ce; whereas, if
this manufacturing could be prevented, and a system of free trade
adopted, the South would constitute the principal provision market of
the country, and the fertile lands of the North supply the cheap food
demanded for its slaves. As the tariff policy, in the outset,
contemplated the encouragement of the production of iron, hemp, whisky,
and the establishment of woolen manufactories, principally, the South
found its interests but slightly identified with the system--the coarser
qualities of cottons, only, being manufactured in the country, and, even
these, on a diminished scale, as compared with the cotton crops of the
South. Cotton, up to the date when this controversy had been fairly
commenced, had been worth, in the English market, an average price of
from 29 7/10 to 48 4/10 cents per lb.[31] But at this period, a wide
spread and ruinous depression both in the culture and manufacture of the
article, occurred--cotton, in 1826, having fallen, in England, as low as
11 9/10 to 18 9/10 cents per lb. The home market, then, was too
inconsiderable to be of much importance, and there existed little hope
of its enlargement to the extent demanded by its increasing cultivation.
The planters, therefore, looked abroad to the existing markets, rather
than to wait for tardily creating one at home. For success in the
foreign markets, they relied, mainly, upon preparing themselves to
produce cotton at the reduced prices then prevailing in Europe. All
agricultural products, except cotton, being excluded from foreign
markets, the planters found themselves almost the sole exporters of the
country; and it was to them a source of chagrin, that the North did not,
at once, co-operate with them in augmenting the commerce of the nation.

At this point in the history of the controversy, politicians found it an
easy matter to produce feelings of the deepest hostility between the
opposing parties. The planters were led to believe that the millions of
revenue collected off the goods imported, was so much deducted from the
value of the cotton that paid for them, either in the diminished price
they received abroad, or in the increased price which they paid for the
imported articles. To enhance the duties, for the protection of our
manufacturers, they were persuaded, would be so much of an additional
tax upon themselves, for the benefit of the North; and, beside, to give
the manufacturer such a monopoly of the home market for his fabri