Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/299

Rh five States were even then better adapted to free white labor. In the light of the years which close this century, it is seen that no part of the South was dependent on slave labor, and that such supposed dependence was imaginary, not real. Therefore, it may be fairly inferred from the sentiment of the South in the beginning of this century, from the conditions of labor and commerce then existing, from the political considerations then at work, the South, in the first years of this century, would have begun the emancipation of its slaves upon a plan of compensation to the owner, justice to the negro and safety to society, had not the interests of other sections demanded the continuance of the domestic and foreign trade in man.

The period of twenty years granted by the Constitution for the continuance of the slave trade, was occupied actively in the importation of Africans throughout the Atlantic Southern States. During the same period the invention of the cotton gin increased vastly the commercial value of negro labor, not only to the producer, but most of all to the shipper and manufacturer of cotton. As a consequence, &quot;the prosperity and commercial importance of a half dozen rising communities, the industrial and social order of a growing empire, the greatest manufacturing interest of manufacturing England, a vast capital, the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of free artisans, rested on American slavery.&quot; This new condition occurred at the period when the South was protesting against the African slave trade, and was exhibiting an increasing willingness to continue the emancipation movement, which had previously extended southward as far as Delaware, and had induced Virginia to include the anti-slavery clause in its great cession of Northwestern Territory. But the outlook of the cotton trade and the immense business arising from the increased production and manufacture of the staple were so beneficial to vast numbers in England and the United