Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/16

12 be brought into the field. The difficulty is, not to procure men, but to provide the means of maintaining them; and in this view of the subject, it may be asked whether the Southern States are not a source of strength and power, and not of weakness, to the country—whether they have not contributed, and are not now contributing, largely to the wealth and prosperity of every state in this Union. From a statement which I hold in my hand, it appears that in ten years—from 1818 to 1827, inclusive—the whole amount of the domestic exports of the United States was $521,811,045; of which three articles, (the product of slave labor,) viz., cotton, rice, and tobacco, amounted to $339,203,232—equal to about two thirds of the whole. It is not true, as has been supposed, that the advantage of this labor is confined almost exclusively to the Southern States. Sir, I am thoroughly convinced that, at this time, the states north of the Potomac actually derive greater profits from the labor of our slaves than we do ourselves. It appears from our public documents, that in seven years—from 1821 to 1827, inclusive—the six Southern States exported $190,337,281, and imported only $55,646,301. Now, the difference between these two sums (near $140,000,000) passed through the hands of the northern merchants, and enabled them to carry on their commercial operations with all the world. Such part of these goods as found its way back to our hands came charged with the duties, as well as the profits, of the merchant, the ship owner, and a host of others, who found employment in carrying on these immense exchanges; and for such part as was consumed at the north, we received in exchange northern manufactures, charged with an increased price, to cover all the taxes which the northern consumer had been compelled to pay on the imported article. It will be seen, therefore, at a glance, how much slave labor has contributed to the wealth and prosperity of the United States, and how largely our northern brethren have participated in the profits of that labor. Sir, on this subject I will quote an authority, which will, I doubt not, be considered by the senator from Massachusetts as entitled to high respect. It is from the great father of the “American System,” honest Matthew Carey—no great friend, it is true, at this time, to southern rights and southern interests, but not the worst authority on that account, on the point in question.

Speaking of the relative importance to the Union of the and the, Matthew Carey, in the sixth edition of his Olive Branch, (p. 278,) after exhibiting a number of statistical tables to show the decided superiority of the former, thus proceeds:—

“But I am tired of this investigation—I sicken for the honor of the human species. What idea must the world form of the arrogance of the pretensions or the one side, [the east,] and of the folly and weakness of the rest of the Union, to have so long suffered them to pass without exposure and detection. The naked fact is, that the demagogues in the Eastern States, not satisfied with deriving all the benefit from the southern section of the Union that they would from so many wealthy colonies—with making princely fortunes by the carriage and exportation of its bulky and valuable productions, and supplying it with their own manufactures, and the productions of Europe and the East and West Indies, to an enormous amount, and at an immense profit, have uniformly treated it with outrage, insult, and injury. And, regardless of their vital interests, the Eastern States were lately courting their own destruction, by allowing a few restless turbulent men to lead them blindfolded to a separation which was