The statesmen of the South have generally been planters. Their agricultural products must pay the merchants--foreign and domestic,--the ship-owner, the manufacturer,--and all others concerned in the exchange or manipulation of them. It is universally agreed that the production of the raw materials is the least profitable employment of capital. The planters have always entertained a jealous dislike of those engaged in the more profitable business of the manufacture and exchange of products; particularly as the existence of slavery among them destroys ingenuity and enterprise, and compels them to employ the merchants, manufacturers, and sailors, of the free States.[AD] Hence there has ever been a tendency to check New-England, whenever she appears to shoot up with vigorous rapidity. Whether she tries to live by _hook_ or by _crook_, there is always an effort to restrain her within certain limited bounds. The embargo, passed without limitation of time, (a thing unprecedented,) was fastened upon the bosom of her commerce, until life was extinguished. The ostensible object of this measure, was to force Great Britain to terms, by distressing the West Indies for food. But while England commanded the seas, her colonies were not likely to starve; and for the sake of this doubtful experiment, a certain and incalculable injury was inflicted upon the Northern States. Seamen, and the numerous classes of mechanics connected with navigation, were thrown out of employment, as suddenly as if they had been cast on a desert island by some convulsion of nature. Thousands of families were ruined by that ill-judged measure. Has any government a right to inflict so much direct suffering on a very large portion of their own people, for the sake of an indirect and remote evil which may possibly be inflicted on an enemy?
[Footnote AD: Virginia has great natural advantages for becoming a manufacturing country; but slavery, that does evil to all and good to none, produces a state of things which renders that impossible.]
It is true, agriculture suffered as well as commerce; but agricultural products could be converted into food and clothing; they would not decay like ships, nor would the producers be deprived of employment and sustenance, like those connected with navigation.