cease to threaten our liberties by silently sapping
their very foundation. As in the course of years competition gradually
increases, the effect of this competition on the South will probably be
most beneficial. The change from monopoly to competition, distributed
over many years, will come with no sudden and destructive shock, but
will take place imperceptibly. The fall of the dynasty will be gradual;
and with the dynasty must fall its policy. Its fruits must be eradicated
by time. Under the healing influence of time, the South, still young and
energetic, ceasing to think of one thing alone, will quickly turn its
attention to many. Education will be more sought for, as the policy
which resisted it, and made its diffusion impossible, ceases to exist.
With the growth of other branches of industry, labor will become
respectable and profitable, and laborers will flock to the country; and
a new, a purer, and more prosperous future will open upon the entire
Republic. Perhaps, also, it may in time be discovered that even
slave-labor is most profitable when most intelligent and best
rewarded,--that the present mode of growing cotton is the most wasteful
and extravagant, and one not bearing competition. Thus even the African
may reap benefit from the result, and in his increased self-respect and
intelligence may be found the real prosperity of the master. And thus
the peaceful laws of trade may do the work which agitation has attempted
in vain. Sweet concord may come from this dark chaos, and the world
receive another proof, that material interest, well understood, is
not in conflict, but in beautiful unison with general morality,
all-pervading intelligence, and the precepts of Christianity. Under
these influences, too, the very supply of cotton will probably be
immensely increased. Its cultivation, like the cultivation of their
staple products by the English counties mentioned by Smith, will
not languish, but flourish, under the influence of healthy
competition.--These views, though simply the apparently legitimate
result of principle and experience, are by no means unsupported by
authority. They are the same results arrived at from the reflections of
the most unprejudiced of observers. A shrewd Northern gentleman, who has
more recently and thoroughly than any other writer travelled through the
Southern States, in the final summary of his observations thus covers
all the positions here taken. "My conclusion," says Mr. Olmsted, "