Tompkins saw clearly, and in effect said again and again, that "the result of the introduction and growth of the system of slavery was revolutionary; it turned the energies of the people almost wholly to the cultivation of cotton; it practically destroyed all other industries...."[65] And again, "By the influence of the negro the South lost its manufactures and largely its commerce, and became practically a purely agricultural section of the nation."[66] Speaking of the effect of the cotton gin and the cultivation of the staple by slave labor, he said: "The shops which had been productive of trading were closed to the public, and were utilized only for what was needed on the plantation.... There were no industries requiring skill or thought, and there was no necessity for scientific farming or anything else scientific.... Slavery not only demonstrated that people will not think unless it is necessary, but also that they will not work unless it is necessary.... Within three decades after the invention of the cotton gin, slavery had accomplished its revolution. The people whose minds had been occupied with diversified industries and industrial expansion, were narrowed down to the development and growth of cotton.... The mills and shops lay idle, the abundant natural resources were ignored, and everything staked upon one occupation...."[67] This writer was fond of linking the economic trend of the South in 1800 with that which emerged after Reconstruction, as thus, "In the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth there was a well-developed and extensive manufacturing interest in the South. White mechanics were numerous, and lived well. The growth of the institution of slavery had nearly destroyed all manufactures ... by the middle of the nineteenth century.... After the abolition of slavery, and after a period of disastrous experiment in trying to legislate on social and political conditions 'without regard to race, color or previous condition of servitude,' education, intelligence or moral character ... manufactures were quickly re-established in the South, and the descendants of the mechanics of former days ceased at once to be 'poor white trash' and became with marvelous quickness as good carpenters, machinists, carders, weavers, etc., as their ancestors were."[68] Something of Tompkins' newspaper published and publicist habit comes out in this conclusion of his advice against the usefulness of negroes in cotton mills: "Dependence upon the negro as a laborer has done infinite injury to the South. In the past it brought about a condition which drove the white laborer from the South or into enforced idleness. It is important to re-establish as quickly as possible respectability for white labor."[69]