of that prudent caution, which, how
ever advantageous on the exchange, is by no
means prepossessing at the dinner-table or
in the drawing-room. When at Washing-
T 1 1 1 ,1 ,
lean society would be very incomplete, into ton, I was a good deal thrown into the soci-
which was not prominently introduced the
phase which it exhibits in the rural life of
the South."
Mr. Mackay seems to delight to dwell on
the delightful society, male and female, of
Virginia. Their easy grace, their frank
hospitality, their warmth and fervor, proved
very captivating to the cold Englishman
In the warmth of the moment, he declares
that Virginia " is at once the type and the
ety of members from the South, and left it
armed, by their kindness, with a multitude of
letters, &c. Many of them were men of
much accomplishment, and I think it proba
ble that Englishmen unconnected with busi
ness would generally prefer the society of
gentlemen of this portion of the Union to any
other which the country affords."
Again : the Hon. Charles Augustus Mur
ray, the son of Lord Dunrnore, and accus-
most striking specimen of the social develop- j tomed to the first society in Europe, thus
ment peculiar to the slave-holding states of the speaks of the native female society of New-
Ailantic seaboard ; and it is only illustrative j Orleans, also the pure offspring of a slave-
of such that I have here particularly alluded j holding country. kl In manners, the Creole
to the more distinctive features of Virginian | ladies are gay, lively and unaffected, and
society." - 1 * Al - -"---
altogether possess as much personal attrac
tion as has fallen to the lot even of the fairest
average of the fair creation." u I must also
acknowledge that I had seen nothing so like
a ball since I left Europe ; the contre.-danses
were well danced, and there was \valtzing
without swinging, and a gallopade without
a romp, [a pretty good test of society.] The
supper was exceedingly handsome, and, in
one respect, wine superior to most of those
given at ball suppers in London," and not
Wright s champagne, usually given on such
occasions in London. On the whole, he
close^resemblance to Maryland and Virginia." | went away much pleased with the mirth and
agreeable manners of Creole society.
At Charleston, he says, " a gentleman
must be difficult to please if he does not find
whole population increasing in each succes- j the Charleston society agreeable. There is
sive town which he enters. But in no place something warm, frank and courteous in the
north of it are they so numerous, compared
with the whites, as in Charleston ; in 1840,
Speaking of Charleston, he says, " They
have neither the pretension of the Bostonian,
nor the frigid bearing which the Philadel-
phians at first assume about them, being
characterized by a frankness and urbanity of
manner which at once prepossesses the
stranger in their favor, whilst they put him
completely at his ease. This delighful phase
of Charleston society is much to be attributed
to its constant intercourse with the interior
[the plantations in the country ;] South Caro
lina, in its social characteristics, bearing a
He also reminds the traveler that, as he pro
ceeds south from Philadelphia, he will find
the proportion borne by the negroes to the
they consisted of little more than one-half
its entire population." And he mio-ht have
said the same of the interior or rurardistricts
of the state.
Mr. Hamilton, the author of Cyril Thorn-
rives his evidence : " The poles are
Diametrically opposed than a native
of the states south of the Potomac and a
-Englander. They differ in everything of
thought, feeling and opinion. The latter is
a m.-m of regular and decorous habits,
shrowd, intelligent and persevering : phlegma
tic in temperament, devoted to the pursuits
ton, thus
not more
manner of a real Carolinian ; he is not stu
diously, but naturally, polite ; and though his
character may not be remarkable for that
persevering industry and close attention to
minutiae in business, which are so remarka
ble in the New-England merchant, he is far
from deficient in sagacity, courage or enter
prise. Altogether, with due allowance for
Exceptions, I should say that the Carolinian
character is more akin to that of England ;
the New-England to that of the lowland
Scotch." And all this, notwithstanding the
early abolition of the law of primogeniture,
the frequent division of property among all
the children, and the fact that they are now
SOOTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
67
educated at home, and no longer at Oxford
or Cambridge. Mr. Murray proceeds to say,
that, " while the society of Boston, Philadel
phia and New-York is daily becoming more
exclusive and aristocratic, that of the Caro
linian capital is becoming more republican."
" The tone of society, which here, as else
where, is under female control, struck me as
being very agreeable ; there is nothing in it
of that formality or ostentation which I had
been led to expect. I parted with much re
luctance from some of my partners in this
condemned dance ; [waltz ;] they were pretty,
agreeable and intelligent, arid, in one res
pect, have an advantage over most of their
northern sisters, (if the judge is to be a per
son accustomed to English society,) I
mean, as regards voice ; they have not that
particular intonation and pronunciation
which I had remarked elsewhere, and which
must have struck every stranger who has
visited the other Atlantic cities."
Such, we have shown from the best evi
dence, has been the character of southern
slaveholders previous to the Revolution, and
down to the present day. Let the value of
institutions be judged by their fruit. They
have always had English ideas of liberty, not
French, and, as Mr. Bnrke has said, on Eng
lish principles. They never believed that all
men were born equal. They never favored
* abstract liberty," but have had from the
beginning their own system, and if you
please, their favorite point, which, by way oj
eminence, has become necessary, and therefor
the u criterion of their happiness." If they are
" loud for democracy," it has been for the
democracy of the while man, and not the
negro. When they salute the negro as a
political brother, they will treat him as such,
and not as a dog.
All the greatest and freest people of anti
quity were slaveholders, tn Attica, Laconia,
and all the other prominent states of Greece,
the slave population was much greater than
the free. The people, literally, (the citizens
only.) were in every instance a small mi
nority. Speaking of the character of the
Romans, Lord Woodhouselie (Mr. Tytler)
says : " A virtuous but i-igid severity of
manners was the characteristic of the Ro
mans under their kings, and during the first
ages of the republic. The private life of the
citizens was frugal, temperate and laborious,
and it reflected its influence on their public
character. The children imbibed from their
infancy the highest veneration for their pa
rents, who, from the extent of the paternal
power among the Romans, had an unlimited
authority over their wives, their offspring,
and their slaves. It is far from natural to the
human mind that the possession of power and,
authority should form a tyrannical disposi
tion. Where that authority, indeed, has been
usurped by violence, its possessor may, per
haps, be tempted to maintain it by tyranny ;
3Ut where it is either a right dictated by na-
ure, or the easy effect of circumstances and
situation, the very consciousness of authority
s apt to inspire a beneficence and humanity
n the manner of exercising it. Thus we
ind the ancient Romans, although absolute
sovereigns in their families, with the jits vita
et necis, the right of life and death over their
children and their slaves, were yet excellent
husbands, and kind and affectionate parents,
humane and indulgent masters. Nor was it
until luxury had corrupted the virtuous sim
plicity of the ancient manners, that this pa
ternal authority, degenerating into tyrannical
abuses, required to be abridged in its power,
and restrained in its exercise by the enact
ment of law. By an apparent contradiction,
so long as the paternal authority was abso
lute, the slaves and children were happy ;
when it became weakened ar.d abridged,
then it was that its terrors were, from the
excessive corruption of manners, most se
verely felt. Even, however, under the first
emperors, the patria potfstas remained in its
full force, and the custom of the patres f ami-
lias sitting at rneals with their slaves and
children, showed that there still remained
some venerable traces of that ancient and
virtuous simplicity.
At the South, children are never put out
to nurse, but are brought up from their birth
under the careful and jealous eye of the mo
ther, and, as with the Romans, non tarn in
greneio quam in sermone matris. Southcy, in
one of his letters, speaks of Shadrach Weeks,
(a servant boy of his aunt, with whom he
lived.) to whose companionship he was ac
customed when a child, for want of better :
and, many years after, speaking of " Shad,"
he assures his friend, as if it were something
extraordinary, or not to be expected, that
were " Shad" still alive, and he should meet
him, "be it where it might," he would re
turn his salutation with a hearty shake of the
hand. We wonder if there could be found
a gentleman in the whole South, who would
not, under similar circumstances, which are
not uncommon, shake the black and dirty
paw of Cutfee or Sambo ?
A great source, we are sorry to say it, of
popular prejudice in Europe and elsewhere
agiinst the slaveholding states, has arisen
from a Yankee love of misrepresenting and
blackening everything at the South. Some
of our readers may remember the account
given by Mr. Lyell, in his second visit to the
United States, of the " abolitionist wrecker, 5
in the railway cars between Chehaw and
Montgomery. " At one of the stations we
saw a runaway slave, who had been caught
and handcuffed; the first I had fallen in with
in irons in the course of the present journey.
On seeing him, a New-Englander, who had
been with us in the stage before we reached
Chehaw, began to hold forth on the misera
ble condition of the negroes in Alabama,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and some other states
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS.
which I had not yet visited. For a time I took
for ^"ted all he said of the .offering, of the
colored race in those regions, the cruelty ol
the overseers, their opposition to the improve
ment and education of the blacks, and espe
cially to their conversion to Christianity. I
bewail to shudder at what I was doomed to
witness in the course of my further journey-
ings in the South and West. He was very
intelligent, and so well informed on politics
and political economy, that, at first, I thought
myself fortunate in meeting with a man so
competent to give me an unprejudiced opin
ion on matters of which he had been an eye
witness. At length, however, suspecting a
disposition to exaggerate, and a party- feeling
on the subject, I gradually led him to speak
of districts with which I was already familiar,
especially South Carolina and Georgia. I
immediately discovered that there also he
had everywhere seen the same horrors and
misery. He went so far as to declare that
the piny woods all around us were full of
hundreds of runaways, who subsisted on
venison and wild hogs; assured me that I
had been deceived if I imagined that the co
lored men in the upper country, where they
have mingled more with the whites, were
more progressive ; nor was it true that the
Baptists and Methodists had been successful
in making proselytes. Few planters, he af
firmed, had any liking for the negroes; and,
lastly, that a war with England about Ore
gon, unprincipled as would be the measure
on the part of the democratic faction, would
have, at least, its bright side, for it might put
an end to slavery. How in the world,
asked I, could it effect this object ? Eng
land, he replied, would declare all the
slaves in the South free, and thus cripple her
enemy by promoting a servile war. The
negroes would rise, and, although, no doubt,
there would be a great loss of life and pro
perty, the South would, nevertheless, be a
gainer, by ridding herself of this most vicious
and impoverishing institution. This man had
talked to me so rationally on a variety of
top cs so long as he was restrained by the
company of southern fellow-passengers from
entering on the exciting question of slavery,
that I now became extremely curious to
know what business had brought him to the
South, and made him a traveler there for
several years. I was told by the conductor
that he was a wrecker ; and I learned in
explanation of the term, that he was a com
mercial agent, and partner of a northern
house which had great connections in the
South."
We have said before, that even Mr. Mackay
is mistaken if he supposes that on this subject
be can raise himself above this "overriding
Europi-an pivjudice," or avoid "stumbling
over difficulties" created by his own imagi
nation. We have shown, on the most re
spectable British authority, that in the rural
society in the oldest and greatest southern
slave-holding states, there is "a purity of
tone," and " an elevation of sentiment" " a
high-mindedness, generosity and hospitality,"
rarely to be found at the North ; and that
in point of manner, the southern genile-
men were decidedly superior to all others of
the Union," and that " Englishmen, uncon
nected with business, would generally prefer
the society of gentlemen of this portion of
the Union to any other which the country
affords." Again, the ladies are found quite
as virtuous, gay, lively, unaffected, graceful,
and possessing as much personal attraction
as has fallen to the lot even of the fairest
average of fair creation. Moreover, these
degenerate, slave-holding gentlemen of the
South, are, " in character, move akin to that
of England," than those of New-Euglaud or
of the North generally. Then, really, in the
eyes of au Englishman, they have, in truth,
degenerated less than any others in America ;
for what higher criterion of perfection can
we have of mankind than an English gentle
man ! Why, and how is this? Without
seeming to see where it leads, Mr. Mackay
has jriven the true cause. " This difference
is chiefly attributable to the differei.t sys
tems which obtain in the distribution of pro
perty, and to other causes, social and politi
cal." At the South, " the country is divided
into large plantations, on which reside the
different, families, in large and commodious
mansions, surrounded by slaves, and by all
the appliances of rural luxuries. It is thus
the opportunity is afforded them of cultiva
ting all those social qualities which enter into
our estimate of a country gentry." It is a
mistake, in the author, to suppose that there
has " obtained any difference in the distribu
tion of property between the North and
South." In both, the law makes a general
distribution among all the children. We
never knew a will to leave the testator s es
tate to one child to ihu exclusion of others.
To this " peculiar institution, then,"
(slavery,) is all this due ; though it may not
consist exactly with that abstract liberty,"
which, as Mr. Burke says, is nowhere to be
found. The South may be excused if it does
not take every ass s advice, to avoid, if not
that " favorite point," at least, that necessary
one, which, by way of" eminence," has thus
been acknowledged, by their enemies, to be
" the criterion," not " only of their happi
ness," but of their moral and social superi
ority. We have long been taught by British
literature to be proad of our Saxon ancestors,
and we shall scarcely now be made ashamed
of an institution under which they became so
distinguished for the love of liberty.
This, then, is the evil, the crime, the tumor
of Mr. Mackay, which causes so much shame
to our social and political system ! All the
good is to be counterbalanced by Mr. Mac-
kay s seeing " an aged negro his hair par-
hully whitened with years waiting on the
Senate of the United States ! He, with other
SOUTH HOW AFFECTED BY HER SLAVE INSTITUTIONS.
69
negroes, daily swept the chamber the black
man cleaning what the white man defiles.
Who will erase the moral stain that casts
such a shadow over the republic ?" Was
ever such balderdash uttered before ? "Near
him was the door leading into the gallery. It
was slightly ajar. The ceiling of the chamber
was visible to him, and the voice of the speak
ers came audibly from within. Some one was
then addressing the house. I listened and
recognized the tones of one of the representa
tives of Virginia, the great breeder of slaves,
fthe mother of that rural population so much
nearer in approach to his English gentry, than
is discernible in any other portion of the re
public ; a phase of society they all so much
admire ; so pure in its tone, and elevated in
its sentiments, and social aplomb, ] dogmati
zing upon abstract rights and constitutional
privileges. What a commentary was that
poor wretch upon his language! To think
that each words should fall upon such ears;
the freeman speaking, the slave listening, and
all within the very sanctuary of the Constitu
tion !"
Did Mr. Mackay never behold an aged
negro, his hair partially whitened with years,
in the drizzling rain the livelong day, sweep
ing the mud from the crossing places in an
English city, to let gentlemen, like Mr.
Mackay, pass, without soiling their patent
leather ; while these humane gentlemen sel
dom drop one penny in "his crooked fin
gers," to quench the thirst or stay the hunger
of the poor negro, (much more an object of
pity than he, who has the enviable birth of
sweeping the Senate chamber) ? The writer
of this article, on the contrary, a slaveholder
from birth, yea, for generations, never passed
one but he felt for him as a distressed fellow-
countryman far from home and friends, whose
demands for chanty were more obligatory
on him than those of the white man. Did
Mr. Mackay never read the " Knife Grinder ?"
The English boast of their act of emanci
pation. The West Indies had friends so
long as they had creditors in England. The
act was, in fact, only a liquidation, at one-
third of the price of the property, of the debt
due by them to their British creditors.
Their friends were thus bought up. To
the poor of England, sugar was made scarce,
taxes increased, and idleness made plenty in
those islands. The twenty millions did not
go, as it was pretended it would do, to pay
the wages of the freed negro ; nor did its
disbursement disturb the exchanges of
London, for it remained there, and Jamaica
and her sister islands have been left to
struggle in the wreck, made so kindly for
them by their national government. Yet we
are even now told by Mr. Mackay, " to how
great an extent the tide is now, unfor
tunately, turning in Europe, if not in favor
of slavery, at least of something very much
approximating to it ; whilst the public mind
is becoming imbued with the notion that, in
the course which was pursued in regard to
the West Indies, if we have not gone too
far, we acted, at least, with rashness and
precipitation."
We have given the character of the
southern planters, as estimated by Mr.
Mackay and others of his countrymen, not
as they first conceived or were told when
they first reached the North, but after
being in society with them at home. Now,
let us look over their travels, and notice the
little inconsistent prejudices which they
exhibit here and there before they have made
this personal acquaintance, but are only
receiving their impressions from our brethren
at the North. Arrived at Washington,
"what a motly heterogeneous assembly!
Within a narrow compass you have the
semi-savage Far Westerner, the burly
backwood s-man, the enterprising New-
Englander, the genuine Sam Slick, the
polished Bostonian, the adventurous New-
Yorker, the staid and prim Philadelphian,
the princely merchant from the seaboard,
the wealthy manufacturer, the energetic
farmer, and the languid but uncertain plan
ter." In the library he finds " the exquisitely
formed and vivacious Creole, the languid but
interesting daughters of Georgia and the
Carolinas, and the high-spirited Virginia
belle, gushing with life, and light of heart ;
the elegant and springy forms of Maryland
and Philadelphia maidens, and the clear and
high-complexioned beauties of New-Eng
land." And again, in the House of Repre
sentatives, Mr. Mackay gives a sketch,
characteristic of North, South, East and
West. " What pages of history of the
Union may be read in the varied physiognomy
of the House ! Close beside you is the
languid Carolinian, accustomed to have every
thing done for him, at his nod." And yet,
" in character, so much akin to that of Eng
land !" According to the notion of most
cockneys, Carolina and Georgia arc the only
slave states, and Georgia and Mobile the
only producers of short staple cotton : hence
this peculiar languor, and authority of the
nod, which, of course, can exist in no other
slave state. Not three years since, a maker
of gins, in Massachusetts, asked us if they
made cotton in South Carolina 1 How comes
it that the belles of Virginia and Louisiana
are not languid 1
But these same languid ladies Mr. Murray
found, at home, " gay, lively, and unaffected,
and possessed of as much personal attrac
tion as has fallen to the fairest of creation."
Mr. Mackay must excuse us, if, on this sub
ject, we prefer thejndgment of one of Queen
Victoria s court, quite above that of a squire
of any degree. Those who knew the mem
bers of Congress, from the Carolinas, in
1846-7, will smile at the idea of their
70
SOUTH AND THE UNION.
peculiar languor. In the Senate, he himself
" foremost, for his pre-eminence in talents,
purity of intentions and lustre of social
qualities," places Mr. Calhoun, from languid
Carolina. Could he have meant such men
as Messrs. McDuffie, Badger, and Rhett ?
Mr. Mackay, perhaps, can reconcile these
discrepancies. We think, however, that
they show some inkling of old prejudices
which still over-ride his judgment similar
climate and similar institutions produce
similar characters. The same waiting upon,
the same obedience to the nod, and the same
climate, can scarcely produce |* high
spirit" in the Virginian, "vivacity" in the
Creole of Louisiana, and languor in the
Carolinian and Georgian. What elevates
and gives tone to the gentleman can scarcely
make him languid. So much for he judg
ment of an impartial intelligent European
upon the character of our people and
institutions ! It does not move us one jot
to abandon them. Prejudice, everywhere,
must cause contradictions and inconsisten
cies. We have no objection that the Eng
lishman, or Northernman should prefer his
own institutions. We are content with our
own, and do not feel that we need their aid
to amend them. " I can assert," says Mr.
W. Thompson, a Scotch weaver, who
traveled in 1841-42 in the southern states,
(cited by Mr. Lyell,) and who lived and
worked with persons of that class, where he
was likely to see most " I can assert,
without fear of contradiction from any man,
who has any knowledge of the subject, that
I have never witnessed one-fifth of the real
suffering that I have seen in manufacturing
establishments in Great Britain, and that the
members of the same family of negroes are
not so much scattered as are those of work
ing men in Scotland, whose necessities
compel them to separate at an early age,
when the American slave is running about
gathering health and strength."
" Certainly," says Carlyle, " emancipation
proceeds with rapid strides, and might give
rise to reflection in men of a serious turn.
"West Indian blacks are emancipated, and
refuse to work. Irish whites have long
been emancipated, and nobody asks them to
work, finding them potatoes. In the pro
gress of emancipation, are we to look for a
time when the horses are to be emanci
pated! Cut," says he, "every human
relation which has anywhere grown uneasy,
sheer asunder; reduce whatsoever was
compulsory to voluntary ; whatsoever was
permanent among us to the condition of
nomadic; in other words, loosen, by as
siduous wedges, in every joint, the whole
fabric of social existence, stone from stone,
till at last, all now being loose enough, it
can, as we already see in most countries, be
overset by sudden outbursts of revolutionary
rage ; and lying as mere mountains of
anarchic rubbish, solicit you to sing Fra
ternity, &c., over it, and to rejoice in the
new remarkable era of human progress we
have arrived at." "My friends, I grieve to
remind you, but it is eternally the fact :
Whom Heaven has made a slave, no parlia
ment of men, nor power that exists on earth^
can render him free. No ; he is chained by
fetters which parliaments, with their mil
lions, cannot reach. You can label him (the
African) free ; yes, and it is but labeling
him a solecism bidding him to be the parent
of solecisms wheresoever he goes." " Be
nevolent philanderings !" " Seeds of that
portentous disease now envenoming prole
tarian life !" " Socialism and Fourierism."
Me Cord.
THE SOUTH AND THE UNION.* RE
SOURCES AND WEALTH OF THE SOUTH, AND-
WHAT SHE HAS CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS THE
GROWTH OF THE NATION. A citizen of a
distant section of the confederacy, which is
far nearer to the sun than your own, and is
basking in his autumnal rays, whilst you
are receiving refuge from shivering blasts,
I am not ignorant of the people among whom
I find myself, and need not now be informed
of their growing greatness and power. We
have heard of the ceaseless industry, and
energy, and enterprise of the North,, and
they have become proverbial with us. We
know that your shipping have circumnavi
gated the globe, and that the white wings of
your commerce flap in every haven or islet
where Christian or savage man asks in his
necessities for bread or broadcloth, and that
with a daring grasp you have seized from
old Neptune himself the very trident, of the
seas. We know that the hum of your ma
chinery is never hushed, arid that ten thou
sand times ten thousand fabrics 01 ingenu
ity and skill are sent out each day from the
granite factories, which, like feudal palaces,
Irown down upon your water-courses, or
from the dense lanes of your metropoli
tan cities. We know that you have leveled
hills, surmounted rivers and valleys, and
even arms of the great sea, and intersected
on a thousand lines your plains, and hills,
and valleys, by those iron ways of civiliza
tion, the rail-road ; and that your people.,
with their Pandora s box of " notions," fly
hither and thither with a celerity God only
knows how great ! You dig down into the
innermost bowels of the earth, and bring up
coal and iron you hew out of vast moun
tains huge granite blocks, and turn into
profit even the very curses of God : ycur
* The above paper comprises but the corrected
notes of an Address prepared to be delivered last
summer by invitation at the Fair of the American
Institute, New- York, and is of necessity crude and
ill digested.
SOUTH AND THE UNION.
71
winters, which change streams and foun
tains alike into solid ice, and leave through
out the length and bread h of your wide do
minions liler dly " no green thing alive "
Your population has magnified and multi
plied, and in its denseness been compelled
to seek every available outlet, so that if they
want a piece of ice at Timbuctoo, or a fric
tion match at Nova Zembla, a Yankee trader
will be found present there, and ready to
supply th.o want. Your small towns swell
into great ones, and your wonderful Man
hattan rivals already the leviathans of the
oh! world, which have had the benefit of
ages of refinement and civilization.
Thus you are, people of the North ; and
here, to-day, as I look around me upon
this extraordinary museum, which your
farmers, your machinists, apprentices, arti
sans and manufacturers have fabricated in
their ingenuity and enterprise, I seem to see,
as through a diminishing mirror, and at
one glance, your active and busy millions
reflected, like that mirror, in which it is
fabled one of the Ptolemies could see every
thing that was enacted in Egypt.
I will not deny that I am astonished and
delighted, and that in my own region I
would imitate very much what belongs to
your character and career ; but at the same
time I must be allowed to say, in kindly in
tention, and with the utmost frankness, I
am not ashamed to name that region in the
same breath with your own. In the true
spirit of my countrymen, I will even go fur
ther, and add, so nearly are the good things
of this world balanced, and so much do I be
lieve in substantial blessings we have the ad
vantage, that I would be very far indeed
from changing places with you in the con
federacy ! The sun shines not alone for the
North, nor the stars nor have you the
winds, and the rains, and the dews to your-
eelf, though the snows be all your own
Your people seem often, however, to think
and to act as if it were otherwise, and God
had made the world entirely for them, and
no part of it for us, the " outside barbari
ans," beyond the "pillars of Hercules,
interpreted to mean landmarks of " Mason
and Dixon, 1 the very outposts of all civiliza
tion and progress. Think not that we
of the benighted South, like the British chief
tain, when carried in the triumphant pro
cession of the conqueror to Rome, are going
to marvel in surveying all of your great and
wonderful works, that you have envied us,
notwithstanding OUR POOR HUTS on the banks
of the Potomac, or by the shores of the
Mexican Gulf !
No, no, sirs : the South has nothing to
blush for ; and no son of hers may hold
down his head when any people upon earth
are in discussion. Whilst we are surprised,
we are not envious of the career of any of
our neighbors, being able to show in turn
a career of progress and advancement which,
when correctly appreciated and understood,
must satisfy the minds of the most exact
ing. We do not shun the comparison, but
rather court and invite it ; and here, to-day,
in your swarming hive, and where I see
smiles of proud triumph upon every lip, and
hear every voice eloquent in your praises,
I take high pleasure in calling up in vivid
memory the region which I proudly call my
HOME the beautiful inner domestic life and
high civilization which marks the society of
the SOUTH the pregnant cane-fields of the
Lower Mississippi, the fleecy gossypium,
overrunning its millions and millions of
acres, in rank luxuriance, and at once
giving food and raiment to the laboring mil
lions of the old and the new world.
What have we of the plantation states
been doing towards the extension of this
great confederacy 1 How have our people
been employed in every period of their his
tory 1 W hat is now our social and politi
cal position, and what does the future
promise us ]
Fellow-citizens, much misrepresentation
of the South, in every point of view, has
been but too common, and we are ourselves
somewhat at fault in not diffusing correct
information which it is in our power to give.
Ignorant or bad men have found capital in
traducing our institutions and our people,
or in underrating our position and import
ance in the confederation. I have supposed
that in the great and liberal city of New-
York, and before an institution which pro
fesses to be AMERICAN, that this subject of
the SOUTH is one ot the most interesting
that could be brought into discussion, and
that having invited me, a Southern man, to
speak, you will freely and willingly hear me
for my cause, and be patient that you may
hear.
I begin with COMMERCE. It is by our
commercial relations that we are known to
the rest of the world. This rears for us
fleets and navies, and from it come the rev
enues for the most part of the nation. Be
fore the Revolution, or from 1760 to 1769,
the southern colonies, with a less population
than New-England, New-York and Penn
sylvania, exported nearly five times as much
produce. In the same period Carolina and
Georgia exported twice the value of New-
York, Pennsylvania and New-England. In
the years 1821 to 1830, New -York alone ex
ceeded these states. Under the policy of the
federal government of protecting American
ship-builders and ship-owners, who, from the
peculiar nature of the country, are from the
North, the larger portion of this trade has
been attracted away from our ports and con
centrated in yours. Yet is the ca*e unaf
fected, if we may still trace the products of
72
SOUTH AND THE UNION.
our industry and our skill. Whatever may
be the value of the great foreign trade of the
It is this cotton which employs the millions
of New-England, and which throws the
Old England, McCul-
grave statistician of
loch, into ecstasies :
" Little more than half a century has elapsed since
the British cotton manufacture was in its infancy,
and it now forms the principal business carried on
in the country, affording an advantageous Held for
the accumulation and employment of millions upon
nation, it is evident the imports of the coun
try must only come in exchange for the ex
ports, and that, if we had nothing to export,
we could get nothing in return. Whence
then does this nation seek its exports 1 Let
us take the last five years. In 1846 the ex
ports of Northern growth or manufacture, j minions of capftaC and of thousanW aud Vhon sands
and much of this manufacture is out of j of workmen. The skill and genius by which these
Southern material, were $27,331,290, whilst j 5*^,^ mSn^SoSro^o^ a ^er d Tb^ Java
those of Southern produce, cotton, tobacco, eopttibntedinBocoramdttd^e^^raVsetlieirtttS
rice, naval stores, &c., were $74,000,000, or i nation to the high and conspicuous place she now
three times as much! In 1847 the Southern | occupies. Nor is it much to say, that H was the
exports were $102,000,000, against the
Northern $48,000,000 ; in 1848, $98,000,-
000, against 834,000,000; in 1849, $99,-
000,000 against 32,000,000.
Thus then is it, that the South is lending
annually to the North 100 millions of dol- |
wealth and energy derived from the cotton manufac
ture that bore us triumphantly through ihe late
dreadful wars ; and at the same time that it ives us
strength to endure burdens that would have crush
ed our fathers, and could not he supported by any
other people."
I will next take the article of SUGAR. In
lars to be used by her as capital in conduct- i 1804, when Louisiana was purchased from
ing the foreign imports of the country, which j France, her sugar product, we have it on the
nearly all come in your ships and to your j highest authority, was next to nothing. In-
cities, and enrich your people in an extraor- j deed, it was only in 1796 that Mr. Bore con-
dinary ratio ! Mr. Kettell, of New-York, j ceived, asJudge Host assures us, the desperate
estimates the profits which have been made | purpose of making sugar, amid the genera?
by northern ship-owners upon southern pro- j existing prejudice that the juice would not
ductions, at 840,000,000 in round numbers.
What has the South been doing in GEN
ERAL INDUSTRY 1 She has carried the pro
duction of COTTON, which, at the close of the
last century, was thought by Mr. Jay and
" grain." Crowds from every quarter came
to witness his experiment, near New-Or
leans. " Gentlemen, it grains," was the ex
clamation of the sugar-maker ; and from the
Balize to the Dubuque from the Wabash
others never could be an American product, to the Yellow-stone the great, the all-ab-
to an extent which has distanced the wildest sorbing news of the colony was, that " the
calculations ; in the fineness arid excellence | juice of the cane had grained in Lower
of its production, excelled every nation upon > Louisiana.
earth, monopolizing the industry entirely to j Half a century has passed since then, and
herself. Of what avail has been British j the population of our country increased from
competition in the East, on a soil adapted to i 4,000,000 to over 23,000*000 of people
the culture, with labor so cheap that a beg
gar in this country would starve upon its re
sults, with the fostering regards of ministers
and agents 1 Of what moment have been
the rivalries of the Pacha of Egypt, of the
West Indies and South America 1 Southern
enterprise and industry have triumphed over
all, and has, for a quarter of a century, mon
opolized the staple to themselves. The cot
ton wool and its fabrics of the South are
whose consumption of sugar is more than
half supplied by the industry of Louisiana,
and will, in a fr
years more,
progress of the state, be entirely so supplied.
The gross product of the last five years
has been nearly 1,200,000 hhds., against lit
tle over 600,000 hhds. in the previous, five
years. The crop of 1849- 50 reached near
ly 250,000 hhds., of the value, with molas
ses, &c., of about $15,000,000. Within a
year or two, one hundred new sugar estates
will be opened. What other community can
show as favorable results 1 Our product is
even sent to China and to India, where the
attivation of the plant seems to have thrived
as far back almost as the fabulous age ofi < < ^> ^ wu ^
Dili, and where it has been manufactured already one-sixth the product of the world,
, ics B deh cate, that the orientals and one-half the product of Cuba; and
while we have been at work in developing it,
Great Britain has seen her rich sugar colo
nies dwindle into insignificance, and must
look abroad even for the supply of her own
call them "webs of woven
* In the table of supplies we may observe that
vvlul, other countries have been nearly stationary
our production has advanced with great rapiditv
In twenty years our average crop has increased
010 ,000 bales to 2,351,000, or nearly three lum-
[fthe period of 25 years, from 1825 to
1B50, be divided into five equal intervals, the increase
for each will be found to be 27, 37, 38, and 15 per
in. In the same time the production of all other
conntnea nag only riaen from 383,000 to 440,000 bales
absolutely declined in the last "
16 per cent. In the first period of
, >
ye a rs,S -
crop of the United States constituted 68 per cent, of
the whole ! In the second, 74 ; in the third, 77 ; in
the fourth, 80 ; and in the fifth, 84 per cent, of the
whole. As our bales have increased very much in
Weight, and are now much larger than those of
other countries, our advance has been still greater,
till higher than these figures indicate.
SOUTH AND THE UNION.
73
wants.* The investment in mere machinery,
&c., with us, is of the most costly kind
not less, perhaps, than f 15,000,000; and
experiments on the most liberal and largest
scale are continually prosecuted. Five years
ago, two of our most intelligent citizens
went to the Spanish West Indies to examine
into the state of the sugar industry, and re
turned with the gratifying intelligence that
they could find nothing there to learn, but
that in every respect the Louisianian was
in advance. These things we have effected,
though
" The slaves by which Cuba canes are cultivated,
are, in spite of the suppression of the slave trade,
imported from Africa, at a cost which, on an average,
does not exceed, the price in Louisiana of a good
pair of mules. The climate there permits these
slaves to be worked with as few clothes as they
were in the habit of wearing in their native coun
try ; whilst our slaves are, generally at least, as well
fed and clothed as laborers are in Europe. Canes in
Cuba ripen during fourteen or eighteen months, and
require no plowing, no ditching, and hardly any
weeding; their rattoons last fifteen or twenty years.
With us, after having tilled our soil in a manner o
farmer in the United States would be aiiumed of,
we must get sugar out or our canes, on an average,
eight months after they have come out of the ground,
and must re-plant every second year. They grind
six months in the year; we can hardly calculate on
half that time. With all these disadvantages
against us, our planters make fully as many pounds
of sugar to the working hand as can be made in
Cuba."
But I have other testimony. In 1849, the
government sent a special agent, Mr. Fleisch-
man, to examine the sugar industry of Lou
isiana. This gentleman, on his return,
made an elaborate and valuable report, in
which he says :
" There is no exaggeration in saying, that there is
no sugar-growing country, where all the modern
improvements have been more fairly tested and
adopted, than in Louisiana, and where such perfect
boiling apparatus is used, fulfilling all the conditions
that science and experience have pointed out as ne
cessary for obtaining a pure and perfect crystalline
sugar, combined with the utmost economy of fuel.
" The success of these improved modes is due to
the enterprise and high intelligence of the Louisiana
planters, who spare no expense to carry this import
ant branch of agriculture and manufacture to its
highest perfection. They have succeeded in making,
strictly from, the cane-juice, sugar of absolute che
mical purity, combining perfection of crystal and
color. This is, indeed, a proud triumph, says
Professor McCulloch, in his valuable report to Con
gress. In the whole range of the chemical arts, I
am not aware of another instance \vere so perfect a
result is in like manner immediately attained.
" What was supposed impossible has been ac
complished by the Louisiana planter, notwithstand
ing the obstacles of the late maturity of the cane,
of the tropical regions. But not only in the raising
of cane and the manufacture of sugar does the
1804...
1805
1806
1807 . . .
1808..
* SUGAR CROP
...1 12,163 hhda,
...150,352 "
...146,601 "
. . . 135,203 "
132,333 "
S IN JAMAICA.
1844 34,444 hhds.
1845 47,926 "
1846 36,223 "
1847 48,554 "
1848 42,212 "
850, by JOHN BIGELOW.
Jamaica in ]
Louisiana planter excel : he deserves also commen
dation for the manner in which he has embellished
his country. His leisure hours are devoted to the
beautifying of his estates, thus rendering the margin
of the Mississippi a continuation of beautiful villages,
surrounded by tropical plants and trees."
The same gentleman is transported into
ecstasies on descending the lower Mississippi,
and viewing the cane-fields of our thriving
state :
" I cannot describe the delight I felt when I first
entered the state of Louisiana. Its river, the crea
tor of this rich alluvial territory, after having tossed
and rolled its mighty waters against the wild shores
of the upper country, carrying away and building up,
inundating vast tracts, and leaving everywhere
traces of its destructive sway, begins at once to
slacken its current and keep its turbid stream with
in the bounds of fertile banks, gliding majestically
through highly cultivated plains, covered with the
graceful sugar-cane, the uniformity of which is con
tinually diversified by beautiful dwellings, gardens,
and the towering chimneys of the sugar-houses, the
handsome fronts of which stand forth in the pictu
resque background of the forest, forming an ever-
changing scene.
" The traveler who floats in one of the gigantic
palaces of the southwest, can from the high deck be
hold wnii delight tiie enchanting scenery the whole
day long, and look witn regret on the setting sun,
| which, gradually withdrawing behind the dark out
line of the cypress forest, leaves this lovely country
reposing under the dark mantle of night. Not less
| beautiful and well cultivated are the shores of the
great bayous and tributaries crossing the state in
all directions. I invariably met with that far-famed
hospitable welcome peculiarly characteristic of the
Southern gentleman and planter."
But this is not all. We have Texas*
which already produces as much as Lou
isiana did in 1822, and which, in many parts,
is abundantly adapted to the culture ; and
Florida, which, in time, will enter the com
petition for a large share of the results.
I will not pause to consider our tobacco and
our rice, though they cannot be considered
contemptible, since the value we annually ex
port in these articles, alone, is one-third the
value of the exports of all the North, in
every product whatever : nor shall I refer to
less important staples.
Let us turn now to the subject of MANU
FACTURES. Let the North not suppose she
has the monopoly here to herself. A great
j revolution is in progress. Already the sta-
I pies of Southern manufacture are exhibited
at your fairs, which elicit, as your own Re
ports show, the highest approval and admira
tion. The product of Southern looms com
pete in your own markets in the heavier cot
ton fabrics. The South knows her advan
tage, and is pushing it witl
gy which nothing can now arrest,
ing up an Institute at Charleston, which will
in time vie with your own, and at its great
FAIR, last November, made an exhibition
which excited universal surprise and admi
ration. These fairs will multiply in her
limits. Already the amount of cotton which
she annually consumes in manufactures is
between 80 and 90,000 bales, or about aa
SOUTH AND THE UNION.
much as
North in
the consumption of the whole
1830 ! Every day our capitalists
"Thus, then, the products of the western country
whether descending the White River or the mighty
stream of the Missouri ; whether floating along the
current of the Mississippi or its tributary branches,
many of them noble rivers, and, like the Illinois,
flowing through territories of exuberant and inex
haustible fertility ; whether descending along the
stream of the Ohio itself, or any of its secondary
waters, will only have to pause in their descending
are investing in new mills, and the planters
theu.M-lves are urged into the business on
the assurance that they can add at the low
est forty dollars to every bale of cotton they
produce. In the states of North and j 1 ^ ^ ^-^^ of the Tennessee
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and 1 lessee, for two or three dayg ^ and {hen in fm{y QT sixty
130 mills are at work, with 140,000 spindles, j nourS5 according to the rate at which carriages jshall
These mills have a bounty of from 1 ^ to 2
cents, on every pound of cotton used, in the
saving of transportation and other expenses
and it is exhibited in their profits, which are
not behind those of the most favored in the
world. All of this we have done in scarcely
more than ten years ; and no one can con
sider the subject without arriving at the con
clusion, that the South is becoming, and will
become, perhaps jointly with the West, the
great cotton manufacturing region of the
world. Were she to work up her 2,500,000 I
bales of cotton, and receive the profit at $40
each, she would realize from 70 to 100,000
millions ; or if the 600,000 bales manufac
tured in the United States were manufac
tured in her limits, she would have 25 mil
lions of dollars to add to her present enor
mous annual products ! Hear what Mr,
James, a northern man, says upon this sub-
ject:
" In the cotton-growing states, fuel for the gene
ration of steam-power is abundant, and its cost is
scarcely more than one-tenth part of its cost in
New-England. Why, then, should not the South,
even if utterly destitute of water-power, manufac
ture at least a considerable portion of the cotton
grown in her own fields ? The bare saving in trans
portation, commission and fuel, when compared
with the amount they cost the manufacturer in New-
England, would twice cover the cost of steam-power
at the South, including engine, repairs, the pay of
engineer, and, in fact, all incidental expenses. Ire-
t the inquiry then Why should not the South
ome the manufacturer of her own product 1 She
would thus retain to herself at least a considerable
portion of the many advantages now derived from
it by others. For one, the writer can assign no
other reason why this is not done, than inattention
to, and neglect of the most certain and infallible
means to promote the best interests of the commu
nity."
And how is it with INTERNAL IMPROVE
MENTS] It is admitted, from the denser po
pulation, the larger commerce, and the less
navigation privileges of the North, she has
gone very far ahead in the extension of in
ternal improvements. But here again the
South has no cause to blush. In all commu
nities strictly agricultural, where the people
travel little, and where the freight to be
transported is necessarily bulky, the greatest
discouragements are opposed to the construc
tion of railroads ; yet has the South not been
entirely inactive. As early as 1828, when
there was not, according to the Railroac
Journal, " a locomotive in successful opera
tion in America, Stephen Elliott, of South
Carolina, spoke to his fellow-citizens in the
following remarkable and prophetic manner :
peat
beco
be made to travel, may be placed in Augusta, on na
vigable water flowing into the Atlantic, or in another
day on continued railroads, may be delivered in
Charleston or Savannah, in Atlantic ports possess
ing every advantage that mercantile enterprise may
require. Six days, therefore, of uninterrupted tra
vel, may take produce from the confluence of the
Ohio and the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlan
tic, and in twelve days a return cargo may be deli
vered at the same points !"
Accordingly the Charleston and Hamburg
rail-road was built, which was at the time
the longest rail-road in the world ! Scarcely
had it been completed, when the citizens of
that great emporium were found still urging
onwards their great enterprise of reach
ing tKo Ohio or t.he Mississippi, and they
projected the Louisville and Cincinnati rail
road, over five hundred miles in length, and
which had the appearance of the most stu
pendous project known to human industry !
The road failed from the extraordinary re
vulsions of the times ; but as it, is now in
process of attainment by the addition of suc
cessive links to the chain, the great credit of
the enterprise must be given to the South,
and to the practical minds who were engaged
upon it. At a time when New-York was
communicating with the West through two
rivers, two canals, and the lakes ; and Phil
adelphia through the same number of canals,
two rail-roads, and eight hundred miles of
river, the Charlestonians were at work in
substituting, in the language of General
Hayne,
" A direct communication between the western
states and the Atlantic by the shortest route, a route
by which goods will be conveyed in three or four
days from Charleston to Cincinnati a route 340
miles nearer than that by New-York, 240 nearer
than that by Philadelphia, and 40 miles nearer than
that by Baltimore, even should the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad be carried to Pittsburg."
Let us take these southern states in their
order. We have Maryland with her Chesa
peake and Ohio Canal and her Chesapeake
and Ohio Rail-road, drawing off the produce
of the West to Baltimore. We have Virgi
nia, with her Virginia and Tennessee Rail
road, intended, when finished, to connect
Memphis with Richmond ; as also several
other roads directed towards the West, to
,say nothing of the great James River and
Kanahaw Canal, which, in the language of
Governor Floyd, will soon float to Richmond
the flatboat which has been loaded at the
Falls of St. Anthony. In North Carolina,
we have the Wilmington and Weldon Rail
road, 186 miles in length ; the Gaston and
SOUTH AND THE UNION.
75
Raleigh Rail-road, &c., and at the last session
of the Legislature was chartered a road from
Charlotte to Goldsboro , 210 miles in length,
spanning the finest and most improved parts
of the state. South Carolina, with her great
road to Hamburg, and its Columbia and Cain-
den branches, reaching in length, altogether,
over two hundred miles ; and her road in
construction to Greenville and to Charlotte,
N. C., which will add as much more in
length, demands an honorable mention, and
she will find herself, in two or three years,
in immediate rail-road communication with
the Mississippi River at Memphis, and with
the Columbia at Nashville, and will give an
impetus to Charleston which will make it
soon a formidable competitor with the North.
Georgia, though she may not like the com
pliment, has made such progress as to be
called the " Massachusetts of the South."
She has the Macon and Western Road, of
100 miles, at the cost of $1,500,000; the
Georgia Road, from Augusta to Atlanta,
171 miles, and cost $3.500,000 ; Central
Road, 191 miles, and cost $3,000,000 ; Mem
phis Branch Road, cost $130,000 ; the West
ern and Atlantic Road to the Tennessee
River, 140 miles, and cost about $4,000,000.
Thus have six hundred and sixty miles of
rail-roads been constructed and equipped
within the last fifteen years, at a cost of
about $12,000,000, two-thirds of which has
been furnished by individual enterprise and
capital, and the rest by the state. Alabama
is next upon the map. Though she has but
one successful road in operation, viz., from
Montgomery, she is yet pressing it forward
to the Georgia line with commendable zeal.
Her citizens are determined not to be outdone
in this competition, and they have already, by
their contributions, placed their great rail
road from Mobile to the Ohio River beyond
the possibility of failure ; being nearly 500
miles in length, and requiring $6,000,000 or
$8,000,000. The grant of public lands lately
made by Congress to this road, places it upon
a secnre basis. There are also other roads
projected and chartered in Alabama, of
which we may mention one to connect Mont
gomery with Pensacola ; another from Selma
to the Tennessee River ; a third to connect
with the Mississippi Road to Vicksburg ; a
fourth from Mobile to Girard, thus reducing
greatly the travel to New-York. When we
come to Louisiana, we find a somewhat dif
ferent state of things from the rest of the
South. So small a part of her population is
native and kindred, and devoted to the ad
vancement of this state, it cannot be wonder
ed she is far behind. Latterly, however, a
better prospect dawns. Her great city, A ew-
OrZca.v, finds that in the ceaseless race for
power and position, she will be distanced by
northern competition, unless efforts equally
herculean are put forth. She will make
] these efforts, and the best guarantees for it
are, that a company is now organized there
for the construction of a rail-road across the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and active interest
is taken in a road to Jackson, Miss., and
other similar enterprises.
It was my intention, fellow-citizens, to
have carried out this subject with many in
teresting details and statistics ; but I have
been interrupted in the midst of it by a se
vere attack of indisposition, lasting through
out most of the short time given to me by
the society for preparation.
Was I wrong then in saying, that no son
of the South need hold down his head when
her name is mentioned 1 Here are six or
seven millions of people, occupying fifteen
states, including Kentucky and Missouri,
who, in addition to the supply of their main
wants, are furnishing annually upwards of
$100,000,000 in exportable products to the
nation, and who, it is but fair to say, in the
last half century, have produced of such ex
portable products $3,000,000,000.
How has this money been expended 1 Ask
your artisans, and manufacturers, and mer
chants, your rail-roads and hotels, your ship
owners and builders, and sailors, do not all
of these know what customers the South
have been to them? Of those innumerable
products of your industry which I see scat
tered with such a liberal hand around me
here, how many are destined for southern
markets ! And would not the closing of
these markets be a greater calamity to you
than a war with all of Europe combined 1
I suppose, in the season just closed, which
has seen your hotels all crowded to their
doors, that at least 50,000 southerners, or
those supported at the South, have been tra
veling at the North, for pleasure, for health,
&c. Supposing each one of these to have
expended but $300, there is an aggregate of
$15,000,000, which your people have derived
from our traveling propensities, in a single
year ! What is the gross amount of your
various products consumed by us, is almost
impossible to be given. The figures would
astound you if they were.
The south has ever been fondly attached
to the Union, and the land which claims the
author of th Declaration of American Inde
pendence, and the Father of the Republic,
both as her own, has never been wanting in
chivalrous devotion to that Union. Taking the
statisiics of the Revolutionary war, and sup
posing the average period of enlistment was
about the same for all the years at the North
and at the South, it will be found that in the
first five years, or from 1775 to 1780, when
the war was chiefly at the North, the southern
states supplied each year about one-third the
whole number of enlistments. As soon, how
ever, as the war extended southward and be
came general, the southern states rapidly ad
76
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
vanced, snpplying one-half, and for 1780, 81
8 83 more than one-half of all the enlist
ments of sol.liers! In the late war with
Mexico, whilst the North supplied but 22,-
136, the South supplied 43,214, or twice as
many effective men.
I will not pause to enumerate the states
men and philosophers, the generals and scho
lar-, who have come from this quarter, and
whose fame belongs to the nation. The herit
age of their glory and renown, should be
prized foiever.
It is sometimes said, that the South is defi
cient in military strength. Can that people
be very weak at home, who have contributed,
as I h;ive shown, so much to the wars of their
conntry, and who gave the commanders-in-
chief in all the wars we have had the Revo
lution, the war of 1815, the late war with
Mexico Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Scott.
These are the people, fellow-citizens, whom
the c4Mir>e of your politicians, demagogues,
ill-advised citizens, and even many of the
better classes among you, have for the last ten
ye:irs been estranging from their fellow-ship
with yon, and embittering by provocations
and taunts, which could not be endured pati
ently by the tamest and most servile wretches
upon earth, much less by a brave, impetuous,
and chivalrously honorable people sensitive
to the slightest wrong, generously recipro
cating kindnesses cognizant of their rights
and their duties, and brave enough *o defend
the 011^, ami just enough to observe the other,
iu all their relations with their fellow men.
lam aware this is a delicate subject, and
you nvist not, suppose I shall be so far want
ing in propriety as to carry it out at any
length upon this occasion. In the connection,
however, it was but a solemn duty to refer
to it.
The total value invested in slave property
at the South, cannot be much short of $200,-
000.000 ; and if we suppose the value of plan-
tationsand all improvements dependent. there
on in be as much more, we have $400,000,000,
a sum one-third as great as the whole foreign
trade of the nation with all countries, in ex
ports and imports, and re-exports, from the
Revolution to the present time, added together
fn one great column J
Let the North then abate the spirit which
is doing so much to endanger the Union, and
which has induced the southern states calmly
to contemplate its dissolution as a thing which
their stern necessities may very soon imped-
ously dictate to them. Si-veral of these states
have already convened in primary assembly,
to deliberate upon this gloomy alternative.
f As a man solemnly responsible to God for
his ac ions and his words, I say, with my hand
upon my heart, if the agitation of this slave
question be longer continued in Congress, all
the power on earth, not the hayonet, nor the
cannon, nor fleets, and navies, and armies
eu keep the Uuiou together. The highest
and holiest of all laws forbids it that of self-
defence and self-protection. No other law
can be recogni/ed by us; and a separate con
federation will be formed, for which there are
at the South all the resources of wealth, and
power, and opulence !
God grant there may never be such a dire
alternative. Gentlemen, let us cultivate a
better spirit for each other, intermixing and
associating upon terms of friendliness, and
reciprocating, in the exchanges of our indus
try and our enterprise; mindful of the glori
ous old times of the republic, when our
fathers at Bunker-Hill, York Town, or New-
Orleans, or in all of the perilous periods of
our history, stood shoulder to shoulder, and
breast to breast. With such a concord of
heart and purpose, what a nation have we
made of this, and what madmen are you to
urge its inevitable destruction !
Already does our empire extend over a do
main wider than that of the Caesars in their
proudest days of conquest. From the island
of Brazos, in the Gulf of Mexico, to the Straits
of Fuca, on the northern Pacific ; from the
Aristook valley to the Bay of San Diego, the
Union extends its leviathan proportions. The
inhabitants of these extreme points more
distant apart than the old and the new world
on the usual routes of travel are brothers
and fellow-citizens, under common laws and
with a common destiny. It is as though the
Shetland Islands and the Bosphorus. Siberia
and the gates of Hercules, were made the out-
postsof an empire which embraced the whole
of Europe. For such an empire, Alexander and
Caesar sighed in vain, and Napoleon deluged
the world in blood !
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLU
TION.* The committee who were entrusted
with the duty of inviting the assembling of
this Convention, has instructed me, one of its
members, to recapitulate a few of the advan
tages which were proposed from its action:
and also to suggest some practicable means, if
such exist, of making that action felt widely,
generally, and beneficially, throughout our
limits, in the future.
The meeting of a body like this, constituted
from so many sources, and embracing so
much of the talent of so many great states, at
a point like New-Orleans, which has been
considered hitherto as dead to every other
consideration than that of levying tribute up
on nature, in sleepy apathy, is an event of no
ordinary moment in the history of the south
west. It evidences a revolution in progress
among us, which even two years ago could
not have been predicted without hazarding
the character of sanity, and throws, amid all
the discouragements by which we are sur
rounded, a broad gleam of sunshine upon our
future hopes and prospects.
* Speech by the Editor in New-Orleans, and at
Jackson (Miss.) Railroad Convention, Jan,, 1852.
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
77
Yet, gentlemen, let us not argue too strong
ly, from what, after all, may be but the most
deceptive appearances. Our disappointments
have been so many and so bitter in the past,
and we have had the chalice broken so often
at our lips, that it is impossible, even with all
the sanguine characteristics of our nature, not
to be agitated with doubts and fears. Our
addresses, our reports, our discussions, may
be destined to be as evanescent as the breath
which utters them, or as valueless as the paper
upon which they are inscribed ; and the
heritage of our fathers be ours still, in all the
future, to " resolve and re-resolve," yet " die
the same."
I am wrong, perhaps, to doubt for the
West the giant West, which has sprung
from swaddling clothes into colossal habili
ments ; which has promised nothing, yet ful
filled everything but yesterday a wilderness,
to-day, nourishing and supporting as rnaoy
thronging, active, enterprising millions, near
ly, as did Great Britain, when she resisted,
during the Napoleon wars, the shock of all
the armies in Europe. But what shall we
say of the South the old South, which fought
the battles of the Revolution which gave the
statesmen, the generals, and the wealth of
those early times which concentrated then
the agriculture, the commerce, and, even to
some extent, the manufactures of the conti
nent, but which has lost, or is losing every
thing else, save that agriculture ; and even
this last resource growing less and less remu
nerative, threatens in the event to complete
her beggary ? How much has the South
promised, and how Jittle has she fulfilled ?
Her manufactures originated coeval with those
of the North, and when there were not fifteen
cotton factories in the whole Union, she had
constructed an immense one in her limits.
Nearly half a century has passed since then,
and yet the South, though growing nearly all
of the cotton required for the world s con
sumption, leaves 29-30ths of the profitable
business of its conversion into fabrics to other
and to foreign hands !
And how has it been with our commerce ?
When New-England struj
;gled with the whale
ch argosies of the
South, laden with abundant products, were
seeking the markets of all Europe. Seventy
years before the Revolution, Maryland, Vir
ginia, and Carolina, as the chronicles tell us,
furnished the entire exports of the colonies,
and imported more largely than New-England
or New-York. Fifty years before the Revo
lution Things had but slightly changed, and
the exports of New-York, New-England, and
Pennsylvania together, were less in amount
than those of the single colony of Carolina.
Even in 1775, the exports of New-York were
187,000; Carolina, 579,000; Virginia,
758,000. Imports of New-York, 1,200;
Virginia and Maryland, 2,000; Carolina,
6,000. Georgia, a new plantation, equaled
New-York ! As late as the close of the cen
tury, Charleston continued to contest the
palm with New-York. But how has that
struggle ended? Who dares grapple with
that colossal city, without the certainty of
being ground into powder? What has be
come of southern commercial competition,
now that New-York and New-England con
duct nine-tenths of the imports of the country
and one half of its exports, though nearly all
of these exports, with which, of course, the
imports are purchased, are of southern mate
rial, and more than an equal proportion of the
imports are for southern consumption ?* Thus
it is calculated that the South lends from year
to year a trading capital to the North amount
ing to nearly one hundred millions of dollars,
and upon which the North receives the entire
profits ! Can it be wondered at, then, that
the North grows rich, and powerful, and
great, whilst we, at best, are stationary 1
The first steamship that ever crossed the
broad Atlantic sailed from the southern port
of Savannah; and in 1839, when the practi
cability of this description of navigation was
fully demonstrated, Virginia was talking of
negotiations with the French, in order that
Norfolk might be made the terminus of a line
contemplated from Havre yet, at this day,
throughout the length and breadth of the
South, what steamer seeks a European port-
though the North rapidly approximates to a
daily line?
The South had within her limits once the
longest rail-road in the world, and projected,
and actually commenced constructing the first
great rail-road across the mountains to the
teeming West ; and how has she pursued this
movement? Whilst the North has opened
innumerable communications with the valley,
and is draining it of the most valuable pro
ducts, in return inundating it with the pro
ducts of her workshops and her commerce,
enriching herself beyond the dreams of her
own enthusiasts, what single communication
has the South to that valley, except what
nature has given her the great river and its
tributaries a communication which must soon
be superseded by the works of art. After
twenty years experience, notwithstanding
our early promise, and with equal population
with the North, we have but one-third the
actual miles of rail-road constructed, though
our territory is five times as great. In other
words, the North has twelve times, or includ
ing Texas, eighteen times the extent of rail
roads to the square mile that the South has ;
and each mile of northern territory has ex
pended thirty times as much upon such roads
as each mile of southern territory. t
These are stubborn facts, gentlemen, what
ever reason may be assigned for them ; and
though one or two of the southern states may
* The calculation is, of course, intended as an
average one.
t See address to the people of the South and West,
in De Bow s Review for August, 1851.
79
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
constitute, m some sort, an exception, as for
in*t:i ice, Georgia, which has lately made rapid
strides beyond her neighbors, no one can ob
ject to us th.it we have not stated the propo
sition with general fairness and truth.
We have been content to be solely agricul
turists. and to exhaust the fertility of an
abundant soil, believing that all other pur
suits being derivative only, were of less im
portance, and even dignity. The fashion of the
South has been to consider the production of
cotton, and sugar, and rice, the only rational
pursuits of gentlemen, except the professions,
and like the haughty Greek and Roman, to
class the trading and the manufacturing spirit
as essentially servile. I admit the day is pass
ing away, but it is passing too late to save us,
unless we display a degree of vigor and energy
far beyond what past experience would bid
us hope. The planters of the South perceive
the position of peril in which they are placed.
They have a slave force which has increased
in numbers 711,085 in ten years, and which
must be shut up forever within irs present
limits, though the productions of these slaves
have not increased in value in proportion, or
in anything like it.
Is this not a significant fact, and does it not
encourage dark forebodings of the future ?
Yet the result is but natural, and clearly de-
ducible from the rules of legitimate political
economy. Mere production from the soil
soon finds its limit and limits population.
Gentlemen of the West, you too already begin
to feel this truth ; for have you procured a
market for your breadstuff s and provisions at
all comparable with your capacity to supply
them ? Twenty years a^o your exports were
one-half of what they are at present, though
your population has increased four-fold since
then ; and when, in 1846, under the pressure
of foreign famine, you exported three times
your exports of the present year you demon
strated the inexhaustible character of your
granaries, and that want of demand which
begins already to press so severely upon you.
The planters of the South have lately met
in convention, at Macon, Ga., and propose
another convention in May next, in Mont
gomery. Some of their delegates were sent
to this convention. But what is it they pro-
! *? It is not to create a demand for their
labor in its present exercise, or to create new
results for that labor, but letting things remain
as they are, to affix a certain arbitrary stand
ard of price, and by a combination amon*
themselves, preserve that standard, in defiance
of all extraneous influences. It is barely pos
sible that something may come off this scheme
shall tell upon their future prosperity.
is i -viiblt; that there are other lans w
ther plans which
nriy be adopted, more promising of success
or at least that something is practicable to
relieve the planters, as things now stand; yet
we must be allowed to entertain some doubt
in the matter.
Gentlemen of the South and the West, the
true mischief under which we labor stands
upon the surface, and requires no probing to
discover. Four times the number of grain
growers find but a two-fold increased market
for their products, and 750,000 additional
slaves are becoming consumers in a larger
degree than producers. Here is labor expend -
ed without profit lost to all the purposes of
improvement, and of advanced prosperity
and wealth. Where, then, shall we look for
a practical remedy ? We must diversify, or
find new employment for labor. And how is
this to be done ? I answer,
I. In the construction of a system of rail
roads through our limits. It is a merit of rail
roads that they have the highest influence in
diversifying the industry of a people. They
open a country and extend population, thus
creating the very trade that supports them.
They raise !he price of lands by bringing
them into more immediate connection with
market, and thus pay back the investment,
without reference to their actual earnings,
which, in addition, are usually as large as
those of other descriptions of investment.
They build up cities, as all experience shows,
and, by giving certainty, speed and economy
to communication, make manufactories prac
ticable where otherwise we in vain would,
look for them. The example of Georgia is in
point, where a thousand villages are spring
ing up and manufactories extending, thus ac
quiring for her the reputation of the Massa
chusetts of the South. Every rail-road in
New-England develops in its course manu
facturing villages, and few of these villages
may be found there without such communi
cation with the capital. The South has been
content with the cumbrous machinery of her
wagons, and with the frequently interrupted
and dangerous navigation of her rivers; and
this has been the case with the West. Thus
nine-tenths of our country has been literally
shut out from market for more than half the
year, and, during the remainder, pays the
penalties of delays and losses, which are
never incident to rail-roads, and which coun
terbalance the advantages of cheaper freights,
though, as to actual cheapness, it may be af
firmed that rail-road communication among
us could be made as cheap, all things con
sidered, as that conducted at present on the
rivers. We know that the immense steam
boat interest of the West is now actually pay
ing no dividend, being a most hazardous bu
siness, and that it is so much capital almost
unproductively employed, and thus lost to
the country. Yet, what are our rivers and our
steamboats ? Floating ^Etnas, which belch
forth their bolts of death in the moments of
our greatest fancied security and repose.
Never could a convention have met at a more
propitious moment than this. We have just
passed through a season of the most frightful
losses of life on our rivers, and have witnessed
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
79
a prevalence of low waters calculated to
break up the commerce of any people upon
earth. Look at the Ohio, the Cumberland,
the Red, and the Arkansas rivers. Until the
other day, the memory of man scarcely runs
back to the time when we would navigate
them securely with our larger steamers; and
bardly have the showers descended, and their
waters swelled again, before several of them
are locked up in icy repose. Can a people,
relying upon such communications, expect
prosperity ? Can industry thrive, or must
they not remain in a semi-primitive state, and
incapable of that combination of effort which
alone secures natural prosperity ? Place the
North in a similar position for twelve months,
and her towering manufacturing palaces
crumble into ruins, and her ships rot upon
their stocks. She found even her great canal
to the West, her Mississippi River, would not
suffice, but built two great mil-roads, almost
the greatest in the world, parallel to it. Our
planters frequently lose more by their incapa
city to reach market during high prices than
would build a rail-road to their doors. It is
believed that sufficient was lost last year, in
that manner, to have half built the road from
New-Orleans, through Mississippi, to the
Tennessee line. What embarrassments, too,
have our merchants experienced during the
same time, from the impossibility of receiv
ing the consignments upon which heavy ad
vances have been made ? Is not this disas
trous to trade, and have we not felt it so ?
No people on earth have the means of
building rail-roads so economically, so speedi
ly, and with such certainty of success, as we
of the South and West. As compared with
the North, what we have already built has
cost, on the average, not half so much. Our
country is level we have no right of way to
purchase. We have abundance of timber on
the spot, and will only pay the expense of
working it, and, throughout the South, have
an available cheap negro labor, which, if di
verted from agriculture into this field, would
diminish nothing of the money value of our
crops, and thus make the rail-roads a clear
gain to the wealth of the country.
Wherever negro labor has been applied, it
has been with great success. Of the 700,000
negro?s, whose labor has added nothing to
the wealth we had ten years ago, could 100,-
000 be diverted to the construction of rail
roads, the South might open several thousand
miles every year, and would have the same
means of ironing them that she has now from
her other resources. Let no one object that
our population is too scattered ; this will
condense it, and invite immigration, which
now takes altogether a northern direction,
because here nothing is held out to it. Be
sides, denseness of population has not been
the secret of success to the North. New-
England, though no denser than Ohio, has t hree
times the extent of rail-road ; and the small
State of Maine, though less dense in propor
tion to territory than Kentucky or Tennes
see, has actually constructed more miles of
rail-road than both of these great states to
gether. Even at the South, Georgia, with a
million of inhabitants, and the usual density,
has twice or three times the extent of rail
road in her limits than all the southwest to
gether ; and South Carolina has more than
Louisiana, Texac, Mississippi, Alabama, and
Arkansas, though her population is not one-
fourth so great. It is common to say that
the people of ihe North have greater propen
sities to travel, and thus more readily sup
port their rail-roads than we would. Now,
this is not irue, as we know that no people
are more sociable and fond of locomotion than
the southern people, even with all the diffi
culties that environ them. And were it, true,
we know that the disposition to travel in the
North did not create the rail-roads, but was
created by them, being proved by the fact, that
most of their great roads carry from five to
tn times the number of passengers which
were argued for them on the basis of their
previous travel, and several times as much
freight.
Another advantage enjoyed by the South
and the West is, that there is an immense
public domain belonging to the government,
and will soon belong to the states, which can
be procured for the mere asking, and which
will go a great way towards building our rail
roads. The grant to the Mobile road, it is
thought, will iron the whole route. Texas
and Louisiana, and Mississippi and Alabama,
are peculiarly favored in this manner.
There has been a principle adopted in Ten
nessee, which I hope to see adopted in all
the southern states, and which this conven
tion should recommend, viz., that the states
endorse the bonds of all companies for the
purchase of iron after they have laid the
track, etc., and take its mortgage upon the
work, to secure it in the event that the com
panies fail to keep down the interest on their
bonds, or to cancel them at maturity. This
is a plain duty of the states, and, in addition
to the power vested in the counties and par
ishes to tax themselves, would secure for us,
in ten years, results which not even a dreamer
could anticipate. A sound division would
be for the state to take 1-3 interest, (Virginia
takes 3-5,) individuals and corporations of
cities 1-3, and let the rest be obtained by
taxation. Thus, all interests would be called
on to contribute to the construction of our
great proposed lines.
Whence this disposition to throw ihe valley
of the Mississippi into the lap of the North,
thus rolling, as it were, commerce up stream,
and reversing the natural state oi things?
The rail-roads and the canals point in that di
rection, and everything is absorbed in the
rapacious exactions of New-York and Boston.
Is there not a greater reciprocity between
80
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
the interests of the South and the West than
between those of the West and the North ?
Is there not a demand here for western pro
duce, aud one that will grow as we advance
together ? Have we not ports and harbors
equal to the North ? Are not the
Northwest and the West as much interested
in keeping np the speediest aud the best out
let to the Gulf of Mexico as they are to the
Atlantic seaboard? And are not rail-roads
superseding every other means of outlet ?
We scarcely yet appreciate the importance
of the Gulf of Mexico, this great southern sea,
which should as much^jbe guarded by the
South as the British channel is by the Eng
lish. Look at its fertile and abundant islands,
capable of supplying the tropical products of
the world, if in hands adequate to their de
velopment, aud who can doubt that, before
the century has passed away, these islands
will be overrun, peaceably or even forcibly,
by a people who, in fifty years, have planted
ten millions of freemen in a wilderness!
of Kentucky, has demonstrated, that wherv
the coal and the iron, and the provisions are,
there will be the seat of manufacturing em
pire ; and by a calculation as close as it is
perfect, has demonstrated for the Ohio Val
ley the prospective Manchester and Lowells
of the Union. We think this the truth, but
not the whole truth. The South has only to
make a systematic and combined movement to
break down northern supremacy in this par
ticular. What practical difficulty is there in
the way of her supplying the whole demand
of America, at least, for coarse cottons and
yarns ? The material may be used upon the
spot where it is grown, thus saving all the
expense of shipment and insurance, and in
terest and commissions, equivalent to two or
three cents a pound, or to a protective tariff
enjoyed by the South over the North of from
25 to 33 per cent. Our experiments, when
fairly tested, have been successful ; and it is
worthy of remark, that the embarrassments of
northern mills during the last year, were not
Great God. can we even conceive what will in the same degree felt by those of the South,
be the future importance of these islands! I whilst southern cotton goods already take
But then, look further. The Gulf of Mexico the palm even in northern markets. Our
surplus negro labor has here a wide field
open ; and every one familiar with the mere
mechanical and unintelligent operation of
tending the machinery of a cotton-mill, will
admit that negro labor, properly organized
and directed, can be as effective as ihe igno
rant and miserable operatives of Great Bri
tain. Where it has been tried, and the ex
periments have been numerous enough, it has
proved successful. If twenty planters, work-
ins twenty hands each, were to set aside, on
sweeps into the Caribbean Sea, and unlocks
for us the whole of South America a region
which, with Anglo-Saxon amalgamation,
may, in the progress of history, be as impor
tant as the present importance of our own
country. In its great bosom blend the wa
ters of the Mississippi and the Amazon rivers,
which dwarf all others in the world. There
is a wilderness of treasures in this valley of
the Amazon. " Of more than thrice the size
of the valley of the Mississippi," says Lieut.
Maury, " the valley of the Amazon is entirely
inter-tropical. An everlasting summer reigns
there. Up to the very base of the Andes the
river is navig.ible for vessels of the largest
class. Ail the climates of India are there.
Indeed, \ve may sny, from the mouth to the
sources of the Amazon, piled up, one above
the other, and spread out, Andean-like, over
steppe after steppe in beautiful, unbroken
succession, are all the climates and all the
soils, with capacities of production that are
to be found between the regions of perpetual
summer aud everlasting snows." The Gulf
of Mexico opens to us the Pacific and the In
dies, through whichever of the Isthmean
routes iliist may be selected, though the one
by Tehtumtepeo is clearly best adapted to
the Wiiitt* of the southern and western states.
Even should a route across the continent be
the average, five of their hands for purposes
of manufacture, there would be one hundred
hands, in addttiob to the younger ones, now
almost unproductive. The machinery for
these hundred hands, arid the rude buildings,
would not exceed $40,000, or $2,000 each,
and thus, without materially diminishing
their production of cotton, itco-uld be thrown
into a shape which would double its value.
Are such combinations among the planters
practicable? If they are not, they are at
least practicable to our people. But, says
one, we have not the capital to spare. I ad
mit we have not at present, because it is di
verted into different channels; but if we will
withdraw it, we shall find there is quite
enough among us. Or even if we had not
the capital, it will be easy to invite it from
all sections of the Union, and the world, if we
secured, that route must cross the Mississippi can demonstrate, as we can, a higher degree
at a southern point, if Texas be true to her- of profit for it here. But we must have laws
self, and thus the importance of converging
: roads in this direction.
II. Having constructed a system of rail
roads m.-uiug every section of our territory,
the South aud West will naturally resort to
man ufnct tires, which is our second great re
medy for the evils which the present shows
and the f-iture foreshadows. Hamilton Smith,
to favor such organizations, and a sound and
liberal system of financial credit and bank
ing. How much of the mighty capital of tho
North is foreign, accumulated by debt, or in
vited by the hope of profit ? The South can
have as much, if she will but make the effort.
But, gentlemen, we should soon have capi
tal enough, and to spare, if we could add to
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
81
ottr present earnings those that we sit pa
tiently by and see England and the North re
alize by the conversion of our products into
fabrics, and even those for our own use.
There would be added $40,000 to $80,000
annually to the capital of the South, which
would soon give us a degree of power and
wealth enjoyed by no other people.
III. The next point, gentlemen, to which
the attention of the South should be called in
the diversification of its industry, is the exten
sion of its foreign commerce. Can any one
assign a sufficient reason for the fact, that the
whole business of exchanging the products
of the South for those which are required
from other countries for our consumption, is
left to other hands? Northern writers assure
us that they make from forty to fifty millions
annually out of this business which we com
placently leave to them. You may say that
the North is more maritime ; this is true, but
not necessarily, as we infer from the fact that
the southern foreign commerce in the early
periods of our history was relatively much
larger than now : and in the nations of the
old world, the most maritime and commer
cial were always those of the South. It is
only lately that the trident of the seas is
swayed by northern hands a sufficient proof
that, in the nature of things, there is no ne
cessity for it. It has been the result of arti
ficial causes.
* * -# * * * *
A committee of the Boston Council, in ac
counting for the extraordinary progress of
that city, fix it in the extensive construction
of rail-roads, and the establishment of semi
monthly steamers to Europe. The business
of these steamers, it was at first thought,
would be simply the mail and passengers.
Yet the freights, instead of paying govern
ment duties, as they did at first, of $29, have
reached as high as $217,000 on a single trip.
Before the establishment of these steamers,
Lieut. Maury tells us, there was not in a
whole year a single vessel clearing from Bos
ton for Liverpool, so completely had New-
York monopolized the business. New-York
led the way in the establishment of European
packets, though it was universally argued
that they would not succeed. .At first, three
small vessels, of 300 tons each, were put on.
They sailed on regular days, freight or no
freight. They took at the lowest rates rather
than go in ballast. Public -interest attached
to them, and they increased in numbers
vessel after vessel, and line after line being
added, until these regular vessels were up at
last for every port in the world. Boston,
nearly undone by the enterprise of New-
York, turned into a new channel, and fostered
a line of foreign steamships. Upon this the
Gothamites were not content to look long in
idleness. They got the government commit
ted in their aid, and then launched out into
the business of steamships performing, in
VOL. III. 6
the brief period of two or three years, the
most wonderful results. To England, to
France, to South America, ihn Pacific, the
West Indies, the Gulf to southern ports,
everywhere, these steam lines are in active
and daily operation.
Thus, gentlemen, you see how the exten
sive commerce of the North has been built
up. You may build rail-roads, erect factories,
hold conventions, but you cannot redeem the
commercial apathy of the South unless you
are content to adopt the same expedients.
Where have we, throughout the length and
breadth of the South, packet-ships sailing for
Europe, on a regular day, freight or no
freight ? We have none. The result is that
business, which cannot wait for time or tide,
goes naturally where there are such ships.
What single steamship have we from a south
ern port for Europe ? Thus, our correspond
ence and our passengers, and our valuable
return freights, must take the circuitous pas
sage to the North, One of our southern cities
has determined to remove this stigma, and
has, we believe, with state aid, actually
taken the stock for two steamers for Europe.
Will the South favor this movement, or will
these steamers, after a brief career, be bought
up by the North, and placed on the California
line ? They will assuredly be, if southern
men continue to find nothing good in Naza
reth, and go seeking after the flesh-pots of a
northern Egypt. In New-Orleans, a year ago,
several enterprising .gentlemen discussed the
subject of a line of foreign steamers from this
port. They got up a circular; they proposed
a company of four hundred and fifty persons,
subscribing 81,000 each, and two steamers of
1,500 or 1,600 tons burthen, capable of carry
ing two hundred passengers, and three thou
sand two hundred bales of cotton. The
British Consul, Mr. Mure, a practical mer
chant, demonstrated that these ships would
pay 42 per cent, per annum. Yet, who has
come forward to take a single share ? And
has not the whole projection already taken
its place with the thousand others which
have dragged the South down to her present
level ?
Gentlemen, will these things continue?
You are aware that the people of Virginia
have lately held a commercial convention,
and determined, so far as they are concerned,
they shall not continue. They even appointed
delegates to this convention. More lately, the
planters of the South convened at Macon, Ga.
The continent of Europe consumes 600,000
bales of southern cotton, the most of which
is obtained through Liverpool, thus exacting
a tribute both from the producer and con
sumer. " Any measure," says Col. Gadsden,
" which would tend to the distribution, by
direct intercourse with many markets, of
what they may consume of cottons, in ex
change for the commodities they are prepared
to offer in return, would, to some extent, re-
82
SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
npd v the revulsions which concentration at a | Let us preserve and perpetuate this organ-
as supply and de- ization. Let the members now present, who
8 JJ !SLSrte22S2:T5a iu time | have been selected as judiciously as any that
ever met in the country, resolve that they
will continue these meetings, and carry on
these discussions, until all the great fruits
we desire are reaped. It may take years-
more steady and remunerating prices.
Thirteen years ago the South was greatly
aroused on this subject of her foreign trade
rmwjww o ,1 . * ,. U. 1 * 1
and several larae conventions, embracing ] be it so but let us not adjourn absolutely
the talent and enterprise of half a dozen | now. Let this convention resolve itself into
states, were held in Macon, in Augusta, in I an association for the promotion of the great
Charleston ; but from this spasmodic effort
we declined again into that torpor which
has been exhausting our life-blood. Some
of the most gifted and practical sons of the
South reported in its committees, and de
monstrated as perfectly as could be done,
the evil and the remedy.*
Never were more able and convincing pa-
al meetings, say at Nashville, at
St. Louis, at Mobile, at Charles-
pers put to the world but we have not heard
them. I trust that this convention will re-
industrial interests of the southern and
western states. Let us provide for its
future annual
Jackson, at
ton, etc. Let the next meeting be at Nash
ville, in January, 1853. Let us appoint
committees now, in each of the states, to re
port at that meeting upon all the great ques
tions. Let the Nashville committee be
charged with the duties of getting up
publish them among its documents. I the next convention, and sending out the
Thus, gentlemen, we have a true picture | address. Thus this convention will become
of our past history, and our present posi
tion. The agriculturists, the merchants,
the manufacturers, the internal improve
ment advocates, are represented here. We
are here with credentials from executive
in time the great centre of the industrial in
terests of this region. It will collect through
its committees and correspondence exten
sive information, which will be distributed
gratuitously at the annual meetings. No one
offices, from municipalities, and public meet- | can estimate the good that will be effected.
ings, and represent ten or eleven states. It It will be the focus to which leading prac-
=,.. ,. . r . , . . i_._ I.;. _t .:._.!_ w ^Jj
is difficult to get such a convention together.
The work before us is great and pressing,
and shall we be content to adjourn before it
is performed 1
Gentlemen, a great reform, like that which
tical minds will be drawn. It will be in
session always by its committees It will be
felt each moment, and throughout all our
limits. No more powerful agency could be
devised. The men of science have found it
is necessary in our position, is not to be ! so, with their society meeting, by turns, in
achieved in a day. It requires organization, j all of the great cities of the Union. So with
agitation, the dissemination of information, the physicians, whose convention adjourns
the frequent meeting of practical men, me- over annually, from one part of the Union
morials and addresses. The day of delibera- to another. Why should not a like plan be
tion is at last followed by the day of action
It is thus that conventions have their great
value. They bring about an association of
effort, arouse dormant energies, stimulate
adopted by the practical and industrial in
terests which involve everything of our fu
ture hopes and prospects 1
Gentlemen, resolutions will be offered in
emulation. They are a blessed invention of ! the convention, corresponding with these
our popular institutions, and are not less in views. 1 trust that they will be adopted,
importance than the meeting of our consti- and that the members here assembled will
tuted authorities. pledge themselves to each other to continue
It is the misfortune with us, that when to meet at the stated annual points ; that
we have been aroused in the past, it has they will prepare for these meetings by the
been by paroxysms, and never followed by collection of information, and if placed upon
sustained efforts. We have come together I committees, that they will cordially and ear-
in convention, but when the convention ad- | nestly perform the duties entrusted them ;
journed, there was the end of it. Nobody i that they will operate upon their communi-
had power to act in the recess. The thing I ties in keeping up fresh appointments of
son passed out of mind. Thus was it with delegates, direct from the people, from year
the Commercial Convention of Augusta, of
Macon, and Charleston the rail-road meet
ings of Memphis and St. Louis ; and thus
will it be with those the other day of Rich
mond and Macon ; and thus will it be with
ours, unless we take some measures to pre
vent it ; and what are these measures 1
* For proceedings of these Conventions, see De
Bow s Review, vol. iii. iv. v. vi.
to year. The matter involves a little pains
and a little expense, but who would decline
as much in promoting such great results ;
and what citizen can be true to his country
who would hesitate to serve her thus 1 The
beneficent effects
accrue to us, and to
those who may succeed us on the stage, in
all the future. For this consummation let
us devoutly pray.
SOUTH VALUE OF LIFE IN THE.
83
SOUTH VALUE OF LIFE IN THE. The
protection afforded by marine and fire
insurance companies is now so well es
tablished that no prudent man^can be found
to risk a ship at sea, or a house in town,
without a policy. We have in the United
States not only become familiar with the
doctrine of probabilities, on which such
companies are organized, but our experience
has been sufficiently long and large to
establish fully their safety and utility. Life
insurance, on the contrary, with us is still
in its infancy, and its importance not yet
fully realized. Marine and fire insurance
have done much towards giving a firm and
steady march to commerce and all those
transactions which bring prosperity to indi
viduals and nations, and life insurance is
but another strong link in the great chain.
There is no certainty in human events.
The calculations of the merchant the
harvest of the planter the fate of a ship at
sea the very existence of the world for
another day, are all but probabilities, and we
should not forget that nothing is more
uncertain than human existence. " In life
we are in the midst of death, and a day or
an hour may paralyze the hand which feeds
the helpless.
In a country like ours, where with un-
trammeled energies and eager grasp, we are
pressing along the road which leads to for
tune and greatness, we unfortunately some
times travel too fast, and great commercial
convulsions are inevitable consequences,
which bring ruin on individuals the most
prudent and cautious. Bankruptcy comes,
and often under circumstances which leave
little hope for the future. Take a person so
situated, or one who is living on a small
income, with the uncertainty of life hanging
over him, and how much more cheerfully
would he toil on, could he say, come what
may, my life is insured, and my wife
and children are sure of something to save
them from want.
The proportion of those in any com
munity who have capital to invest, or who
are able to buy an annuity, is very small, but
the proportion is large of those who could
lay aside a few hundred dollars annually for
life insurance. The small savings of an
income might thus be laid out in a good
mutual insurance company, where it would
not only be safely, but profitably invested.
But while we are thus setting forth the
advantages of life insurance, and placing it
on the same platform with marine and fire
insurance, we must not omit to warn against
its dangers and deceptions. The great mass
of those in the United States who insure
their lives, (and thus become co-partners in
the concern,) are utterly ignorant of the
business they have embarked in ; they know
nothing of the history and principles of life
insurance, the probabilities of life, the
chances of profit or loss, responsibility often
incurred, &c. They are attracted and
guided solely by the one-sided representa
tions of interested parties.
A new mutual insurance company springs
into existence, got up probably by a few
men without capital in the hope of making
a good speculation. Pamphlets are printed
and circulated, newspaper puffs are put forth
in every direction, showing the immense and
increasing profits of the second, third, and
fourth years, all of which is very plausible
and imposing. The statements may be
false, or the statements rnay be true, and
the impostors may be as badly deceived as
the public, for they are themselves too
ignorant to know the dangers of the machine
they have put in motion. A company may
work admirably for a few years, and event
ually wind up disastrously. Several hun
dred, or several thousand badly selected
lives may go on smoothly for several years ;
but many of these being insured for life, if
they do not (and they cannot if badly
selected) reach the average duration of life,
on which life insurance is based, a heavy
loss must follow.
Life insurance in Europe, like marine and
fire insurance, is based on long experience
and ample statistics. Tables of mortality
there, have been kept for a long series of
years, and the laws are fixed. In our coun
try vital statistics are very imperfect, and
our climate, habits, diseases, &c., are so
different, that the same rules are wholly
inapplicable. Statistics must be accumula
ted through some threescore and ten years
before the laws of mortality here can be
fairly made out, and our way clearly seen.
It is to be feared that life insurance com
panies now, like banks a few years ago, are
becoming affairs of speculation, and that
some of them will terminate not less
unfortunately. There is an over anxiety
for patronage, and a carelessness in selecting
risks, which is often apparent, and which
should cause the prudent to pause and
reflect.
The great success of the Equitable, and
some others of the long-established English
companies, is held up as a proof of the ad
vantages of mutual life insurance ; but the
story is but half told. Mr. Morgan, than
whom there is no higher authority, has
shown that this great prosperity is attribu
table to circumstances which cannot occur
again. The premiums charged some years
ago by the Equitable, were nearly double
what they now are ; and besides this, during
the first twenty-five years of the company s
existence, half the insurances were aban
doned by the insurers, in many cases after
they had paid for a considerable number
of years. Yet we see trumpeted forth the
84
SOUTH
VALUE OF LIFE IN THE.
of the. Equitable, in order to tempt
lily borne in mind, that
noMhe VhVnVe of large profits but security
of the investment, is the first and paramount
consideration. When an individual, at the
end of the year, pays to an insurance con
pany the small savings of his hard and , b
-i -me tnil the Question to be asked is not, &
oil, tne fl ueoll " u compound I partner in the concern, has not only his own life m-
is there a hope that I am to reap com P u " ^ ured but is part insur er O f the lives of allthe other
interest ? but, are my wife and children or
my creditors sure of the amount I have
bargained for.
We have no space here for following out
this point as well as many others, and pur
" The advantage to a person insuring in any
one office as compared with another, must plainly
depend on a comparison between the premiums de
manded, the conditions of the policy, and above all,
the security which it holds out. It may appear on a
superficial view, as if the Mutual Insurance Com
panies would be, in all respects, the most eligible to
deal with, inasmuch as they have no proprietors to
draw away any share of the profits from the insur
ed. It is doubtful, however, whether this advantage
be not more than balanced by disadvantages inci-
ent to such establishments. Every one being
only ht pe is,
that we may do something
towards stimulating investigation, and :
ducing persons to inquire into the conditio
and conduct of companies before trusting
them too far. In order to give more weight
to what I have said, I will here introduce a
two from McCulloch s Com-
quotation or
sured, but is part ins
members ; arid may be, in this capacity, should the af
fairs of the society get into disorder, incur some
very serious responsibilities. The management, too,
of such societies, is very apt to get into the hands of
a junto, and to be conducted without the greater
number of those interested knowing anything of the
matter, There is also considerable difficulty in con
stituting such societies, in distinguishing clearly be
tween the rights of old and new members ; for sup
posing a society to be prosperous, it is but reasonable
that those Avho" have belonged to it while it has ac
cumulated a large fund, should object to new en
trants participating in this advantage. But the af
fairs of a society conducted in this way, or making
distinctions in the rights of its members during a
,, . ____ .. ..... _____ .
Dictionary an authority which will j long series, of years, could hardly fail of becoming
l comlicated: nor is it, indeed
not be called in question. If what he says
of English companies be true, with how
much "more force will it apply to those
of our country 1
atlast exceedingly complicated: nor is it, indeed,
aj . &u improbable - lhat (ne conflicting claims of the
parties in some of the societies of this sort now in
courts of law, or by an Act of the Legislature."
" Security, in life insurance, is the paramount
consideration. It is, we believe, admitted on all
hands, that the premiums were at one time too high ;
but we doubt whether the tendency at present be not
to sink them too low. A great relaxation has taken
place even in the most respectable offices, as to the
selection of lives. And the advertisements daily ap
pearing in the newspapers, and the practices known ,
to be resorted to in different quarters to procure bu- our condition at t
siness, ought to make every prudent individual con
sider well what he is about before he decides upon
the office with which he is to insure. Attractive
All the life insurance companies of the
United States are north of the Potomac, as
are nearly all the writers on vital statistics,
and we are well satisfied that a want of local
information and personal observation have
led them into many grave errors respecting
From a half to
one per cent, more is demanded on southern
than on northern risks, and we propose now
me omce wiin wnicu lie is it) insure. Aiiracii . . , , , ~, . - i
statements, unless they emanate from individuals of j to inquire it there be sufficient reason, under
all circumstances, for this distinction 1
As our subject opens a wide field, which
cannot be explored in the limits of a periodi
cal, we shall confine ourselves to a brief
inquiry into the health and longevity of our
southern seaports, Charleston, Mobile, New-
But life insurance is quite a different affair. The j Orleans, etc.
bargain is^one that is not to be finally concluded for | w<j haye a]rea(]y gaid that yita , statistics
in the United States are yet in their infancy,
and we think a capital error has been corn-
unquestionable character and science, ought not to
go for much. Life insurance is one of the most de
ceptive businesses ; and offices may for a long time
have all the appeaYance df prosperity, which are,
notwithstanding, established on a very insecure
foundation. If a man insure a house or a ship with a
society or an individual of whose credit he gets
doubtful, he will forthwith insure some where else.
perhaps fifty years, and any inability on the part of
an establishment in extensive business to make
good its engagements, would be productive of a de- i
gree of misery not easy to be imagined."
Life insurance companies are divided into
three classes. First, joint stock, who pay-
fixed sums upon the death of the individuals
insuring with them, the profits going ex
clusively to the proprietors. Second, mu
tual insurance companies, in which there is
no proprietory body distinct from the
insured, who share among themselves the
whole of the profits of the concern. Third,
mixed companies, combining the two
former plans in various degrees.
We will not detain the reader by com
ments on the comparative merits of these,
but will content ourselves with another
extract from McCulloch,
some excellent hints :
which
milled in basing Ihe operations of insurance
companies in Ihis country, particularly the
southwest, upon the experience of those of
Europe. In Belgium, France, and England,
for example, and we may add New-England,
population is dense, the means ot sub
sistence and comforts of life difficult of
attainmenl, marriages comparatively few,
and the population must necessarily present
a very different picture from that of our
S9uthwestern stales. There, comparatively-
few children are born, and the average age of
the living population must be higher than
here. In Europe, the old maids and bachelors
serve to swell the average age of the popu-
contains , lation, while in the southwest, by marrying
I and propagating, they would reduce it.
SOUTH VALUE OF LIFE IN THE.
85
Suppose the whole population of Connec- I
ticut and Tennessee were struck dead at the j
same moment, the average age of all the j
dead in Connecticut might be forty, and that
of Tennessee but twenty. But this would
not prove that the longevity of the one is
greater than the other, yet the fact is so con
strued and gravely set forth by statistical
writers at the north.
Whether a population be a young or an
old one, it should be remembered that disease
and death are every where doing their work,
and that the heaviest mortality every where
is below the age of five years. So it is evi
dent that the average duration of life, taken
alone, proves nothing, the lowest average
may be in the healthiest country.
Our northern friends, though fully satis
fied of the greater mortality in all ages be
low threescore and ten throughout the
southwest, both town and country, than in
New-England, yet are obliged to admit
the greater frequency here of instances of
extreme longevity. This fact has much
puzzled writers on vital statistics, but we
think a satisfactory explanation may be
given. May it not be accounted for by the
well-known fact that in very old people, in
whom the vis vita, becomes much exhausted,
there remains little power to resist extreme
cold. The difference between town and
country in the south is not great, but at the
north the centenarians double those of the
country, because the inhabitants of cities are
not so much exposed to extreme cold as
those of the country ; they are protected
from the winds by the multitude of houses,
and their dwellings are better built for ex
cluding cold.
We will here introduce a table from Que-
telet s " Recherches sur la Reproduction et la
Mortalite de 1 homme aux differens ages, et
sur la population de la Belgique," which he
gives " in order that we may ascertain at
what ages extreme heat or extreme cold is
most to be feared. We add also a table from
Mr. Shattuck s " Report on the Census of
Boston," in which evidence is given of the
influence of cold over old people.
Deaths during the Deaths in July
Months of forlOO Deaths
Jan y July in January
Death* in Boston over 60
Still Born
First mon
4 to 6 ye
8 to 12
12 to 16
16 to 20
20 to 25
25 to 30
40 to 45
62 to 65
79 to 81
90 and up 1
269
215..
1,719...
600..
447..
. . . 0,80 . . .
...0,52...
...0,59...
. . . 0,73 . . .
. . . January
. .February
March
...1,09 per
...1,16
1 02
< Nt
th after birth
ars
3,321
878
616
...April
...1,02
409
420..
545 ...
796...
724
...1,05...
...1,09...
...0,93...
0,92
May
80
502
361
..June
..July
August
... ,69
. . . ,77
,97
. . . . 793
818
. . 968
613...
525
...0,75...
0,54
. .September
October
. ,75
,94
658
332 ...
99...
...0,51...
...0.39...
. .November
. .December. ..
...1,04
...1.05
kvards . . .
. 252 ...
This table certainly affords strong evidence
of the unfavorable influence of cold on old
age. The climate of our northern cities is
remarkable not only for extreme cold, but ex
treme heat ; the range of the thermometer
in many of the northern portions of the
United States is double what it is along the
Gulf, where we are not only exempt from
extreme cold but extreme heat. As might
reasonably be expected, the climate of our
northern cities presses hard upon the aged,
as we know it does upon infancy and child
hood.
There is still another reason for the great
proportion of centenarians seen in Charles
ton and New-Orleans, which we think will
be clearly established before we close. Be
sides being removed from the fatal influence
of extreme cold, the old inhabitants who are
thoroughly acclimated are exempt from the
summer diseases of the climate, and hove, few
of winter to contend with. Life ceases be
cause the machine is exhausted by the wear
and tear of time.
It has been contended by most writers on
vital statistics, that a large proportion of
centenarians, so far from proving high
longevity of a population, is evidence
of the reverse ; they are said to exist in
the greatest proportion in the most sickly
places.
This may be strictly true, but we are not
prepared to accept the proposition as demon
strated, particularly when laid down as
broadly as it usually is. In temperate ma
larious districts, where the general mortality
is very great, it is possible some might not
be susceptible to the influence of this atmo
spheric poison, and amongst the few surviv
ors, a few centenarians would form a large
relative proportion ; but all this does not
j prove that every country is a sickly one,
where many live to a hundred years. We
are satisfied that there are many portions of
the south which would show as low morta
lity for all ages below ninety, and less above
that age, than any portion of the north, if the
population could be confined to those locali
ties for one hundred years. Charleston and
New-Orleans are often cited as instances of
sickly places abounding in centenarians, but
we shall give good reasons further on for the
86
SOUTH VALUE OF LIFE IN THE.
opinion, that these cities, to their native or can here but glance at it, we can easily, if
i i t-i. i ,,,.!.., i ,^- tlio nnnrl }\o Virinrr fr*r\X7arrl nVmrulrint ovi^on<*d tr*
acclimated inhabitants, are, perhaps, the
healthiest in the United States.
But leaving out of the question cities,
which we shall show have climates and
diseases peculiar to themselves, and wholly
different from the country which surrounds
them, the climate of the gulf coast, including
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana,
is very imperfectly understood by persons at
a distance. Although much has been writ
ten concerning the relation which exists be
tween topography of southern countries and
miasmatic fevers, all the laws and fine-spun
theories of book-makers are put to flight by
the facts every day witnessed in this region.
Heat, moisture, animal and vegetable matter
are said to be the elements which produce
the diseases of the south, and yet the testi
mony in proof of the health of the banks
of the lower portion of the Mississippi River,
is too strong to be doubted, not only the
river itself but the numerous bayous which
meander through Louisiana. Here is a per
fectly flat alluvial country covering several
hundred miles, interspersed with intermin
able lakes, lagunes and jungles, and still we
are informed by Dr. Cartwright, one of the
most acute observers of the day, that this
country is exempt from miasmatic disorders,
and is extremely healthy. His assertion has
been confirmed to me by hundreds of wit
nesses, and we know from our own observa
tion, that the population present a robust
and healthy appearance. Why this is so, it
is impossible to say ; a country of this cha
racter on the Atlantic coast, would be almost
uninhabitable by white population. The
planters around Charleston desert many
places of more favorable aspect, in summer,.
?nd retreat to the city for health. The coast
of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, pre
sents in many respects a different topo
graphy, and yet is considered a healthy
country. In point of temperature this is one
of the most agreeable climates in the United
States, and the coast is dotted along the
whole gulf with delightful watering places
and summer residences, to which the popu
lation resort for health and pleasure ; and
yt when you build a town, even on a sandy
desert, as at Pensacola, yellow fever springs
up and attacks strangers, while the natives
.ire exempt. Whether it be an endemial
position of bilious fever or not, yellow fe
ver comes with concentrated population,
usurps the field and reigns with undivided
sway.
Though many other parts of the south and
west present much interest, the main object
of our present investigation is the climate of
our southern seaports, and on the single
point of acclimation turns the value of all our
conclusions. On this
point our northern
writers are little informed, and although we
need be, bring forward abundant evidence to
satisfy any candid man of the truth of the
positions we take.
It is now generally admitted that yellow
and bilious fevers are distinct diseases, differ
ing in their causes arid nature. No one pre
tends that an attack of intermittent or bilious-
fever affords protection against yellow fever,
or that yellow fever will protect against the
former. No one denies that an individual
may be attacked an indefinite number of
times by intermittents or remittents, or that
one attack even predisposes to others, and
yet it is agreed on all hands that one attack
of yellow fever affords almost, perfect immu
nity against a second, provided the subject
confines himself to the yellow fever region,,
viz , the Atlantic and Gulf coast from
Charleston southward. In truth, we may
safely challenge a denial of the fact, that one
attack of yellow fever, or a long residence in a
yellow fever city, affords a better protccti&n
against this disease, than does vaccination
against small-pox. The citizens of Charles*-
ton, Savannah, Pensacola, Mobile, New-
Orleans, West India towns, etc., may ex
change one city for another with perfect
impunity.
On the subject of acclimation we are fully
borne out by Professors Harrison, of New-
Orleans, and Dickson, of Charleston, two*
of the best authorities we have. The facts,
are so- well known as to need no argument
amongst medical observers.
Yellow fever is generated in crowded
populations, perhaps exclusively ; while
bilious fever, on the contrary, is the indigen
ous product of southern soils-. In fact, there
would seem to be something antagonistic in
the causes of these diseases. Generally,,
along the southern seaboard, when the forest
is first leveled, and a town commenced, in
termittents and remittents spring up, and in.
some places of a malignant and fatal type.
As the population increases the town
spreads, and draining and paving are intro
duced, yellow fever, the mighty monarch of
the South, who scorns the rude field and fo
rest, plants his sceptre in the centre, and
drives all other fevers to the outskirts. As-
the town grows, the domain of yellow fever
spreads, and the others recede. There is a
middle ground where the two meet and
struggle for supremacy. Here we see all
imaginable grades, from the simple in
termittent up to the most malignant yellow
fover ; but whenever they come in contact,,
intermittents and remittents are compelled
to wear the livery of the master spirit. Here
we see the groundwork of the erroneous
conclusions of those authors who contend
for the identity of intermittent, remittent,,
and yellow fevers.
SOUTH VALUE OF LIFE IN THE.
87
Though occasional cases of severe bilious
fever may occur in southern seaports, most
of which are contracted out of town, epidemics
of bilious or congestive fevers are wholly un
known. The highest number of deaths in
Charleston, during any one year for the last
eighteen, from all fevers except yellow fever,
is eighty-one, and the aggregate for this
whole period is but six hundred and fifty-six,
a result which will much astonish those
writers who are not familiar with southern
statistics. These facts illustrate very clearly
the peculiarity of city climates and diseases.
If the population of Charleston, for example,
which has varied little from thirty thousand
for the last eighteen years, had been living
in the country around the city, or scattered
through the bilious fever region of the south,
no one can estimate within one thousand of
the number of deaths which would have oc
curred during this long series of eighteen
years.
The statistics of Charleston show a lower
mortality amongst its acclimated population
than any northern city, and the physicians of
Mobile and New-Orleans will give the same
testimony in favor of these cities. Mobile
and New-Orleans, too, possess the great ad
vantage over the former city, of being sur j
rounded by healthy country. When these
cities escape yellow fever, which attacks l\ie
unarcli mated alone, they enjoy an exemption
from all disease which is almost incred
ible.
Charleston is the only southern city in
which bills of mortality have been faithfully
kept for a sufficient length of time. We
shall now proceed to give more in detail t!<e
statistics of this city and the deductions made
from them. The bills of mortality of Charles
ton may be fully relied on. and are pecu
liarly valuable from the fact that the popula
tion has been little disturbed by immigration
and emigration, and has not fluctuated much
in amount.
The population of Charleston was as fol
lows :
White Colored Total
1830 . 12,928 17,361 30,289
1840 . 13,030 16,231 29,261
102 inc 1,130 dec 1,028 decrease.
This table shows that the whole popula
tion in the period of ten years decreased
1,028, while the white population alone gain
ed 102. We have good reason to believe
from these and other tacts, that from 1828 to
1846, the eighteen years embraced by our
tables, the fluctuation was of very limited
extent.
We have before us a " Report of the Inter
ments in the city of Charleston, u-ith the name
ind number of each disease from 1828 to 1846.
{eighteen yeart,) the prevailing diseases in each
month, etc., thermnmetrical range, etc., from,
1834 to 1846. (twelve years.} By JOHN L.
DAWSON, M D., City Register."
Below will be found an abstract of this
report, which we have made out with much
care from the crude mass of material. This
abstract contains a large portion of the data
from which our conclusions are drawn, and
will enable the reader to judge of their legi
timacy.
The report and abstract embrace all the
deaths and causes of death in the city of
Charleston for the eighteen years it is im
portant to bear in mind, that we have, in the
abstract, for the convenience of comparing
diffei-ent epochs, divided the whole term into
three periods of six years each. We have
also, for the purpose of facilitating compari
son with other places, arranged our table on
the plan of the distinguished statistician, Mr.
Farr, of London the same plan has also been
adopted by Mr. Shattuck in his report on the
census of Boston, for 1845, a volume replete
with instruction.
The causes of death as laid down in our
table are- divided into : First, Zimotic dis
eases. Second, Sporadic diseases. Third,
Old age and external causes, such as violence,
poisoning, drowning, &c.
We shall here, as on other occasions, ex
tract freely from our article in the Charleston
Medical Journal, as it contains statistics which
are new to the readers of the Commercial
Review, and necessary to the illustration of
our subject.
Zimolic is a term used by Mr. Farr to de
signate all epidemic, endemic and contagious
diseases. It is the property of Zimotic dis
eases to prevail more at one season than at
another, or more in one locality than another,
and to become epidemic, endemic, or conta
gious, under certain circumstances. This
class, as it will be seen, includes all fevers
arising from morbid poisons, as intermittent*,
remittents, yellow and typhus fevers; also,
small-pox, measles, scarlatina, influenza, &c.,
and the greater or less number of deaths
from this class has been assumed as the best
test of the salubrity of the climate.
Sporadic diseases embrace all those which
do not belong to the above class, as our table
will show.
Old age and external causes cannot be call
ed diseases, and should, therefore, particular
ly the latter, be separated from the other
classes in estimating the influence of climate
on health.
The following table, as we have stated, ex
tends over eighteen years, which are divided
into three periods of six years each. The
aggregate number of deaths for each period
is given from all causes, the number from,
each specified cause, and the per ceutage
which each oua bears to the whole.
SOUTH VALUE OF LIFE IN THE.
TABLE I.
ABSTRACT OF THE CAUSES OF DEATH IN CHARLESTON, FROM 1828 TO 1845
Number of deal
the periods
hs iu
i
In each hundred there
CAUSES OF DEATH.
1828...
to ...
1833...,
4,143...
.. 1834...
. . . to
... 1839....
...5,229...
...5,080...
..1,900...
1840
1828
,. 1834...
. . to . . .
. 1839...
... 1840
. . , to
... 1845
. . . to
... 1845...
. . . 3,583 . . .
... to
... 1833
3,968...
. . 952 . . . ,
..3,503...
. . 765
23 99
. 37 X 40!!!
10 78
. ..21,S3
...12,18
...17,29
...23,20
... 0,94
11,39
SPORADIC DISEASES.
Of Uncertain of General Seat
. 506...
... 548...
. . 426 .
. 12,75
3 Of the Nervous System
593 ...
... 605...
878
.. 606...
813
. . . 14,94 . . .
...22,93....
40
,.11.90...
.17,28...
. 0,53...
10 80
910 .
5 Organs of Circulation
16 ...
. . 27 . . . .
. . 33
6. Organs of Digestion
417...,
6 ...
... 549...,
2
.. 399...
.. 10,50
5
... 0,15
... 0,88
... 0,56
17
,. 0,05...
.. 1.00...
. 0,27...
17
... 0,14
... 1,37
... 0,30
19
8 Organs of Generation
35 . . . ,
. . 51 ..,
. 48...
.. 14...
21....
.. 14....
9. ..
10. Integumentary System
7...
11. Old Age
311...
. . 299
226
7 83
5 88
... 6,45
... 4,59
12. Deaths, from External Causes
194...
... 198...
,.. 161...
... 4,88. ...
.. 3,89 ..
CLASS FIRST..
Cholera
In
1828
to
1833
. ,35
each 100 there *
deaths in
1834
to
1839
... 0,37....
... 1,23....
... 7,70....
... ,76....
rre
~1840
to
1845
0,11
2,02
,00
1,22
,71
,71
,14
,05
1,23
,05
,68
1,42
,31
34
2,05
1,74
,28
,88
3,62
1,51
,05
,51
,00
,00
,37
,39
,85
1,90
6,93
,02
,28
,00
,08
,34
08
3,22
1,08
3,93
,08
,02
,37
,48
,51
1,54
,82.
CLASS THIRD.
Trisrnus Nascentium
Cramp
Nervous Affections
Brain Diseases of
CLASS FOURTH.
Asthma
Consumption
JtiVdrolhorax
Ine
1828
to
1833
....2,31.
.... ,20.
.... ,12.
.... ,37 .
.... 70.
...16,75.
1 76
ach 100 ihe
deaths a
A.
1834
1839
.. 1,63.
.. ,00.
.. "09.
.. ,33.
.. ,47.
..11,12.
.. 1,73.
.. ,00..
e wer
1840
to
1843
.. 4,56
. . ,00
.. ,00
. . ,62
.. ,88
..16.01
.. 1,99
.. ,05
Cholera Infantum
Cholera Asiatic
Croup
.. ,12
.. ,00
..1,08
Diarrhrea
Dysentery
..2,62
2.62
... 1,29....
. 1,29 ...
Bowel Complaint
..2,09
.. ,10
..1,08
.. 40
07
.. ,45....
... ,03....
... 2,16....
... ,15....
AQ
Erysipelas
Fe er
Inflammatory
Laryngitis
.... ,05
Remittent
..2,34.
..1,96.
..1,46.
.. ,00.
..1,23
..2,66
.. ,27
.. ,65
..1,96
1,58
... 2,83....
... ,68....
...11,06....
... ,07 ....
... 1,55....
... 1,37....
... ,35....
... ,84....
... )oo .! .
.... ,00....
... ,25....
... ,01....
... ,00....
... ,35....
... ,01 ...
... ,29 ....
... 2;45...
... 6,45....
::: $::::
... ,09....
. .. ,07....
... ,39....
... ,05....
... ,29....
... ,01....
... 2,18...
1 12
Bronchitis
... ,07.
.. ,17.
.. ,22
Country
Yellow
Congestive.
Typhus -,
Hooping Cough
Influenza
Measles
Scarlatina and Sore Throat
Small Pox
Pneumonia ,12
Inflammation of Lungs ,30,
Hemorrhage of Lungs ,02 ..
Lungs Diseases of 25 .
Catarrhal Fever arid Catarrh. . 2,04. .
CLASS FIFTH.
Aneurism . . - .02
.. ,09.
. . ,57 .
.. ,05.
.. ,12.
.. 2,48..
. . ,07 ..
,45
.. ,48
.. ,59
. . ,00
.. ,23
.. t 2,22
. . ,08
,85
Syphilis
Thrush . . .
Parotitis "!!".".
Dengue
CLASS SECOND.
Abscess
Atrophy
Cancer
Debility . . . .
Dropsy
.. .02.
..0,57.
.. ,00.
.. ,45.
.. ,85.
.. ,02.
.. ,65.
..3,22.
-.7,18.
.. ,10.
.. ,12
. ,12.
.. ,25.
. ,30.
Heart Diseases of
. * * . >37.
CLASS SIXTH.
Colic
Dyspepsia
.... ,80.
.... ,07.
10
.. ,55.
. . ,05, .
.. 1,94..
. ,05 ..
.. ,02..
.. ,10..
4 97
.. ,39
.. ,14
.. 2,56
. ,03
.. ,00
. . .05
5,16
Enteritis
Gastritis
Inflammation of bowels. . .
Hernia
Intussusceptions
.... ,02..
02
Gout
Hemorrhage
Inflammation
Teething
...4,03
Worms and Worm Fever.
Liver Diseases of
Jaundice
....2,04..
.,.. ,05..
. ,30
.. 1,49..
.. ,01.
. . ,21 ..
.. ,07..
.. 1.13
.. ,00
.. ,31
.. ,28
Mortification
Scrofula . . . . . .. .
Organs Diseases of.
.... ,05..
Marasmus
. ,10.
CLASS SEVENTH.
Diabetes
Cystitis
... ,00 .
.. , ,00..
,oa. .
.. .01
,00
.. ,05
. . ,05
. . ,02
.05
.. ,34
. ,00
Spine Diseases
no
CLASS THIRD.
Apoplexy
Cephalitis . .
..2,46
.. ,78
Gravel
12
.. ,01..
.. ;eo..
.. ,09 .
.. ,10..
. . ,21 ..
Nephritis
*CLASS EIGHTH.
Childbirth
... ,02..
Convulsions
Delirium Tremens...
;i"ip ile Soleil
Epilepsy
..4,76.
.. ,12.
. ,07.
1 27
... 3,03...
... ,53...
... ,01 ....
Puerperal Fever
... ,05..
Itydroccphalus
Insanity
-. ,42.
42
... ,57...
35
Organs Diseases of
CLASS NINTH.
Rheumatism
Joints Diseases of
.... ,10..
... ,52..
,.. ,0.0..
Paralysis
Tetanus ,. /,
.1,43.
.,17.
... 1,18....
... ,35....
SOUTH VALUE OF LIFE IN THE.
89
In each 100 there were
deaths in
1828
1834
1840
to
1845
CLASS TENTH. 1833 1839
Fistula ,00.... ,01.... ,00
Ulcer ,07.... ,05... ,05
Skin Diseases of ,10.... ,09.... ,14
CLASS ELEVENTH.
Old Age
.7,83.... 5,88.... 6,45
Number of deaths.
First Second Third
CLASS Period Period Period
Burns and Scalds .......... 8 ........ 3 ...... 5
Casualties ................. 40 ....... 55 ...... 48
Drinking Cold Water ........ ........ ......
Intemperance. ... ........ 93 ....... 80 ...... 45
Drowned .................. 26 ....... 36 ...... 43
Executed ................... ........ 1 ..... 2
Fractures ................... 2 ........ 5 ...... 1
Cold Effects of ............ 13 ........ 7 ...... 1
Hydrophobia ................ 2 ........ ...... 1
Murdered ................... ........ ...... 1
Poisoned ................... 2 ........ 1 ...... 2
Suftbcated .................. ........ 4 ...... 2
Suicide ..................... 8 ........ 6 ...... 10
CLASS THIRTEENTH.
Causes not specified ....... 175
149
.90
The reader cannot fail to be struck, on the
first glance at this table, by the great dispa
rity exhibited in the gross mortality of the
three periods; and the fact is equally promi
nent that this disparity is attributable to the
increase or decrease of Zimotic, diseases. The
mortality for each of the periods was s fol
lows : 414352293583. From the Zimotie
class the deaths were in each period, 952
1,900765, or for each 100 a per centage of
23,9937,4021,83. Here is strong evi-
dence of the influence of endemics and epi
demics over mortality ; and the general fact
has been taken as sufficient proof of the in
salubrity of Charleston and other cities simi
larly situated as to climate. The average
mortality for a series of years, has been esti
mated by Dr. Dunglison in his work on
" Human Health" at one in thirty-six, which
places that city below, and very far below,
most of the northern cities of the United
States.
The important question now comes up,
viz. : who are they that die from these Zim
otic diseases ? Are they acclimated citizens
of Charleston, or are they not ? And we beg
the reader to bear in mind the general re
marks which have been made on the subject
of acclimation. The deaths in the second
period of our table exceeded those of the
third by 1,135, or 148 percent. By turning
to class 1st in Table I., it will be seen that
the deaths from yellow fever in three periods
were 58 562 26, a very striking contrast
certainly. Look at the heads Fever, Bilious
Fever, &c., and we find a greater mortality
from these causes also in the second, than in
either of the other periods; many of which
deaths, no doubt, were erroneously excluded
from the head Yellow Fever.
The Table II., which we give below, be
sides some other interesting facts, reveals the
following one, which will go far towards an
swering the question who are they that die
from .the endemic diseases of the climate?
viz. : the deaths for the " not natives" were
in each of the three periods, 764 1,418
659. showing that the mortality amongst this
class of population rises and falls as these
causes act with greater or less force. If the
table be taken in detail, year by year, this
law is seen to be invariable. In the great
epidemic of 1838, for example, there were
482 deaths amongst the non-natives^ and so
on with the other years. A portion of the
deaths from yellow fever are amongst native
children of the city, who, as we have stated,
though far less liable to this disease than for
eigners, a 
