We could supply the markets so much cheaper than the English colonies were able to do, that our cotton drove theirs from the British market. From 1836 to 1848 the fall in the price of cotton, other than that from the United States, was from 36 per cent. to 43 per cent. This included the importations from all the miscellaneous sources. In the last century the West Indies and Smyrna had supplidd the demand. Brazil had diminished her exports to one-half of the former amount. Egypt had diminished her exports to less than one-third of what it had been. India had also diminished her exports. All this was the result of the fall in the price of cotton, consequent upon the more efficient labor system of the United States.

The opening of 1850 showed that the total consumption of cotton, for the preceding year, in Europe and the United States, had been near 1,180,000,000 pounds, of which only 73,589,000 pounds were from free labor countries. The indebtedness of the Christian world to slave labor, at that moment, for the article of cotton, was near 1,101,000,000 pounds. Great Britain, during 1859, consumed 624,000,000 pounds, of which a little under 71,500,000 pounds were of free labor origin.

Here, now, we find that the ten years' struggle of Great Britain, to escape from her dependence upon the United States for cotton, had been a complete failure. She was more dependent upon us for that article than ever before. She, therefore, renewed her struggles for another ten years.

PROGRESS OF EVENTS CONNECTED WITH COTTON CULTURE AFTER 1850, AND THEIR RESULTS AT THE OPENING OF 1860.

The great leading interest of England-her principal dependence for the maintenance of her power and influence is her manufactures. Out of this interest grows her immense commerce, and from her commerce arises her ability to sustain her vast navy, giving to her such a controlling influence in the affairs of the world. It is asserted that Manchester and Glasgow could, in a few years, prepare themselves for furnishing muslin and cotton goods to the whole worldthat with England the great difficulty felt is, not to get hands to keep pace with the consumers, but to get a demand to keep pace with the hands employed in the production. This is her position.

But, to proceed. From 1840 to 1849, the average price of cotton was 7 91-100 cents per pound. This low price was the principal cause of the decrease of its production in countries other than the United States; and an increase of price was essential to the encouragement of extended cultivation in the countries which had been supplying it, as well as in new fields where its growth might be introduced. But no permanent increase of price occurred until 1857, when it rose to 12 55-100 cents per pound. This, however, was in consequence of the short crop of our planters, who exported that year 303,000,000 pounds less than in the preceding year. The years 1850 and 1851 had also been unfavorable-the former supplying for export 391,000,000 pounds less than the exports of 1849, and the latter near 100,000,000 pounds less than those of that yearthe average price per pound for the two years being 11 7-10 cents. The five years succeeding 1851 furnished abundant crops in the United States, and the price averaged only 9 12-100 cents per pound. No increased production abroad could be secured under these prices. While the rise of price in 1857 had brought from India the unprecedented amount of 250,300,000 pounds, the fall in price afterwards reduced the exports down nearly to the former standard. But, though the crops of 1858 and 1859, in the United States, were largethat of the latter year allowing an export of 1,372,000,000 pounds—yet, owing to the increasing consumption on the continent and in the United States, the supply of England was not equal to her wants; and the anxiety in relation to her cotton supplies continued to engage attention.

The year 1859, like 1849, supplies a point from which we can survey the re sults of the British efforts to promote the cultivation of cotton in their own possessions, and in countries other than the United States. In that year, 1859, the imports of cotton into Great Britain, from all sources, was 1,215,900,000

pounds, of which 1,154,000,000 pounds were from the United States and the East Indies, leaving but 61,900,000 pounds from all other countries, or an increase of only 760,000 pounds during the year! Her efforts, then, in other countries, had been almost a failure. From 1857 the prices remained more than two cents higher per pound than during the five preceding years, and thus a great stimulus was afforded to the American planter to increase his cultivation. But while the prices richly remunerated him, they were at least one cent per pound too low to allow of any serious competition from India. At 12 55-100 cents per pound, in 1857, the East Indies sent to England 250,300,000 pounds; but in 1858, at 11 72-100 cents per pound, only 138,200,000 pounds were forwarded from that quarter. It became plain, therefore, that if the American planter could keep the price of cotton below about eleven cents a pound, he could retain the monopoly of the markets of Europe, by preventing an increased supply from India. But here, at this very point, a difculty presented itself. The increase of the demand for cotton, as has been estimated, would equal five per cent. per annum, were it practicable to augment the production to that extent, and the American planter could only increase it in the ratio of three per cent.

Thus, an important question arose, as to who should supply this demand. The American planter could not do it, except by extending the area of slave labor; and the British people dare not attempt it, while cotton maintained the low prices which had prevailed. The English introduced the coolie system of labor, to revive their lost fortunes in their tropical colonies; and, fearing the Americans would renew the slave-trade, they again commenced their efforts to prevent such a result. It was readily perceived, by English manufacturers and statesmen, that if the slave-trade should be renewed by the United Statesan opinion for which there never was any just foundation-all their hopes of regaining the monopoly of tropical cultivation, as well as their expectations of divorcing themselves from the cotton planters of the United States, would be at an end. It was of the utmost importance, therefore, that such a calamity to England, as the renewal of the slave-trade by the United States, should be averted at all hazards. It was almost equally important, also, that American slavery should be kept within the limits where it then existed, and prevented from extending to new and more productive fields of cultivation. And why? Because, after all the efforts made by Great Britain to promote cotton culture throughout the world, there had been no considerable increase, in the aggregate, excepting in the United States and the East Indies. What was the fact at that moment? These "other countries," in 1800, supplied 48,000,000 lbs. of cotton; and in 1859 nearly 62,000,000 lbs., presenting an increase in 59 years of about 14,000,000 lbs. only.

These were startling results, truly, to those who had been flattering themselves that British capital and enterprise could force the cultivation of cotton in new fields of production, or augment it in old ones from which the original supplies had been obtained. There is, therefore, no disguising the fact that, at the opening of 1860, the East Indies and the United States were the only countries from which increasing quantities of cotton had been obtained to any extent, and that it could not be greatly increased in the East Indies until prices should rise to at least the standard of 1857.

In 1860, then, the United States and British India were the only prominent rivals in the great cotton markets of the world. The American planter had the decided advantage in the contest for supremacy in very many respects, but still he had obstacles to overcome of a very stubborn nature, among which, as already stated, were the difficulties in the way of the extension of slave labor. To retain his monopoly of the cotton markets, he must not only increase his production, but, at the same time, keep the prices depressed below the rates at which it could be supplied from India. To allow any measures to be adopted which would greatly diminish the production of American cotton, and so enhance its price, would be to promote the interests of the East India planters, and enable them successfully to rival those of the United States. That the slave-trade should not supply additional labor to the American planter, was

provided against by the British men-of-war cruising on the African coast; and that the extension of American slavery should not be permitted, the American allies of Great Britain, the Abolitionists, by the aid of British gold, went zealously to work to prevent that result.

With these facts before us, it is easy to perceive that Great Britain has long been deeply interested in the promotion of whatever policy would tend to diminish the production of American cotton and enhance the price of that commodity, so as to stimulate its cultivation in her own provinces. And it is equally as plain that those citizens of the United States who co-operated with her in the execution of her schemes, or who are now resorting to all possible means to prevent the renewal of our cotton cultivation by embarrassing the South, and leaving her in uncertainty as to the future, are doing the work of the enemies of our Republic, and deserve, and ere long will receive, the execrations of the American people.

Now, on arriving at this point in these investigations, it is very easy to comprehend why the people of Great Britain have made such extensive and persevering efforts to promote the abolition of slavery in the United States. Emancipation, they very well knew, would at once embarrass our planters and greatly diminish the production of cotton on their estates. It is also very obvous why the English abolitionists, on failing in their schemes in reference to the immediate abolition of slavery in this country, should have, with such perfect unanimity, approved of the proposition of the American abolitionists to confine slavery within the limits of the States where it existed, because, to prevent the extension of Southern slavery, would be to diminish the production of our great commercial staple, and to allow the monopoly of the cotton supplies, ultimately, to pass from the hands of our citizens into those of the subjects of Great Britain.

The primary movers in these measures, beyond a doubt, knew that emancipation everywhere, without exception, had been disastrous to the production of tropical commodities. The great mass of freedmen would not work voluntarily, to any useful extent, beyond what was needed to supply their absolute necessities. The blacks of the United States, they felt assured, would form no exception to the general rule, and emancipation would accomplish all they desired.

And, through the "war power," their purpose has been accomplished. Emancipation has been effected; and not that alone, but the war has reduced the amount of blacks in the South at least one million, by death, thus destroying not only the labor system that offered such an "unequal competition" to their labor system, but reducing our laboring population, of the same color with their own, at least one-fourth. The English cotton philanthropists may well rejoice at such a result.

A remark here. The American abolitionists have always insisted that Southern slavery was worse than any other in the world. It would be easy to prove that this was a vile slander, and our only hope that the utter prostration of cotton culture in the South will not follow emancipation there, as it has in the English West India Colonies, is based upon the fact that our black population, in industry and intelligence, in morality and civilization, are immensely in advance of the West India negroes. Lest the culture of cotton should assume something like its former proportions in the South, and prices fall too low to allow of its production in the British possessions, the conspirators against our national prosperity have just assessed an export tax upon American cotton.

THE VAST SOURCES OF WEALTH WHICH THE ABOLITIONISTS WERE WILLING TO DESTROY.

We have spoken, in the preceding sections, of the persistent efforts of the Abolitionists to ruin the foreign commerce of the United States, by the destruction of the labor system which supplied the principal basis upon which it rested. Is this assertion not sustained by the facts? Look for a moment at the condition of that commerce, and see what were the commodities it bore abroad from our shores.

The Congressional reports for 1860 give the total exports of the country since 1821, stating the value of each class of commodities separately. The following are the results:

Here the value of the cotton crop, during the last 39 years, stands out in its true proportions. And if to the cotton we add that of tobacco and rice, the exports of the Southern States, in these three products alone, reach a value of nearly $3,000,000,000, or thrice the amount of the whole value of all the other products of the soil from both North and South.

Nor will the results be materially different by taking the exports of the three years immediately preceding the war, giving each year separately, except that the value of the cotton was increasing at a rapid rate over that of the other products of the soil :

The term "Cotton is King," at the dates referred to, was no unmeaning phrase. It had its origin in the title of a book, bearing that name, of which the writer of these articles was the author. In adopting that name, the object was to convey the idea that cotton was the leading article in the commerce and manufactures of the world; and, especially was it designed, by the work, to demonstrate that in the foreign commerce of the United States-in that which had built us up and given us our greatness as a nation-cotton occupied a royal position. But it went further, and from an investigation of the extent and character of cotton culture throughout the world, it showed that the cotton planters in the United States had the ascendency in the foreign markets for that staple, and would be able to retain that pre-eminence, so long as no disturbing agency arose to interrupt their system of labor.

But this was not all that the author had in view. There were fanatical men at the North who clamored for a dissolution of the Union. The book demonstrated that, so long as the North held the reins of commerce, and the South supplied two-thirds of the basis of that commerce, dissolution would be ruin, especially to the North; and that from the disastrous consequences of emancipation in the British West Indies, it was fair to infer, that the liberation of our slaves must be followed by similar results, and the North and South, both, must equally suffer from the overthrow of our labor system.

Staggered at considerations such as these, it became apparent to the agents of Great Britain, that the people of the United States would not assent to either dissolution or emancipation, if the result must be followed by the prostration of our foreign commerce. To disparage the importance of our cotton crop, and to induce the belief that we could not, at any rate, retain the monopoly of the cotton markets, was the policy adopted to reconcile the people to the measures of the Abolitionists. Two lines of argument, therefore, were pursued. First, Exaggerated statements as to the greater value, over the cotton crop, of certain other product. of agriculture. Second, The certainty that other countries were progressing so rapidly in the production of cotton, that our planters would soon be shut out of the foreign markets, and the growing of cotton become almost valueless to us as an article of export. One example only, under the first head, need be given.

The story of the hay crop-not a pound of which was exported-as being of more value than the cotton crop, nearly $200,000,000 worth of which were exported during a single year just before the war, is still fresh in the memory of the intelligent reader. Because, forsooth, we had $200,000,000 worth of

hay-all of which was consumed by our own live stock-we could do very well without the $200,000,000 worth of cotton, which went abroad to pay for our importations! Such was abolition logic. A few facts will set this question in its true light:

Hay, instead of being a standard of wealth, is but the indication of severity of climate and prolonged winters. This proposition may be illustrated by examples taken from a few of the Northern States which save large quantities of hay, as compared with the same number in the South which save but little hay; and yet the Southern States are able to subsist a much larger amount of live stock, from the fact that their climate is so favorable as to afford more or less pasturage through the winter.

I use the census tables of 1850, those of 1860, though equally favorable to my purpose, not being at hand.

Here is Georgia, on less than 24,000 tons of hay, supporting more than 1,300,000 head of horses and cattle, while Vermont, with 866,000 tons, is able to support only 410,000 head of similar stock. Georgia, too, supported, in addition, on the same hay crop, more than half as many sheep as Vermont fed, besides growing nearly 200,000,000 of pounds of ginned cotton.

But I cannot dwell upon the absurdities of these ruinous theories, gotten up to familiarize the public mind with the idea that, economically, the Union was of but little value to the North. Reader, look at the tabular statement above, presenting the value of the cotton exported, as compared with the value of the other products of the soil exported, and you can judge what would have been the condition of our foreign commerce, had no cotton entered into our exports for the last 39 years. But enough of this.

Under the second head, still bolder attempts at imposition were practiced. The senior editor of a religious newspaper, in New York city, who had always opposed Abolitionism, but who had been "coerced " into the support of the war policy, in the fore part of the summer of 1861, thus wrote:

"Ten years hence India will furnish as much cotton within a trifle as America will even if the rate of increase continues in this country as rapidly in the next 10 years as it has in the last decade of years."

This opinion of the editor was based upon statements made in an article in the North British Review, which contained the estimates of the increase only in the British supplies of cotton, from the several cotton-growing countries, from 1850 to 1857. The Review said:

"During that period the increase of 300,000,000 pounds, in round numbers, in our imports of cotton, was furnished by the following countries: Pounds. 161,604,906

United States

Egypt......
West Indies..
East Indies

Africa and others...

The deception practiced by the Review was in the selection of the seven years ending with 1857. The year 1857, as already stated, gave a short crop in the United States, and a corresponding increased importation from India, because of the increased prices. Had the contrast been made between the three years 1858, 1859 and 1860, the increase would have been as followsleading to a very different conclusion from that indorsed by the editor to whom reference has been made: