In concluding our labors, there is little need of extended observation. The work of emancipation, in our country, was checked, and the extension of slavery promoted:—first, by the neglect of the free colored people to improve the advantages afforded them; second, by the increasing value imparted to slave labor; third, by the mistaken policy into which the English and American abolitionists have fallen. Whatever reasons might now be offered for emancipation, from an improvement of our free colored people, is far more than counterbalanced by its failure in the West Indies, and the constantly increasing value of the labor of the slave. If, when the planters had only a moiety of the markets for cotton, the value of slavery was such as to arrest emancipation, how must the obstacles be increased, now, when they have the monopoly of the markets of the world? And, besides all this, a more deadly blow, than has been given by all other causes combined, is now levelled at negro freedom from a quarter the least suspected. The failure of the Canadian immigrants to improve the privileges afforded them under British law, proves, conclusively, that the true laws of progress for the African race, do not consist in a mere escape from slavery.

We propose not to speak of remedies for slavery. That we leave to others. Thus far this very perplexing question, has baffled all human wisdom. Either some radical defect must have existed, in the measures devised for its removal, or the time has not yet come for successfully assailing the institution. Our work is completed, in the delineation we have given of its varied relations to our agricultural, commercial, and social interests. As the monopoly of the culture of cotton, imparts to slavery its economical value, the system will continue as long as this monopoly is maintained. Slave labor products have now become necessities of human life, to the extent of more than half the commercial articles supplied to the Christian world. Even free labor, itself, is made largely subservient to slavery, and vitally interested in its perpetuation and extension.

Can this condition of things be changed? It may be reasonably doubted, whether any thing efficient can be speedily accomplished: not because there is lack of territory where freemen may be employed in tropical cultivation, as all Western and Central Africa, nearly, is adapted to this purpose; not because intelligent free labor, under proper incentives, is less productive than slave labor; but because freemen, whose constitutions are adapted to tropical climates, will not avail themselves of the opportunity offered for commencing such an enterprise.

King Cotton cares not whether he employs slaves or freemen. It is the cotton, not the slaves, upon which his throne is based. Let freemen do his work as well, and he will not object to the change. The efforts of his most powerful ally, Great Britain, to promote that object, have already cost her people many hundreds of millions of dollars, with total failure as a reward for her zeal; and she is now compelled to resort to the expedient of employing the slave labor of Africa, to meet the necessities of her manufacturers. One-sixth of the colored people of the United States are free; but they shun the cotton regions, and have been instructed to detest emigration to Liberia. Their improvement has not been such as was anticipated; and their more rapid advancement can not be expected, while they remain in the country. The free colored people of the British West Indies, can no longer be relied on to furnish tropical products, for they are resting contented in a state of almost savage indolence; and the introduction of coolie labor has become indispensable as a means of saving the Islands from ruin, as well as of forcing the negro into habits of industry. Hayti is not in a more promising condition; and even if it were, its population and territory are too limited to enable it to meet the increasing demand. His Majesty, King Cotton, therefore, is forced to continue the employment of his slaves; and, by their toil, is riding on, conquering and to conquer! He receives no check from the cries of the oppressed, while the citizens of the world are dragging forward his chariot, and shouting aloud his praise!

King Cotton is a profound statesman, and knows what measures will best sustain his throne. He is an acute mental philosopher, acquainted with the secret springs of human action, and accurately perceives who can best promote his aims. He has no evidence that colored men can grow his cotton, except in the capacity of slaves. Thus far, all experiments made to increase the production of cotton, by emancipating the slaves employed in its cultivation, have been a total failure. It is his policy, therefore, to defeat all schemes of emancipation. To do this, he stirs up such agitations as lure his enemies into measures that will do him no injury. The venal politician is always at his call, and assumes the form of saint or sinner, as the service may demand. Nor does he overlook the enthusiast, engaged in Quixotic endeavors for the relief of suffering humanity, but influences him to advocate measures which tend to tighten, instead of loosing the bands of slavery. Or, if he can not be seduced into the support of such schemes, he is beguiled into efforts that waste his strength on objects the most impracticable; so that slavery receives no damage from the exuberance of his philanthropy. But should such a one, perceiving the futility of his labors, and the evils of his course, make an attempt to avert the consequences; while he is doing this, some new recruit, pushed forward into his former place, charges him with lukewarmness, or pro-slavery sentiments, destroys his influence with the public, keeps alive the delusions, and sustains the supremacy of King Cotton in the world.

In speaking of the economical connections of slavery, with the other material interests of the world, we have called it a tripartite alliance. It is more than this. It is quadruple. Its structure includes four parties, arranged thus: The Western Agriculturists; the Southern Planters; the English Manufacturers; and the American Abolitionists! By this arrangement, the abolitionists do not stand in direct contact with slavery; they imagine, therefore, that they have clean hands and pure hearts, so far as sustaining the system is concerned. But they, no less than their allies, aid in promoting the interests of slavery. Their sympathies are with England on the slavery question, and they very naturally incline to agree with her on other points. She advocates Free Trade, as essential to her manufactures and commerce; and they do the same, not waiting to inquire into its bearings upon American slavery. We refer now to the people, not to their leaders, whose integrity we choose not to indorse. The free trade and protective systems, in their bearings upon slavery, are so well understood, that no man of general reading, especially an editor, or member of Congress, who professes anti-slavery sentiments, at the same time advocating free trade, will ever convince men of intelligence, pretend what he may, that he is not either woefully perverted in his judgment, or emphatically, a "dough-face" in disguise! England, we were about to say, is in alliance with the cotton planter, to whose prosperity free trade is indispensable. Abolitionism is in alliance with England. All three of these parties, then, agree in their support of the free trade policy. It needed but the aid of the Western farmer, therefore, to give permanency to this principle. His adhesion has been given, the quadruple alliance has been perfected, and slavery and free trade nationalized!

Slavery, thus intrenched in the midst of such powerful allies, and without competition in tropical cultivation, has become the sole reliance of King Cotton. Lest the sources of his aggrandisement should be assailed, we can well imagine him as being engaged constantly, in devising new questions of agitation, to divert the public from all attempts to abandon free trade and restore the protective policy. He now finds an ample source of security, in this respect, in agitating the question of slavery extension. This exciting topic, as we have said, serves to keep politicians of the abolition school at the North in his constant employ. But for the agitation of this subject, few of these men would succeed in obtaining the suffrages of the people. Wedded to England's free trade policy, their votes in Congress, on all questions affecting the tariff, are always in perfect harmony with Southern interests, and work no mischief to the system of slavery. If Kansas comes into the Union as a slave State, he is secure in the political power it will give him in Congress; but if it is received as a free State, it will still be tributary to him, as a source from whence to draw provisions to feed his slaves. Nor does it matter much which way the controversy is decided, so long as all agree not to disturb slavery in the States where it is already established by law. Could King Cotton be assured that this position will not be abandoned, he would care little about slavery in Kansas; but he knows full well that the public sentiment in the North is adverse to the system, and that the present race of politicians may readily be displaced by others who will pledge themselves to its overthrow in all the States of the Union, Hence he wills to retain the power over the question in his own hands.

The crisis now upon the country, as a consequence of slavery having become dominant, demands that the highest wisdom should be brought to the management of national affairs. Slavery, nationalized, can now be managed only as a national concern. It can now be abolished only with the consent of those who sustain it. Their assent can be gained only by employing other agents to meet the wants it now supplies. It must be superseded, then, if at all, by means that will not injuriously affect the interests of commerce and agriculture, to which it is now so important an auxiliary. None other will be accepted, for a moment, by the slaveholder. To supply the existing demand for tropical products, except by the present mode, is impossible. To make the change, is not the work of a day, nor of a generation. Should the influx of foreigners continue, such a change may, one day, be possible. But to effect the transition from slavery to freedom, on principles that will be acceptable to the parties who control the question; to devise and successfully sustain such measures as will produce this result; must be left to statesmen of broader views and loftier conceptions than are to be found among those at present engaged in this great controversy.

Take a more particular view of this subject, in the light of the commercial operations of the United States, for the year 1859, as best indicating the relations of the North and the South, and their mutual dependence upon each other. The total value of the imports of foreign commodities, including specie, was $338,768,130.[96] Of this $20,895,077 were re-exported, leaving for home consumption, $317,873,053—an amount more than eleven times greater than the whole foreign commerce of Great Britain one hundred and fifty-six years ago, and more than four times greater than her exports eighty-six years ago.[97]

Let us inquire how this immense foreign commerce is sustained; how these $317,873,000 of foreign imports are paid for by the American people; and how far the Northern and Southern States respectively have contributed to its payment. More than one-half the amount, or $161,434,923, was paid in raw cotton, and more than one-third of the remainder, or $57,502,305, in the precious metals; leaving less than $100,000,000 to be paid in the other productions of the country. More than one-third of this remainder was paid in cotton fabrics, tobacco, and rice; while the products of the forest, of the sea, and of various minor manufactures, swelled up our credits, so that the exports of breadstuffs and provisions, needed to liquidate the debt, only amounted to a little over $38,000,000.[98] Of this amount the exports, from the Northern States, of wheat and wheat flour, made up only $15,262,769, and the corn and corn meal but $2,206,396. "King Hay," so much lauded for his magnitude and money value, never once ventured on board a merchant vessel, to seek a foreign land, so as to aid in paying for the commodities which we imported.[99] In a word, the products of the forest and of agriculture, exported by the free States, amounted in value to about $45,300,000; while the same classes of products, supplied for export by the Slave States, amounted to more than $193,400,000.[100]

The economical relations of the North and the South can now be understood more clearly than they could be from the statistics referred to in the body of this work. The facts, in relation to the commerce of the United States, for 1859, were not accessible until after the stereotyping had been completed; and they are only crowded in here by omitting two or three pages of remarks of another kind, but of less importance, which closed the volume. By consulting Table XII, and two or three of the others, which contain similar facts, covering the commercial operations of the country since the year 1821, the whole question of the relations of the North and the South can be fully comprehended. It will be seen that the exports of tobacco, which are mainly from the South, have equaled in value considerably more than one-third the amount of that of breadstuffs and provisions; and that, in the same period, the exports of cotton have exceeded in value those of breadstuffs and provisions to the amount of $1,421,482,261.[101] Here, now, a just conception can be formed of the importance of cotton to the commerce of the country, as compared with our other productions. The amount exported, of that article, in the last thirty-nine years, has exceeded in value the exports of breadstuffs and provisions to the extent of fourteen hundred and twenty-one millions of dollars! Verily, Cotton is King!

Another point needs consideration. It is a fact, not to be questioned, that the productions of the Northern States amount to an immense sum, above those of the Southern States, when valued in dollars and cents; but the proportion of the products of the former; exported to foreign countries, is very insignificant, indeed, when compared with the value of the exports from the latter.[102] And, yet, the North is acquiring wealth with amazing rapidity. This fact could not exist, unless the Northern people produce more than they consume—unless they have a surplus to sell, after supplying their own wants. They must, therefore, find a permanent and profitable market, somewhere, for the surplus products that yield them their wealth. As that market is not in Europe, it must be in the Southern States. But the extent to which the South receive their supplies from the North, cannot be determined by any data now in the possession of the public. It must, however, be very large in amount, and, if withheld, would greatly embarrass the Southern people, by lessening their ability to export as largely as hitherto. So, on the other hand, if the Northern people were deprived of the markets afforded by the South, they would find so little demand elsewhere for their products, that it would have a ruinous effect upon their prosperity. All that can be safely said upon this subject is, that the interests of both sections of the country are so intimately connected, so firmly blended together, that a dissolution of the Union would be destructive to all the economical interests of both the North and the South. Cut off from the South all that the North supplies to the planters, in such articles as agricultural implements, furniture, clothing, provisions, horses, and mules, and cotton culture would at once have to be abandoned to a great extent. But would the South alone be the sufferer? Could the Northern agriculturist, manufacturer, and mechanic, remain prosperous, and continue to accumulate wealth, without a market for their products? Could Northern merchants dwell in their palaces, and roll in luxury, with a foreign commerce contracted to one-third of its present extent, and a domestic demand for merchandize reduced to one-half its present amount? Certainly not.

And if the mere necessity of self supply, of food and clothing, such as existed in 1820, would now be disastrous to the South, and react destructively upon the North, what would be the effect of emancipation upon the country at large? What would be the effect of releasing from restraint three and a half millions of negroes, to bask in idleness, under the genial sunshine of the South, or to emigrate hither and thither, at will, with none to control their actions? It is too late to insist that free labor would be more profitable than slave labor, when negroes are to be the operatives: Jamaica has solved that problem. It is too late to claim that white labor could be made to take the place of black labor, while the negroes remain upon the ground: Canada, and the Northern States, demonstrate that the two races cannot be made to labor together peacefully and upon terms of equality. Nothing is more certain, therefore, than that emancipation would inevitably place the Southern States in a similar position to that of Jamaica. On this point take a fact or two.

The Colonial Standard,[103] of the 13th January, 1859, in speaking of the present industrial condition of that Island, says, that there are not more than twenty thousand laborers who employ themselves in sugar cultivation for wages. This will seem astonishing to those who expected so much from emancipation, when it is stated that the black population of Jamaica, when liberated from slavery, numbered three hundred and eleven thousand, six hundred and ninety two; and that the exports of sugar from the Island, in 1805, before the slave trade was prohibited, amounted to 237,751,150 lbs.;[104] while, in 1859, the exports of that staple commodity, only amounted to 44,800,000 lbs.[105] It will thus be seen that the exports of sugar from Jamaica is now less than one-fifth of what it was in the prosperous days of slavery; and so it must be as to cotton, in the South, were emancipation forced upon this country. And what would be the condition of our foreign commerce, and what the effect upon the country, generally, were the exports of the South diminished to less than one-fifth of their present amount? Would the lands of the Northern farmers still continue to advance in price, if the markets for the surplus products of the soil no longer existed? Would those of the Southern planters rise in value, in the event of emancipation, to an equality with the lands at the North, when no laborers could be found to till the soil? No man entitled to the name of statesman—no man of practical common sense—could imagine that such a result would follow the liberation of the slaves in the Southern States. Under the philanthropic legislation of Great Britain, no such result followed the passage of the act for the abolition of slavery in her colonies; but, on the contrary, the value of their real estate soon became reduced to a most ruinous extent; and such must inevitably be the result under the adoption of similar measures in the United States. This is the conviction of the men of the South, and they will act upon their own judgment.

There are strong indications that the views presented in the first edition of this work, and reported in the subsequent issues, are rapidly becoming the views of intelligent and unprejudiced men everywhere. At a late date in the British Parliament, Lord Brougham made a strong anti-American cotton and anti-American slavery speech. The London Times, thus "takes the backbone all out of his argument, and leaves him nothing but his sophistries to stand on," thus:

"Lord Brougham and the veterans of the old Anti-Slavery Society do not share our delight at this great increase in the employment of our home population. Their minds are still seared by those horrible stories which were burnt in upon them in their youth, when England was not only a slave-owning, but even a slave-trading State. Their remorse is so great that the ghost of a black man is always before them. They are benevolent and excellent people; but if a black man happened to have broken his shin, and a white man were in danger of drowning, we much fear that a real anti-slavery zealot would bind up the black man's leg before he would draw the white man out of the water. It is not an inconsistency, therefore, that while we see only cause of congratulation in this wonderful increase of trade, Lord Brougham sees in it the exaggeration of an evil he never ceases to deplore.

"We, and such as we, who are content to look upon society as Providence allows it to exist—to mend it when we can, but not to distress ourselves immoderately for evils which are not of our creation—we see only the free and intelligent English families who thrive upon the wages which these cotton bales produce. Lord Brougham sees only the black laborers who, on the other side of the Atlantic, pick the cotton pods in slavery. Lord Brougham deplores that in this tremendous exportation of a thousand millions of pounds of cotton, the lion's share of the profits goes to the United States, and has been produced by slave labor. Instead of twenty-three millions, the United States now send us eight hundred and thirty millions, and this is all cultivated by slaves. It is very sad that this should be so, but we do not see our way to a remedy. There seems to be rather a chance of its becoming worse.

"If France, who is already moving onwards in a restless, purblind state, should open her eyes wide, should give herself fair-play, by accepting our coals, iron, and machinery, and, under the stimulus of a wholesome competition, should take to manufacturing upon a large scale, even these three millions of slaves will not be enough. France will be competing with us in the foreign cotton markets, stimulating still further the produce of Georgia and South Carolina. The jump which the consumption of cotton in England has just made is but a single leap, which may be repeated indefinitely. There are a thousand millions of mankind on the globe, all of whom can be most comfortably clad in cotton. Every year new tribes and new nations are added to the category of cotton-wearers. There is every reason to believe that the supply of this universal necessity will, for many years yet to come, fail to keep pace with the demand, and in the interest of that large class of our countrymen to whom cotton is bread, we must continue to hope that the United States will be able to supply us in years to come with twice as much as we bought of them in years past. 'Let us raise up another market,' says the anti-slavery people. So say we all......

"But even Lord Brougham would not ask us to believe that there is any proximate hope that the free cotton raised in Africa will, within any reasonable time, drive out of culture the slave-grown cotton of America. If this be so, of what use can it be to make irritating speeches in the House of Lords against a state of things by which we are content to profit? Lord Brougham and Lord Grey are not men of such illogical minds as to be incapable of understanding that it is the demand of the English manufacturers which stimulates the produce of slave-grown American cotton. They are, neither of them, we apprehend, so reckless or so wicked as to close our factories and to throw some two millions of our manufacturing population out of bread. Why, then, these inconsequent and these irritating denunciations? Let us create new fields of produce of we can; but, meanwile, it is neither just nor dignified to buy the raw material from the Americans, and to revile them for producing it."

We have said that the more popular belief, in reference to the moral character of slavery, now prevailing throughout the world, ranks it as identical in principle with despotic forms of government. Here arises a question of importance. Can despotism be acknowledged by Christians as a lawful form of government? Those who hold the view of slavery under consideration, answer in the affirmative. The necessity of civil government, they say, is denied by none. Society can not exist in its absence. Republicanism can be sustained only where the majority are intelligent and moral. In no other condition can free government be maintained. Hence, despotism establishes itself, of necessity, more or less absolutely, over an ignorant or depraved people; obtaining the acquiescence of the enlightened, by offering them security to person and property. Few nations, indeed, possess moral elevation sufficient to maintain republicanism. Many have tried it, have failed, and relapsed into despotism. Republican nations, therefore, must forego all intercourse with despotic governments, or acknowledge them to be lawful. This can be done, it is claimed, without being accountable for moral evils connected with their administration. Elevated examples of such recognitions are on record. Christ paid tribute to CÆsar; and Paul, by appealing to CÆsar's tribunal, admitted the validity of the despotic government of Rome, with its thirty millions of slaves. To deny the lawfulness of despotism, and yet hold intercourse with such governments, is as inconsistent as to hold the per se doctrine, in regard to slavery, and still continue to use its products.

How far masters in general escape the commission of sin, in the treatment of their slaves, or whether any are free from guilt, is not the point at issue, in this view of slavery. The mere possession of power over the slave, under the sanction of law, is held not to be sinful; but, like despotism, may be used for the good of the governed. That Southern masters are laboring for the good of the slave, to an encouraging extent, is apparent from the missionary efforts they are sustaining among the slave population. And when it is considered that the African race, under American slavery, have made much greater progress than they have ever done in any other part of the world; and that the elevating influences are now greatly increased among them; it is to be expected that dispassionate men will be disposed to leave the present condition of things undisturbed, rather than to rush madly into the adoption of measures that may prove fatal to the existence of the Union.