Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 9

[38] Mr. C. Buxton, in _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1859.

[39] Parliamentary Papers, Population Returns for the West Indies, (of course the decrease by manumission is not included.)

[40] Mr. C. Buxton, in _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1859, from which these extracts are made.

[41] _North British Review_, August, 1848.

[42] This point will be examined more fully in a subsequent chapter.

[43] Mr. C. Buxton, in _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1859.

[44] _London Economist_, Feb. 12, 1859.

[45] See _African Repository_, October, 1859.

[46] See _African Repository_, October, 1859.

CHAPTER XIII.

Rationale of the Kansas-Nebraska movement--Western Agriculturists merely Feeders of Slaves--Dry goods and groceries nearly all of Slave labor origin--Value of Imports--How paid for--Planters pay for more than three-fourths--Slavery intermediate between Commerce and Agriculture--Slavery not self-sustaining--Supplies from the North essential to its success--Proximate extent of those supplies--Slavery the central power of the industrial interests depending on Manufactures and Commerce--Abolitionism contributing to this result--Protection prostrate--Free Trade dominant--The South triumphant--Country ambitious of territorial aggrandizement--The world's peace disturbed--our policy needs modifying to meet contingencies--Defeat of Mr. Clay--War with Mexico--Results unfavorable to renewal of Protective policy--Dominant political party at the North gives its adhesion to Free Trade--Leading Abolition paper does the same--Ditches on the wrong side of breastworks--Inconsistency--Free Trade the main element in extending Slavery--Abolition United States Senators' voting with the South--North thus shorn of its power--_Home Market_ supplied by Slavery--People acquiesce--Despotism and Freedom--Preservation of the Union paramount--Colored people must wait a little--Slavery triumphant--People at large powerless--Necessity of severing the Slavery question from politics--Colonization the only hope--Abolitionism prostrate--Admissions on this point, by Parker, Sumner, Campbell--Other dangers to be averted--Election of Speaker Banks a Free Trade triumph--Neutrality necessary--Liberia the colored man's hope.

FROM what has been said, the dullest intellect can not fail, now, to perceive the _rationale_ of the Kansas-Nebraska movement. The political influence which these Territories will give to the South, if secured, will be of the first importance to perfect its arrangements for future slavery extension--whether by divisions of the larger States and Territories, now secured to the inst.i.tution, its extension into territory hitherto considered free, or the acquisition of new territory to be devoted to the system, so as to preserve the balance of power in Congress. When this is done, Kansas and Nebraska, like Kentucky and Missouri, will be of little consequence to slaveholders, compared with the cheap and constant supply of provisions they can yield. Nothing, therefore, will so exactly coincide with Southern interests, as a rapid emigration of freemen into these new Territories. White free labor, doubly productive over slave labor in grain-growing, must be multiplied within their limits, that the cost of provisions may be reduced and the extension of slavery and the growth of cotton suffer no interruption.

The present efforts to plant them with slavery, are indispensable to produce sufficient excitement to fill them speedily with a free population; and if this whole movement has been a Southern scheme to cheapen provisions, and increase the ratio of the production of sugar and cotton, as it most unquestionably will do, it surpa.s.ses the statesman-like strategy which forced the people into an acquiescence in the annexation of Texas.

And should the anti-slavery voters succeed in gaining the political ascendency in these Territories, and bring them as free States triumphantly into the Union; what can they do, but turn in, as all the rest of the Western States have done, and help to feed slaves, or those who manufacture or who sell the products of the labor of slaves. There is no other resource left, either to them or to the older free States, without an entire change in almost every branch of business and of domestic economy. Reader, look at your bills of dry goods for the year, and what do they contain? At least three-fourths of the amount are French, English, or American cotton fabrics, woven from slave labor cotton. Look at your bills for groceries, and what do they contain?

Coffee, sugar, mola.s.ses, rice--from Brazil, Cuba, Louisiana, Carolina; while only a mere fraction of them are from free labor countries. As now employed, our dry goods' merchants and grocers const.i.tute an immense army of agents for the sale of fabrics and products coming, directly or indirectly, from the hand of the slave; and all the remaining portion of the people, free colored, as well as white, are exerting themselves, according to their various capacities, to gain the means of purchasing the greatest possible amount of these commodities. Nor can the country, at present, by any possibility, pay the amount of foreign goods consumed, but by the labor of the slaves of the planting States. This can not be doubted for a moment. Here is the proof:

Commerce supplied us, in 1853, with foreign articles, for consumption, to the value of $250,420,187, and accepted, in exchange, of our provisions, to the value of but $33,809,126; while the products of our slave labor, manufactured and unmanufactured, paid to the amount of $133,648,603, on the balance of this foreign debt. This, then, is the measure of the ability of the Farmers and Planters, respectively, to meet the payment of the necessaries and comforts of life, supplied to the country by its foreign commerce. The farmer pays, or seems only to pay, $33,800,000, while the planter has a broad credit, on the account, of $133,600,000.

This was true in 1853: is it so in 1859? The amounts are not now the same, but the proportions have not varied materially. Reference to Table VIII, in the Appendix, will show, that while the provisions exported, for the three years preceding 1859, amounted to a yearly average of $67,512,812, the value of the cotton and tobacco exported, during the same period, amounted to an annual average of $147,079,647.

But is this seeming productiveness of slavery real, or is it only imaginary? Has the system such capacities, over the other industrial interests of the nation, in the creation of wealth, as these figures indicate? Or, are these results due to its intermediate position between the agriculture of the country and its foreign commerce? These are questions worthy of consideration. Were the planters left to grow their own provisions, they would, as already intimated, be unable to produce any cotton for export. That their present ability to export so extensively, is in consequence of the aid they receive from the North, is proved by facts such as these:

In 1820, the cotton-gin had been a quarter of a century in operation, and the culture of cotton was then nearly as well understood as at present. The North, though furnishing the South with some live stock, had scarcely begun to supply it with provisions, and the planters had to grow the food, and manufacture much of the clothing for their slaves. In that year the cotton crop equaled 109 lbs. to each slave in the Union, of which 83 lbs. per slave were exported. In 1830 the exports of the article had risen to 143 lbs., in 1840 to 295 lbs., and in 1853 to 337 lbs. per slave. The total cotton crop of 1853 equaled 395 lbs. per slave--making both the production and export of that staple, in 1853, more than four times as large, in proportion to the slave population, as they were in 1820.[47] Had the planters, in 1853, been able to produce no more cotton, per slave, than in 1820, they would have grown but 359,308,472 lbs., instead of the actual crop of 1,305,152,800 lbs.; and would not only have failed to supply any for export, but have barely supplied the home demand, and been _minus_ the total crop of that year, by 945,844,328 lbs.

In this estimate, some allowance, perhaps, should be made, for the greater fertility of the new lands, more recently brought under cultivation; but the difference, on this account, can not be equal to the difference in the crops of the several periods, as the lands, in the older States, in 1820, were yet comparatively fresh and productive.

Again, the dependence of the South upon the North, for its provisions, may be inferred from such additional facts as these: The "Abstract of the Census," for 1850, shows, that the production of wheat, in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, averaged, the year preceding, very little more than a peck, (it was 27/100 of a bushel,) to each person within their limits. These States must purchase flour largely, but to what amount we can not determine. The shipments of provisions from Cincinnati to New Orleans and other down river ports, show that large supplies leave that city for the South; but what proportion of them is taken for consumption by the planters, must be left, at present, to conjecture. These shipments, as to a few of the prominent articles, for the four years ending August 31, 1854, averaged annually the following amounts:

Wheat flour brls. 385,204 Pork and Bacon lbs. 43,689,000 Whisky gals. 8,115,360

Cincinnati also exports eastward, by ca.n.a.l, river and railroad, large amounts of these productions. The towns and cities westward send more of their products to the South, as their distance increases the cost of transportation to the East. But, in the absence of full statistics, it is not necessary to make additional statements.

From this view of the subject, it appears that slavery is not a self-sustaining system, independently remunerative; but that it attains its importance to the nation and to the world, by standing as an agency, intermediate, between the grain-growing States and our foreign commerce.

As the distillers of the West transformed the surplus grain into whisky, that it might bear transport, so slavery takes the products of the North, and metamorphoses them into cotton, that they may bear export.

It seems, indeed, when the whole of the facts brought to view are considered, that American slavery, though of little force unaided, yet properly sustained, is the great central power, or energizing influence, not only of nearly all the industrial interests of our own country, but also of those of Great Britain and much of the Continent; and that, if stricken from existence, the whole of these interests, with the advancing civilization of the age, would receive a shock that must r.e.t.a.r.d their progress for years to come.

This is no exaggerated picture of the present imposing power of slavery.

It is literally true. Southern men, at an early day, believed that the Protective Tariff would have paralyzed it--would have destroyed it. But the abolitionists, led off by their sympathies with England, and influenced by American politicians and editors, who advocated free trade, were made the instruments of its overthrow. No such extended mining and manufacturing, as the Protective system was expected to create, has now any existence in the Union. Under it, according to the theory of its friends, more than one hundred and sixty millions in value, of the foreign imports for 1853, would have been produced in our own country. But free trade is dominant: the South has triumphed in its warfare with the North: the political power pa.s.sed into its hands with the defeat of the Father of the Protective Tariff, ten years since, in the last effort of his friends to elevate him to the Presidency: the slaveholding and commercial interests then gained the ascendency, and secured the power of annexing territory at will: the nation has become rich in commerce, and unbounded in ambition for territorial aggrandizement: the people acquiesce in the measures of Government, and are proud of the influence it has gained in the world: nay, more, the peaceful aspect of the nations has been changed, and the policy of our own country must be modified to meet the exigencies that may arise.

One word more on the point we have been considering. With the defeat of Mr. Clay, came the immediate annexation of Texas, and, as he predicted, the war with Mexico. The results of these events let loose from its attachments a mighty avalanche of emigration and of enterprise, under the rule of the free trade policy, then adopted, which, by the golden treasures it yields, renders that system, thus far, self-sustaining, and able to move on, as its friends believe, with a momentum that forbids any attempt to return again to the system of protection. Whether the Tariff controversy is permanently settled, or not, is a question about which we shall not speculate. It may be remarked, however, that one of the leading parties in the North gave its adhesion to free trade many years since, and still continues to vote with the South. The leading abolition paper, too, ever since its origin, has advocated the Southern free trade system; and thus, in defending the cause it has espoused, as was said of a certain general in the Mexican war, its editors have been digging their ditches on the wrong side of their breastworks. To say the least, their position is a very strange one, for men who profess to labor for the subversion of American slavery. It would be as rational to pour oil upon a burning edifice, to extinguish the fire, as to attempt to overthrow that system under the rule of free trade. For, whatever differences of opinion may exist on the question of free trade, as applied to the nations at large, there can be no question that it has been the main element in promoting the value of slave labor in the United States; and, consequently, of extending the system of slavery, vastly, beyond the bounds it would otherwise have reached. But the editors referred to, do not stand alone. More than one United States Senator, after acquiring notoriety and position by constant clamors against slavery at home, has not hesitated to vote for free trade at Washington, with as hearty a good will as any friend of the extension of slavery in the country!

All these things together have paralyzed the advocates of the protection of free labor, at present, as fully as the North has thereby been shorn of its power to control the question of slavery. Indeed, from what has been said of the present position of American slavery, in its relation to the other industrial interests of the country, and of the world, there is no longer any doubt that it now supplies the complement of that _home market_, so zealously urged as essential to the prosperity of the agricultural population of the country: and which, it was supposed, could only be created by the multiplication of domestic manufactures.

This desideratum being gained, the great majority of the people have nothing more to ask, but seem desirous that our foreign commerce shall be cherished; that the cultivation of cotton and sugar shall be extended; that the nation shall become c.u.mulative as well as progressive; that, as despotism is striving to spread its raven wing over the earth, freedom must strengthen itself for the protection of the liberties of the world; that while three millions of Africans, only, are held to involuntary servitude for a time, to sustain the system of free trade, the freedom of hundreds of millions is involved in the preservation of the American Const.i.tution; and that, as African emanc.i.p.ation, in every experiment made, has thrown a dead weight upon Anglo-Saxon progress, the colored people must wait a little, until the general battle for the liberties of the civilized nations is gained, before the universal elevation of the barbarous tribes can be achieved.

This work, it is true, has been commenced at various outposts in heathendom, by the missionary, but is impeded by numberless hindrances; and these obstacles to the progress of Christian civilization, doubtless will continue, until the friends of civil and religious liberty shall triumph in nominally Christian countries; and, with the wealth of the nations at command, instead of applying it to purposes of war, shall devote it to sweeping away the darkness of superst.i.tion and barbarism from the earth, by extending the knowledge of science and revelation to all the families of man.

But we must hasten.

There are none who will deny the truth of what is said of the present strength and influence of slavery, however much they may have deprecated its acquisition of power. There are none who think it practicable to a.s.sail it, successfully, by political action, in the States where it is already established by law. The struggle against the system, therefore, is narrowed down to an effort to prevent its extension into territory now free; and this contest is limited to the people who settle the territories. The question is thus taken out of the hands of the people at large, and they are cut off from all control of slavery both in the States and Territories. Hence it is, that the American people are considering the propriety of banishing this distracting question from national politics, and demanding of their statesmen that there shall no longer be any delay in the adoption of measures to sustain the Const.i.tution and laws of our glorious Union, against all its enemies, whether domestic or foreign.

The policy of adopting this course, may be liable to objection; but it does not appear to arise from any disposition to prove recreant to the cause of philanthropy, that a large portion of the people of the free States are desirous of divorcing the slavery question from all connection with political movements. It is because they now find themselves wholly powerless, as did the colonizationists, forty years since, in regard to emanc.i.p.ation, and are thus forced into a position of neutrality on that subject.

A word on this point. The friends of colonization, in the outset of that enterprise, found themselves shut up to the necessity of creating a Republic on the sh.o.r.es of Africa, as the only hope for the free colored people--the further emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, by State action, having become impracticable. After nearly forty years of experimenting with the free colored people, by others, colonizationists still find themselves circ.u.mscribed in their operations, to their original design of building up the Republic of Liberia, as the only rational hope of the elevation of the African race--the prospects of general emanc.i.p.ation being a thousand-fold more gloomy in 1859 than they were in 1817.

Abolitionists, themselves, now admit that slavery completely controls all national legislation. This is equivalent to admitting that all their schemes for its overthrow have failed. Theodore Parker, of Boston, in a sermon before his congregation, recently, is reported as having made the following declaration: "I have been preaching to you in this city for ten years; and beside the mult.i.tudes addressed here, I have addressed a hundred thousand annually in excursions through the country; and in that time the area of slavery has increased a hundred fold." Gerrit Smith, in his late speech in Congress, said, that cotton is now the dominant interest of the country, and sways Church, and State, and commerce, and compels all of them to go for slavery. Mr. Sumner, in his thrice repeated lecture, in New York, in May, 1855, declared, that, "notwithstanding all its excess of numbers, wealth, and intelligence, the North is now the va.s.sal of an oligarchy, whose single inspiration comes from slavery." . . . . . It "now dominates over the Republic, determines its national policy, disposes of its offices, and sways all to its absolute will." . . . . "In maintaining its power, the slave oligarchy has applied a new test for office"--. . . . "Is he faithful to slavery?" . . . . "With arrogant ostracism, it excludes from every national office all who can not respond to this test." Hon. L. D.

Campbell, in a letter to the Cincinnati Convention of Colored Freemen, January 5, 1852, said: "I regard the _present position_ of your race in this country as infinitely worse than it was ten years ago. The States which were _then_ preparing for gradual emanc.i.p.ation, are _now_ endeavoring to extend, perpetuate, and strengthen slavery! . . . . A vast amount of territory which was _then_ free is _now_ everlastingly dedicated to slavery. . . . . From the lights of the past, I confess, I see nothing to justify a promise of much to your _future prospects_."

That these gentlemen state a great truth, as to the present position of the slavery question, and the darkening prospects of emanc.i.p.ation, will be denied by no man of intelligence and candor. Doubtless, a certain cla.s.s of politicians, because of the present dearth of political capital, of any other kind, will continue to agitate this subject. But, sooner or later, it must take the form we have stated, and become a question of minor importance in politics. This result is inevitable, because the people at large are beginning to realize their want of power over the inst.i.tution of slavery, and the futility of any measures. .h.i.therto adopted to arrest its progress, and elevate the free colored people on terms of equality among the whites.

But, I am told that the North has recently achieved a great victory over the South, in the election of Mr. Banks, as Speaker.[48] Time was when such a result would have been considered far otherwise than a Northern triumph. Mr. Banks is an ultra free trade man, and his sentiments will a.s.suredly work no ill to the commercial interests of the South. His election provoked no threats of secession. What, then, has been gained to the North, in the wild excitement consequent upon the controversy relative to the Speakership? The opponents of slavery are further than ever from accomplishing any thing practicable in checking the demand for the great staple of the South. Cotton is King still.

In such a crisis as this, shall the friends of the Union be rebuked, if they determine to take a position of neutrality, in politics, on the subject of slavery; while, at the same time, they offer to guarantee the free colored people a Republic of their own, where they may equal other races, and aid in redeeming a Continent from the woes it has suffered for thousands of years!

FOOTNOTES:

[47] The progressive increase is indicated by the following figures:

=1820.= =1830.= =1840.= =1853.= Total slaves in United States, 1,538,098 2,009,043 2,487,356 3,296,408 Cotton exported, lbs., 127,800,000 298,459,102 743,941,061 1,111,570,370 Average export to each slave, lbs., 83 143 295 337

[48] The remarks in this chapter remain as they were in the first edition.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE INDUSTRIAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THE BRITISH COLONIES, HAYTI, AND IN THE UNITED STATES; AND THE INFLUENCE THEY HAVE EXERTED ON PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN RELATION TO SLAVERY, AND TO THEIR OWN PROSPECTS OF EQUALITY WITH THE WHITES.

Effects of opposition to Colonization on Liberia--Its effects on free colored people--Their social and moral condition--Abolition testimony on the subject--American Missionary a.s.sociation--Its failure in Canada--Degradation of West India free colored people--American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society--Its testimony on the dismal condition of West India free negroes--London Times on same subject--Mr. Bigelow on same subject--Effect of results in West Indies on Emanc.i.p.ation--Opinion of Southern Planters--Economical failure of West India Emanc.i.p.ation--Ruinous to British Commerce--Similar results in Hayti--Extent of diminution of exports from West Indies resulting from Emanc.i.p.ation--Results favorable to American Planter--Moral condition of Hayti--Later facts in reference to the West Indies--Negro free labor a failure--Necessity of education to render freedom of value--Franklin's opinion confirmed--Colonization essential to promote Emanc.i.p.ation.

We have noticed the social and moral condition of the free colored people, from the days of Franklin, to the projection of colonization. We have also glanced at the main facts in relation to the abolition warfare upon colonization, and its success in paralyzing the enterprise. This subject demands a more extended notice. The most serious injury from this hostility, sustained by the cause of colonization, was the prejudice created, in the minds of the more intelligent free colored men, against emigration to Liberia. The Colonization Society had expressed its belief in the natural equality of the blacks and whites; and that there were a sufficient number of educated, upright, free colored men, in the United States, to establish and sustain a Republic on the coast of Africa, "whose citizens, rising rapidly in the scale of existence, under the stimulants to n.o.ble effort by which they would be surrounded, might soon become equal to the people of Europe, or of European origin--so long their masters and oppressors." These were the sentiments of the first Report of the Colonization Society, and often repeated since. Its appeals were made to the moral and intelligent of the free colored people; and, with their co-operation, the success of its scheme was considered certain. But the very persons needed to lead the enterprise, were, mostly, persuaded to reject the proffered aid, and the society was left to prosecute its plans with such materials as offered. In consequence of this opposition, it was greatly embarra.s.sed, and made less progress in its work of African redemption, than it must have done under other circ.u.mstances. Had three-fourths of its emigrants been the enlightened, free colored men of the country, a dozen Liberias might now gird the coast of Africa, where but one exists; and the slave trader be entirely excluded from its sh.o.r.es. Doubtless, a wise Providence has governed here, as in other human affairs, and may have permitted this result, to show how speedily even semi-civilized men can be elevated under American Protestant free inst.i.tutions. The great body of emigrants to Liberia, and nearly all the leading men who have sprung up in the colony, and contributed most to the formation of the Republic, went out from the very midst of slavery; and yet, what encouraging results! It has been a sad mistake to oppose colonization, and thus to r.e.t.a.r.d Africa's redemption!