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)
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 cumulative 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 Constitution; and that, as African
emancipation, 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 superstition and barbarism
from the earth, by extending the knowledge of science and revelation to
all the families of man.
But we must hasten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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