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What the
South needed, from an economic point of view, was unrestricted access to the markets of the world for her products, and the freest competition of the world in her own markets.
The limitations imposed upon the slave States by their industrial system was in itself a tremendous handicap in their struggle for an advantageous place in the New World of the nineteenth century; in their struggle with their free sisters for political leadership in the
Union.
But with the development of the protective principle those States fell into sore financial distress, were ground between the upper millstone of the protective system and the nether millstone of their own industrial system.
Prosperity and plenty did presently disappear from that section and settled in the
North.
In 1828
Benton drew this dark picture of the state of the
South:
In place of wealth, a universal pressure for money was felt; not enough for common expenses; the price of all property down; the country drooping and languishing; towns and cities decaying, and the frugal habits of the people pushed to the verge of universal self-denial for the preservation of their family estates.
He did not hesitate to charge to Federal legislation the responsibility for all this poverty and distress, for he proceeds to remark that:
Under this legislation the exports of the South have been made the basis of the Federal revenue.
The twenty odd millions annually levied upon imported goods are deducted out of the price of their cotton, rice, and tobacco, either in the diminished prices which they receive for those staples in foreign
