The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1859-06-01

life-partner; and he or she who can trife with
the heart of such an one only sows the seed
which shall yield harvest of pain and remorse.
>I-->---~--~~--~-~--<~--1--
PRICE OF CoTToN AND SLAVES The high
price attained by southern labor has had much
to do with the desire lately expressed to in
crease its supply by foreign importations.--
With abundance of wild lands of unexampled
fertility, which might apparently be the source
of almost fabulous wealth if the power existed
to place them at once under cotton cultivation,
the most direct method of increasing the pros
perity and power of the south, is, by few, sap-
posed to be to reopen our ports to the intro
duction of fresh immigration, forced or volun-
tary, from the coasts of Africa.
But the present value of slaves is not with
out precedent, and is no evidence that our
labor falls short of our present necessity. In
1885, the demand for slaves at the south com
menced palpably tQincrease, and under its stim-
ulous, which had It's origin in an extraordinary
price for cotton, sales were made that, for ad
vantage to the seller, are even now scarcely
equaled. The emigration Of blacks from Vir-
| ginla and other northern slave States to the
region of cotton and Sngar-enltlsre .s-'s- -~"rid.
and the amount of virgin soil suddenly conver-
ted into fruitful harvest fields was unexampled.
!
of thousands of bales and without any addition
to the stock of negroes, except by the ordinary
! increase of that species of population, prices
ultimately fell.
, Great and growing as was the demand, the
supply of cotton began to exceed it, and com
mercial disaster following the south suddenly
found itself on the verge of bankruptcy. Cot
ton, which brought twenty-four cents in 1886,
! =, old b,,fl l;+tlo q.
which, in the former year, readily commanded
from twelve to fifteen hundred and two thou
sand dollars, could, in the latter, have been
purchased for seven and eight hundred.
No law is more certainly ascertalned than
that the price Of negroes is, and must always
be, governed by the price of cotton. 1t must
fuctuate with the fluctuations of our great sta
Piles. But who dreams that cotton is 10 COM
mand, year after year, the figures which have
been realised the past and present season? IF
the stock with which the manufacturing world
is to be supplied, receives no addition from 9TH
Ell quarters, will not production, under existing
circumstances, grow in these United States with
such extraordinary rapidity that surplus will
soon remain unsold or change hands at dimin-
ished rates? Even now the stock is such that
one unusually large crop promised to exert
been produced in Europe by ambition and mis-
rule. But the slightest change in the value of
our great staple will be felt upon our labor.
The cotton States dictate the value of the
negro in Virginia Maryland, Kentucky, and
Missouri Increased profits from planting in
the lower Mississippi valley, creates a demand
for slave labor, and this demand increases its
price But the increase of labor also enlarge
the production of the great staple of the south,
which, having attained certain point, is de-
creased in value. etfecting reduction of the
= line of profits and of the price of the labor it
self. Amy convulsion among the nations, sub
, tracing from their power to manufacture, low
ers the point at which The supply Of cotton
7 sequenty in the value Of slaves.
> Thousands of hands are in the cotton fields
to-day that never before saw the cotton plant.
! Thousands of acres will this year, notwithstand
. ING the loss by floods, whiten with harvests,
- that for the first time have been stimulated in
:, to production. If no untowafd circumstances
happen, and no change is witnessed in the poll
;, cy of the planting interest, the stimulous area
:, DIV given to cotton culture will end, at no dis
=, tant period, in the reduction of the price of cot
- ton, and corresponding decrease in the value
of fnegroes.
. The fact that an extraordinary price has been
. attained by negro property, so far from logical
= " creating the desire to pour into the cotton
- States thousands of raw hands from Africa,
- should awaken prudent caution against the
effects of possible revoulsion in the profits OF
our great staple. Experience has taught that
- planters are tempted by unusual returns from
!, their haryests to devote their whole attention
:. to the growth of cotton, negecting to raise
: even their necessary plantation supplies. Each
i year of extraordinary prosperity adds to the
- strength of the inducement to spend every en-
- ergy on one single crop, and increases the de
= sire to enter the market for new supply o
y labor, even at the most extrayagant rates anC
, at the hazard of debt, dangerous should tbs
Z prices of cotton fall.
- Who, that witnessed the ruin that gradually
y settled down over the south from 839 to 1841
- :. does not remember the sad spectacle of desert
=" ed plantations-lands that had laughed witt
= fatness covered with rank weeds and relapslns
= into wild-which followed the broken fortune
= of thousands who, short time previous, be
- - leved cotton could not again decline and gegr
- ~ property was cheap at ghe highest prices De
~ ~ manded? With the experience Of those year
of misfortune, corroborated by similar, pre-
81 cedng state of affairs, in 1925, is not litti
- 7 caution wise at the present time?
- We have the means, by the emigration
~ slaves from the northern slave States to the col
ed ed ton region. to effect over production OF Oh
81 81 great staple; should we then seek to haste
az such an event by importatons from abroad,
T. it were even practicable, of hundreds of thor
~ ~ sands of negroes Year, at a mere nomin
~ ~ price?
nS With our domestic labor, just as it now stand
,e the prosperity of the south is with the creates
% ie certainty assured, by encouraging greater d
f le versity of employments. Each planter will IN
eI, prove his condition by producing eyerythin
ell which he consumes, and the community woul
be an hundred fold enriched by the establish
Gu ment of manufacturing industry in close col
'n' tiguity to the cotton fields, moi only producer
I'd at home the fabrics we consume, but exportir
le lef the manufactured article instead of the ra
=. material.
IL III The belief that the present price of slaves
- to be maintained is fallacious. The profits
the industry which creates the present demar
re- re- will attract capital into it. That field OF pr
me duction will, at length, unless diversion
Fn- prodrcad or timely caution is taken, be owe