The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-04-28

same time are deprived by their condition OF tn'
ordinary motives Of ambition and lh'ere'
which stimulate free laborers to Improvement
In the second place, it would be utterly imprac
ticable to build up q manufacturing city IN wnicn
the whole laboring class should be slaves, ioi
the simple reason that they would make tnem'
selves free. Thus aggregated, they could not
10 held in Slavery. The most fanatical cham
| MON of the peculiar institution would not deem
it possible to hold laboring populations as large
| as those of Philadelphia, Baltimore, or even OF
Lowell, in Slavery; and the bare suggestion OF
this impossibility will illustrate the absurdity Of
all speculations about making the slaveholding
South manufacturing country. A few small
factories, or here and there workshop, may
do well, but that is all that can be accomplished
| while Slavery lasts.
These remarks, of course, presuppose the en-
ployment Of slave labor On the northern Dor
ders of the South, where the institution of Sla-
very has only nominal existence, manufac-
| lures are beginning to take root and flourish.
This is the case in Baltimore, Wilmington,
(Del.,) Wheeling, (Va.,) Louisville, and st.
Louis.
Slavery presents obstacles to Southern COM
merce of precisely the same character which we
have referred to in connection with manufac-
lures. The absorption of capital in an unpro-
ductve form, the want of intelligence, skill, and
ambition, in the slaves, and the utter impossi-
bility of bringing together large masses of
slaves without precipitating instruction, are as
potent obstacles in one case as in the other.
These circumstances, which utterly disquali-
| fy a saveholding community from succeeding
in commerce or manufactures, render the South
eminently an agricultural region. Slaves may
be employed in agriculture, for the reason that
the labor required is rude and coarse; and the
nature of the employment requiring dispersion
over a large surface, is favorable to the preser-
walton of order and subordination.
1t is also to be remarked, that the staple pro-
ducts of the South cannot be produced SO well,
if at all, in any other part of the country and
this circumstance gives the planters a valuable
monopoly of production, which confers fac
titious value upon Slavery. A very shallow
class of reasoners maintain, in consequence of
this state of things, because the production of
cotton is highly profitable to the planters, that
Slavery, which is the mere incident of the cot
ton culture, is the cause Of its success. If this
were true, it would be difficult to explain how
it is that Slavery, when brought into competi-
ton with free labor, always falls into decay, as
it is now doing in Maryland, Virginia, Mis-
souri,, and Kentucky. Whenever Slavery is
deprived of monopoly of production, it be-
gins to recede. The slaves are sold, or removed
further south, and their place is taken by free
labor.
The radical objection to Slavery in politi-
economical point of view, viz: that it is an
unnecessary, and therefore an unproductive,
investment of capital, adheres to it, as well in
agriculture as in commerce and manufactures.
The ownership of the laborers requires an ad-
ditional outlay Of capital generally equal to, if
not greater, than that which is invested in
lands, houses, cattle, and so forth and in new
countries, where lands are cheap, the value OF
the slaves employed to cultivate the land far
exceeds the value of the necessary investment.
| 1t is for this reason that, with all the advan-
tages possessed by the Southwest in the pro-
lduction of cotton and sugar, it has fallen far
behind the Northwest in the race of prosperity.