Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-11-18
The Cotton KIngdom.
In recent work of Frederick Law Ohm
stead, styled The Cotton Kingdom, he says:

In recent work of Frederick Law Ohm
stead, styled The Cotton Kingdom, he says:
Recently banker, who is and always has
been loyal Union man, said, commenting
upon certain experiences of mine narrated
in this book "The South can not be poor.
Why, their last crop alone was worth two
hundred millione They must be rich"
Ergo, say the conspirators, adopting the
same careless conclusions they must be
powerful, and the world must feel their
power, and respect them and their insti-
tutons.
My own observation of the real condition
Of the people of our slave States, gave me,
on the contrary, an impression that the cot
ton monopoly in some way did them more
harm than good and although the written
narration Of what saw was not intended to
set this forth, upon reviewing it for the
present publication, find the impression has
become conviction.
The following conclusions to which my
mind tended strongly in the first month,
though did not then adopt them altogether
with confidence, we're established at length
in my convictions:
/. The cash value of a slaves labor in Vir.
ginia is, practically, the cash value of the
same labor, minus the cost of its transporta.
ton, acclimeting, and breaking in to cotton
culture in Mississippi.
ment of natural wealth in Virginia, is regu-
lated by the cost of slave labor; that is to
say, the competition of white labor does not
materially reduce it; though it doubtless has
some effect, at least in certain districts, and
| with reference to certain productions or
branches of industry.
3 Taking infants, aged, invalid and vi
cious and knavish slaves into account, the
! ordinary and average cost of certain kind
| of labor is more than double in Virginia
what it is in the free States adjoining.
4. The use Of land and nearly all other re-
sources of wealth in Virginia is much less
valuable than the use of similar propexty in
| the adjoining free States, these resources
| having no real value until labor is applied to
| them. (The census returns of 1850 show that
| the sale value of farm lands by the acre in
| Virginia is less than one. third the value of
farm lands in the adjoining free State OF
| Pennsylvania, and less than one fifth of the
farm lands of the neighboring free State Of
| New Jersey.
5. Beyond the bare necessities of exist
ence, poor shelter, poor clothing, and the
| crudest diet, the mass of the citizen class OF
! Virginia earn very little and are very poor
immeasurably poorer thaH the mass of the
| people of the adjoining free States.
6. So far as this poverty is to be attributed
to personal constitution, character and
choice, it is not the result of climate
Z. What is true of Virginia, is measurably
true cf all the border slave States, though in
special cases the resistance of slavery to a
competition of free labor is more easily over
come. In proportion as this is the case the
cost of production, is less, the value of pro-
duction greater, the comfort of the people ia
greater; they are advancing in wealth as
they are in intelligence, which is the best
form or result of wealth.