commonly used are rooted out, and in proportion to the increasing manufacture will that use be extended.

It will be naturally inferred that the manufacturers of England are mainly dependent upon the cotton production of the south, as is very evident from the amount of our production and exportation compared with other portions of the globe; and this leads us into a brief view of the extent of the cotton manufacture in the United States. Ever since the time when Alexander Hamilton, that greatest of practical financiers, made his powerful report as secretary of the treasury, thus laying the foundation of what has been termed the American System, the interest of the cotton manufacture has slowly but strongly advanced, so that it has now arrived to an importance which is hardly second to any other national interest of the country. We do not propose here to enter into a description of the respective merits of free trade and the tariff, or to attempt to show how far the interests of the whole country would be advanced by protecting the manufacturing enterprise of the northern states, or the prosperity of the country would be promoted by throwing open our ports to the foreign commerce of the world. Doubtless a general consent of nations to receive reciprocally the productions of each, be they of the plough or the loom, would be of advantage to all; but it is a broad question, and one which is destined to receive ample discussion upon the expiration of the present tariff law, whether in the absence of this reciprocal arrangement, nations are not bound to protect themselves. It has been our present object to sketch a brief view of the cotton manufacturing interest, as it is intimately connected with the cotton production, for the moral and economical effects of manufactures unfold a question so broad and complex, that it would be unsuited to the present design, and could not be properly discussed within moderate limits.

This much, however, is certain, that the manufacturing interest of our own country has already grown to great strength, and there is scarcely a waterfall in New England that is not enlivened by the clattering of machinery; and the numerous little thrifty villages that dot the valleys and hills of our manufacturing states, as well as the large settlements, such as Lowel, that have grown into the magnitude of cities, must convince us that a great amount of capital and enterprise are invested in this branch of human labor. The manufacturing interest, indeed, is not confined to New England, New York, and New Jersey; Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and some of the western states, have embarked in it to a greater or less extent; and as early as 1831, the capital employed in the cotton manufacture alone, throughout the eastern states, was $40,612,984.* It is now well known that twelve of the eastern states, and a portion of the west, are interested in different degrees in this subject; and with the measure of influence that they can command, it is probable that an elaborate and powerful discussion will attend the agitation of the manufacturing policy when the question shall come up before the national legislature.

Among the strange things that constantly meet our sight in this age of wonders, there is scarcely any thing more extraordinary than the operation of cotton-spinning, a discovery of modern times. We behold a vegetable production, growing upon extensive portions of our territory, cleaned from

* See Montgomery's Practical Detail of the Cotton Manufacture, page 160.

its seeds by machinery, and transported by railroad or steamboat to the manufacturing establishment, where it is to be worked up. We are here introduced into an iron world of machinery, made by the inventive genius of man, machinery which has ten thousand more hands than those of Briareus. Going through the various processes that belong to the operations of such machinery, it comes out in a short time snow-white cloth, that is, in its texture and pliancy, almost essential to human comfort. In the exactitude of the operations of this machinery, and its beautiful adaptation to human wants, we are impressed with a species of admiration akin to that with which we view the vast and harmonious mechanism of the universe, and can hardly fail to be inspired with the enthusiasm of Dr. Darwin, when he viewed the operations of Arkwright's establishment upon the Derwent. "Where Derwent guides his dusky floods,

Through vaulted mountains and a night of woods.
The nymph Gossypia treads the velvet sod,
And warms with rosy smiles the watery god;
His ponderous oars to slender spindles turns,

And pours o'er massy wheels his foaming urns,

With playful charms her hoary lover wins,
And wields his trident while the monarch spins.
First with nice eye emerging naiads cull
From leathery pods the vegetable wool;
With wiry teeth revolving cards release

The tangled knots, and smooth the ravelled fleece.
Next moves the iron hand, with fingers fine,
Combs the wide card, and forms the eternal line.
Slow, with soft lips, the whirling can acquires
The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires;
With quickened pace successive rollers move,
And these retain and those extend the rove;
Then fly the spokes, the rapid axles glow,

While slowly circumvolves the laboring wheel below."

We understand that in the general operations of the American cotton trade, there is no settled and uniform plan. The planters in the interior, both of the extreme southern states, and the cotton-growing region along the shores of the Mississippi, sometimes dispose of their cargoes to the factors upon the frontier; and from the ports of New Orleans, Natchez, Mobile, Charleston, Savannah, and other seaports, the cotton is either shipped to New York, or is exported abroad. Frequently, however, the planters of the south procure from the merchants of New York advances upon their crops, even while growing upon the field. In order to judge of the value of the production in the country, compared with the whole amount of our exportation, it may be stated that during the year ending in September of 1839, the total value of the product of the sea, the forest, agriculture, and manufactures, that was exported, was one hundred and three million five hundred and thirty-three thousand eight hundred and ninety-one dollars, of which exportation there was sixty-one million two hundred and thirty-eight thousand nine hundred and eighty-two dollars in cotton alone; and that from the year 1839 to September, 1840, the total cotton crop of the United States was two million one hundred and seventy-seven thousand eight hundred and thirty-five bales, each containing, we suppose, three hundred pounds.

In connection with the long view that we have taken of the prominent

agricultural staple of the south, we are naturally led to a rapid glance at the social structure of that portion of our country. We find a people in this region, scattered over its fertile soil, upon the southern borders of the country, from the Atlantic coast to the fields of Arkansas, accustomed to peculiar habitudes of life, and marked by peculiar features. Although in the several cotton-growing states of the south, both at the east and west, there are certain general traits, yet these are modified according to the local circumstances of the different parts. For example, the cotton grower of Georgia exhibits a somewhat different form of character from the planter of Louisiana or Mississippi; and they, in turn, may be easily distinguished from the Virginian, or the cultivator of South Carolina; but they all possess certain peculiar features. The wide distinction which exists between the population of New England, and that of the southern states, is perceived on the first entrance into the southern territory. The native of New England and the population of the south are derived from distinct stocks; the one being possessed of all the coolness, forecast, and laborious hardihood of the soldiers of Cromwell, and the other of those ardent, generous, self-sacrificing and chivalrous features that belonged to his rivals the cavaliers; and these traits of character have been strengthened by the local causes that have acted upon their daily lives.

For that bustling air of thrift which prevails throughout our northern states, not only in their domestic arrangements, but also in the appearance of the villages and the general aspect of the territory, we search in vain in the southern states. And yet the southern planter possesses energy when aroused, and ardor that is sufficient for any emergency. In advancing upon his domain, we are struck with the absence of that vigorous supervision of the great avenues of communication that would astonish a robust overseer of roads and bridges in New York or New England. Even the vehicles of travel are, in general, of such a sort as would lead one to suppose that the people do not at least invite the ingress of strangers, and are not themselves anxious to journey through their own territory in public conveyances. Nor is there scattered through the south, those evidences of wealth that one might naturally look for in a country yielding so abundant and so valuable crops as does the greater portion of that country. The houses small and surrounded by the scanty dwellings of the negroes, the bridges decayed or broken, the roads, which seem scarcely ever repaired, zigzag cedar rail fences, indicate either a want of thrifty enterprise on the part of the inhabitants, or such poverty as would seem to prevent a due degree of attention to their condition. The slaves, who, it is well known, perform the drudgery of cultivation, although deprived of what in the north we should call luxury, are attended to so far as their bodily comfort is concerned, and are, for the most part, attached to their employers. Performing their allotted tasks, they also have their humble seasons of recreation; and as those tasks are seldom severe, excepting in ginning the cotton, and gathering in the harvests upon the rice lands, they are contented, during their occasional merry-makings and holidays, with their proportion of meat and tobacco, pipes and ardent spirits. If they should be allowed, as is frequently the case, a small patch of land to cultivate for their own use, the produce of these acres frequently brings additional comfort to their wardrobes, a superannuated coat, or silk handkerchief, with which they array themselves on their gala days, presenting the appear. ance of a masquerade.

It may be safely alleged that the genuine southern planter, in his own home, exhibits to the stranger a noble form of hospitality. Without the ostentation that would display itself in dress or equipage, being often carelessly arrayed in homespun while upon his own fields, he welcomes the traveller to all the comforts that can be furnished by his dwelling. His house, his plantation, his blood-horse, belong to the stranger so long as the stranger is a guest. This hospitality springs not less from the general tone of liberality which despises meanness, than from the insulated position of most of the planters of that portion of the country, who are glad to meet with any person who will bring them news from abroad. The cotton cultivator of the south is a fine specimen of the old English gentleman, not only in the magnanimity of his views, but in the total absence of that starched formality which is often mistaken as a badge of real dignity and importance. Nor are they less marked by their ordinary habits of hospitality and their personal traits than in the character of their amusements. The sports of the field occupy a considerable portion of their leisure time; and hunting and the race-course present for them the most solid charms. This freedom of manners pervades the female portion of the population, and runs through the whole circle of society. That amenity of manners which is always the evidence of polished education, that simplicity of address, which is the more beautiful because it is natural, that open ingenuousness of carriage which gives confidence and ease to all within its presence, and that delicacy of sentiment founded upon a cultivated taste which indicates the most chastened form of accomplishment, throws around their social intercourse a charm which, in order to be appreciated, must be experienced; and it is the traits that we have thus described which must give to this class of our population great influence, not only in the saloon, but the hall of legislation.

The prosperity of the south may, without doubt, be mainly attributed to the cultivation of the cotton plant, and upon the continuance of that production its future prosperity must in a great measure depend. A source of wealth might indeed have been derived from the rice, tobacco, indigo, and sugar crop, as well as her other staples, but that wealth would have borne but a small proportion to the profit which is now experienced, and that is likely to be increased by the cultivation of the cotton. So firmly has the value of this grand staple been fixed, and so extensively has its use intertwined with our most ordinary comforts, and the manufacture of the plant has become so much increased, not only in this country, but in Europe, that nothing short of a pestilence that should sweep away its population, a blight, or a mildew, or an insect that should blast its crops, or an earthquake that should rive the land, could prevent the continuance of the same causes that have in so great measure contributed to its wealth. And yet, with these abundant resources, the population of the greater portion of that country are not advancing in this respect. A few of the most shrewd and laborious manage to accumulate large fortunes; yet the liberal and free indulgences of much the greater part scarcely enable them to pay their expenses from year to year, and often, as it is well known, the harvest of one year is as it were mortgaged for the expenses of the next, and those means which in the hands of some would be a source of vast profit, become in their hands a cause of mere competence.

In concluding our imperfect remarks, we cannot but take a brief view of the relative importance of the cotton cultivation to the other great

sources of our national enterprise, for its profits by exportation are of greater magnitude than those of any other agricultural interest. The beautiful variety that is spread out by the different soils and climates of the republic, strike the mind with admiration. In our northern states,

lying, as they do, upon the seacoast, the broad and rich field of the ocean is stretched before the keels of commerce, and that field has been ploughed with extraordinary advantage both in foreign trade and in the various species of our fisheries. The sound of machinery has there too commenced. The fur trade is fast receding from our western forests, as the tide of emigration rolls onward through their fertile soil; and in its track spring up the blooming fruits and flowers of abundant harvests, from the corn and the wheat field-products which are most salutary to the nation, because they furnish an abundance of what are most urgently required by all in the article of food. Along our southern coast, a vegetable is cultivated which bids fair to pour forth upon the nation a vast amount of wealth, that must necessarily increase as the augmentation of population affords a market for its fabrics, and the extensive tracts of new soil equally favorable to the production of cotton with those which are now employed in its cultivation, shall have been laid open to the plough; thus furnishing cargoes for our ships, and supplies for our manufacturing establishments.

ART. II.-FREE TRADE.

WE had supposed that the long and fierce discussion, waged for so many years between the advocates of protection and free trade, had resulted in a settled preference for the free trade policy, and that the same liberal principles which originated our glorious constitution, and which so generally pervade all our modes of thinking and action, were, without further controversy, to govern our intercourse with the nations of the world; applying their mysterious but powerful stimulus to the interests of production and commerce, and giving a bolder wing to those noble enterprises which have already caused our flag to be unfurled in every clime, and our canvass to whiten every sea.

But it would seem that we have been mistaken. Even in this magazine, devoted exclusively to the interests of a class of men who are the natural foes of monopoly and restriction, several writers have already announced themselves as the advocates of protection; and the movements at the capitol and elsewhere, indicate that there are those who are willing, at the first favorable opportunity, to revive this long-debated question. Under these circumstances, we are particularly pleased to see that one of the most powerful champions of free trade has brought out a volume of essays, written during the heat of the tariff contest, and embodying most of the arguments which were so successful in overwhelming the "American System," and in bringing about the compromise of 1833. We allude to the volume on "Free Trade," by Dr. Raguet, published a few months since at Philadelphia.

When nations were from year to year involved in bloody and ruinous