It
was the remarkable development of the cultivation of cotton consequent
upon the invention of Whitney's cotton gin in 1793, that gave the
tremendous impetus to the increase of slavery in the South. While prior
to the introduction of this machine, scarcely a single pound of cotton
could be separated from the seed by a man in a day, Whitney's gin made
it possible to prepare for market three hundred and fifty pounds per
day. The nature of the cotton plant rendered it peculiarly fitted to the
climate and soil of the South, and the ease with which it could be
cultivated and prepared for market, made the application of slave labor
extremely profitable. In 1789 many of the southern states exhibited
evidences of a desire and intention to ultimately abolish slavery, but
from this time we hear nothing more of this. After 1800 the number of
slaves increased rapidly. The census of 1790 showed in the southern
colonies 650,000, while that of 1820 showed the number to be over
1,580,000. From 1800 to 1865 the political life of the South is largely
explainable by the interest of its people in, and devotion to, the
institution of slavery.

The promptness with which, irrespective of party affiliations, the
people of the North assumed the anti-slavery attitude and those of the
South placed themselves under the pro-slavery banner, at the time of the
Missouri contest in 1820, shows the extent to which these two sections
of the United States were already divided upon this great question. The
South, retarded in its growth by the employment of slave labor, as
compared with the North already exhibited an example of arrested
development, and her politicians saw that if the balance of power
between the slave-holding and the non-slave-holding States was to be
maintained, a wider field for the extension of their favorite
institution would have to be provided. It is in the light of this motive
that the desire of the South for the annexation of Cuba and of Texas,
even at the expense of a war with Mexico, is to be interpreted. The
compromise of 1820 satisfied the demands of the slavocracy for a time,
but only for a time. In 1850 the South again demanded, and obtained
concessions. It required a civil war to demonstrate to us the futility
of endeavoring to avert by compromise the conflict that was
irrepressible between the North and South so long as slavery existed in
the one, and was reprobated in the other.

The different attitudes assumed at the p