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Show 120 DESPOTISM Take the business of agriculture for example. In the new cotton-growing states, a very s_mall sum ?f money will suflice to purchase a plantation of seve~~l hundred acres; but a very large sum of money Is needed to purchase the laborers necessary ~o carry on the cultivation of it. Could laborers. be lmed by the month or the Jay, as in free commumues, a moderate capital would enable the planter t? ~omn~and the labor he would need, whereas, UJ1der cxts~mg _ctrcumstanccs, 110 person can start a new plantatiOn m Alabama or Mississippi, who is not already. possessed of a large capital, or able to command 1t m the shape of loan.s. We shall fall, probably, much under the mark,If we assume that a capi tal of five thousand dollars mYested in hired labor would enable as many acres to be cultivated, as a ~apital of fifty thousand dollars invested in slave labor. The consequence of th1s state of things is obvious. lt gives a monopoly of the command of labor to those who are already possessed of large means, either in th~ shape of property or of credit. Persons of small cap1tal have no chance to compete with persons of large capita l, because by this system, a large capttal ts rendered absolutely neeessary to obtain that command of labor 'YJthout which no indu strious enterprise can be earned on. This single fact is sufftcient to explain that tendency of the weahltof aslavecommunity to concentr.ate w a few hands, which has been stated in a precedm~ chapter. This system nor only gives a monopoly o~ the con:mand of Jabo( to those who are a lready nch, but ;t is also a very wasteful and extravagant system. t compels the operator to purchase and to supportt" much larger number of laborers than he ordlllan Y has occasion for. He is obliged constantly to o~n and to feed the largest number ever necessary~~ IS business or else to submit, occasionally, to s~vere ~~~~ for want of a sufficiency of labor.. In \~,~~r of plantmg busmess, for m st~nce, a gJven n tit of slaves can cultivate a constderably larger qua~nt~r is cotton than they can gather m; so that the P IN AntElliCA. 121 either obliged to submit to an annual loss of a portion of the crop wluch he has brought to maturity or else to cultiv~te less than he otherwise might, for t'he sake of gathermg all. The cotton crop, however, as it extends the labor of cultivation and gathering in, through almost the entire year, is less surely attended with this sort of loss, than are the grain crops and farm cultivation of the more northern slave-holding states. In those states during the winter, there is comparatively little occasio~ for labor on. the farms. During all that time, the capital mvested m the ownership of slaves, is unproductive, and the slave.master is saddled in addition with the expense of supporting laborers, for whose services he has no occasion. What a great discouragement to the poor, that is, to the great mass of the free population, this system presents, will be evident from a few considerations. In those parts of the slave states in which slavery pre· dominates, it is impossible to hire free laborers. To work at all, even on one's own little tract of land, is considered a sufficient degradation; but to work for another person, to put one's self under his direction. seems to approach too ncar to the condi lion of slavery; to be at all endurable. If a person, therefore, wishes to employ any other labor than his own, he must have recourse to slave labor. But the employment of the labor of other people is in general absolutely essential to the accumulation of wealth. Where a man merely hoards np the profits of his own labor, his wealth increases only as ~oney does when placed at simple interest, and the mdustry and economy of a long life will accumulate but a moderate sum. But if those profits are inv~ sted in the employment of the labor of other people, hts wealth then increases like money at compound Interest. . But when to employ other labor than one's own, it 1s necessary to buy the laborers, a considerable sum must be first accumulated, before it can be employed at all ; and asI hI as been shown in another place , so |