and indigo, the principal productions of the South at this epoch, were beginning to be furnished as cheaply from the East Indies.*

An obscure mechanic of Massachusetts, Whitney, intervened to foil this expectation, by inventing, in 1793, the saw gin, or machine for picking cotton.†

Until this time, the United States had exported scarcely 200,000 pounds of cotton; to-day, they export more than 1,400,000,000 pounds. Without speaking of rice, tobacco, and, above all, sugar, see what is produced by the labor of the unhappy slaves! But see, too, what produces, encourages, and decuples slavery! It pleases God that we should recognize human solidarity in even the smallest details, and we shudder to think of the suffering that a piece of cotton cloth has caused to human beings on the other side of the globe, without speaking of the so-called freemen whom the manufacturers of Manchester employ to weave what slave hands have gathered.

The growth insured by such a commerce to the Southern

*Agriculture proper, the cultivation of grain and the vine, has been in no place and no time suited to slavery. The Romans, although their landed property was extensive, were ruined, despite the number of their slaves, for lack of being able to employ enough free laborers in the culture of their fields, or rather despite this very number, for it was necessary to maintain during the entire year hands that were only useful during a part of the year. Thus, sugar, cotton, and coffee, things with which man can at need dispense, are the products of slave labor; bread and wine, the necessary aliments, are, by the grace of God, the gifts of free labor.

†The long-staple cotton is cultivated with difficulty; and yields scarcely one tenth as much as the short-staple. But in the latter, the cotton adheres so strongly to the seed that a man cannot pick more than a pound a day with the hand. Even with the rollers and wheels employed by the Indians, the expense is still excessive; so that, until the invention of Whitney, America exported but little of this kind of cotton. In 1794, the exportation increased from 187,000 to 1,601,760 bales. In 1800, it reached 17,000,000 bales; in 1810, 93,000,000 bales; and at present it exceeds 1,400,000,000 pounds.

The saw gin is now perfected; as it has the disadvantage of cutting the long staple, Macarthy's roller gin is used in preference to this. (American Slavery, by Senior, p. 11 (1856). La Question du coton en Angleterre, by John Ninet, Revue des Deux Mondes, March 1, 1861.)

States may be imagined; the cession of Louisiana by France, and of Florida by Spain, added to this prosperity.

But how furnish to the demand the labor that it necessitated? and how obtain slaves enough without the slavetrade? *

This was done, first, through a clandestine trade; secondly, by another abominable means, the raising of negroes. Negroes were raised like horses elsewhere, one male to ten females, reproduction was stimulated by every means, products were multiplied, then sold. Like our counties devoted to the raising of cattle, a number of States received the name of slave-raising States.† An infamous practice, unknown to the ancients, and a hundred times worse than the slave-trade, since it leads men to sell the children whom they have seen born, and have caused to be baptized, cessitates the separation of families, and transforms society into a productive stud!

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By these two means, despite the mortality which in all countries diminishes the slave races more rapidly than the free, the demand for this animated merchandise was provided for successfully; as we have already said, there were less than 700,000 slaves in the United States in 1790; in

*The Rev. J. Dana, in the oration of 1790, before cited, estimates that, to keep up the supply of slaves in the United States and the West Indies, which numbered together at that time 1,601,302, a yearly importation of from 70,000 to 80,000 from Africa was needed. He thence concludes, that from the beginning of the slave-trade, in 1620, to 1790, Africa had furnished some 20,000,000 slaves, which, at £ 30 per head, would amount to a value of £ 600,000,000.

† The number of negroes raised and imported from one State into another by means of this infamous trade is estimated at 120,000 annually. Virginia alone sells from 40,000 to 50,000 per year; North Carolina, Maryland, and Kentucky furnish the greater part of the remainder; these are purchased by Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and the other Southern Slave States. A few of the slave-breeding States see their black population rapidly diminishing by reason of this sale and of white immigration. In 1850, Delaware had but 2,290; Missouri 87,422 slaves to 592,000 freemen. A diminution has taken place in North Carolina, Maryland, Kentucky (which has but 210,981 slaves to 761,403 whites), and Virginia (which has 472,528 slaves to 894,800 whites).

1850, the South alone possessed 3,200,364. The whole number of persons of color at that time was 3,591,000; it had risen, in 1860, to 4,490,000.

Doubtless the North continued its opposition. In 1787 Jefferson caused a law to be passed organizing the territory northwest of the Ohio, and declaring that slavery should never be introduced into this section of country. Six great States, peopled by a few thousand savages in 1790, and inhabited by five million freemen in 1850, now divide this territory.

But by degrees the influence of the Southern States gained on legislation, and its steps may be counted by the number of laws and measures which succeeded each other.

§ 2. FROM THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE TO THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN.

1820-1856.

From 1818 to 1820, a great controversy arose on the quéstion of the admission of the State of Missouri. We know that, on attaining a population of 40,000 inhabitants, a Territory can demand to be admitted as a State. Missouri, in its constitution, had permitted slavery. Twice the House of Representatives refused it admission; twice the bill was passed by the Senate. At length it was admitted on the proposition of Mr. Clay, but with the agreement, known as the Missouri Compromise, that henceforth slavery should not be established north of the parallel of 36° 30′ north latitude, to the east and west of Missouri. "Fine justice!" said Pascal, formerly, "which is bounded by a mountain or a river; truth on this side the Pyrenees, error on that!"

The South accepted this compromise, which secured to it two more votes in the Senate. The North voted for it through weakness, hoping that the vast territories of the

West would insure the preponderance to liberty in the future. But it is the fatality of this sad history, that every act of weakness results in irremediable crime. Servitude and liberty thus having each its domain, the question was, which should more speedily form new States to gain new votes in Congress and win the majority.

We know that there are two Senators for each State, whatever may be the population, and only one Representative to a number of inhabitants which cannot be less than 30,000, and which the law, which determines it every ten years (see the Constitution, Art. I. Sect. II. §3), has raised by degrees to about 90,000.

The result is, that a new State, but just admitted, and having less than 100,000 inhabitants, may have as much weight in Congress as the oldest and most populous State, and that the minority of the nation may thus rule over the majority, and paralyze the whole. On the other hand, when the candidate for the Presidency does not obtain a majority of votes, the House of Representatives elects, voting again by States (Constitution, Art. II. Sect. I. § 3), a new opportunity for the minority of the population to insure the triumph of its wishes. From this, we comprehend the extreme interest attached to the annexation of new States to the South, as additional weight in its side of the balance. The instrument

of this policy of annexation was violence; Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas were wrested from the Indians, and a servitude unknown to savages was established there by civilized men. Texas was stolen from Mexico.

Stolen! The word is Channing's. Read this great citizen's admirable letter to Mr. Clay on this crime.* Texas

* "The annexation of Texas will extend and perpetuate slavery; it is for this that it is desired. On this point there can be no doubt. Since 1829 the annexation of Texas has been talked of in the Southern States and in the West. They have declared that nine Slave States, as large as Kentucky, could be formed from it. . . . . . They have calculated the rise that this would cause in the price of slaves," etc.

belonged to Mexico. Now Mexico, giving a lesson in liberty to the American republic, on shaking off the yoke of Spain, had nobly decreed that henceforth no person should be born a slave, or introduced as such, in the Mexican States.

To open a new territory to slavery,* to furnish prey to speculators, the United States went to the aid of what was grandiloquently called the independence of Texas, that is, the revolt of a feeble minority of the inhabitants, urged on by American colonists. And to whom was the conquest given? To these valorous citizens, as the price of their guilty rebellion? Not at all. The generous United States took possession of the territory, under the pretext of protecting it.

"In the army of eight hundred men who won the victory which scattered the Mexican force, and made its chief a prisoner, not more than fifty were citizens of Texas, having grievances of their own to seek relief for, on that field. The Texans in this warfare are little more than a name, a cover, under which selfish adventurers from another country have prosecuted their work of plunder.

"Some crimes, by their magnitude, have a touch of the sublime, and to this dignity the seizure of Texas by our fellow-citizens is entitled. Modern times furnish no example of individual rapine on so grand a scale. It is nothing less than the robbery of a realm. The pirate seizes a ship. The colonists and their coadjutors can satisfy themselves with nothing short of an empire."+

Listen again to these prophetic words :

By this act, our country will enter on a career of encroachment, war, and crime. .... We boast of our rapid growth. Our people throw themselves beyond the bounds. of civilization, and expose themselves to relapses into a

* Revolutionary gatherings of Texans granted four hundred square leagues of the public lands to speculators for $20,000.

† Channing's Works, Vol. II. p. 202.