s then beginning a general movement
throughout the civilized world against it. Some European countries
had denounced it as piracy.

It was, however, profitable, and much capital was invested in it,
and there was even then an increased demand for slaves in the
cotton, rice, and tobacco States.

It was feared so radical a measure as the immediate stoppage of
this trade would endanger the Constitution, and as to this, also,
it was deemed wise to compromise; so Congress was prohibited from
legislating to prevent it prior to the year 1808. This trade was
not only then carried on by our own people, but, through ships of
other countries, slaves were imported into the United States. Each
State was left free to prohibit the importation of slaves within
its limits.

We have now referred to all the clauses of the Constitution as
originally adopted relating, by construction or possibility, to
slavery or slave labor.

The Republic, under this _great charter_, set out upon the career
of a nation, properly aspiring to become of the first among the
powers of the earth, and succeeding in the higher sense in this
ambition, it yet remains to be told how near our Republic came, in
time, to the brink of that engulfing chasm which in past ages has
swallowed up other nations for their wicked oppression and enslavement
of man.

Slavery, thus delicately treated in our Constitution, brought that
Republic, in less than three quarters of a century, to the throes
of death, as we shall see.

VII
CAUSES OF GROWTH OF SLAVERY

It may be well here, before speaking of slavery in its legislative
history under the Constitution, to refer briefly to some of the
more important causes of its growth and extension, other than
political.

First in importance was cotton. It required cheap labor to cultivate
it with profit, and even then, at first, it was not profitable.
The invention by Whitney of the cotton-gin, in 1793, was the most
important single invention up to that time in agriculture, if not
the most important of any time, and especially is this true as
affecting cotton planters.

Cotton was indigenous to America; the soil and climate of the South
were well adapted to its growth. Its culture from the seed was
there very easy, but the separation of the seed from the fibre was
so slow that it required an average hand one day to secure one
pound.

Whitney's cotton-gin, however, at once increased the amount from
one to fifty pounds.