ii.
Dr. Cooper, of South Carolina, in his letter on Political Economy, estimates the labour of a Slave at two-thirds of what a white labourer, at usual wages, would perform. Put a Slave in a condition of freedom with the white labourer, he would perform as much labour; consequently the demand for Cotton, both in the home and foreign markets, would be amply supplied with Cotton by free labour, whereas it is now supplied with Slave-grown Cotton.
The following will give the reader an approximate idea of the value of the Slaves in cash, and what the claimants annually realise from their labour.—I cut the following from the New Orleans Delta, a Slaveholding paper, published July 11, 1857:—
"The Slaves, numbering over three and a half millions; their value, at present prices, sixteen hundred millions of dollars. The Cotton Plantations at the South is estimated eighty thousand; the aggregate value of their annual products, at the present prices for Cotton, is fully one hundred and twenty millions of dollars. There are over fifteen thousand Tobacco Plantations, and their annual products may be valued at fourteen millions of dollars. There are two thousand and six hundred Sugar Plantations, the products of which average more than twelve millions of dollars. There are five hundred and fifty Rice Plantations, which yield an annual revenue of four millions of dollars."
The above evidence shows the Cotton by far exceeds all the other staple products in the Sunny South, both in number of farms and annual income. The number of Slaves engaged in the cultivation of each article is something like the following:
| Rice | 125,000 |
| Sugar | 150,000 |
| Tobacco | 350,000 |
| Cotton | 1,815,000 |
| Total | 2,440,000 |
