Economical relations of Slavery further
considered--System unprofitable in grain growing,
but profitable in culture of Cotton--Antagonism of
Farmer and Planter--"Protection," and, "Free
Trade" controversy--Congressional Debates on the
subject--Mr. Clay--Position of the South--"Free
Trade," considered indispensable to its
prosperity.
BUT the subject of the relations of American slavery to the economical
interests of the world, demands a still closer scrutiny, in order that
the causes of the failure of abolitionism to arrest its progress, as
well as the present relations of the institution to the politics of the
country, may fully appear.
Slave labor has seldom been made profitable where it has been wholly
employed in grazing and grain growing; but it becomes remunerative in
proportion as the planters can devote their attention to cotton, sugar,
rice, or tobacco. To render Southern slavery profitable in the highest
degree, therefore, the slaves must be employed upon some one of these
articles, and be sustained by a supply of food and draught animals from
Northern agriculturists; and before the planter's supplies are complete,
to these must be added cotton gins, implements of husbandry, furniture,
and tools, from Northern mechanics. This is a point of the utmost
moment, and must be considered more at length.
It has long been a vital question to the success of the slaveholder, to
know how he could render the labor of his slaves the most profitable.
The grain growing States had to emancipate their slaves, to rid
themselves of a profitless system. The cotton-growing States, ever after
the invention of the cotton gin, had found the production of that staple
highly remunerative. The logical conclusion, from these different
results, was, that the less provisions, and the more cotton grown by the
planter, the greater would be his profits. This must be noted with
special care. _Markets_ for the surplus products of the farmer of the
North, were equally as important to him as the supply of _Provisions_
was to the planter. But the planter, to be eminently successful, must
purchase his supplies at the lowest possible prices; while the farmer,
to secure his prosperity, must sell his products at the highest possible
rates. Few, indeed, can be so ill informed, as not to know, that these
two topics, for many years, were involved in the "Free Trade" and
"Protective Tariff" doctrines, and afforded the _materiel_ of the
political contests between the North and the South--between free labor
and slave labor. A very brief notice of the history of that controversy,
will demonstrate the truth of this assertion.
The attempt of the agricultural States, thirty years since, to establish
the protective policy, and promote "Domestic Manufactures," was a
struggle to create such a division of labor as would afford a "Home
Market" for their products, no longer in demand abroad. The first
decisive action on the question, by Congress, was in 1824; when the
distress in these States, and the measures proposed for their relief, by
national legislation, were discussed on the passage of the "Tariff Bill"
of that year. The ablest men in the nation were engaged in the
controversy. As provisions are the most important item on the one hand,
and cotton on the other, we shall use these two terms as the
representatives of the two classes of products, belonging, respectively,
to free labor and to slave labor.
Mr. Clay, in the course of the debate, said: "What, again, I would ask,
is the cause of the unhappy condition of our country, which I have
fairly depicted? It is to be found in the fact that, during almost the
whole existence of this government, we have shaped our industry, our
navigation, and our commerce, in reference to an extraordinary war in
Europe, and to foreign markets which no longer exist; in the fact that
we have depended too much on foreign sources of supply, and excited too
little the native; in the fact that, while we have cultivated, with
assiduous care, our foreign resources, we have suffered those at home to
wither, in a state of neglect and abandonment. The consequence of the
termination of the war of Europe, has been the resumption of European
commerce, European navigation, and the extension of European
agriculture, in all its branches. Europe, therefore, has no longer
occasion for any thing like the same extent as that which she had during
her wars, for American commerce, American navigation, the produce of
American industry. Europe in commotion, and convulsed throughout all her
members, is to America no longer the same Europe as she is now,
tranquil, and watching with the most vigilant attention, all her own
peculiar interests, without regard to their operation on us. The effect
of this altered state of Europe upon us, has been to circumscribe the
employment of our marine, and greatly to reduce the value of the produce
of our territorial labor. . . . . The greatest want of civilized society
is a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the products of
the labor of its members. This market may exist at home or abroad, or
both, but it must exist somewhere, if society prospers; and, wherever it
does exist, it should be competent to the absorption of the entire
surplus production. It is most desirable that there should be both a
home and a foreign market. But with respect to their relative
superiority, I can not entertain a doubt. The home market is first in
order, and paramount in importance. The object of the bill under
consideration, is to create this home market, and to lay the foundation
of a genuine American policy. It is opposed; and it is incumbent on the
partisans of the foreign policy (terms which I shall use without any
invidious intent) to demonstrate that the foreign market is an adequate
vent for the surplus produce of our labor. But is it so? 1. Foreign
nations can not, if they would, take our surplus produce. . . . . 2. If
they could, they would not. . . . . We have seen, I think, the causes of
the distress of the country. We have seen that an exclusive dependence
upon the foreign market must lead to a still severer distress, to
impoverishment, to ruin. We must, then, change somewhat our course. We
must give a new direction to some portion of our industry. We must
speedily adopt a genuine American policy. Still cherishing a foreign
market, let us create also a home market, to give further scope to the
consumption of the produce of American industry. Let us counteract the
policy of foreigners, and withdraw the support which we now give to
their industry, and stimulate that of our own country. . . . . The
creation of a home market is not only necessary to procure for our
agriculture a just reward of its labors, but it is indispensable to
obtain a supply of our necessary wants. If we can not sell, we can not
buy. That portion of our population (and we have seen that it is not
less than four-fifths) which makes comparatively nothing that foreigners
will buy, has nothing to make purchases with from foreigners. It is in
vain that we are told of the amount of our exports, supplied by the
planting interest. They may enable the planting interest to supply all
its wants; but they bring no ability to the interests not planting,
unless, which can not be pretended, the planting interest was an
adequate vent for the surplus produce of all the labor of all other
interests. . . . . But this home market, highly desirable as it is, can
only be created and cherished by the protection of our own legislation
against the inevitable prostration of our industry, which must ensue
from the action of FOREIGN policy and legislation. . . . . The sole
object of the tariff is to tax the produce of foreign industry, with the
view of promoting American industry. . . . . But it is said by the
honorable gentleman from Virginia, that the South, owing to the
character of a certain portion of its population, can not engage in the
business of manufacturing. . . . . The circumstances of its degradation
unfits it for manufacturing arts. The well-being of the other, and the
larger part of our population, requires the introduction of those arts.
"What is to be done in this conflict? The gentleman would have us
abstain from adopting a policy called for by the interests of the
greater and freer part of the population. But is that reasonable? Can it
be expected that the interests of the greater part should be made to
bend to the condition of the servile part of our population? That, in
effect, would be to make us the slaves of slaves. . . . . I am sure that
the patriotism of the South may be exclusively relied upon to reject a
policy which should be dictated by considerations altogether connected
with that degraded class, to the prejudice of the residue of our
population. But does not a perseverance in the foreign policy, as it now
exists, in fact, make all parts of the Union, not planting, tributary to
the planting parts? What is the argument? It is, that we must continue
freely to receive the produce of foreign industry, without regard to the
protection of American industry, that a market may be retained for the
sale abroad of the produce of the planting portion of the country; and
that, if we lessen the consumption, in all parts of America, those which
are not planting, as well as the planting sections, of foreign
manufactures, we diminish to that extent the foreign market for the
planting produce. The existing state of things, indeed, presents a sort
of tacit compact between the cotton-grower and the British manufacturer,
the stipulations of which are, on the part of the cotton-grower, that
the whole of the United States, the other portions as well as the
cotton-growing, shall remain open and unrestricted in the consumption of
British manufactures; and, on the part of the British manufacturer,
that, in consideration thereof, he will continue to purchase the cotton
of the South. Thus, then, we perceive that the proposed measure, instead
of sacrificing the South to the other parts of the Union, seeks only to
preserve them from being actually sacrificed under the operation of the
tacit compact which I have described."
The opposition to the Protective Tariff, by the South, arose from two
causes: the first openly avowed at the time, and the second clearly
deducible from the policy it pursued: the one to secure the foreign
market for its cotton, the other to obtain a bountiful supply of
provisions at cheap rates. Cotton was admitted free of duty into foreign
countries, and Southern statesmen feared its exclusion, if our
government increased the duties on foreign fabrics. The South exported
about twice as much of that staple as was supplied to Europe by all
other countries, and there were indications favoring the desire it
entertained of monopolizing the foreign markets. The West India planters
could not import food, but at such high rates as to make it
impracticable to grow cotton at prices low enough to suit the English
manufacturer. To purchase cotton cheaply, was essential to the success
of his scheme of monopolizing its manufacture, and supplying the world
with clothing. The close proximity of the provision and cotton-growing
districts in the United States, gave its planters advantages over all
other portions of the world. But they could not monopolize the markets,
unless they could obtain a cheap supply of food and clothing for their
negroes, and raise their cotton at such reduced prices as to undersell
their rivals. A manufacturing population, with its mechanical
coadjutors, in the midst of the provision-growers, on a scale such as
the protective policy contemplated, it was conceived, would create a
permanent market for their products, and enhance the price; whereas, if
this manufacturing could be prevented, and a system of free trade
adopted, the South would constitute the principal provision market of
the country, and the fertile lands of the North supply the cheap food
demanded for its slaves. As the tariff policy, in the outset,
contemplated the encouragement of the production of iron, hemp, whisky,
and the establishment of woolen manufactories, principally, the South
found its interests but slightly identified with the system--the coarser
qualities of cottons, only, being manufactured in the country, and, even
these, on a diminished scale, as compared with the cotton crops of the
South. Cotton, up to the date when this controversy had been fairly
commenced, had been worth, in the English market, an average price of
from 29 7/10 to 48 4/10 cents per lb.[31] But at this period, a wide
spread and ruinous depression both in the culture and manufacture of the
article, occurred--cotton, in 1826, having fallen, in England, as low as
11 9/10 to 18 9/10 cents per lb. The home market, then, was too
inconsiderable to be of much importance, and there existed little hope
of its enlargement to the extent demanded by its increasing cultivation.
The planters, therefore, looked abroad to the existing markets, rather
than to wait for tardily creating one at home. For success in the
foreign markets, they relied, mainly, upon preparing themselves to
produce cotton at the reduced prices then prevailing in Europe. All
agricultural products, except cotton, being excluded from foreign
markets, the planters found themselves almost the sole exporters of the
country; and it was to them a source of chagrin, that the North did not,
at once, co-operate with them in augmenting the commerce of the nation.
At this point in the history of the controversy, politicians found it an
easy matter to produce feelings of the deepest hostility between the
opposing parties. The planters were led to believe that the millions of
revenue collected off the goods imported, was so much deducted from the
value of the cotton that paid for them, either in the diminished price
they received abroad, or in the increased price which they paid for the
imported articles. To enhance the duties, for the protection of our
manufacturers, they were persuaded, would be so much of an additional
tax upon themselves, for the benefit of the North; and, beside, to give
the manufacturer such a monopoly of the home market for his fabrics,
would enable him to charge purchasers an excess over the true value of
his stuffs, to the whole amount of the duty. By the protective policy,
the planters expected to have the cost of both provisions and clothing
increased, and their ability to monopolize the foreign markets
diminished in a corresponding degree. If they could establish free
trade, it would insure the American market to foreign manufacturers;
secure the foreign markets for their leading staple; repress home
manufactures; force a large number of the Northern men into
agriculture; multiply the growth, and diminish the price of provisions;
feed and clothe their slaves at lower rates; produce their cotton for a
third or fourth of former prices; rival all other countries in its
cultivation; monopolize the trade in the article throughout the whole of
Europe; and build up a commerce and a navy that would make us ruler of
the seas.
FOOTNOTE:
[31] This includes the period from 1806 to 1826, though the decline
began a few years before the latter date.