Results of the contest on Protection and Free
Trade--More or less favorable to all--Increased
consumption of Cotton at home--Capital invested in
Cotton and Woolen factories--Markets thus afforded
to the Farmer--South successful in securing the
monopoly of the Cotton markets--Failure of Cotton
cultivation in other countries--Diminished prices
destroyed Household Manufacturing--Increasing
demand for Cotton--Strange Providences--First
efforts to extend Slavery--Indian lands
acquired--No danger of over-production--Abolition
movements served to unite the South--Annexation of
territory thought essential to its
security--Increase of Provisions necessary to its
success--Temperance cause favorable to this
result--The West ready to supply the Planters--It
is greatly stimulated to effort by Southern
markets--_Tripartite Alliance_ of Western Farmers,
Southern Planters, and English Manufacturers--The
East competing--The West has a choice of
markets--Slavery extension necessary to Western
progress--Increased price of Provisions--More
grain growing needed--Nebraska and Kansas needed
to raise food--The Planters stimulated by
increasing demand for Cotton--Aspect of the
Provision question--California gold changed the
expected results of legislation--Reciprocity
Treaty favorable to Planters--Extended cultivation
of Provisions in the Far West essential to
Planters--Present aspect of the Cotton question
favorable to Planters--London Economist's
statistics and remarks--Our Planters must extend
the culture of Cotton to prevent its increased
growth elsewhere.
THE results of the contest, in relation to Protection and Free Trade,
have been more or less favorable to all parties. This has been an
effect, in part, of the changeable character of our legislation; and, in
part, of the occurrence of events in Europe, over which our legislators
had no control. The manufaturing States, while protection lasted,
succeeded in placing their establishments upon a comparatively permanent
basis; and, by engaging largely in the manufacture of cottons, as well
as woolens, have rendered home manufactures, practically, very
advantageous to the South. Our cotton factories, in 1850, consumed as
much cotton as those of Great Britain did in 1831; thus affording
indications, that, by proper encouragement, they might, possibly, be
multiplied so as to consume the whole crop of the country. The cotton
and woolen factories, in 1850, employed over 130,000 work hands, and had
$102,619,581 of capital invested in them. They thus afford an important
market to the farmer, and, at the same time, have become an equally
important auxiliary to the planter. They may yet afford him the only
market for his cotton.
The cotton planting States, toward the close of the contest, found
themselves rapidly accumulating strength, and approximating the
accomplishment of the grand object at which they aimed--the monopoly of
the cotton markets of the world. This success was due, not so much to
any triumph over the North--to any prostration of our manufacturing
interests--as to the general policy of other nations. All rivalry to the
American planters from those of the West Indies, was removed by
emancipation; as, under freedom, the cultivation of cotton was nearly
abandoned. Mehemet Ali had become imbecile, and the indolent Egyptians
neglected its culture. The South Americans, after achieving their
independence, were more readily enlisted in military forays, than in the
art of agriculture, and they produced little cotton for export. The
emancipation of their slaves, instead of increasing the agricultural
products of the Republics, only supplied, in ample abundance, the
elements of promoting political revolutions, and keeping their soil
drenched with human blood. Such are the uses to which degraded men may
be applied by the ambitious demagogue. Brazil and India both supplied to
Europe considerably less in 1838 than they had done in 1820; and the
latter country made no material increase afterward, except when her
chief customer, China, was at war, or prices were above the average
rates in Europe. While the cultivation of cotton was thus stationary or
retrograding, everywhere outside of the United States, England and the
Continent were rapidly increasing their consumption of the article,
which they nearly doubled from 1835 to 1845; so that the demand for the
raw material called loudly for its increased production. Our planters
gathered a rich harvest of profits by these events.
But this is not all that is worthy of note, in this strange chapter of
Providences. No prominent event occurred, but conspired to advance the
prosperity of the cotton trade, and the value of American slavery. Even
the very depression suffered by the manufacturers and cultivators of
cotton, from 1825 to 1829, served to place the manufacturing interests
upon the broad and firm basis they now occupy. It forced the planters
into the production of their cotton at lower rates; and led the
manufacturers to improve their machinery, and reduce the price of their
fabrics low enough to sweep away all household manufacturing, and
secure to themselves the monopoly of clothing the civilized world. This
was the object at which the British manufacturers had aimed, and in
which they had been eminently successful. The growing manufactures of
the United States, and of the Continent of Europe, had not yet sensibly
affected their operations.
There is still another point requiring a passing notice, as it may serve
to explain some portions of the history of slavery, not so well
understood. It was not until events diminishing the foreign growth of
cotton, and enlarging the demand for its fabrics, had been extensively
developed, that the older cotton-growing States became willing to allow
slavery extension in the Southwest; and, even then, their assent was
reluctantly given--the markets for cotton, doubtless, being considered
sufficiently limited for the territory under cultivation. Up to 1824,
the Indians held over thirty-two millions of acres of land in Georgia,
Mississippi, and Alabama, and over twenty millions of acres in Florida,
Missouri and Arkansas; which was mostly retained by them as late as
1836. Although the States interested had repeatedly urged the matter
upon Congress, and some of them even resorted to forcible means to gain
possession of these Indian lands, the Government did not fulfill its
promise to remove the Indians until 1836; and even then, the measure met
with such opposition, that it was saved but by one vote--Mr. Calhoun and
six other Southern Senators voting against it.[32] In justice to Mr.
Calhoun, however, it must be stated that his opposition to the measure
was based on the conviction that the treaty had been fraudulently
obtained.
The older States, however, had found, by this time, that the foreign and
home demand for cotton was so rapidly increasing that there was little
danger of over-production; and that they had, in fact, secured to
themselves the monopoly of the foreign markets. Beside this, the
abolition movement at that moment, had assumed its most threatening
aspect, and was demanding the destruction of slavery or the dissolution
of the Union. Here was a double motive operating to produce harmony in
the ranks of Southern politicians, and to awaken the fears of many,
North and South, for the safety of the Government. Here, also, was the
origin of the determination, in the South, to extend slavery, by the
annexation of territory, so as to gain the political preponderance in
the National Councils, and to protect its interests against the
interference of the North.
It was not the increased demand for cotton, alone, that served as a
protection to the older States. The extension of its cultivation, in the
degree demanded by the wants of commerce, could only be effected by a
corresponding increased supply of provisions. Without this, it could not
increase, except by enhancing their price to the injury of the older
States. This food did not fail to be in readiness, so soon as it was
needed. Indeed, much of it had long been awaiting an outlet to a
profitable market. Its surplus, too, had been somewhat increased by the
Temperance movement in the North, which had materially checked the
distillation of grain.
The West, which had long looked to the East for a market, had its
attention now turned to the South, as the most certain and convenient
mart for the sale of its products--the planters affording to the farmers
the markets they had in vain sought from the manufacturers. In the
meantime, steamboat navigation was acquiring perfection on the Western
rivers--the great natural outlets for Western products--and became a
means of communication between the Northwest and the Southwest, as well
as with the trade and commerce of the Atlantic cities. This gave an
impulse to industry and enterprise, west of the Alleghanies,
unparalleled in the history of the country. While, then, the bounds of
slave labor were extending from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia,
Westward, over Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas, the area of
free labor was enlarging, with equal rapidity, in the Northwest,
throughout Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. Thus, within these
provision and cotton regions, were the forests cleared away, or the
prairies broken up, simultaneously by those old antagonistic forces,
opponents no longer, but harmonized by the fusion of their
interests--the connecting link between them being the steamboat. Thus,
also, was a _tripartite alliance_ formed, by which the Western Farmer,
the Southern Planter, and the English Manufacturer, became united in a
common bond of interest: the whole giving their support to the doctrine
of Free Trade.
This active commerce between the West and South, however, soon caused a
rivalry in the East, that pushed forward improvements, by States or
Corporations, to gain a share in the Western trade. These improvements,
as completed, gave to the West a choice of markets, so that its Farmers
could elect whether to feed the slave who grows the cotton, or the
operatives who are engaged in its manufacture. But this rivalry did
more. The competition for Western products enhanced their price, and
stimulated their more extended cultivation. This required an enlargement
of the markets; and the extension of slavery became essential to Western
prosperity.
We have not reached the end of the alliance between the Western Farmer
and Southern Planter. The emigration which has been filling Iowa and
Minnesota, and is now rolling like a flood into Kansas and Nebraska, is
but a repetition of what has occurred in the other Western States and
Territories. Agricultural pursuits are highly remunerative, and tens of
thousands of men of moderate means, or of no means, are cheered along to
where none forbids them land to till. For the last few years, public
improvements have called for vastly more than the usual share of labor,
and augmented the consumption of provisions. The foreign demand added to
this, has increased their price beyond what the planter can afford to
pay. For many years free labor and slave labor maintained an even race
in their Western progress. Of late the freemen have begun to lag behind,
while slavery has advanced by several degrees of longitude. Free labor
must be made to keep pace with it. There is an urgent necessity for
this. The demand for cotton is increasing in a ratio greater than can be
supplied by the American planters, unless by a corresponding increased
production. This increasing demand must be met, or its cultivation will
be facilitated elsewhere, and the monopoly of the planter in the
European markets be interrupted. This can only be effected by
concentrating the greatest possible number of slaves upon the cotton
plantations. Hence they must be supplied with provisions.
This is the present aspect of the Provision question, as it regards
slavery extension. Prices are approximating the maximum point, beyond
which our provisions can not be fed to slaves, unless there is a
corresponding increase in the price of cotton. Such a result was not
anticipated by Southern statesmen, when they had succeeded in
overthrowing the protective policy, destroying the United States Bank,
and establishing the Sub-Treasury system. And why has this occurred? The
mines of California prevented both the Free-Trade Tariff,[33] and the
Sub-Treasury scheme from exhausting the country of the precious metals,
extinguishing the circulation of Bank Notes, and reducing the prices of
agricultural products to the specie value. At the date of the passage of
the Nebraska Bill, the multiplication of provisions, by their more
extended cultivation, was the only measure left that could produce a
reduction of prices, and meet the wants of the planters. The Canadian
Reciprocity Treaty, since secured, will bring the products of the
British North American colonies, free of duty, into competition with
those of the United States, when prices, with us, rule high, and tend to
diminish their cost; but in the event of scarcity in Europe, or of
foreign wars, the opposite results may occur, as our products, in such
times, will pass, free of duty, through these colonies, into the foreign
market. It is apparent, then, that nothing short of extended free labor
cultivation, far distant from the seaboard, where the products will bear
transportation to none but Southern markets, can fully secure the cotton
interests from the contingencies that so often threaten them with
ruinous embarrassments. In fact, such a depression of our cotton
interests has only been averted by the advanced prices which cotton has
commanded, for the last few years, in consequence of the increased
European demand, and its diminished cultivation abroad.
On this subject, the _London Economist_, of June 9, 1855, in remarking
on the aspects of the cotton question, at that moment says:
"Another somewhat remarkable circumstance, considering we are at war,
and considering the predictions of some persons, is the present high
price and consumption of cotton. The crop in the United States is short,
being only 1,120,000,000 or 1,160,000,000 lbs., but not so short as to
have a very great effect on the markets had consumption not increased.
Our mercantile readers will be well aware of this fact, but let us state
here that the total consumption between January 1st and the last week in
May was:
=CONSUMPTION OF COTTON.=
=1853.= =1854.= =1855.=
Pounds, 331,708,000 295,716,000 415,648,000
Less than 1855, 83,940,000 119,932,000
Average consumption of
lbs. per week, 15,600,000 14,000,000 19,600,000
"Though the crop in the United States is short up to this time, Great
Britain has received 12,400,000 lbs. more of the crop of 1854 than she
received to the same period of the crop of 1853. Thus, in spite of the
war, and in spite of a short crop of cotton, in spite of dear corn and
failing trade to Australia and the United States, the consumption of
cotton has been one-fourth in excess of the flourishing year of 1853,
and more than a third in excess of 1854. These facts are worth
consideration.
"It is reasonably expected that the present high prices will bring
cotton forward rapidly; but as yet this effect has not ensued. . . . .
Thus, it will be seen that, notwithstanding the short crop in the
States, (at present, they have sent us more in 1855 than in 1854, but
not so much as in 1853,) the supply from other sources, except Egypt,
has been smaller in 1855 than in either of the preceding years, and the
supply from Egypt, though greater than in 1854, is less than in 1853."
[From India, the principal hope of increased supplies, the imports for
1855, in the first four months of the year, were less by 47,960,000 lbs.
than in 1854, and less by 64,000,000 lbs. than in 1853.[34]] "We may
infer, therefore, that the rise in price hitherto, has not been
sufficient to bring increased supplies from India and other places; but
these will, no doubt, come when it is seen that the rise will probably
be permanent in consequence of the enlarged consumption, and the
comparative deficiency in the crop of the United States."
After noticing the increasing exports of raw cotton from both England
and the United States to France and the other countries of the
Continent, from which it is inferred that the consumption is increasing
in Europe, generally, as well as in Great Britain, the _Economist_
proceeds to remark:
"A rapidly increasing consumption of cotton in Europe has not been met
by an equally rapidly increasing supply, and the present relative
condition of the supply to the demand seems to justify an advance of
price, unless a greatly diminished consumption can be brought about.
What supplies may yet be obtained from India, the Brazils, Egypt, etc.,
we know not; but, judging from the imports of the three last years, they
are not likely to supply the great deficiency in the stocks just
noticed. A decrease in consumption, which is recommended, can only be
accomplished by the state of the market, not by the will of individual
spinners; for if some lessen their consumption of the raw material while
the demand of the market is for more cloth, it will be supplied by
others, either here or abroad; and the only real solution of the
difficulty or means of lowering the price, is an increased supply. This
points to other exertions than those which have been latterly directed
to the production of fibrous materials to be converted directly into
paper. Exertions ought rather to be directed to the production of
fibrous materials which shall be used for textile fabrics, and so much
larger supplies of rags--the cheapest and best material for making paper
will be obtained. But theoretical production, and the schemers who
propose it, not guided by the market demands, are generally erroneous,
and what we now require is more and cheaper material for clothing as the
means of getting more rags to make paper.
"Another important deduction may be made from the state of the cotton
market. It has not been affected, at least the production of cotton with
the importation into Europe has not been disturbed by the war, and yet
it seems not to have kept pace with the consumption. From this we infer
that legislative restrictions on traffic, permanently affecting the
habits of the people submissive to them, and of all their customers,
have a much more pernicious effect on production and trade than national
outpourings in war of indignation and anger--which, if terrible in their
effects, are of short duration. These are in the order of nature, except
as they are slowly corrected and improved by knowledge; while the
restrictions--the offspring of ignorance and misplaced ambition--are at
all times opposed to her beneficent ordinances."
The _Economist_ of June 30, in its Trade Tables, sums up the imports for
the 5th month of the year 1855; from which it appears, that instead of
any increase of the imports of cotton having occurred, they had fallen
off to the extent of 43,772,176 lbs. below the quantity imported in the
corresponding month of 1854.
The _Economist_ of September 1, 1855, in continuing its notices of the
cotton markets, and stating that there is still a falling off in its
supplies, says:
"The decline in the quantity of cotton imported is notoriously the
consequence of the smallness of last year's crops in the United States.
. . . . It is remarkable that the additional supply which has made up
partly for the shortness of the American crop comes from the Brazils,
Egypt, and other parts. From British India the supply is relatively
shorter than from the United States. It fails us more than that of the
States, and the fact is rather unfavorable to the speculations of those
who wish to make us independent of the States, and dependent chiefly on
our own possessions. The high freights that have prevailed, and are
likely to prevail with a profitable trade, would obviously make it
extremely dangerous for our manufacturers to increase their dependence
on India for a supply of cotton. In 1855, when we have a short supply
from other quarters, India has sent us one-third less than in 1853."
The _Economist_ of February 23, 1856, contains the Annual Statement of
Imports for 1855, ending December 31, from which it appears that the
supplies of cotton from India, for the whole year, were only 145,218,976
lbs., or 35,212,520 lbs. less than the imports for 1853. Of these
imports 66,210,704 lbs. were re-exported; thus leaving the British
manufacturers but 79,008,272 lbs. of the free labor cotton of India,
upon which to employ their looms.[35]
This increasing demand for cotton beyond the present supplies, if not
met by the cotton growers of the United States, must encourage its
cultivation in countries which now send but little to market. To prevent
such a result, and to retain in their own hands the monopoly of the
cotton market, will require the utmost vigilance on the part of our
planters. That vigilance will not be wanting.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Benton's Thirty Year's View.
[33] The Tariff of 1846, under which our imports are now made,
approximates the Free Trade principles very closely.
[34] These figures are taken from a part of the _Economist's_ article
not copied. For the difference between the imports from India, in the
whole of the years 1850 to 1855, see Table I.
[35] The commercial year is five days shorter for 1855 than in former
years.