skill, and enterprise employed in the
manufacture of cotton, mankind are better clothed; their comfort better
promoted; general industry more highly stimulated; commerce more widely
extended; and civilization more rapidly advanced than in any preceding
age.

To the superficial observer, all the agencies, based upon the sale and
manufacture of cotton, seem to be legitimately engaged in promoting
human happiness; and he, doubtless, feels like invoking Heaven's
choicest blessings upon them. When he sees the stockholders in the
cotton corporations receiving their dividends, the operatives their
wages, the merchants their profits, and civilized people everywhere
clothed comfortably in cottons, he can not refrain from exclaiming: The
lines have fallen unto them in pleasant places; yea, they have a goodly
heritage!

But turn a moment to the source whence the raw cotton, the basis of
these operations, is obtained, and observe the aspect of things in that
direction. When the statistics on the subject are examined, it appears
that nine-tenths of the cotton consumed in the Christian world is the
product of the slave labor of the United States.[14] It is this monopoly
that has given to slavery its commercial value; and, while this monopoly
is retained, the institution will continue to extend itself wherever it
can find room to spread. He who looks for any other result, must expect
that nations, which, for centuries, have waged war to extend their
commerce, will now abandon that means of aggrandizement, and bankrupt
themselves to force the abolition of American slavery!

This is not all. The economical value of slavery, as an agency for
supplying the means of extending manufactures and commerce, has long
been understood by statesmen.[15] The discovery of the power of steam,
and the inventions in machinery, for preparing and manufacturing cotton,
revealed the important fact, that a single island, having the monopoly
secured to itself, could supply the world with clothing. Great Britain
attempted to gain this monopoly; and, to prevent other countries from
rivaling her, she long prohibited all emigration of skillful mechanics
from the kingdom, as well as all exports of machinery. As country after
country was opened to her commerce, the markets for her manufactures
were extended, and the demand for the raw material increased. The
benefits of this enlarged commerce of the world, were not confined to a
single nation, but mutually enjo