act, the only real part of English
export. Before exclusive importance was bestowed on cotton, the
exchange with America was in a large proportion of articles not
to be returned. It would be so again if trade were free."

Again:

"To one effect which would be produced in America by the repeal
of the corn and provision laws, no party or class in England can
profess indifference, and that is, _its effect on slavery in the
United States_. At the present time, England gives a premium to
American slavery by admitting, at low duties, the cotton of the
slave-holder, which is his staple production, and refusing corn,
which is mostly the produce of free labor. The slave-holding
States, to the productions of which Great Britain confines her
American trade, are less populous and less wealthy than the
free; yet of their produce England received in 1839, according
to the American estimates, L11,600,000, while of that of the
free States she received less than L500,000."

"It should be remembered that the labor of the slave States, is
almost wholly expended in agriculture, under the stimulus of a
good market, while a large part of that of the free States is
otherwise employed, for the want of such market. The effective
laborers of the free States are double the number of those in
the slave States; and were an opportunity given them, they would
export in as great a proportion. Thus England, by her laws,
fosters an odious institution abroad, which, in words, she
loudly condemns, and spends millions to rid the world of; whilst
she rejects more honorable, profitable, and wealthy customers,
the fruits of whose free and active industry are in effect made
contraband in England by law.

"Not only would England escape this inconsistency and reproach,
by repealing the corn law, but she would strike a most effectual
blow at the existence of slavery in the United States. Cotton,
at present, from being made by the corn law the principal
exchangeable article in the American trade, assumes an undue and
unnatural importance in American commerce, legislation, and home
industry. The slave-owner drives his slaves in its production,
and purchases supplies of the northern freeman, whose interests
are thus identified with those of the cotton grower, and the
slave-holding interest becomes predominant in