same yoke, an unbroken horse and a docile ox. Again, however repugnant it may be to the self-esteem, and contrary to the habits of the rich man to treat his labourers with respect, he has to do it when employing white men, from motives of self-interest which lie below the surface, and he consequently habitually avoids arranging his affairs in such a way as will make it necessary for him to offer them employment.
It may be said that on the more profitable cotton plantations, where little is raised except cotton, supplies for the maintenance of the slaves, and for carrying on the work of the plantation, are largely bought, which are raised elsewhere at the South; and that those who supply the commodities, thus required by the cotton-planter, draw from his profits which are thus distributed throughout the South, even to the non-cotton-producing States, the people of which are thus enriched. As far as all articles are concerned, in the production of which labour is a comparatively unimportant item of cost,—mules for instance, and in certain circumstances, within certain limits, swine,—this is true. But these are of small consequence. It is constantly assumed by nearly all writers on this subject, that the labour directed to the cultivation of Indian corn for the necessary sustenance of slaves engaged in cotton culture, must be just as profitably directed as if it were devoted to the cultivation of cotton itself. This is not true, although the Southern agricultural journals, and to a large extent our national agriculture reports, have for years been assuming it to be so. It is frequently spoken of, indeed, as a mystery, that the cotton-planters cannot be induced to raise the food required by their force. The reason of it is a very simple one; namely, that in the cultivation of corn their labour must come into competition with the free labour of the Northern States, as it does not in the production of cotton: and the corn-raisers of the Northern Slave States,
