that canals, turnpikes, railways, and every other improvement designed either for use or for ornament, abounded in every part of the land; and that the want of money had never been felt or heard of in its limits. He would conclude that the most splendid edifices dedicated to the purposes of religion and learning were everywhere to be found, and that all the liberal arts had here found their reward and a home. But what would be his surprise when told, that so far from dwelling in palaces, many of these planters dwell in habitations of the most primitive construction, and these so inartificially built as to be incapable of protecting the inmates from the winds and rains of heaven; that instead of any artistical improvement, this rude dwelling was surrounded by cotton fields, or probably by fields exhausted, washed into gullies and abandoned; that instead of canals, the navigable streams remain unimproved, to the great detriment of transportation; that the common roads of the country were scarcely passable; that the edifices erected for the accommodation of learning and religion were frequently built of logs, and covered with boards; and that the fine arts were but little encouraged or cared for. Upon receiving this information, he would imagine that this was surely the country of misers that they had been hoarding up all the money of the world, to the great detriment of the balance of mankind. But his surprise would be greatly increased when informed, that instead of being misers and hoarders of money, these people were generally scarce of it, and many of them embarrassed and bankrupt. Upon what principle could a stranger to the country account for this condition of things? How could he account for the expenditure of the enormous sum of one billion of dollars in the short space of twenty years? Indeed I think it would puzzle the most observing individual in the country to account for so strange a result.

It is true that much has been paid for public lands within this period of twenty years, but the price of two crops would more than cover that account. The purchase of slaves and private lands should not be taken into the account, because the money paid for these should have remained in the country, except that portion paid for the slaves purchased out of the cotton region, which is inconsiderable when compared to the number brought into it by emigrants;

and as to the natural increase of the slaves in the cotton region, that has no relation to the subject.

What, then, has become of the other nine hundred millions of dollars? Much of it has been paid to the neighboring states for provisions, mules, horses, and implements of husbandry; much has been paid for clothing and other articles of manufacture, all induced by the system of applying all, or nearly all the labor of the country to the production of one staple only, and by neglecting the encouragement of manufactures. No mind can look back upon the history of this region for the last twenty years, and not feel convinced that the labor bestowed in cotton growing during that period has been a total loss to this part of the country. It is true that some of the neighboring states have been benefited to some extent, and it has served to swell the general commerce of the nation; the manufacture of the raw material has given employment to foreign capital and to foreign labor, and has also served to swell the volume of foreign commerce. But the country of its production has gained nothing, and lost much; it has lost much because it has not kept its relative position in the rapid march of improvement which marks the progress of other countries; and more than all, in the transportation of its produce, it has transported much of the productive and essential principles of the soil, which can never be returned, thereby sapping the very foundation of its wealth.

1

1 Says William Gregg, in an address delivered before the South Carolina Institute, in 1851:

From the best estimates that I have been able to make, I put down the white people who ought to work, and who do not, or who are so employed as to be wholly unproductive to the State, at one hundred and twenty-five thousand. Any man who is an observer of things could hardly pass through our country, without being struck with the fact that all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence, is employed in directing slave labor; and the consequence is, that a large portion of our poor white people are wholly neglected, and are suffered to while away an existence in a state but one step in advance of the Indian of the forest. It is an evil of vast magnitude, and nothing but a change in public sentiment will effect its cure. These people must be brought into daily

1 Helper, The Impending Crisis [1859], pp. 376-377

contact with the rich and intelligent - they must be stimulated to mental action, and taught to appreciate education and the comforts of civilized life; and this, we believe, may be affected only by the introduction of manufactures. My experience at Graniteville has satisfied me that unless our poor people can be brought together in villages, and some means of employment afforded them, it will be an utterly hopeless effort to undertake to educate them. We have collected at this place about eight hundred people, and as likely looking a set of country girls as may be found — industrious and orderly people, but deplorably ignorant, three-fourths of the adults not being able to read or to write their own names.

It is only necessary to build a manufacturing village of shanties, in a healthy location, in any part of the State, to have crowds of these people around you, seeking employment at half the compensation given to operatives at the North. It is indeed painful to be brought in contact with such ignorance and degradation.

V. ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF SLAVERY TO THE NORTH

1 That superabundance of land to which the English economists, from Adam Smith downwards, attribute the prosperity of new colonies, has never led to great prosperity without some kind of slavery. The states of New-England, in which negro slavery was never permitted, form no exception to the general rule. Adam Smith, in his chapter on the causes of the prosperity of new colonies, tries to establish by a pretty long argument that the wonderful prosperity of the Greek colonies was owing to "dearness of labour," to "high wages," which enabled the bulk of the people to save and to increase as rapidly as possible: whereas the unquestionable fact is, that all the work performed in those colonies, whether in agriculture or manufactures, was performed by slaves. All work in Brazil has been performed by the labour of slaves. In New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, prosperous colonies, capitalists are supplied with slave-labour in the shape of convicts. That they set the greatest value on this labour, is proved by their extreme fear lest the system of transportation should be discontinued; although the evils which it produces are too many to be counted, and too great to be believed in England. Finally, though the Puritans and the followers of Penn, who founded the colonies of New-England,

1 Wakefield, England and America [1834], pp. 212-215.

flourished with superabundance of land and without negro slaves, they did not flourish without slavery. Though their religious sentiments prompted them to abstain from the purchase of negroes, so severely did they, on that very account, feel the want of constant and combined labour, that they were led to carry on an extensive traffic in white men and children, who, kidnapped in Europe, were virtually sold to those fastidious colonists, and treated by them as slaves. But the number of Europeans kidnapped for the purpose of sale in those parts of America where negroes could not be sold, though considerable, in proportion to the number of settlers then wanting combined labour, was small when compared with the number of Europeans, who, first decoyed to America by the offer of a passage cost free, and the promise of high wages, were then transferred for terms of years to colonists who paid for their passage. These, under the name of redemptioners, were, for a long period, the principal servants of those colonies in which slavery was forbidden by law. Even so lately as within the last twenty years, and especially during the last war between England and America, which put a stop to Irish emigration, vast numbers of poor Germans were decoyed to those states which forbid slavery, and there sold for long terms of years to the highest bidder by public auction. Though white and free in name, they were really not free to become independent landowners, and therefore it was possible to employ their labour constantly and in combination. Lastly, even in those colonies which never permitted negro slavery, negroes have always been considered, what indeed there seems reason to conclude that they are by nature, an inferior order of beings. A black man never was, nor is he now, treated as a man by the white men of New-England. There, where the most complete equality subsists among white men, and every white man is taught to respect himself as well as other white men, black men are treated as if they were horses or dogs. Thus, notwithstanding superabundance of land, black men have always found it difficult to rise above the condition of labourers for hire; and thus such blacks as either escaped, or were allowed to go free, from the slave states, to settle in other states, provided servants for the capitalists of those other states. The large proportion of black servants in New-England has always been remarked,

and it is remarkable at this moment in Philadelphia, the strong hold of Quakerism. In this way, the slavery of some states has, not very indirectly, bestowed upon other states much of the good and some of the evil that arise from slavery.

In another way, the states which forbid slavery have gained by it immensely without any corresponding evil. The 'States of America must be viewed as one country, in which there is a considerable distribution of employments, and in which exchanges take place of the different productions raised in different parts of the Union. "The division of labour," says Adam Smith, meaning the distribution of employments, "is limited by the extent of the market." The great fishing establishments of the non-slaveholding colonies were set up for the purpose of supplying the slaves of the West Indies, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas, who were employed in raising tobacco, rice, and sugar; commodities exchangeable in the markets of Europe; commodities which have never been raised on any large scale in America except by the combined labour of slaves. A great part of the commerce of the northern states, of Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, has always consisted of a carrying trade for the southern states; the one work of raising produce for the markets of Europe and conveying it thither being so divided, that the produce was raised by the southern and conveyed by the northern states; a division of employments which depended on the labour of slaves, since, if a produce had not been raised fit for distant markets, carriers would not have been required, and since such produce could not have been raised by labour, uncertain and scattered as free labour always is with superabundance of good land. At the present time, which is the great market for the surplus produce of farmers in the nonslaveholding states on the western rivers? New-Orleans. And how could that great market have existed without slavery? Capitalists again, natives of the states which forbid slavery, reside during part of every year in the slave states, and reap large profits by dealing in rice, sugar, and cotton, exchangeable commodities, which, it must be repeated, have never been raised to any extent in America except by the labour of slaves. A New-Englander may boast that slavery was never permitted in his state, as a baker may pride