d on where there
are slaves, or in countries superabounding with free labor. No such
operations are carried on in any portions of our own country where there
are not slaves. Such are carried on in England, where there is an
overflowing population and intense competition for employment. And our
institutions seem suited to the exigencies of our respective situations.
There, a much greater number of laborers is required at one season of
the year than at another, and the farmer may enlarge or diminish the
quantity of labor he employs, as circumstances may require. Here, about
the same quantity of labor is required at every season, and the planter
suffers no inconvenience from retaining his laborers throughout the
year. Imagine an extensive rice or cotton plantation cultivated by free
laborers, who might perhaps _strike_ for an increase of wages, at a
season when the neglect of a few days would insure the destruction of
the whole crop. Even if it were possible to procure laborers at all,
what planter would venture to carry on his operations under such
circumstances? I need hardly say that these staples can not be produced
to any extent where the proprietor of the soil cultivates it with his
own hands. He can do little more than produce the necessary food for
himself and his family.

And what would be the effect of putting an end to the cultivation of
these staples, and thus annihilating, at a blow, two-thirds or
three-fourths of our foreign commerce? Can any sane mind contemplate
such a result without terror? I speak not of the utter poverty and
misery to which we ourselves would be reduced, and the desolation which
would overspread our own portion of the country. Our slavery has not
only given existence to millions of slaves within our own territories,
it has given the means of subsistence, and therefore existence, to
millions of freemen in our confederate States; enabling them to send
forth their swarms to overspread the plains and forests of the West, and
appear as the harbingers of civilization. The products of the industry
of those States are in general similar to those of the civilized world,
and are little demanded in their markets. By exchanging them for ours,
which are everywhere sought for, the people of these States are enabled
to acquire all the products of art and industry, all that contributes to
convenience or luxury, or gratifies the taste or the intellect, which
the rest of the world can supply. Not only on