Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments : $b comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on this important subject
History
Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments : $b comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on this important subject
Scott, Dred, 1809-1858; Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
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 canal, 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
retard their progress for years to come.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account