The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-09-05
The Remedy.

The Hon. B. q. Hill has recently
made speech at the Jonesboro fair, in
Georgia, which should be widely circu-
lated and read. Without great
change" said he, "the southern states
are destined to become so many planta-
tions, practically owned by the north
ern people, and the southern people so
many hireling slaves to work them, the
poorest, the most powerless and the
most contemplate of earth's inhabi-
tants." The remedy, he says, is !:
First-Make cotton your surplus crop !!
In these five wo1ds lie the Samson locks
of your future power. Make your own
fertilizers by resting, cropping, grass
ing and manuring your lands. Thus
you become independent of the guano
merchants. Raise your own provi-
sions. Thus you become independent of
the provision merchants. Your cheap
est and safest line of transportation
runs from your own fields and hog-pens
to your own barns and meat-houses
With no debts for your supplies, you
will need no accommodation credits at
two per cent. per month. Thus you
become independent of brokers and
cotton-factors and lien merchar is. You
can then sell your own cotton, at your
own time, to your own chosen buyers,
and for your own price, and will get
your own money. None of these things
can cotton planter do, who plants on
credit and bOrrows money to buy his
provisions. But, you say the western
states can raise provisions so much
cheaper than we can that we can make
more money by making cotton and buy
IN 4I,o To- Nf
figures, and a greater lie was never
taught.
Now, affirm, it is cheaper for you to
raise your own provisions than to have
them brought from the west and given
to you at the nearest depot free of all
cost and chargesl How is this? In
the first place, if we raise five millions
of bales of cotton, we will get no more
money for them than we would get for
half that number. Then, out of the
same amount realized, you pay for rails
ing the five million just double cost of
production! Half the labor and sup
plies employed in raising five million
bales of cotton could be employed in
raising supplies without reducing the
value of cotton crop one dollar. But
half this labor would raise more than
you needed for supplies. You could
employ much of it also in enriching
your lands and improving your property
in many ways. Then you would come
to the end of the year with your cribs
full of corn, your smoke-house full of
meat, your family full of smiles, your
selves full of independence, and your
pockets full of money for investment.
And how would you invest it? In cot
ton factories on the waterfalls which
God sent all through your country to
run spindles. This would make you in
dependent of Old England and New
England. Then, also, you would mine
your own iron and make your own i'm
plements of husbandry, and this would
make you independent of Pennsylva-
MIA foundries and Massachusetts work
shops. In a word, every improvement
would be built mp in your own country,
and all the profits of those improve
ments would go into your own pockets.
Go on as you are now going, making
cotton your chief crop, and slavery is
the doom of your children and your
children's children forever /! A people
who depend on other people for food
and clothing are and must be slaves.