happens, a white population finds employment and a legitimate position. But such a population is extrinsic to slavery, and forms no part of the economy of slave labor.

The destruction and expulsion of the white race are the legitimate effects of the plantation system, and are in fact produced by it, just in proportion as that system is developed. In South Carolina, in 1850, there were 384,984 slaves to 274,563 whites, whereas in 1790 there were 107,094 slaves to 140,178 whites. This advance of the black race upon the white has occurred in spite of the fact, that the western part of the State is mountainous, and not adapted to slavery.

1 Between the evacuation of Charlestown by the British in 1783 and the year 1808, the difference in the condition of South-Carolina is immense. When the revolutionary contest ended the country was full of widows and orphans made so by the war, and a deadly hatred growing out of it continued to rage between the tories and whigs. The possessions of the planters were laid waste, their laborers were carried off or greatly reduced by deaths and desertion. The morality of the inhabitants had been prostrated by laws violating private rights on the plea of political necessity—by the suspension of the courts of justice-by that disregard for the institutions of religion which is a never-failing attendant on military operations - by the destruction or dilapidation of churches and the consequent omission of public worship addressed to the deity. .

...

By degrees the wounds inflicted by war on the morality and religion of the inhabitants began to heal. Their losses of property were made up from the returns of a fruitful soil, amply rewarding the labors of its cultivators. These promising appearances were strengthened by improvements on their civil institutions. . . . To these sources of moral improvement a powerful auxiliary was added by the introduction of cotton. The cultivation of the former great staples, particularly rice and indigo, required large capitals. They could not be raised to any considerable purpose but by negroes. In this state of things poor white men were of little account otherwise than as overseers. There were comparatively few of that

1 Ramsay, History of South Carolina [1808], II, 445-446, 446-447, 448-449.

intermediate and generally most virtuous class which is neither poor nor rich. By the introduction of the new staple the poor became of value, for they generally were or at least might be elevated to this middle grade of society. Land suitable for cotton was easily attained, and in tracts of every size either to purchase or rent. The culture of it entailed no diseases; might be carried on profitably by individuals or white families without slaves, and afforded employment for children whose labor was of little or no account on rice or indigo plantations. The poor having the means of acquiring property without the degradation of working with slaves, had new and strong incitements to industry. From the acquisition of property the transition was easy to that decent pride of character which secures from low vice, and stimulates to seek distinction by deserving it. As they became more easy in their circumstances, they became more orderly in their conduct. The vices which grew out of poverty and idleness were diminished. In estimating the value of cotton, its capacity to excite industry among the lower classes of people, and to fill the country with an independent industrious yeomanry, is of high importance. It has had a large share in moralizing the poor white people of the country. From the combined influence of these causes, the moral improvement of Carolina ever since the year 1783, has been in a constant state of progression ; and particularly so since 1792, when cotton became a considerable article for exportation. . . .1

2 The culture of cotton, infinitely more lucrative than that of wheat or tobacco, is, as I have already said, the most practised in

1 This extract is important as showing that at the beginning cotton was expected to be produced by free labor on small farms, and was, in fact, so produced. All over the South a struggle took place between the small white farmer and the planter with his slaves for the possession of the best lands upon which to raise cotton. The result of it was that the farmer sold out to the planter and moved to the West to take up new land. The new cotton lands of the West were usually taken up by small farmers with few or no slaves, and as time went on the planter with his numerous gang of slaves moved in and bought the small farmer. This movement may be shown statistically by comparing the relative numbers of whites and negroes in the important cotton counties in the various States from their early settlement to 1860. Thomas Dabney was a typical case (see p. 642). 2 Michaux, Travels to the Westward of the Alleghany Mountains [1802], PP. 294-295.

West Tennessee. There is scarcely an emigrant who does not begin to engage in it by the third year after his establishment. Those who have no negroes, cultivate it with the plough, nearly like maize, only taking particular care to weed and hoe it several times in the season. The others dispose their fields in parallel ridges, made with the hoe, and twelve or fifteen feet in height. It is calculated that one man, who has no other employment, is able to cultivate eight or nine acres; but the opening of the capsules taking place very rapidly, when it is ripe, it would not be possible for him to pick it by himself. A man and woman, with two or three children, may, however, easily cultivate four acres, independently of the maize necessary for their subsistence, and, reckoning on a crop of three hundred and fifty pounds weight, per acre, which, considering the extreme fertility of the soil, is very moderate, there will be a product of fourteen hundred pounds weight of cotton, freed from the seed. Valuing it at the rate of eighteen piasters the quintal, the lowest price to which it fell, at the time of the last peace, when I was in the country, it gives two hundred and fifty-two piasters, from which, deducting forty piasters for the expense of culture, there is a net produce of two hundred and twelve piasters. . . . This slight sketch will show with what facility the poorest family may quickly acquire a certain degree of affluence in West Tennessee, particularly, if after being five or six years established, they are enabled to purchase one or two negroes, and to increase the number gradually.

1 Notwithstanding the youth of the State [Alabama], there is a constant and extensive emigration from it, as well as immigration to it. Large planters, as their stock increases, are always anxious to enlarge the area of their land, and will often pay a high price for that of any poor neighbor, who, embarrassed by debt, can be tempted to move on. There is a rapid tendency in Alabama, as in the older Slave States, to the enlargement of plantations. The poorer class are steadily driven to occupy poor land, or move forward on to the frontier.

In an Address before the Chunnenuggee Horticultural Society, by Hon. C. C. Clay, Jr., reported by the author in De Bow's Review, 1 Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States [1856], pp. 576-577.

December, 1855, I find the following passage. I need not add a word to it to show how the political experiment of old Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, is being repeated to the same cursed result in young Alabama. The author, it is fair to say, is devoted to the sustentation of Slavery, and would not, for the world, be suspected of favoring any scheme for arresting this havoc of wealth, further than by chemical science:

"I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands, unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are going further west and south, in search of other virgin lands, which they may despoil and impoverish in like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbors, extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many, who are merely independent.

"Of the twenty millions of dollars annually realized from the sales of the cotton crop of Alabama, nearly all 'not expended in supporting the producers is reinvested in land and negroes. Thus the white population has decreased, and the slave increased, almost pari passu in several counties of our State. In 1825, Madison county cast about 3,000 votes; now she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing that county one will discover numerous farmhouses, once the abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted, and dilapidated; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, abandoned, and covered with those evil harbingers fox-tail and broom-sedge; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages; and will find 'one only master grasps the whole domain' that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country in its infancy, where, fifty years ago, scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay, apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas; the freshness of its agricultural

glory is gone; the vigor of its youth is extinct, and the spirit of desolation seems brooding over it."

1 The following description of the social construction of the western cotton districts I find among the selected matter of a country newspaper. The author is unknown to me, but it is apparent from the context that he writes from personal observation. I quote it, not so much for the additional testimony it offers as for the clearer statement it affords of the tendency I have asserted to exist throughout the rich cotton districts.

"The cotton-growing portion of the valley of the Mississippi, the very garden of the Union, is year by year being wrested from the hands of the small farmer and delivered over to the great capitalists. The white yeoman, the class which has contributed more of the blood and devotion, and good sense and enterprise which have made this country what it is than any other, are either forced into the sandy pine-hills or are driven west to clear and prepare the soil for the army of negroes and negro-drivers which forever presses on their heels, to make their industry unprofitable, and their life intolerable.

"All the great cotton lands were first opened up by industrious settlers, with small means and much energy. No sooner is their clearing made, and their homestead growing into comfort, than the great planter comes up from the east, with his black horde, settles down on the district, and absorbs and overruns everything. This is precisely the process which is going on, day by day, over the greater portion of Louisiana and Mississippi. The small farmers, that is to say, the mass of the white population, are fast disappearing. The rich bottom lands of that glorious valley are being concentrated in the hands of large planters, with from one hundred to one thousand negroes. The average number of negroes and average quantity of land belonging to single proprietors is yearly increasing. The wealthier the proprietor himself, the less does he reside on his property, and the more disposed is he to commit it to the care of overseers. In some counties in Mississippi the negroes are twenty times more numerous than the citizens. Whole districts are solely

1 Olmsted, A Journey in the Back Country [1860], pp. 329-330.