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Show 132 DESPOTJSr>l SECTION 1V. Manufactures and Com1nerce in the Slave-holding Stales. No merely agricultural nation ever yet attained a high degree of prosperity, or civilization. To attain that result it is necessary that manufacturing and commercial industry should combine with agriculture. 'All these three branches of industry are so sympathetically connected, that neither of them alone can be carried to any great degree of perfection. There have already been suggested several reasons why manufactures cannot prosper in the slave-h olding states. It is necessary here to recapitulate them and to bring them together in a single point of view. 1. Skill in the greater part of the mechanic and manufacturing arts, is not consistent with the state of total ignorance and barbarism in which it is judged the best policy that the unprivileged class should be kept. Skilled laborers are and must be, more intelli gent and better informed, than those of an ordinary kind. 2. Such skill is still less consistent with that social condition which deprives those subjected to it, ofall motive to acquire that degree of expertness, on which the success of most mechanical operations so essentially depends. 3. With respect to the laboring part of the free ~opulation, the acquisition of manufacturing skill ts lillie to be expected from the state of ignorance, mdolence and depression which are to them the natural results of the existence of slavery in the commumty of whtch they form a part. These three reasons go to cut off the supply of that kind of labor essential to the prosecutiOn of manufacturing operations. But bes~des labor,. there IS nee_ded knowledge, tact, skill and JUdgment m the ovemght and direction of labor, and capital to set tt m operatwn. IN Al\lERICA. 133 1. With regard to the oversight and direction of manufacturing operations, persons are very rarely to be found among the native population of the southern states, possessed of the necessary qualifications. rrhe whole course of their education and habits is averse to that system of order, economy, and minute and exact attention, which such a business requires. 2. As regards capital, it has been shown in a previous section, under what disadvantages all industri· ous operations labor at the south, from the comparatively large amount of it, necessary to set them in operation . In any manufacturing business for example, it is necessary to have capital enough over and above all that is required for the fixtures and stock, to purchase the laborers who are to carry it on. From the combined operation of these several causes it results, both in theory and in fact, that manufacturing processes, on any large scale, are almost unknown at the south, and that even the commonest mechanical arts are at a very low ebb. It is obvious at once, when the condition of the various classes of the population at the south is considered, and when regard is had to the state of manufactures, that trade cannot greatly flourish. 'fhe unprivileged class have nothing to sell except what they steal, aml of course they have but little to buy. 'l'he laboring freemen, produce but little, and of course are able to purchase but little. 'l'he class of wealthy slave-holders is very limited in number, and a large part of their income is often spent at a distance from home. The principal mercantile operations consist in the purchase and shipment of the great agricultural staples, a business which is carried on for the most part by means of English or northern capital, and at the same time by English or northern agents, and English or northern shipping. Neither manufactures nor commerce can be regard~ ed as adding any thing considerable to the wealth of the slave-holding states. 12 |