The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 42, April, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 42, April, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
"Here," said Wellington, on the Eton football ground, "we won the battle
of Waterloo." Not in angry declamation and wordy debate, in threats of
secession and cries for coercion, amid the clash of party-politics, the
windy declamation of blatant politicians, or the dirty scramble for
office, is the destruction of the dynasty of King Cotton to be looked
for. The laws of trade must be the great teacher; and here, as
elsewhere, England, the noble nation of shopkeepers, must be the agent
for the fulfilment of those laws. It is safe to-day to say, that,
through the agency of England, and, in accordance with those laws, under
a continuance of the present profit on that staple, the dynasty of King
Cotton is doomed,--the monopoly which is now the basis of his power will
be a monopoly no more. If saved at all from the blight of this
monopoly, the South will be saved, not in New York or Boston, but in
Liverpool,--not by the thinkers of America, but by the merchants of
England. The real danger of the Cotton dynasty lies not in the hostility
of the North, but in the exigencies of the market abroad; they struggle
not against the varying fortunes of political warfare, but against the
irreversible decrees of Fate. It is the old story of the Rutulian hero;
and now, in the very crisis and agony of the battle, while the Cotton
King is summoning all his resources and straining every nerve to cope
successfully with its more apparent, but less formidable adversary, in
the noisy struggle for temporary power, if it would listen for a moment
to the voice of reason, and observe the still working of the laws of our
being, it, too, might see cause to abandon the contest, with the
angry lament, that, not by its opponent was it vanquished, but by the
hostility of Jupiter and the gods. The operation of the laws of
trade, as touching this monopoly, is beautifully simple. Already the
indications are sufficient to tell us, that, under the sure, but
silent working of those laws, the very profits of the Southern planter
foreshadow the destruction of his monopoly. His dynasty rests upon the
theory, that his negro is the only practical agency for the production
of his staple. But the supply of African labor is limited, and the
increased profit on cotton renders the cost of that labor heavier in
its turn,--the value of the negro rising one hundred dollars for every
additional cent of profit on a pound of cotton. The increased cost of
the labor increases the cost of producing the cotton. The result is
clear; and the history of the cotton-trade has twice verified it. The
increased profits on the staple tempt competition, and, in the increased
cost of production, render it possible. Two courses only are open to the
South: either to submit to the destruction of their monopoly, or to try
to retain it by a cheaper supply of labor. They now feel the pressure of
the dilemma; and hence the cry to reopen the slave-trade. According to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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