becile, and the indolent Egyptians
neglected its culture. The South Americans, after achieving their
independence, were more readily enlisted in military forays, than in the
art of agriculture, and they produced little cotton for export. The
emancipation of their slaves, instead of increasing the agricultural
products of the Republics, only supplied, in ample abundance, the
elements of promoting political revolutions, and keeping their soil
drenched with human blood. Such are the uses to which degraded men may
be applied by the ambitious demagogue. Brazil and India both supplied to
Europe considerably less in 1838 than they had done in 1820; and the
latter country made no material increase afterward, except when her
chief customer, China, was at war, or prices were above the average
rates in Europe. While the cultivation of cotton was thus stationary or
retrograding, everywhere outside of the United States, England and the
Continent were rapidly increasing their consumption of the article,
which they nearly doubled from 1835 to 1845; so that the demand for the
raw material called loudly for its increased production. Our planters
gathered a rich harvest of profits by these events.

But this is not all that is worthy of note, in this strange chapter of
Providences. No prominent event occurred, but conspired to advance the
prosperity of the cotton trade, and the value of American slavery. Even
the very depression suffered by the manufacturers and cultivators of
cotton, from 1825 to 1829, served to place the manufacturing interests
upon the broad and firm basis they now occupy. It forced the planters
into the production of their cotton at lower rates; and led the
manufacturers to improve their machinery, and reduce the price of their
fabrics low enough to sweep away all household manufacturing, and
secure to themselves the monopoly of clothing the civilized world. This
was the object at which the British manufacturers had aimed, and in
which they had been eminently successful. The growing manufactures of
the United States, and of the Continent of Europe, had not yet sensibly
affected their operations.

There is still another point requiring a passing notice, as it may serve
to explain some portions of the history of slavery, not so well
understood. It was not until events diminishing the foreign growth of
cotton, and enlarging the demand for its fabrics, had been extensively
developed, that the older cotton-growing States