homes." It was simply by making possible to them what before had not been possible, the essential conditions of a comfortable civilized home, that Mr. Gregg was enabled in a few years to announce, as he did, that, "from extreme poverty and want, they have become a thrifty, happy, and contented people."
The present system of American slavery, notwithstanding the enormous advantages of wealth which the cotton monopoly is supposed to offer, prevents the people at large from having "comfortable homes," in the sense intended by Mr. Gregg. For nine-tenths of the citizens, comfortable homes, as the words would be understood by the mass of citizens of the North and of England, as well as by Mr. Gregg, are, under present arrangements, out of the question.
Examine almost any rural district of the South, study its history, and this will be as evident as it was to Mr. Gregg in the case of those to which his attention was especially called. These, to be sure, contained, probably, a large proportion of very poor soil. But how is it in a district of entirely rich soil? Suppose it to be of twenty square miles, with a population of six hundred, all told, and with an ordinarily convenient access by river navigation to market. The whole of the available cotton land in this case will probably be owned by three or four men, and on these men the demand for cotton will have had, let us suppose, its full effect. Their tillage land will be comparatively well cultivated. Their houses will be comfortable, their furniture and their food luxurious. They will, moreover, not only have secured the best land on which to apply their labour, but the best brute force, the best tools, and the best machinery for ginning and pressing, all superintended by the best class of overseers. The cotton of each will be shipped at the best season, perhaps all at once, on a boat, or by trains expressly engaged at the lowest
