The cotton planting States, toward the close of the contest, found themselves rapidly accumulating strength, and approximating the accomplishment of the grand object at which they aimed--the monopoly of the cotton markets of the world. This success was due, not so much to any triumph over the North--to any prostration of our manufacturing interests--as to the general policy of other nations. All rivalry to the American planters from those of the West Indies, was removed by emancipation; as, under freedom, the cultivation of cotton was nearly abandoned. Mehemet Ali had become imbecile, and the indolent Egyptians neglected its culture. The South Americans, after achieving their independence, were more readily enlisted in military forays, than in the art of agriculture, and they produced little cotton for export. The emancipation of their slaves, instead of increasing the agricultural products of the Republics, only supplied, in ample abundance, the elements of promoting political revolutions, and keeping their soil drenched with human blood. Such are the uses to which degraded men may be applied by the ambitious demagogue. Brazil and India both supplied to Europe considerably less in 1838 than they had done in 1820; and the latter country made no material increase afterward, except when her chief customer, China, was at war, or prices were above the average rates in Europe. While the cultivation of cotton was thus stationary or retrograding, everywhere outside of the United States, England and the Continent were rapidly increasing their consumption of the article, which they nearly doubled from 1835 to 1845; so that the demand for the raw material called loudly for its increased production. Our planters gathered a rich harvest of profits by these events.
But this is not all that is worthy of note, in this strange chapter of Providences. No prominent event occurred, but conspired to advance the prosperity of the cotton trade, and the value of American slavery. Even the very depression suffered by the manufacturers and cultivators of cotton, from 1825 to 1829, served to place the manufacturing interests upon the broad and firm basis they now occupy. It forced the planters into the production of their cotton at lower rates; and led the manufacturers to improve their machinery, and reduce the price of their fabrics low enough to sweep away all household manufacturing, and secure to themselves the monopoly of clothing the civilized world. This was the object at which the British manufacturers had aimed, and in which they had been eminently successful. The growing manufactures of the United States, and of the Continent of Europe, had not yet sensibly affected their operations.