American cotton, the product of slave labor, clothes, to a large
extent, one-fourth part of the human race; without it the glory of
civilization would vanish. It embellishes the denizen of the city, and
hides the nakedness of barbarism. It is the tablet on which is
inscribed the history of the present, and rescues from oblivion the
mouldering records of the past. It is the talisman of thought, and the
vehicle of those electric currents that blaze athwart the sky of mind,
with which intellect binds together, with silver thread, the mind's
great empire, where kings do homage at the shrine of genius, and bow
in awe, and humble reverence before the majesty of mind. It is the
medium through which the internal and external domains of thought are
blended, and truth made universal, and obvious to the apprehension of
a world!