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Show 136 DESl•OT!Sl\1 181.5, has risen from two hundred thousand bales to upwards of three millions, per annum. ' The cultivation of cotton is the only employment of sl~ve labor which admits of profitable extension. 'rhe p_nce of cotton regulates the price of slaves, and in~ ctdentally, the value of all kinds of property at the south. \Vhen all values are thus made dependent upon asmgle_pursmt, they are n_ecessarily subject to great fluctuatiOns. \¥hen there ts a great variety of employments, there is established in consequence, a sort of aver~g~ permanency of profits. Agriculture may be ftounsh111g, though manufactures and commerce are snfferi~g a temporary depression ; and some branches of agnculture may be profitable, though others fail. At the south, every thing is slaked upon the cast of a smglc dte; and as ts apt to happen in all such cases the_ planters are either in a _state of high prosperitY whtch leads to great speculatiOns and the creation of great debts, or else in a state of depression, ruinous both to northern lenders, and to southern borrowers. The commercial fluctuations of the United States generally take their origin at the south. A high price of cotton creates at the south a feeling of wealth and a strong dtsposttton to contract debts, while it produces at the north, a strong disposition to give credit. Even though the pnce of cotton continues high, the expectatJOtl of the planters runs so far beysnd the reality, that they presently become unable to fulfil their engagements; and if a decline itl the price of cotton should follow, their inability becomes total, and the se\•ere losses experienced in consequence by the merchants and manufacturers of the north throw th~ir business also into a temporary confusion: Ther~ is n~nch reason to expect that these violent fluctuatiOns 111 the value of southern property will presently terminate in a general and permanent deprectatJOn. Whether lands and slaves, ten years hence, shall have any considerable value in any of the southeru states, seems to depend very much upon the fact, whether or uot the consumption of cotton IN AMERICA. 137 shall keep pace with its production. If production should overrun consumption, the market will he glutted, the price will fall, the bnsincss will become nnprofitable1 and unless some new, extensive and profitable application of slave labor should unexpectedly be. discovered,-an eveut which is highly improbableland and labor throughout the south, must undergo a great decline in v-alue. There are weighty reasons for anticipating this result within a moderate period. '1\vice already within tho last twenty years the production of cotton has so overrun consnmption as to red.uce the profits of the bnsiness to the lowest ebb. The price has since rallied, but this rise of profits has produced a ne\v rush into the business, and a vast emigration from the more northern of the slave-holding states, which must result in a great increase of the production. On the other hand the consumption of cotton goods has already reached a point, which mal\es its extension continually more difficult. There is no reason to suppose that it can go on increasing for twenty years to come, as it has for twenty years past. rrhat increase has been principally caused by cotton fabrics superseding for certain purposes, the use of linen and woollen cloths. That is a process which has a certain limit and which cannot be repeated. The consumption of cotton goods will doubtless continue to increase; but this increase of consumption will be more upon a par than heretofore, with the increased consumption of other manufactures. Whatever the increased demand for cotton rna y be, the slave-holding states of the Union, are liable to encounter a severe competition in snpplying it. All that portion of the Americ:1n continent south of the United States is well fitted for the production of this article. Cotton of a very superior quality is produced to a large amount, in Brazil, and all Spanish America will presently be entering the market as a rival. Great exertions are now making in India, by British cultivators, to improve the quality of Indian cotton, 12* . |