But we must not burden our pages with further extracts. What has been quoted affords the principal arguments of the opposing parties, on the points in which we are interested, down to 1832. The adjustment, in 1833, of the subject until 1842, and its subsequent agitation, are too familiar, or of too easy access to the general reader, to require a notice from us here.
Results of the contest on Protection and Free Trade--More or less favorable to all--Increased consumption of Cotton at home--Capital invested in Cotton and Woolen factories--Markets thus afforded to the Farmer--South successful in securing the monopoly of the Cotton markets--Failure of Cotton cultivation in other countries--Diminished prices destroyed Household Manufacturing--Increasing demand for Cotton--Strange Providences--First efforts to extend Slavery--Indian lands acquired--No danger of over-production--Abolition movements served to unite the South--Annexation of territory thought essential to its security--Increase of Provisions necessary to its success--Temperance cause favorable to this result--The West ready to supply the Planters--It is greatly stimulated to effort by Southern markets--_Tripartite Alliance_ of Western Farmers, Southern Planters, and English Manufacturers--The East competing--The West has a choice of markets--Slavery extension necessary to Western progress--Increased price of Provisions--More grain growing needed--Nebraska and Kansas needed to raise food--The Planters stimulated by increasing demand for Cotton--Aspect of the Provision question--California gold changed the expected results of legislation--Reciprocity Treaty favorable to Planters--Extended cultivation of Provisions in the Far West essential to Planters--Present aspect of the Cotton question favorable to Planters--London Economist's statistics and remarks--Our Planters must extend the culture of Cotton to prevent its increased growth elsewhere.
THE results of the contest, in relation to Protection and Free Trade, have been more or less favorable to all parties. This has been an effect, in part, of the changeable character of our legislation; and, in part, of the occurrence of events in Europe, over which our legislators had no control. The manufaturing States, while protection lasted, succeeded in placing their establishments upon a comparatively permanent basis; and, by engaging largely in the manufacture of cottons, as well as woolens, have rendered home manufactures, practically, very advantageous to the South. Our cotton factories, in 1850, consumed as much cotton as those of Great Britain did in 1831; thus affording indications, that, by proper encouragement, they might, possibly, be multiplied so as to consume the whole crop of the country. The cotton and woolen factories, in 1850, employed over 130,000 work hands, and had $102,619,581 of capital invested in them. They thus afford an important market to the farmer, and, at the same time, have become an equally important auxiliary to the planter. They may yet afford him the only market for his cotton.