Foresight of Great Britain--Hon. George Thompson's
predictions--Their failure--England's dependence
on Slave labor--Blackwood's Magazine--London
Economist--McCullough--Her exports of cotton
goods--Neglect to improve the proper moment for
Emancipation--Admission of Gerrit Smith--_Cotton_,
its exports, its value, extent of crop, and cost
of our cotton fabrics--_Provisions_, their value,
their export, their consumption--_Groceries_,
source of their supplies, cost of amount
consumed--Our total indebtedness to Slave
labor--How far Free labor sustains Slave labor.
ANTECEDENT to all the movements noticed in the preceding chapter, Great
Britain had foreseen the coming increased demand for tropical products.
Indeed, her West Indian policy, of a few years previous, had hastened
the crisis; and, to repair her injuries, and meet the general outcry for
cotton, she made the most vigorous efforts to promote its cultivation in
her own tropical possessions. The motives prompting her to this policy,
need not be referred to here, as they will be noticed hereafter. The
Hon. George Thompson, it will be remembered, when urging the increase of
cotton cultivation in the East Indies, declared that the scheme must
succeed, and that, soon, all slave labor cotton would be repudiated by
the British manufacturers. Mr Garrison indorsed the measure, and
expressed his belief that, with its success, the American slave system
must inevitably perish from starvation! But England's efforts signally
failed, and the golden apple, fully ripened, dropped into the lap of our
cotton planters.[19] The year that heard Thompson's pompous
predictions,[20] witnessed the consumption of but 445,744,000 lbs. of
cotton, by England; while, fourteen years later, she used 817,998,048
lbs., nearly 700,000,000 lbs. of which were obtained from America!
That we have not overstated her dependence upon our slave labor for
cotton is a fact of world-wide notoriety. _Blackwood's Magazine_,
January, 1853, in referring to the cultivation of the article, by the
United States, says:
"With its increased growth has sprung up that mercantile navy, which now
waves its stripes and stars over every sea, and that foreign influence,
which has placed the internal peace--we may say the subsistence of
millions in every manufacturing country in Europe--within the power of
an oligarchy of planters."
In reference to the same subject, the _London Economist_ quotes as
follows:
"Let any great social or physical convulsion visit the United States,
and England would feel the shock from Land's End to John O'Groats. The
lives of nearly two millions of our countrymen are dependent upon the
cotton crops of America; their destiny may be said, without any kind of
hyperbole, to hang upon a thread. Should any dire calamity befall the
land of cotton, a thousand of our merchant ships would rot idly in dock;
ten thousand mills must stop their busy looms; two thousand thousand
mouths would starve, for lack of food to feed them."
A more definite statement of England's indebtedness to cotton, is given
by McCullough; who shows that as far back as 1832, her exports of cotton
fabrics were equal in value to about two-thirds of all the woven fabrics
exported from the empire. The same state of things, nearly, existed in
1849, when the cotton fabrics exported, according to the _London
Economist_, were valued at about $140,000,000, while all the other woven
fabrics exported did not quite reach to the value of $68,000,000. On
consulting the same authority, of still later dates, it appears, that
the last four years has produced no material change in the relations
which the different classes of British fabrics, exported, bear to each
other. The present condition of the demand and supplies of cotton,
throughout Europe, and the extent to which the increasing consumption of
that staple must stimulate the American planters to its increased
production, will be noticed in the proper place.[21]
There was a time when American slave labor sustained no such relations
to the manufactures and commerce of the world as it now so firmly holds;
and when, by the adoption of proper measures, on the part of the free
colored people and their friends, the emancipation of the slaves, in all
the States, might, possibly, have been effected. But that period has
passed forever away, and causes, unforeseen, have come into operation,
which are too powerful to be overcome by any agencies that have since
been employed.[22] What Divine Providence may have in store for the
future, we know not; but, at present, the institution of slavery is
sustained by numberless pillars, too massive for human power and wisdom
to overthrow.
Take another view of this subject. To say nothing now of the tobacco,
rice, and sugar, which are the products of our slave labor, we exported
raw cotton to the value of $109,456,404 in 1853. Its destination was, to
Great Britain, 768,596,498 lbs.; to the Continent of Europe, 335,271,434
lbs.; to countries on our own Continent, 7,702,438 lbs.; making the
total exports, 1,111,570,370 lbs. The entire crop of that year being
1,305,152,800 lbs., gives, for home consumption, 268,403,600 lbs.[23] Of
this, there was manufactured into cotton fabrics to the value of
$61,869,274;[24] of which there was retained, for home markets, to the
value of $53,100,290. Our imports of cotton fabrics from Europe, in
1853, for consumption, amounted in value to $26,477,950:[25] thus
making our cottons, foreign and domestic, for that year, cost us
$79,578,240.
In bringing down the results to 1858, it will be seen that the imports
of foreign cotton goods has fluctuated at higher and lower amounts than
those of 1853; and that an actual decrease of our exports of cotton
manufactures has taken place since that date.[26] But in the exports of
raw cotton there has been an increase of nearly a hundred millions of
pounds over that of 1853--the total exports of 1859 being 1,208,561,200
lbs. The total crop of 1859, in the United States, was 1,606,800,000
lbs., and the amount taken for consumption 371,060,800 lbs.[27]
Thus, while our consumption of foreign cotton goods is not on the
increase, the foreign demand for our raw cotton is rapidly augmenting;
and thus the American planter is becoming more and more important to the
manufactures and commerce of the world.
This, now, is what becomes of our cotton; this is the way in which it so
largely constitutes the basis of commerce and trade; and this is the
nature of the relations existing between the slavery of the United
States and the economical interests of the world.
But have the United States no other great leading interests, except
those which are involved in the production of cotton? Certainly, they
have. Here is a great field for the growth of provisions. In ordinary
years, exclusive of tobacco and cotton, our agricultural property, when
added to the domestic animals and their products, amounts in value
$1,551,176,490. Of this, there is exported only to the value of
$33,809,126; which leaves for home consumption and use, a remainder to
the value of $1,517,367,364.[28] The portions of the property
represented by this immense sum of money, which pass from the hands of
the agriculturists, are distributed throughout the Union, for the
support of the day laborers, sailors, mechanics, manufacturers, traders,
merchants, professional men, planters, and the slave population. This is
what becomes of our provisions.
Besides this annual consumption of provisions, most of which is the
product of free labor, the people of the United States use a vast amount
of groceries, which are mainly of slave labor origin. Boundless as is
the influence of cotton, in stimulating slavery extension, that of the
cultivation of groceries falls but little short of it; the chief
difference being, that they do not receive such an increased value under
the hand of manufacturers. The cultivation of coffee, in Brazil, employs
as great a number of slaves as that of cotton in the United States.
But, to comprehend fully our indebtedness to slave labor for groceries,
we must descend to particulars. Our imports of coffee, tobacco, sugar,
and molasses, for 1853, amounted in value to $38,479,000; of which the
hand of the slave, in Brazil and Cuba, mainly, supplied to the value of
$34,451,000.[29] This shows the extent to which we are sustaining
foreign slavery, by the consumption of these four products. But this is
not our whole indebtedness to slavery for groceries. Of the domestic
grown tobacco, valued at $19,975,000, of which we retain nearly
one-half, the Slave States produce to the value of $16,787,000; of
domestic rice, the product of the South, we consume to the value of
$7,092,000; of domestic slave grown sugar and molasses, we take, for
home consumption, to the value of $34,779,000; making our grocery
account, with domestic slavery, foot up to the sum of $50,449,000. Our
whole indebtedness, then, to slavery, foreign and domestic, for these
four commodities, after deducting two millions of re-exports amounts to
$82,607,000.
The exports of tobacco are on the increase, as appears from Table VIII
of Appendix, showing an extension of its cultivation; but the exports of
rice are not on the increase, from which it would appear that its
production remains stationary.
By adding the value of the foreign and domestic cotton fabrics,
consumed annually in the United States, to the yearly cost of the
groceries which the country uses, our total indebtedness, for articles
of slave labor origin, will be found swelling up to the enormous sum of
$162,185,240.[30]
We have now seen the channels through which our cotton passes off into
the great sea of commerce, to furnish the world its clothing. We have
seen the origin and value of our provisions, and to whom they are sold.
We have seen the sources whence our groceries are derived, and the
millions of money they cost. To ascertain how far these several
interests are sustained by one another, will be to determine how far any
one of them becomes an element of expansion to the others. To decide a
question of this nature with precision is impracticable. The statistics
are not attainable. It may be illustrated, however, in various ways, so
as to obtain a conclusion proximately accurate. Suppose, for example,
that the supplies of food from the North were cut off, the manufactories
left in their present condition, and the planters forced to raise their
provisions and draught animals: in such circumstances, the export of
cotton must cease, as the lands of these States could not be made to
yield more than would subsist their own population, and supply the
cotton demanded by the Northern States. Now, if this be true of the
agricultural resources of the cotton States--and it is believed to be
nearly the full extent of their capacity--then the surplus of cotton, to
the value of more than a hundred millions of dollars, now annually sent
abroad, stands as the representative of the yearly supplies which the
cotton planters receive from the farmers north of the cotton line. This,
therefore, as will afterward more fully appear, may be taken as the
probable extent to which the supplies from the North serve as an element
of slavery expansion in the article of cotton alone.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Paganism has, long since, attained its maximum in agricultural
industry, and the introduction of Christian civilization, into India,
can, alone, lead to an increase of its productions for export.
[20] 1839.
[21] ENGLAND AND SLAVERY.--In the _London Times_ of October 7th, 1858,
there is a long and very able and candid article on the subject of
cotton. The proportions of the article used by different nations are
thus stated:
Great Britain, 51.28 France, 13.24 Northern Europe, 6.84 Other foreign
ports, 5.91 Consumption of the U. S., 23.58
Thus it appears that England uses more of the raw material than all the
rest of the world. After giving the great facts the writer uses the
following language:
"An advance of one pence per pound on the price of American cotton is
welcomed by the slave-owner of the Southern States as supplying him with
the sinews of war for the struggle now waging with the Northern
abolitionists. This mere advance of one pence on our present annual
consumption is equivalent to an annual subscription of sixteen millions
of dollars toward the maintainance of American slavery."--_American
Missionary._
[22] See the speech of the Hon. Gerrit Smith, on the "Kansas-Nebraska
Bill," in which he asserts, that the invention of the _Cotton Gin_
fastened slavery upon the country; and that, but for its invention,
slavery would long since have disappeared.
[23] This is only the consumption north of Virginia.
[24] This estimate is probably too low, being taken from the census of
1850. The exports of cottons for 1850 were $4,734,424; and for 1353,
$8,768,894; having nearly doubled in four years.
[25] These figures were taken from the official documents for the first
edition. They vary a little from the revised documents from which Table
VII is taken, but not so as to affect our argument.
[26] See Table VII, in Appendix.
[27] See Table VI, in Appendix; and in this connection it may be
explained that the _crop year_ ends August 31st.
[28] See Table II, in Appendix. We have of course to limit our
statements in relation to some of these amounts to the figures used in
the first edition, because they can only be ascertained from the census
tables of 1850. While it will be found that the exports of bread-stuffs
and provisions have increased considerably, it will be seen from Table
VIII that it is not in a greater ratio than the exports of cotton and
tobacco. To show that the statement as it stands was a fair one at the
time, it is only necessary for the reader to look at the last named
table to see that the three years preceding 1853 exported considerably
less than that year.
[29] See Table III, Appendix.
[30] These estimates have not been recast and adapted to 1859, for the
third edition, because, as will be seen from Tables VII, VIII and X,
there has been no great change in the amount of these commodities
consumed since 1853.