The opposition to the Protective Tariff, by the South, arose from two causes: the first openly avowed at the time, and the second clearly deducible from the policy it pursued: the one to secure the foreign market for its cotton, the other to obtain a bountiful supply of provisions at cheap rates. Cotton was admitted free of duty into foreign countries, and Southern statesmen feared its exclusion, if our government increased the duties on foreign fabrics. The South exported about twice as much of that staple as was supplied to Europe by all other countries, and there were indications favoring the desire it entertained of monopolizing the foreign markets. The West India planters could not import food, but at such high rates as to make it impracticable to grow cotton at prices low enough to suit the English manufacturer. To purchase cotton cheaply, was essential to the success of his scheme of monopolizing its manufacture, and supplying the world with clothing. The close proximity of the provision and cotton-growing districts in the United States, gave its planters advantages over all other portions of the world. But they could not monopolize the markets, unless they could obtain a cheap supply of food and clothing for their negroes, and raise their cotton at such reduced prices as to undersell their rivals. A manufacturing population, with its mechanical coadjutors, in the midst of the provision-growers, on a scale such as the protective policy contemplated, it was conceived, would create a permanent market for their products, and enhance the price; whereas, if this manufacturing could be prevented, and a system of free trade adopted, the South would constitute the principal provision market of the country, and the fertile lands of the North supply the cheap food demanded for its slaves. As the tariff policy, in the outset, contemplated the encouragement of the production of iron, hemp, whisky, and the establishment of woolen manufactories, principally, the South found its interests but slightly identified with the system--the coarser qualities of cottons, only, being manufactured in the country, and, even these, on a diminished scale, as compared with the cotton crops of the South. Cotton, up to the date when this controversy had been fairly commenced, had been worth, in the English market, an average price of from 29 7/10 to 48 4/10 cents per lb.[31] But at this period, a wide spread and ruinous depression both in the culture and manufacture of the article, occurred--cotton, in 1826, having fallen, in England, as low as 11 9/10 to 18 9/10 cents per lb. The home market, then, was too inconsiderable to be of much importance, and there existed little hope of its enlargement to the extent demanded by its increasing cultivation. The planters, therefore, looked abroad to the existing markets, rather than to wait for tardily creating one at home. For success in the foreign markets, they relied, mainly, upon preparing themselves to