But Gregg gave encouragement in any brighter aspects that he found, as when he said, "Limited as our manufactures are in South Carolina, we can now, more than supply the State with Coarse Cotton Fabrics. Many of the fabrics now manufactured here are exported to New York, and for aught I know, find their way to the East Indies." (Ibid., pp. 11) And he held out to his State the prospect of the results that might reasonably be expected from adoption of his proposals: "Were all our hopes ... consumated, South Carolina would present a delightful picture. Every son and daughter would find healthful and lucrative employment; our roads, which are now a disgrace to us, would be improved; we would no longer be under the necessity of sending to the North for half made wagons and carriages, to break our necks; we would have, if not as handsome, at least as honestly and faithfully made ones.... Workshops would take the place of the throngs of clothing, hat, and shoe stores, and the watch-word would be, from the seaboard to the mountains, success to domestic industry." (Ibid., p. 17.) When Southern resources were exploited, the total benefit might not come to the locality; "The great abundance of the best lumber for the purpose, in the United States, growing in the vicinity of the town, has lately induced some persons to attempt ship-building at Mobile. The mechanics employed are mainly from the North." (Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 567.)
[98] Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 544.
[99] Quoted in Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 175.
[100] Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 363.
[101] Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 166.
[102] Tompkins, Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, preface to appendix. This is one of a thousand incidents which bring to mind the similarity between Irish temperament and that of the people of the South--how prone both have been to obscure to themselves real issues in public affairs for a joke's sake. And the reflection would be dismal for both peoples but for the finer discernment of which each, at other times, has shown itself capable. Cf. Plunkett.
[103] Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 18.
[104] Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 47. Cf. Burkett and Poe, Cotton, pp. 312 and 313, and E. C. Brooks, The Story of Cotton, p. 157.