- intentionally support a view which has been lately systematically
pressed upon manufacturers and merchants both in Great Britain and the Free States, namely, that the perpetuation of slavery in its present form is necessary to the perpetuation of a liberal cotton supply, and also that the limit of production in the United States must be rapidly approaching, and consequently that the tendency of prices must be rapidly upward, the grounds on which they rest should be carefully scrutinized.
Mr. Russell says, in a paragraph succeeding the words just now quoted with regard to the supposed advantages of slave labour in raising tobacco:
"The rich upland soils of the cotton region afford a profitable investment
for capital, even when cultivated by slaves left to the care of overseers.
The natural increase of the slaves, from two to six per cent., goes
far to pay the interest of the money invested in them. The richest soils
of the uplands are invariably occupied by the largest plantations, and the
alluvial lands on the banks of the western rivers are so unhealthy for
white labourers that the slaveowners occupy them without competition.
Thus the banks of the western rivers are now becoming the great cotton-producing
districts. Taking these facts into consideration, it appears that
the quantity of cotton which would have been raised without slave labour
in the United States would have been comparatively insignificant to the
present supply."[1]
The advantages of slave-labour for cotton culture seem from
this to have been predicated mainly upon the unwholesomeness
to free or white labourers of the best cotton lands, especially
of the alluvial lands on the banks of rivers. Reference is
made particularly to "the county of Washington, Mississippi
State [which] lies between the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers.
- * * The soil is chiefly alluvial, though a considerable
portion is swampy and liable to be flooded."[2]
