FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34  
35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   >>   >|  
N-SPINNER. No falsehood has been so persistently adhered to by the Southern planters and their advocates, and so successfully forced upon the credulity of the North, as the statement that white men can not perform field labor in the cotton States, coupled with the equally false assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism, and ceases to be an industrious laborer. It is one of the chief points of weakness in a bad cause, that, although a _single_ advocate may succeed in rendering it plausible, _many_ are certain to present utterly irreconcilable arguments. An impartial man, examining De Bow's _Review_ for a series of years, would arrive at conclusions in regard to the economy of slave labor, and the necessity of colored laborers in the Southern States, the very reverse of what the writers have intended to enforce. It is constantly asserted that white men can not labor in the tropics, which we may freely admit; but the inference that the climate of the Southern States is tropical we have the best authority for denying: firstly, from the testimony of all Southern writers when describing their own section of country, and _not_ arguing upon the slavery question; and, secondly, from Humboldt's isothermal lines, by which we find that the temperature of the cotton States is the same as that of Portugal, the south of Spain, Italy, and Australia. Do we find Australian emigrants writing home to their friends not to come out because they will not be able to work? We know they do not; and yet the mean annual temperature of Australia is 70 deg.--greater by five to six degrees than that of Texas; and, from the best accounts we can get, the extreme of heat is very much greater. Examine De Bow's analysis of the census of 1850, and we find him compelled to admit that one-ninth of the force then cultivating cotton were white men. If one-ninth were white men in 1850, when the price of cotton was much less and the crop much smaller than of late years, how many are there now? One of the most reliable witnesses to the cultivation of cotton by free labor is a Quaker gentleman in Philadelphia, who conducts a cotton factory supplied entirely with free-grown cotton, the goods being sold to the Quakers, who will not use the product of slave labor of any kind. This gentleman writes:-- I learned by correspondence with several intelligent Germans in Texas, that their experiment of raising cotton by their own labor
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34  
35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

cotton

 

Southern

 
States
 
gentleman
 
greater
 

temperature

 

Australia

 

writers

 

accounts

 

extreme


degrees

 

emigrants

 

writing

 

friends

 

Australian

 
annual
 

Quakers

 
product
 

conducts

 
factory

supplied

 

intelligent

 
Germans
 

experiment

 

raising

 

correspondence

 

writes

 

learned

 

Philadelphia

 

Quaker


cultivating

 
Portugal
 

analysis

 

census

 

compelled

 

reliable

 

witnesses

 

cultivation

 

smaller

 

Examine


climate

 

laborer

 

points

 

weakness

 

industrious

 

lapses

 
barbarism
 
ceases
 
plausible
 

present