304 Cotton is King. [July, 



lections, and fan their passions to a burning heat, by popular 

 speeches, political chicanery civil fictitious reading, more than by 

 calmly searching for the truth. How much more rational it would 

 be to see a people sitting down to road a work like the one on our 

 table, storing the mind with valuable historical and statistical mat- 

 ter, than to see and hear them clamoring for a novel. 



We ask our neighbors and friends to read this book for them- 

 selves, and judge for themselves of its merits, and not trust to the 

 conflicting opinions of others. One says, the author endeavors to 

 prove Slavery a "blessing." We find no such thing. Kead, and 

 judge. Another pronounces it a mere apology for Slavery. We 

 have failed to find in it, a holocaust to any party. Without seem- 

 ing to consult anybody, North or South, East or West, he moves 

 straight forward to the showing of this one fact, " Cotton is King." 

 Our author does not say whether King Cotton is a usurper, or came 

 legitimately to the throne. He does not say, that his Kingdom is 

 universal, or will be perpetual. 



Whoever will read the work, will be convinced, that Cotton has 

 reached such a prodigious growth, is so inwoven with the manufac- 

 turing and commercial interests of New England, and old England, 

 should there be any considerable falling off in its production, it 

 would be felt as a dire calamity throughout both hemispheres — in 

 commerce crippled — manufactures stopped — thousands of the labor- 

 ing classes turned loose to beg, or steal, or starve. 



The origin and workings of those elements which have given to 

 Slavery its commercial value, and consequent expansion, and the 

 utter failure of the Free Colored labor to produce cotton at all equal 

 to the demand, are set forth in strong light, and backed up by an 

 amount of facts irresistible. 



Exported to Great Britain, in 1791, only 138,310 pounds of Cot- 

 ton. In 1800, 17,789,803 pounds; in 1810, 93,900,000 pounds; in 

 1820, 127,800,000 pounds; in 1830, 298,459,102 pounds; in 1840, 

 743,941,001 pounds; in 1855, 1,008,424,001 pounds. 



These figures will show with what unprecedented vigor and ac- 

 celeration the Institution has grown and expanded. 



Now shall we read and ponder these things, and act accordingly, 

 or shall we drive blindly on, dreaming we have conquered the enemy, 

 when we have only nourished and fed him at our own tables? 



We must say with the New York Evangelist^ " We have not 



