the colonization plan in not only checking the further advance, but in hastening the eventual disappearance of slavery would have depended upon another circumstance, also, which Mr. Olmsted does not seem to have recognized. Slavery depended for its profitableness on a constantly available supply of new land. As soon as the rapidly decreasing supply of fresh lands suitable for cotton cultivation had been exhausted, the economic weakness of the slave system would have been sure to display itself and eventually its political support would have failed. Thus, in planning to seize this new land in advance by free-labor colonists, the Emigrant Aid Company were preparing, perhaps more scientifically than they themselves realized, to hasten the inevitable decay of the "peculiar institution" of the South.
Dr. Samuel Cabot, to whom this correspondence was addressed,. was a physician of considerable reputation in Boston, one of the twenty original directors of the Emigrant Aid Company and an untiring worker in its service.
I.
New Haven, July 26th, 1857.
(Morris Cove)
Dr. S. Cabot, Jr.
(N. E. E. A. Soc'y)
Dear Sir
I extremely regret the circumstance which so long delayed my receipt of your letter of 16th July, to which I now reply.
Enclosed I send you a copy of the draft of a communication addressed by me on the 6th July, severally, to the Cotton Supply Associations of Manchester, and of Liverpool.[1] These papers were taken out and would be delivered in person to the Secretary's of the associations, by Mr. William Neill, one of our largest Cotton merchants, dealing with Manchester, and the editor of a weekly Cotton circular, much quoted by the English journals. Mr. Neill sail'd from New York on the 8th. You will perceive that my object has been thus far to secure a proper consideration of the subject, and that in these papers I have treated it simply in the Cotton Supply aspect. By the same mail however I addressed letters to individuals, with whom I have had a little correspondence previously, treating of the political 'and moral bearings of the project, stating the general principles on which I thought it would be best to proceed; fortifying my suggestions and statements with documents and in two instances—to Lord Goderiche M. P. from the West- ↑ These local associations or branches had been formed but a little time before this. The Cotton Supply Association of Great Britain held its first annual meeting in April, 1858.
of the new settlers and upon the amount of aid and direction furnished by the Emigrant Aid Company. It must also be remembered that these colonists would have settled on the last frontier of the cotton area and consequently would have been more reluctant to sell out than the earlier competitors of the planters.
