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Actual net imports, 1859

This gives the amount of goods that are received

in exchange for produce sold. It is obvious that unless the produce is given away something must be taken in payment. As they produce gold in sums larger than the country requires, that cannot be imported to advantage. They have food and raw material in excess, and can therefore, if they trade at all, take only such foreign wares as those who buy of them can supply to the best advantage. The food, the gold, and the cotton they sell Europe must have, and sales of these regulate the quantities of goods pretty nearly that come back. The kind of goods so received depend in some degree on their ability to compete with the Northern manufacturers who have the preference. If Massachusetts factories can make a certain style of cotton goods as cheap as the English it has a duty of 20 per cent. and 10 per cent. charges or 30 per cent. preference over the

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English, which ensures it the market at a large profit, the account is sometimes disturbed by credit, as in the case of the recent railroad speculation. Large sums are sent from England there for investment; if these in one year reach, say $30,000,000, goods to that amount may be and are imported in addition. It also happens at such seasons that sellers supply goods on credit to other than regular merchants. Those dealers sustain themselves by bank operations, until explosion takes place; the trade then settles back to the real staple exports of the country, and these are of Southern origin. The leading exports from time to time have been as follows::

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1790

1803

1807

1816

42,285 4,349,567 5,991,171 1,753,796 7,920,000 6,209,000 15,050,000 2,455,000 14,232,000 5,476,000 24,106.000 12,809,000 1821 20,157,484 5,648,962 1831 31,724,682 4,892,388 1836 71,284,925 10,058,640 1842 47,693,464 9,540,755 1847 53,415,808 7,242.086 68,701,921 3,605,896 10,351,364 1851 112,315,717 9,219,251 21,948,651 2,170,997 20,136,967 1859 161,434,923 21,074,018 37,987,395 2,207,148 32,471,927

2,000,000

15,706,000 2,307,000

2,309,000

29,587,376

2,378,880

2,331,000

12,341,360 1,494,387

2,752,631

12,424,701

2,016,267

5,086,890

9,588,359

2,548,750

6,107,528

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The New England States, which are so largely manufacturing, do not, with the exception of a

small quantity of wool, produce any of the raw materials which they require, nor do they produce coal, or iron, or wheat. The census of 1850 shows that the value of their agricultural products is only $15 per head of the population, a quantity unequal to the support of life. An able writer in Boston states that in 1858 one-third of all the flour and five-sevenths of all the corn sold in Boston was received from the commercial ports of the Southern States. In addition to the great staple articles, cotton, tobacco, and sugar, the Southern States send North vast quantities of Indian corn, rice, sweet potatoes, hemp, naval stores, timber, wool, flour, wheat, live-stock, and various other products.

The Census of 1850 gives the number of live-stock

in the Southern States at that time

In the Northern States

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$40,823,727

36,409,134

for the American

But these matters are more

citizens themselves than for us. The main question for us to look at is, what has been the cause of this disunion, and who is to blame?

96

CHAP. IV.

NORTHERN OPINIONS.

A GREAT writer has published his views lately on the question with a bias which has led him into fallacy. Mr. Motley tells us "that as long as efforts had been confined to argument, it was considered sufficient to answer the argument, but now that secession, instead of remaining a topic of vehement and subtle discussion, has expanded into armed and fierce rebellion and revolution, civil war is the inevitable result." Of course it is; but the responsibility lies at the door of those who by a systematic and violent series of attacks on the property and even the lives of their fellow-citizens, forced them into an attitude of defence. The armed and fierce action was entirely on the part of the North. They appeal to arms, and on them lies the heavy onus. Moreover, I have shown above that the whole has been done on their side by the President alone, as Dictator, without any legal or constitutional action of the people by their representatives. Mr. Motley

allows "the fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people." When has the consent of the people been taken on this issue? He allows," the right of revolution exists indisputably the sole arbiter being the tribunal of the civilised world and future ages." What has barred the Southern States from this dread appeal? Has one drop of blood been shed on Northern soil? Was not the armed invasion of the Southern States a direct appeal to the God of battles, which men, fighting for their lives, their homes, and property, were bound to take up as they have done, manfully, fearlessly and with a declaration of their rights, and a determination to assert them before the face of day. Unless a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress and a ratification in three-fourths of the whole number of States make the law of the land binding on every subject, the action of the President is as lawless as it is sanguinary. History will decide whether the resistance is "rebellion, treason, plunder," and we do not fear her verdict. When he says that "the secession of the South, followed by the destruction of the whole body politic of which they were vital parts, was in contempt of any other remedy for expected grievances," no man knows better than Mr. Motley the utter worthless

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