The result is not doubtful. If they,
by superior capital and skill, should keep down successful
competition on our part, we would be doomed to toil at our
unprofitable agriculture,--selling at the prices which a
single and very limited market might give. But, on the
contrary, if our necessity should triumph over their capital
and skill, if, instead of raw cotton we should ship to the
manufacturing States cotton yarn and cotton goods, the
thoughtful must see that it would inevitably bring about a
state of things which could not long continue. _Those who
now make war on our gains would then make it on our labor_.
They would not tolerate that those who now cultivate our
plantations, and furnish them with the material and the
market for the product of their arts, should, by becoming
their rivals, take bread from the mouths of their wives and
children. The committee will not pursue this painful
subject; but as they clearly see that the system if not
arrested, must bring the country to this hazardous
extremity, neither prudence nor patriotism would permit them
to pass it by without raising a warning voice against an
evil of so menacing a character.
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