The manufacture of American salt in case of war.
To understand how much the actual dependence on a foreign supply of salt can be injurious to the
Confederate States, in case of war, we have first to examine the general influence of salt upon internal relations, and to know well its unsuspected weight in the balance of power.
Historical testimony is unanimous upon this subject, and the experience of mankind will be also corroborated by the double trial of the
United States in the year of their political independence, and during the second war with the mother country.
At every period in the history of the world, with every advance of civilization, what do we see?
The people who have abandoned to foreign nations the supply of salt, were chastised, sooner or later, for their carelessness.
From tribe to tribe, as from people to people, the control of this vital article has always given some as ascendancy, and often an inevitable dominion; for the manufacturer of salt controls always, in some respects, the health and social well-doing of the people obliged to buy it. Who rules, indeed, the Chinese population, if not the
Tartar race, who, after their first intercourse with
China as salt-traders, became at last the conquerors of this Empire?-- Thanks are due by these barbarians to the
Salt Lakes and fossil salt so abundant in their wilderness, by the use of which they continue their primitive trade; and loading with salt innumerable camels, take, in return, the thread, linen and millet of
China; they bring back also with them the obedience of their consumers, because salt is the most necessary article in all these exchanges.
Look at the negro race in
Africa.
Who are their rulers, if not the Arabs and Moors, masters of inexhaustible salt lakes and mines, whilst the poor
Nigritian is absolutely deprived of salt in the interior of his deserts?
Singular exception to the laws of
Providence, who, after lavishing this vital element throughout the world, has refused it to the sons of
Ham. Hence the manifestation of a new social law, which has established the most serious and instructive intercourse between the tropical and northern population of
Africa.
The want of salt on the one side, and the superabundance of it on the other, have brought nearer, as in
Asia, in spite of sickly and impenetrable solitudes, the most diversified races.
One born to rule, and the other to obey.
Of such a relation the result was almost inevitable.
The superior race uses and abuses its natural advantages; and as necessity is superior to utility, as life prevails over luxury and well being, the master of this vital merchandize rules the market.
Receiving in return the gold dust and ivory from the Nigritian, the Arabs and Moors often carry away the negro himself — obliged to give up his liberty because nature has made him dependent on a foreign supply of salt.
The English dominion in the
East Indies produced in the last century an analogous social phenomenon, when the merciless
Warren Hasting established his exclusive and dreadful monopoly of salt The timorous
Asiatic at this very time gives his English ruler the title of
Master of the Salt, showing by this qualification that salt is regarded by them as the infallible index of power and true privilege of conquest.
Such being the influential trade and production of salt, what ought to be done by so free, strong and far-seeing a people as the
Americans, if not to manufacture all the quantity that they consume at first, and afterwards exchange the residue with inferior races or foreign countries?
But how short is the indigenous production from the present consumption in the
Confederate and
United States?--Instead of producing all their salt, they are importing yearly 17 millions of bushels, and especially all the sea salt wanted for their provisions and Northern fisheries.
During 1858, for instance, New York imported 3,372-566 bushels of foreign salt;
Charleston 814,151 Bushels;
Savannah 816,669 bushels; and so on, in
Philadelphia, New Orleans and other places.
So that the total importation causes a waste of two or three millions of dollars, which certainly would be better applied to internal improvements and cultivation of the
Southern sea-coasts.
Now, I ask if the
Confederate States are rich enough to pay for her salt, as
France for her glory?
We must even confess it frankly: young
America, confident in a dream of perpetual peace, as much perhaps as in her productive strength for every kind of wealth, does not inquire about her consumption of salt, either foreign or domestic.
Very well ! Let, if you will, the greatest part of this vital element remain in the hands of the foreign countries, and believe in their
entente cordiale. But remember, also, the heroic trial of your independence, and the want and deficiency of salt during your second war against your old denominators.
Keep well the records yet living on the
Atlantic shores and teaching us the distress of these hard times, when your people were flocking from the
Alleghany mountains to the sea-coast to make, at heavy cost, and in limited quantity, from the ocean brine.
This is worth your remembrance.
The history of the
Southern States will enlighten particularly the matter put before us, and recommended itself as a testimony of general experience to be repeated — clear, precise and conclusive experience which exceeds all others as the most mournful summary and faithful expression of the great drama of the
American Liberty!
At this crisis.
so ingenious in regard to the supply of provisions of prime necessity, gunpowder and salt were equally wanted, and it was urgent to manufacture them both, at the double means of life and victory.
European governments, jealous of keeping their colonies under perpetual vassalage, were also very well acquainted with the fiscal importance of the salt they were manufacturing at the lowest price and supplying at the highest.
The absolute monopoly of this article has been always the aim of their policy, and it was the most avaricious regulation of old
England toward her colonial dependences.
Look now at the colonies when the
English salt, the only salt used for their food and of immediate necessity, rapidly diminished.
A tremendous scarcity of the vital element appeared in the market, and no domestic production was ready to counteract it. Under such unforeseen circumstances, lawgivers, the very best friends of liberty and economical principle, were obliged to fix a maximum price on salt, and to regulate its sale, doing what in a normal situation would have been the most anti-economical, anti-liberal Later, in
France, under similar but more tragical circumstances, the National Convention tried also, by a maximum force, to counteract the scarcity of 1798; but in
France also the evil increased by the remedy itself: so that the
American maximum of 1776 can now be better understood, and will be remembered.
Let us read in the resolutions of the Provisional Congress of
South Carolina, March 1776, the full testimony of this great experience:
"
Whereas, information has been laid before the
Congress that certain persons do monopolize the necessary article of salt, and demand can extravagant price for the same, and also require specie in payment, to the detriment of the continental and cliental currency; the
Congress do therefore.
"
Resolved, That no persons do hereafter presume to soil salt for more than twenty-five shillings per bushel, (about $6.25,) exclusive of the expense of reasonable freight or carriage to the distant part of the colony.
And that
Mr. Joseph Kerahaw,
Mr. Loocook,
Mr. Samuel.
Prioleau,
Junior,
Capt. Maurice Simons and
Capt. Samuel Legars, for
Charleston;
Mr. Danial Deflaussure and
a Mr. Thos. Hughes, for
Beaufort, and
Mr. George Croft and
Mr. Antony Bouneau.
for
Georgetown, be and they are hereby, appointed Commissioners and are empowered to inquire after and buy up, out of the hands of individuals, all quantity of which such individuals may have more than necessary for their respective families, and to dispose of the same in small quantities at the same rate.
And that the said Commissioners do also purchase all the salt which maybe imported within six months.
‘"That
Colonel Laurens,
Mr Ferguson,
the Rev. Mr. Tennent,
Mr. Edwards and
Mr.Gibbes, be and they are hereby, appointed Commissioners to erect and superintend a
Public Salt Works at or near
Charlestown; that
Mr. Joseph Allston,
Captain William Allston,
Mr. Benjamin Young,
Mr. Peter Simons and
Mr. Thomas Butler, be and they are in like manner appointed Commissioners for a public Salt Works on the
Northern coast; and that
Captain Thomas Tucker,
Mr. Daniel Jenkins,
Mr. Jos. Fickling, be, and they are hereby appointed Commissioners in like manner for a public Salt Works on the
Southern coast of this colony.
That each board of the said Commissioners, respectively, shall have power to draw upon the colony treasury, for any sum not exceeding $35,000 (seven thousand pounds currency) for defraying the necessary expenses incurred by this service.
And that they shall sell the salt to be made at the same public works at the most reasonable rate (19 March, 1776."’)
To complete this important regulation, two days after it, the
Congress adjoined
Mr. Benjamin Eddings to the commission entrusted for erecting Salt Works on the
Southern coast.--(Page 116. Provisional Congress, 1776)
In every one of these Commissioners, I am happy to recognize the names of my country men, the
French Huguenots, who originated from the provinces of
France the most advanced in the salt manufacture; practical and enthusiastic people who, giving their arms and skill to the industrial emancipation of the New World, dedicated their hearts and hands to the conquest of religious and political freedom.
Remember, also, that after the revocation of the edict of
Nantes, they brought to
England the
French method of making salt from the sea brine by atmospheric evaporation.
But under the sunless and damp skies of
England, this method was, of course, unavailable, and was given up in the beginning of this century.
In relation to the public spirit of these times,
South Carolina evinced a standard of it in the matter of salt, acting with wisdom, foresight and energy, as the curies of that heroic age required.
We should neither forget the warm appeal made to
Doctor David Ramsay, from
Philadelphia, for introducing in
Charleston, by examples and writings, the improvements of the nitre manufacture, (14th March, 1776,) the
iron-work paper mills or internal canalization, which were matters of the highest importance for the Carolinian law-givers.
In short, they were ready to advance money to the most enterprising citizens, and encourage every useful industry, introduced with the express purpose of being carried on in as great perfection as in any part of
Europe *--In this simple expression, what pride!
Those who spoke in such a manner were very truly disenthralled from the old world by this resolution of being equal to any civilized people.
They certainly were no longer politically bound to their
European mother country; and when the time arrived, would be no more dependent on her for the future supply of salt, as well as gunpowder, and other articles of national importance.
This patriotic and provident conduct was followed with imitation by
Georgia, the younger sister of
South Carolina, and by the other States of the rising confederation, each of them understanding that, without an indigenous and independent production of vital merchandize, their political independence was jeopardized.
This steady ambition for internal improvements and Americanization of all necessary articles of consumption was the most practical, if not the brightest, event which characterized the
Revolutionary War.
R. Thomassy.
*23d March 1776.--The Provincial Congress * * * Resolved.
That the sum of three hundred pounds currency be advanced to the said
William Bedaney * * * for the express purpose of his forthwith erecting a proper mill from king paper and cutting files in as great perfection as in any part of
Europe 
