whole nomenclature of the South on that subject, so that, from being thought and described in the terms I have mentioned and will not repeat, it has now become an institution, a cherished institution, in that quarter; no evil, no scourge, but a great religious, social, and moral blessing, as I think I have heard it latterly spoken of?  I suppose this, Sir, is owing to the rapid growth and sudden extension of the COTTON plantations of the South.  So far as any motive consistent with honor, justice, and general judgment could act, it was the COTTON interest that gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its labor.  I again say that this change was produced by causes which must always produce like effects.  The whole interest of the South became connected, more or less, with the extension of slavery.  If we look back to the history of the commerce of this country in the early years of this government, what were our exports?  Cotton was hardly, or but to a very limited extent, known.  In 1791 the first parcel of cotton of the growth of the United States was exported, and amounted only to 19,200 pounds.[5] It has gone on increasing rapidly, until the whole crop may now, perhaps, in a season of great product and high prices, amount to a hundred millions of dollars.  In the years I have mentioned, there was more of wax, more of indigo, more of rice, more of almost every article of export from the South, than of cotton.  When Mr. Jay negotiated the treaty of 1794 with England, it is evident from the twelfth article of the treaty, which was suspended by the Senate, that he did not know that cotton was exported at all from the United States.

Well, Sir, we know what followed.  The age of cotton became the golden age of our Southern brethren.  It gratified their desire for improvement and accumulation, at the same time that it excited it.  The desire grew by what it fed upon, and there soon came to be an eagerness for other territory, a new area or new areas for the cultivation of the cotton crop; and measures leading to this result were brought about rapidly, one after another, under the lead of Southern men at the head of the government, they having a majority in both branches of Congress to accomplish their ends.  The honorable member from South Carolina[6] observed that there has been a majority all along in favor of the North.  If that be true, Sir, the North has acted either very liberally and kindly, or very weakly; for they never exercised that majority efficiently five times in the history of the government, when a division or trial of strength arose.  Never.  Whether they were outgeneralled, or whether it was owing to other causes, I shall not stop to consider; but no man acquainted with the history of the Union can deny that the general lead in the politics of the country, for three fourths of the period that has elapsed since the adoption of the Constitution, has been a Southern lead.