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Show 130 D~~SPOTISi\1 mestic slave trade, slaves would scarcely have an ex· changeable value in Virginia; the great cheapness of labor would facilitate agricultural improvements, and the total impossibility of going on any longer in the old way, would lead to important changes in the existing system. As it is, the laboring population of the country, that population npon which all its wealth and consequence depends, is daily drained away. The state is bleeding at every pore, and a fatal lethargy must be the consequence. The nchest soil, the most exuberant fertility without labor is unproductive and worthless. What will be the condition of a state which has sold to the slave traders, the only laborious part of her population, whose most enterprising citizens have deserted their homes, and whose exhausted lands hold out no temptation to emigrants from abroad? In addition to the obstacles already pointed out in the way of agricultural improvement at the South, there is one yet to be mentioned, of a still more permanent and decisive nature. It is a well established doctrine, that a rotation of crops, a variety and a very considerable variety in the articles cultivated, is esw sential to a highly improved state of agricultme. But such a rotation and variety is impossible in a country which is exclusively agricultural, and which must necessarily confine itself to some crops that will pay the expense of distant transportation. rrhe number of these crops is exceedingly few, and they arc all of a very exhausting character. The greater numhcr of vegetable productions are only of usc to be consumed on the spot; and such a consumption cannot take place to any considerable extent, except there be in the neighborhood a manufacturing population to take off the extra supply. Agricultural improvements have ever kept pace wit() the extension of manufacturing industry. The reasons have been already given why W1e creation of a manufacturing popnlation Hndcr existing circumstances, is impossible at the south, and that sn bject will be further considNed in the following section. IN AMERICA . 131 . ~he condition of agriculture in Eastern Virginia, JS Ill a greater or less degree its condition in Maryw land, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, aod in the older pa rts of Georgia . . In the two latter states the cultivation of cotton has been attended by consequences exactly similar to those prodnced in Virginia, by the culture of tobacco. After pouring in upon those states. a momentary flood of wealth, which glittered and dtsappeared, it has left the soil in a state of exhaustion and barrenness, for which no present rcmcw dy appears. The south-western states, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana are now the El Dorado of the sl:1vc-holdcrs. In those states, cotton at present prices is a very profitable crop. 'rhe demand for slaves is brisk. Good field hands sell for nine hundred, or ten hundred dollars .. The slaves of Maryland, Virginia and North Carolma are purchased up in droves for this market, and numbers equally large are moved off to the southwest by emigrating planters. But these slaves, if they are lucratively employed in cultivating cotton, are employed at the same time, in killing land. Slavery wtll presently vtsit the south-west with the same blight of. exhaustiOn and barrenness) which has already altghted upon Virginia and the Carolinas. In proportton to the rapidity with which the apparent immediate prosperity of the south-western states is now advancing, will be hastened the era of their decay. In the free states of the Union, the wealth of the west promotes the wealth of the east. The more prosperons are the new states, the more prosperous are the old. At the south it is not so. The new states are ag&randized at the expense of the old ones. But thts aggrandizement has nothing in it, ~olad or .Perma:tent. For a short time a great annual mcome IS obtamed; but it is obtained only by the an! lual c_onsumptwn of a portion of that natural fertility, m wluch consists the only real capital of those commumtJes, and this capital being presently exhausted, thetr short hved prosperity vanishes like a shadow. |
