[30] Congress for the repeal of this duty on imported cotton, and the petition was rejected on the Report of a Committee, consisting of a majority from the Southern States, on the ground, that “to repeal the duty on raw cotton imported would be to damp the growth of cotton in our own country.” Radicle and plumule, root and stalk, blossom and boll, the culture of the cotton plant in the United States was in its infancy the foster-child of the Protective System. When therefore the pedigree of King Cotton is traced, he is found to be the lineal child of the tariff; called into being by a specific duty; reared by a tax laid upon the manufacturing industry of the North, to create the culture of the raw material in the South. The Northern manufacturers of America were slightly protected in 1789 because they were too feeble to stand alone. Reared into magnitude under the restrictive system and the war of 1812, they were upheld in 1816 because they were too important to be sacrificed, and because the great staple of the South had a joint interest in their prosperity. King Cotton alone, not in his manhood, not in his adolescence, not in his infancy, but in his very embryo state, was pensioned upon the Treasury,--before the seed from which he sprung was cast “in the lowest pats of the earth.” In the book of the tariff “his members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.” But it was not enough to create the culture of cotton at the South, by taxing the manufactures of the North with a duty on the raw material; the extension of that culture and the prosperity which it has conferred upon the South are due to the mechanical genius of the North. What says Mr. Justice Johnson of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a citizen of South Carolina? “With regard to the utility of this discovery” (the cotton gin of Whitney) “the court would deem it a waste of time to dwell long upon this topic. Is there a man who hears us that has not experienced its utility? The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its inhabitants emigrating, for want of some object to engage their attention and employ their industry, when the invention of this machine at once opened views to them which set the whole country in active motion. From child hood to age it has presented us a lucrative employment. Individuals who were depressed in poverty and sunk in idleness, have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our debts have been paid off, our capitals increased, and our lands trebled in value. We cannot express the weight of obligation which the country owes to this invention; the extent of it cannot now be seen.” --Yes, and when happier days shall return, and the South, awakening from her suicidal delusion, shall remember who it was that sowed her sunny fields with the seeds of those golden crops with which she thinks to rule the world, she will cast a veil of oblivion over the memory of the ambitious men who have goaded her to her present madness, and will rear a monument of her gratitude in the beautiful City of Elms, over the ashes of her greatest benefactor — Eli Whitney.
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[30] Congress for the repeal of this duty on imported cotton, and the petition was rejected on the Report of a Committee, consisting of a majority from the Southern States, on the ground, that “to repeal the duty on raw cotton imported would be to damp the growth of cotton in our own country.” Radicle and plumule, root and stalk, blossom and boll, the culture of the cotton plant in the United States was in its infancy the foster-child of the Protective System. When therefore the pedigree of King Cotton is traced, he is found to be the lineal child of the tariff; called into being by a specific duty; reared by a tax laid upon the manufacturing industry of the North, to create the culture of the raw material in the South. The Northern manufacturers of America were slightly protected in 1789 because they were too feeble to stand alone. Reared into magnitude under the restrictive system and the war of 1812, they were upheld in 1816 because they were too important to be sacrificed, and because the great staple of the South had a joint interest in their prosperity. King Cotton alone, not in his manhood, not in his adolescence, not in his infancy, but in his very embryo state, was pensioned upon the Treasury,--before the seed from which he sprung was cast “in the lowest pats of the earth.” In the book of the tariff “his members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.” But it was not enough to create the culture of cotton at the South, by taxing the manufactures of the North with a duty on the raw material; the extension of that culture and the prosperity which it has conferred upon the South are due to the mechanical genius of the North. What says Mr. Justice Johnson of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a citizen of South Carolina? “With regard to the utility of this discovery” (the cotton gin of Whitney) “the court would deem it a waste of time to dwell long upon this topic. Is there a man who hears us that has not experienced its utility? The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its inhabitants emigrating, for want of some object to engage their attention and employ their industry, when the invention of this machine at once opened views to them which set the whole country in active motion. From child hood to age it has presented us a lucrative employment. Individuals who were depressed in poverty and sunk in idleness, have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our debts have been paid off, our capitals increased, and our lands trebled in value. We cannot express the weight of obligation which the country owes to this invention; the extent of it cannot now be seen.” --Yes, and when happier days shall return, and the South, awakening from her suicidal delusion, shall remember who it was that sowed her sunny fields with the seeds of those golden crops with which she thinks to rule the world, she will cast a veil of oblivion over the memory of the ambitious men who have goaded her to her present madness, and will rear a monument of her gratitude in the beautiful City of Elms, over the ashes of her greatest benefactor — Eli Whitney.
Van Nostrand. New York, New York. 1862.
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