aves. Border-state abolitionists naturally
favored the policy of gradual emancipation which had been followed in
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Abolitionists who continued
to reside in the slave States were forced to recognize the fact that
emancipation involved serious questions of race adjustment. From
the border States came the colonization society, a characteristic
institution, as well as compromise of every variety.

The southernmost section, including South Carolina, Georgia, and the
Gulf States, was even more sharply defined in the attitude it
assumed toward the anti-slavery movement. At no time did the cause of
emancipation become formidable in this section. In all these States
there was, of course, a large class of non-slaveholding whites, who
were opposed to slavery and who realized that they were victims of an
injurious system; but they had no effective organ for expression. The
ruling minority gained an early and an easy victory and to the end held
a firm hand. To the inhabitants of this section it appeared to be a
self-evident truth that the white race was born to rule and the black
race was born to serve. Where negroes outnumbered the whites fourfold,
the mere suggestion of emancipation raised a race question which seemed
appalling in its proportions. Either in the Union or out of the Union,
the rulers were determined to perpetuate slavery.

Slavery as an economic institution became dependent upon a few
semitropical plantation crops. When the Constitution was framed, rice
and indigo, produced in South Carolina and Georgia, were the two most
important. Indigo declined in relative importance, and the production
of sugar was developed, especially after the annexation of the Louisiana
Purchase. But by far the most important crop for its effects upon
slavery and upon the entire country was cotton. This single product
finally absorbed the labor of half the slaves of the entire country. Mr.
Rhodes is not at all unreasonable in his surmise that, had it not been
for the unforeseen development of the cotton industry, the expectation
of the founders of the Republic that slavery would soon disappear would
actually have been realized.

It was more difficult to carry out a policy of emancipation when slaves
were quoted in the market at a thousand dollars than when the price
was a few hundred dollars. All slave-owners felt richer; emancipation
appeared to involve a greater sacrifice. Thus the cotton industry w