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Messrs. Editors :—The attention of the Rhode Island De¬
legation to the Rational Democratic Convention, just held
in Charleston, has, since their arrival, noticed the following
able article, by one of their most distinguished fellow-citi¬
zens, upon the subject of " American Slavery—its influences
at home and abroad," and would like to see it copied into
your valuable journal. Governor Laweence has been# tra¬
veling in Europe for the last two years, and has taken
frequent occasion to defend the institutions of his country
from the assaults of its enemies. That he is eminently quali¬
fied for this work, it is not necessary to go beyond this article
to understand. At a time when so many American citizens
that go abroad to cater to the ignorance and prejudice of
those they fall among, it is refreshing to see one of our citi¬
zens manfully defending us from those attacks.
[From the Providence Daily Post, April 23.]
FRENCH COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES
and
NEGRO SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.
Hotel Castiglione, March 20, 1860.
To the Editor of the Journal des Debats :
Sie:—Although a citizen of one of the Northern States of
the American Union, and not a slaveholder, I have remarked
witli the greatest regret, since my arrival in Paris, that
the French press does not always appreciate the intimate
connection that exists between the productions of our South¬
ern plantations and the development of your manufactures.
Some of the papers which most applaud the economical
2
reforms that have rendered the Emperor as illustrious in the
policy of peace as he was in that of war, overlook the special
interests of France in the existing institutions of our slave
States, and array themselves on the side of the Abolitionists,
who, in the United States, are advocates of protection and
opposed to free trade.
The Journal des Debats, which discusses all subjects with
great intelligence, speaks of the question of slavery as if it
had no connection with your commerce and manufactures.
In an article on the President's last annual message, it de¬
clares that the Harper's Ferry affair, the success of which it
admits, was impossible, "ought to have the sympathies of
Frenchmen, because slavery is here a question of humanity
and not of policy." That atrocious enterprise, it must not
be forgotten, was a conspiracy of fanatical abolitionists of
the North, who had no ties of race with the negros, to excite
a servile war against their brethren and fellow-citizens of
the South—the success of which, without regard to results
that would have been infinitely more to be regretted, could
only have led to the destruction of the agricultural industry
of our slave States, and especially of the Cotton culture.
Without speaking of your material interests, to which an
insurrection of our slaves would be almost as injurious as to
our own, I cannot imagine, sir, that a war of races, which
humanity abhors, and of which St. Domingo recalls so many
painful recollections, should not be condemned by the French
press, as it was by the English journals, usually so little dis¬
posed to favor the United States. I do not, however, propose
to appeal to the sjmipathies of your readers to defend insti¬
tutions inaugurated, contrary to the remonstrances of our
ancestors, by the mother country, when we were English
colonies, and before Americans had, like Italy of the present
day, established, with the assistance of France, her national
independence. It is sufficient that these institutions have
become essentially connected with the civilization of the
Universe, and with our own social and political organization.
In replying to the assertion of the Journal des Debats, I
will-not discuss a question of humanity, in the interest either
3
of the whites or blacks ; nor will I follow the most learned
naturalist of the age in his researches into the origin of races.
Although there have never been, since the beginning of the
world, four millions of negros so civilized as our own, for
which civilization they are indebted to their American colo¬
nization, I do not propose to eulogize slavery in the United
States ; but, on the other hand, I am still farther from ap¬
proving the projects of the Abolitionists, who would manumit
all slaves, without any regard to the economical interests of
the world, or even to the well-being of the negros themselves.
I prefer to confine myself to the question of policy—to the
practical and economical considerations, which are the only
ones that Americans can advantageously discuss with foreign¬
ers, who do not fully understand our social and political sys¬
tem, nor the many embarrassments arising from the existence
in a State of an inferior race.
It is not difficult to show that cotton is of the greatest
importance to Europe. It must also be admitted (as it is by
the London Times) as established facts, that this article is
essentially a monopoly of our slave States ; that the labor
which it employs is negro labor; that it has only been in
exceptional cases cultivated by whites, and that the black
laborers have always been subject to the authority of the
planters, all of whom are of our own race. It may be added .
that those reformers who are offended with the title of slave
have indicated no remedy, presented no solution, which
would not be attended with most deplorable consequences,
as experience has fully demonstrated in analogous cases.
It is unnecessary to say to a publicist, who thoroughly
understands the international relations of commerce, that
sixteen-seventeenths of the Cotton which supplies the manu¬
factures of France, come from the United States. The con.
sumption of England, according to the London Times, was
only 63,000,000 pounds, at the time of the abolition of the
import duties. It is now 1,200,000,000 pounds, and the
Cotton trade and the manufactures support, directly or indi¬
rectly, four or five millions of individuals, who have relations,
industrial and commercial, with the entire*nation. France
4
now uses much more Cotton than England imported, at the
commencement of her commercial reforms. Heretofore,
Cotton Wool has paid, in this country, duties amounting to
22 or 24: francs, the 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds.) W ho
can anticipate the enormous extension of the Cotton manu¬
facture under the impulse of the new policy, which makes
raw materials free from all duties ? It is already announced,
in the report of the Minister of Commerce, that this is to be
effected by a law, to be proposed by the Government to the
Corps Legislatif.
Your reforms will do more for you than free trade did for
England. In artistical taste the French greatly surpass their
rivals; and if there was a free competition, it cannot be
doubted that, in foreign markets, your manufactures would
be preferred to the English. Your imports of Cotton, which
were in 1850, 1S7,S51,768 pounds, (175,613,072 of which
came from the United States,) will soon be counted by a
thousand millions. It should, furthermore, be recollected,
that it is not only by the importation of raw Cotton that
your industry is connected with the prosperity of the Ameri¬
can Union. The exports from France to our ports, for many
years, exceeded those to every other country except Great
Britain. They amounted, in 1857, to 260,000,000 francs.
Can too much importance be attached to commercial rela¬
tions with a people like that of the United States, whose
numbers approach 35,000,000 of souls, and whose wealth, as
well as population, increases with a rapidity unheard of
among the old nations of Europe? But it is Cotton which
enables us to buy yrnur Wines and your Silks, and our Cot¬
ton Wool, converted into Cotton fabrics, is sent back to us
from your manufactories, indefinitely increased in value.
The American planters are fortunate that the French legis¬
lation on the raw materials prevents their being subjected to
the delays of diplomatic negotiation. But there are still
shackles on the industry of the two countries, arising from
the old system of reciprocal protection. Without attempting
to discuss the policy which has caused to be inserted in favor
of French navigation, in the new treaty with Great Britain,
5
exceptional reservations of differential duties on merchandise,
depending on the nationality of the vessel in which it is im¬
ported. I may be allowed to suggest that the differential
duties imposed by our convention of 1822, on the vessels of
the two countries, and which have survived the differential
duties, on merchandize imported in them, temporarily estab¬
lished by the same treaty, are an absolute injury to both
French and American navigation, and only operate to the
benefit of the English and other foreign nations. There are
no such duties, to which English vessels are subject, either in
France or the United States, and their vessels can import
into America the products and manufactures of all countries
whatever, on paying the same duties on the cargos as our
own, and without paying any differential duties of naviga¬
tion. Besides, relieved from direct duties, why should raw
Cotton be subjected in your ports, by means of differential
duties in favor of the flag, to an increase of price, which
must always give, in foreign markets, an advantage to the
British over the French manufacturer.
The enlightened statesman, who explained in the columns
of the Journal des Debals, those measures of commercial
reform which have spread his fame throughout Europe and
America, has frankly acknowledged, in his "Letters on North
America," the obstacles, moral and political, which opposed
the emancipation of the negros of the United States. At
the time that Mr. Michel Chevalier visited America, those
economical considerations which, according to the most reli¬
able judgment of the North, as well as of the South—of the
free States as of the slave States—now render such a mea¬
sure altogether impossible, were not so well understood as
they are at this day. We had had the dreadful experience of
St. Domingo, but we did not yet know the unfortunate results
of the philanthropic efforts in the West Indies. Besides,
there is an essential difference between the productions of
the English and French colonies, where it was attempted to
abolish African slavery, and those of the slave States of
North America. The Sugar of Jamaica and Martinique is
not a production of which they have the monopoly, and the
6
losses, resulting from the experiments in those Islands, fell
on the planters to the advantage of Brazil and Cuba. The
case •would be altogether otherwise, as regards Cotton, which
is to be procured nowhere, except in the United States, under
circumstances admitting of its being brought into general
use. To leave uncultivated the lands which now produce
Cotton, during only a single year, would derange the indus¬
try of the civilized world, and cause among all manufactur¬
ing people a social and political revolution.
No one has yet offered a plan of emancipation, which, even
in confiscating the rights of prosperity, guaranteed by the
organic law of the confederation, would be of a nature to
maintain in full activity the jwoduction of Cotton. The Abo¬
litionists have presented nothing which, in the eyes of the
enlightened men of Europe, merits any consideration. It is
more than twenty years, since the liberty of the blacks was
proclaimed in the English West Indies, and without discuss¬
ing whether the different projects for replacing the slaves
are more humane than the old system, every one agrees that
the prosperity of those colonies is yet to be re-established.
If it were possible to cultivate them by white labor, England
has in her Territory in Europe a superabundant population,
which she has made every effort to induce to emigrate to
Australia and to her North American possessions. The
greatest part of that labor, which approaches the nearest to
the labor performed by slaves at the South is in the free
States, assigned to natives of the British Isles. The planters
have also every motive to employ them. To procure the
labor of Irish emigrants does not require the large capitals
which are necessary for the purchase of negros. Many at¬
tempts have been made to use Europeans as field laborers,
but the only result has been a frightful mortality. In the
towns of the South they supply to a great extent the place
of domestic servants, in order not to withdraw the negros
from the all important work of the plantations. You French¬
men have had only philanthropic objects in view; but per¬
mit me to remind you that England, in proposing to abolish
slavery in America, has not been governed by motives abso-
7
lutely disinterested. Her payment of £20,000,000, as an
indemnity to the West India planters, would have been a
sacrifice of profound policy, had she succeeded in transfer¬
ring to her almost boundless possessions in the East, the
monopoly of colonial productions.
To say nothing,of the planters themselves, of the mer¬
chants and manufacturers of our Northern States, who
depend on them, both for the raw material of their most
important manufacture and lor a market for their products
of every kind, can any one doubt that a suspension even of
the production of Cotton would be followed by the universal
bankruptcy of the merchants and manufacturers of Europe
and America? What would become of the four or five
millions of English, including the proprietors of the sixty or«
seventy millions sterling invested in the Cotton trade and
manufactures, who are supported by this branch of industry ?
And what would you Frenchmen do, who send us your silks
and your wines, to the amount of so many millions, in return
for our raw Cotton ? What would become of the commerce
of the civilized world, in which the imports and exports of
the United States enter every year for more than three thou¬
sand millions of francs. Among the exports there are pro¬
ducts of slave labor approaching a thousand millions.
On the other hand, only a small part of the lands, suitable
for Cotton, in the Southwestern States, have been cultivated,
and hands only are wanting to extend this culture to meet
the progressive Wants of the universe. The true practical
question for us is not how to get rid of our present laborers,
which would lead to results to be deplored by the whole
world, but how to provide effectually for the enormous con¬
sumption, which it is forseen that your economical reforms
and the independence of Italy, occurring at the same time
with the general peace, must induce A few ardent and
unreflecting persons have even suggested a renewal of the
slave trade. So far, however, from such a measure being
adopted, a proposition has been introduced into the Congress
of the United States, to subject the Coolie trade to the same
penalties as have long existed against the slave trade. In-
8
deed, the Coolie trade applied to men in the full vigor of
life, and who, in consequence of the almost total exclusion
of women, are deprived of all family consolation, appears to
us to be even fnore objectionable than the slave trade. We
hope to supply the industry of Europe, without exposing
anew to the sufferings of a transatlantic passage the natives
of either Africa or Asia.
Thanks to the care of their masters, their abundant nour¬
ishment and the moderate labor to which they are subjected,
and quite contrary to what always occurred in the West
Indies and to what now happens, as respects our free blacks,
the slaves of the United States, not only keep up their num¬
bers, but they increase in a greater ratio than the population
♦ of our own race. According to-an official document in 1852,
there were 39,200,000 acres suitable for cotton, and only
6,300,000 acres in cultivation, and for -which were em¬
ployed less than 800,000 slaves. The present number of
slaves is more than four millions. Although the number
of cotton hands has greatly increased, since that time, and
negros are moreover required for rice, sugar and other
products, which though not unhealthy for the blacks, cannot
be cultivated by the whites, there are in the States, where
the labor of Germans and other white settlers may be substi¬
tuted for that of the negros, sufficient reserves to meet the
progress of a constantly advancing civilization. One of
the results will be to place it within the power of a thousand
million of human beings, who inhabit the globe, to clothe
themselves in Cotton—clothing which is suitable to all cli¬
mates and to all classes. The state of the last crop strength¬
ens and encourages this expectation. The increase of pro¬
duction is considerable. In 1857, there were only three
millions of bales. The crop of 1859, according to the most
recent intelligence, will reach four millions and a half.
I hope, sir, that I have established, which is all that I had
proposed, that the slavery of the blacks in America is, for
France, u a question of policy," and that it is moreover a
question closely connected with the existence of her com¬
merce and manufactures. Of what importance to England
9
and France, is the commerce of China, which has cost them
so many expeditions, compared witli that of the United
States, or with our Cotton alone, on which the progress of
their industry so essentially depends !
1 very well know that an inhabitant of Europe who has
never been brought in contact with negros; and who has no
reason to fear for his country an amalgamation of races, such
as exists in Central America, can scarcely share in the na¬
tional sentiment, which according to the decision of our
Supreme Federal tribunal, only gives to the whites, that is
to say, to the superior race, the title of American citizen.
It may be allowable for me, impartial witness as I am, to
say that Europe is greatly deceived as to the true condition
of the slates of our Southern States. Subjected to the super¬
vision of a superior race, they are as much above their
ancestors and the present barbarous inhabitants of Africa as
they are below the whites. The condition of our slaves
differs less from that of the agricultural laborers of some
countries of' Europe than is generally supposed. As regards
mora lkv, and especially the intercourse of the sexes, they
present a very marked superiority to the free negros of our
Northern States. Notwithstanding exceptional cases and
the stories of American romance writers, the conjugal obli¬
gation is almost universally acknowledged, and every effort
is made by their masters, to preserve among them the ties of
family. It should be added in this connection, that in the
distribution of labor among the slaves, the severest tasks are
not, as I have often noticed in Germany, imposed on the
women.
1 would not say that the system of labor which exists in
the slave States, is not susceptible of improvement. That is
a question which every State, where slavery exists, must
determine for itself. It cannot be advantageously discussed
except by those who thoroughly understand the characteris¬
tics of the black race ; and especially after the results of
metropolitan legislation for the West Indies, no one can
regret that neither the Congress of the Union nor the States
where slavery does not exist can interfere with it. It is
2
10
objected that obstacles are opposed to their intellectual im"
provement. Would you know the true cause? It is the
incessant efforts of the abolitionists of the Northern States
and foreign countries, to spread among the slaves incendiary
books and pamphlets. Would you have the planters wait,
in a careless disregard of danger, till fanaticism kindles a
vast conflagration in their midst ?
It has been already established that, in order to continue
the production of Cotton, the relations between the whites
and blacks must remain essentially as they are. These rela¬
tions, it may be easily shown, are equally necessary to pre¬
vent the extinction of the blacks. The means have not yet
been discovered of perpetuating in the same country, without
amalgamation, and without subjecting the one to the other,
two races of distinct origin. No one thinks of amalgamation,
and marriages between whites and people of -color are pro¬
hibited even in the States which most favor the free blacks.
St. Domingo has been abandoned to the negros. The abori¬
gines of America disappeared in the presence of European
civilization. The Africans in the West Indies decreased
rapidly even before their emancipation; and since the aboli¬
tion of the slave trade they have been replaced by negros
captured on board of slave ships, and sent to Jamaica and
other colonies, it would be difficult to find, at this time,
any blacks in the States of the Union, which first adopted
the principle of emancipation, were it not that the places of
their own emancipated slaves, who had become extinct,) were
occupied by those newly manumitted in other States, and by
fugitive slaves from the South. It is only in the parts of the
Union where the relations of masfor and slave have been
preserved, that the two races continue to be maintained.
There, indeed, the population of both increases.
The political questions discussed in the United States are
not wTell understood abroad. The most enlightened friends
of the blacks do not pretend that the two races can remain,
with advantage to either, in the same community, after the
affranchisement of the negros. They, therefore, established
for the free blacks the colony of Liberia, in Africa. As to
11
the conspirators at Harper's Terry, they had no other purpose
than the degradation of the whites for the benefit of the
blacks.
There is not in the United States any considerable party,
that proposes the abolition of slavery in the Southern States.
The Republicans (of whom Senator Seward is one of the
most distinguished leaders,) equally with the Democrats,
have always proclaimed that slavery in the States was a
question for the individual States, and altogether foreign to
the functions of the Federal Government and of the States,
where slavery does not exist. The matter which divided the
two great parties, but which the Supreme Court has just
decided in favor of the equal rights of the slave States, was
not a question of emancipation, but of political power be¬
tween the North and South, and a question of constitutional
law. The Republicans wished to prevent the introduction
of slaves into the Territories, that were not as yet organized
as States, which measure would have excluded all coloniza¬
tion from the South. But, as the Constitutions of all new
States forbid people of color, though free, to settle in those
States, it is very clear that this movement was not made in
the interests of the blacks. In fact, the free blacks are want¬
ed no where, and the means of getting rid of them is discussed
everywhere, even in Canada. The people of labor at the
North are reduced to such degradation, that the slaves of the
South, most esteemed for their morals and good conduct,
prefer remaining there as slaves, to being free at the North.
Every year affranchised negros return voluntarily to slavery,
and there are many blacks who have refused to be manumit¬
ted. These facts are fully established.
I have taken the liberty to give some explanations, which
are not in the original object of my letter, but they may,
perhaps, induce you to doubt whether, even with reference
to considerations of humanity, a revolution in the industrial
institutions of the South is so much to be desired. Every
one cannot be either a great *lord, an author, an artist; or
always occupied with intellectual labors. We require culti¬
vators of Cotton, and if they are wanted, where can we bet-
12
ter find them than among the Africans colonized in America,
who thoroughly understand the business and whom it suits
in every respect ? They are, moreover, happy and. content
with their lot. With the exception of a few hundred fanati¬
cal Abolitionists, no one now with us thinks of a radical
change of the relations, between the blacks and whites on
the plantations ; and it is proper in this connection to declare
that the most enlightened opinion of the North, where sla¬
very does not exist, has undergone a great revolution within
twenty-five years, since the experiments in the West Indies,
and since the results of the emancipation of the people of
color in the Northern States, have been more fully under¬
stood and appreciated. The enterprise which, according to
the Journal des Debats, ought to have the sympathies of
Frenchmen, has rendered the sentiment, in favor of the exist¬
ing state of things, national and almost unanimous. The
English, also violent abolitionists as they formerly were, but
whose projects for transferring the monopoly of colonial
productions to the East Indies have failed, begin to be of our
opinion. Although, in 1843, the Government of Great Brit¬
ain officially declared to the Cabinet at Washington, that it
was engaged in effecting the abolition of the slavery of the
blacks in all parts of the world, the press, now well contented
with the incredible progress of the nation in wealth and with
the comfortable condition of the people, arising from the
constantly increasing consumption of Cotton, no longer-com-
plains that of every hundred pounds imported into England,
eighty-three are the products of the labor of the Eves of 'G>
United States. On the contrary, it regards with s.i.is actum
the new impulse which free competition with France is going
to give to the culture of our Southern States. It hopes, in the
interest of the millions to whom Cotton is as necessary as
bread, that our crops may be greater and greater every year,
so as to put articles of Cotton manufacture within reach of
all the inhabitants of the world. It avows that it is not pos¬
sible, at least for centuries, t§ obtain Cotton, the product of
free labor, or other Cotton than ours, to meet the general
wants. It does not believe "that even Lord Brougham would
13
be* so reckless, or so wicked, as to wish to close the Cotton
manufactories, and. to throw some millions of his countrymen
out of bread." It asks, in conclusion, whether "it is either
just or dignified to buy the raw material from America and
revile her for producing it."
There does not elsewhere exist in an equal population more
educated men, highly endowed with generous and noble
sentiments, more women, eminently distinguished as well by
their personal attractions as by all the virtues which consti¬
tute the happiness of domestic life, than in our Southern
States. To express sympathies for those whose success would
have infallibly introduced their murder and arson, leading
to the slaughter of thousands of women and innocent children,
and converting, as in the case of Saint Domingo, flourishing
plantations into hideous and bloody ruins—could this, I ask,
have been expected of the French press? Is this the way
to strengthen and expand those sentiments of friendship,
which have existed, for almost a century, between the United
States and France. Is there no danger of diverting, for the
advantage of England, those feelings which the United
States have ever entertained towards France. Although
eighty years have elapsed since the war of American Inde¬
pendence, the recollection of our ancestors have been trans¬
mitted to their posterity. In all questions, which have
interested France she has had at least, our sympathies, while
we have always contended together against the dominion,
claimed by Great Britain, over the ocean. In 1814, after
the pacification of Europe, we were left the only champions
of our common principles, and it is the glory of the present
Administration of the United States to have obtained from
England the unconditional renunciation of the claim of "Vi¬
sitation and search in time of Peace." The United States
now have a greater commercial marine than any other coun¬
try. It exceeds that of England and very much that of
France, and with the best sailors in the world, they may,
whenever they please, become the first maritime power.
Independently of industrial and commercial interests, is not
their friendship of value, and is there no danger of compro-
mising it, by judging in a manner offensive and hostile*to
the United States, the social and economical question, on
which their very existence depends ?
W. B. LAWRENCE,
of Rhode Island, U. 8.
COTTON SPINNING MACHINES AND THEIR INVENTORS.
(From the London Quarterly Review, January, 1860.)
"Yarn of the finest quality is no longer produced as an exceptional
article. Mr. Bazley exports what is called No. 240 yarn in large
quantities, for the use of the finest foreign muslin manufactures. Of
the fineness of this thread some idea may be formed when we state
that 240 hanks, each 840 yards in length, are spun from a single
pound weight of cotton, or a total length of above 114 miles! But
this does not by any means exhaust the capabilities of English ma¬
chinery; for at the Great Exhibition of 1851, specimens of yarn spun
at Bolton were exhibited so fine as No. 700, or equal to 384 miles in
length, spun from one pound of material! Worked up into the finer
kinds of lace, the original shilling's-worth of cotton-wool before it
passes into the hands of the consumer may have been increased to the
value of between 8007 and 4007!"
" One of the remarkable results of the cotton manufacture has been
the creation of Liverpool, which, from an obscure fishing village, has
grown up into one of the'largest ports in the world."
"' The entire failure of a cotton crop/ says Mr. Ashworth, 'should
it ever occur, would utterly destroy, and perhaps for ever, all the
manufacturing prosperity we possess; or, should the growth in any
one year be only one million instead of three millions of bales, the
manufacturing and trading classes would find themselves involved in
losses which, in many cases, would amount to irretrievable ruin—mil¬
lions of our countrymen would become deprived of employment and
food—and, as a consequence, the misfortune would involve this coun¬
try in a series of calamities, politically, socially, and commercially,
such as cannot be contemplated without anxiety and dismay.'"
" These considerations strongly point to the necessity of encourag¬
ing the growth of Cotton in the British colonies—in India, Australia,
16
and Africa—that we may escape the perils which seem to attach to
our relying so exclusively for our supply, as we do at present, upon
the products of American slavery.
"It is, however, unquestionable that up to this time the cotton
manufacture has been the source of .great national wealth and power
to England. Mr. Porter has said, ' it is to the spinning-jenny and the
steam-engine that we must look as having been the true moving power
of our fleets and armies, and the chief support also of a long-continued
agricultural prosperity.'"
" Figures can give but a faint idea of the present actual value of
the cotton-manufacture as a branch of British industry; but we will
mention that the total value of the cotton-manufactures exported and
retained for home use amounts to about sixty-six millions yearly, and,
deducting the value of the raw cotton, which is about twenty-six
millions, there remains in the country an annual suM of about forty
millions sterling, which is distributed amongst the work-people as
wages, amongst the manufacturers as profits, and amongst the various
other branches of industry, which mainly depend upon it for their
existence."