Antecedent to all the movements noticed in the preceding chapter, Great Britain had foreseen the coming increased demand for tropical products. Indeed, her West Indian policy, of a few years previous, had hastened the crisis; and, to repair her injuries, and meet the general outcry for cotton, she made the most vigorous efforts to promote its cultivation in her own tropical possessions. The motives prompting her to this policy, need not be referred to here, as they will be noticed hereafter. The Hon. George Thompson, it will be remembered, when urging the increase of cotton cultivation in the East Indies, declared that the scheme must succeed, and that, soon, all slave labor cotton would be repudiated by the British manufacturers. Mr Garrison indorsed the measure, and expressed his belief that, with its success, the American slave system must inevitably perish from starvation! But England's efforts signally failed, and the golden apple, fully ripened, dropped into the lap of our cotton planters.[19] The year that heard Thompson's pompous predictions,[20] witnessed the consumption of but 445,744,000 lbs. of cotton, by England; while, fourteen years later, she used 817,998,048 lbs., nearly 700,000,000 lbs. of which were obtained from America!

That we have not overstated her dependence upon our slave labor for cotton is a fact of world-wide notoriety. Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1853, in referring to the cultivation of the article, by the United States, says:

"With its increased growth has sprung up that mercantile navy, which now waves its stripes and stars over every sea, and that foreign influence, which has placed the internal peace—we may say the subsistence of millions in every manufacturing country in Europe—within the power of an oligarchy of planters."

In reference to the same subject, the London Economist quotes as follows:

"Let any great social or physical convulsion visit the United States, and England would feel the shock from Land's End to John O'Groats. The lives of nearly two millions of our countrymen are dependent upon the cotton crops of America; their destiny may be said, without any kind of hyperbole, to hang upon a thread. Should any dire calamity befall the land of cotton, a thousand of our merchant ships would rot idly in dock; ten thousand mills must stop their busy looms; two thousand thousand mouths would starve, for lack of food to feed them."

A more definite statement of England's indebtedness to cotton, is given by McCullough; who shows that as far back as 1832, her exports of cotton fabrics were equal in value to about two-thirds of all the woven fabrics exported from the empire. The same state of things, nearly, existed in 1849, when the cotton fabrics exported, according to the London Economist, were valued at about $140,000,000, while all the other woven fabrics exported did not quite reach to the value of $68,000,000. On consulting the same authority, of still later dates, it appears, that the last four years has produced no material change in the relations which the different classes of British fabrics, exported, bear to each other. The present condition of the demand and supplies of cotton, throughout Europe, and the extent to which the increasing consumption of that staple must stimulate the American planters to its increased production, will be noticed in the proper place.[21]

There was a time when American slave labor sustained no such relations to the manufactures and commerce of the world as it now so firmly holds; and when, by the adoption of proper measures, on the part of the free colored people and their friends, the emancipation of the slaves, in all the States, might, possibly, have been effected. But that period has passed forever away, and causes, unforeseen, have come into operation, which are too powerful to be overcome by any agencies that have since been employed.[22] What Divine Providence may have in store for the future, we know not; but, at present, the institution of slavery is sustained by numberless pillars, too massive for human power and wisdom to overthrow.

Take another view of this subject. To say nothing now of the tobacco, rice, and sugar, which are the products of our slave labor, we exported raw cotton to the value of $109,456,404 in 1853. Its destination was, to Great Britain, 768,596,498 lbs.; to the Continent of Europe, 335,271,434 lbs.; to countries on our own Continent, 7,702,438 lbs.; making the total exports, 1,111,570,370 lbs. The entire crop of that year being 1,305,152,800 lbs., gives, for home consumption, 268,403,600 lbs.[23] Of this, there was manufactured into cotton fabrics to the value of $61,869,274;[24] of which there was retained, for home markets, to the value of $53,100,290. Our imports of cotton fabrics from Europe, in 1853, for consumption, amounted in value to $26,477,950:[25] thus making our cottons, foreign and domestic, for that year, cost us $79,578,240.

In bringing down the results to 1858, it will be seen that the imports of foreign cotton goods has fluctuated at higher and lower amounts than those of 1853; and that an actual decrease of our exports of cotton manufactures has taken place since that date.[26] But in the exports of raw cotton there has been an increase of nearly a hundred millions of pounds over that of 1853—the total exports of 1859 being 1,208,561,200 lbs. The total crop of 1859, in the United States, was 1,606,800,000 lbs., and the amount taken for consumption 371,060,800 lbs.[27]

Thus, while our consumption of foreign cotton goods is not on the increase, the foreign demand for our raw cotton is rapidly augmenting; and thus the American planter is becoming more and more important to the manufactures and commerce of the world.

This, now, is what becomes of our cotton; this is the way in which it so largely constitutes the basis of commerce and trade; and this is the nature of the relations existing between the slavery of the United States and the economical interests of the world.

But have the United States no other great leading interests, except those which are involved in the production of cotton? Certainly, they have. Here is a great field for the growth of provisions. In ordinary years, exclusive of tobacco and cotton, our agricultural property, when added to the domestic animals and their products, amounts in value $1,551,176,490. Of this, there is exported only to the value of $33,809,126; which leaves for home consumption and use, a remainder to the value of $1,517,367,364.[28] The portions of the property represented by this immense sum of money, which pass from the hands of the agriculturists, are distributed throughout the Union, for the support of the day laborers, sailors, mechanics, manufacturers, traders, merchants, professional men, planters, and the slave population. This is what becomes of our provisions.

Besides this annual consumption of provisions, most of which is the product of free labor, the people of the United States use a vast amount of groceries, which are mainly of slave labor origin. Boundless as is the influence of cotton, in stimulating slavery extension, that of the cultivation of groceries falls but little short of it; the chief difference being, that they do not receive such an increased value under the hand of manufacturers. The cultivation of coffee, in Brazil, employs as great a number of slaves as that of cotton in the United States.

But, to comprehend fully our indebtedness to slave labor for groceries, we must descend to particulars. Our imports of coffee, tobacco, sugar, and molasses, for 1853, amounted in value to $38,479,000; of which the hand of the slave, in Brazil and Cuba, mainly, supplied to the value of $34,451,000.[29] This shows the extent to which we are sustaining foreign slavery, by the consumption of these four products. But this is not our whole indebtedness to slavery for groceries. Of the domestic grown tobacco, valued at $19,975,000, of which we retain nearly one-half, the Slave States produce to the value of $16,787,000; of domestic rice, the product of the South, we consume to the value of $7,092,000; of domestic slave grown sugar and molasses, we take, for home consumption, to the value of $34,779,000; making our grocery account, with domestic slavery, foot up to the sum of $50,449,000. Our whole indebtedness, then, to slavery, foreign and domestic, for these four commodities, after deducting two millions of re-exports amounts to $82,607,000.

The exports of tobacco are on the increase, as appears from Table VIII of Appendix, showing an extension of its cultivation; but the exports of rice are not on the increase, from which it would appear that its production remains stationary.

By adding the value of the foreign and domestic cotton fabrics, consumed annually in the United States, to the yearly cost of the groceries which the country uses, our total indebtedness, for articles of slave labor origin, will be found swelling up to the enormous sum of $162,185,240.[30]

We have now seen the channels through which our cotton passes off into the great sea of commerce, to furnish the world its clothing. We have seen the origin and value of our provisions, and to whom they are sold. We have seen the sources whence our groceries are derived, and the millions of money they cost. To ascertain how far these several interests are sustained by one another, will be to determine how far any one of them becomes an element of expansion to the others. To decide a question of this nature with precision is impracticable. The statistics are not attainable. It may be illustrated, however, in various ways, so as to obtain a conclusion proximately accurate. Suppose, for example, that the supplies of food from the North were cut off, the manufactories left in their present condition, and the planters forced to raise their provisions and draught animals: in such circumstances, the export of cotton must cease, as the lands of these States could not be made to yield more than would subsist their own population, and supply the cotton demanded by the Northern States. Now, if this be true of the agricultural resources of the cotton States—and it is believed to be nearly the full extent of their capacity—then the surplus of cotton, to the value of more than a hundred millions of dollars, now annually sent abroad, stands as the representative of the yearly supplies which the cotton planters receive from the farmers north of the cotton line. This, therefore, as will afterward more fully appear, may be taken as the probable extent to which the supplies from the North serve as an element of slavery expansion in the article of cotton alone.