The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1853-05-10
THE REPUBLIC.
WASHINGTON:
TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 10, 1883.


Facts for Fanatics.
An article in the London .Ns,os discusses the
millennium Of emancipation with great earnest
ness, but encounters an obstacle which will de-
fer the realization of its hopes for some time
longer 5-.-s --s .,.--.r ~ -s.. - -
The Rev. Professor SQUEERs, in one Of his
recent speeches, had affirmed that the price Of
slave has risen from $500 to $500 through
the British demand for cotton. He says "that
it is cotton which sustains American slavery.
| do not say you can do without it. wish
could do without it myself. | have large
family to clothe; am poor man, and must
9 use cotton But | wish could do without
it. But the thing is, can We live without
supporting American slavery?" The .Ns,rs
adds: .... ....-
''That is question to which thousands now feel
no hesitation in answering: Yes, we can live with
out supporting American slavery. and without de-
priving ourselves of cotton either. II that were
the alternative, we should not say a word; because
We certainly could not wish to deprive millions of
our people of the heashful. cheap, and convenient
clothing that cotton manufacture afIords or the
millions of the N maintenance they derive from our
manufacture and commerce in that article. In
abort, it would be nonsense to think of il, and
mere can't to talk of it, the American planters
and British manufacturers know perfectly WELL"
The reverend traveller betrays an ignorance
of the subject of which he speaks. The price
of slaves employed as field hands has not risen
to the price he mentions. Nor has the ad-
vance in the price of slaves been occasioned ex-
clusively by the demand for cotton. There is
positive deficiency of slave labor for the vari-
Gus purposes to which it may be applied. That
this has caused the advance is proven by the
fact that the value of slave labor is as great,
taking all things into consideration, in the
older slave States, as in the new or cotton
planting ones.
We can specify several departments of in
dust-y in which slave labor has been recently
introduced to larger extent than heretofore,
and some others in which it has been in en-
HANGED demand. Of the first class is the en-
ployment of slaves in the construction and re-
pair of railroads, the production Of metals, the
extraction of minerals. The manufacture of
tobacco and cotton has increased greatly
within few years; and as the intelligence Of
the slaves improves in every generation, they
are employed not only in those, but in many
mechanical departments, to much greater eI-
tent than heretofore.
1t is great mistake to imagine that cotton
furnishes the only agricultural pursuit in which
slave labor is profitable. A large extent of the
Southern States is devoted to the production of
rice, sugar, tobacco, hemp, stock, and grain.
In all these slave labor is profitsby employed.
u pom the eastern Atlantic coast large amount
Of slave labor is devoted to the taking of shell
and other fish, to cutting wood, cultivatiny
and to their transportation to the
Northern markets.
Let US offer few facts to show the extent
to which the slave States are engaged in man
ufacturing and producing staple provisions.
They have about % 900 operatives employed,
and perhaps fifteen millions Of dollars invested
in the manufacture of cotton, iron, and wool.
They produce nearly one-fourth part Of the
wool grown in the United States Their corn
crop amounts to about PAT 900 900 bushels, or
about half the whole corn product. The value
Of live stock is more than two hundred and
fifty millions, or nearly half the whole product
The value of manufactures, and Of the pro-
vision product, is only intended to show the
extent to which the Southern States have ex-
tended investment and prod uction in those de-
Of industry. This will counreraet
he impression that all slavery grows upon one
neck, to cut off which is to exterminate it,
1t i. moreover to be remembered that this
comparison Of provision products is made against
the great provision States of the Northwest;
that much of this production seeks its outlet
and consumption in the South; and that the
South is straining every nerve to increase its
with this section. .sl.
1t is by means of agitation in the New Eng
land States that the Reverend Mr. Stowe is
endeavoring to produce the "lay down de shub-
bel and de hoe" millennium in the South
If the provision productions of the South are
compared with those of the New England
States, it will be seen that there is an immense
disparity. Either Tennessee, Kentucky, Mis-
souri,, or Virginia produce tenfold the bread
stuffs and live stock of the New England
States.
Two or three Southern States make as many
bushels of ground peas as the New England
States do of corn; whilst the thirty million
bushels Of sweet potatoes produced and con-
sumed principally by the slaves. equal al
most any provision staple made by New
England
These statistics show two facts The first,
that cotton is but the principal amongst many
southern staples. Second, that with such an
abundance Of provisions, slave labor must
always be difficult to starve out. On the other
hand, the New England States must, in the
event Of total cessation of slave production,
abandon the immense and extending home
market, of which they have now almost mo-
nopoly, and seek elsewhere temporary or
permanent market for their manufactures.
Without making so accurate an estimate as
we might have done of the various productions
in which slave labor is employed, we may state
that the superior health and comforts Of the
older slave States have equalized the value of
slaves throughout the South, and put stop to
those large movements of white and black emf
grafton called by Abollionisis the "slavs