Battalion
Banned
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2005
"I have not stated the wealth of the North, but it is not my purpose to detract from it. They were a people of wealth. Most of it, however, came from their connection and trade with us. They were an ingenious and manufacturing people. We are an agricultural people. Their interests and ours were blended together. Our prosperity enabled them to become prosperous, and their States grew up by our trade and commerce. Most of their wealth, when you come to estimate it, was nothing but profits derived from our trade. Cut off that trade....Close up the harbor; cut off manufactures. What does it consist in? Bricks and mortar--nothing else....It will disappear: for the bricks and mortar will be worth no more, unless there are tenants and the profits derived from labor, than the bricks and mortar in the arid plains of Babylon.
Sixty-one millions of New-England capital consisted alone in cotton manufactures and cotton spindles. These factories look to us for our raw materials. This capital is now literally paralyzed; it is dead capital; and will be as long as this war lasts....
The great difference between the North and the South to carry on the war --and this I say to you in prospect of a long war, for I wish our people to see the full magnitude and to feel the full responsibility which rests upon us in it, and to see our responsibility to meet it-- is this: The North sold us some two hundred and fifty millions annually. This was their riches; hence came their wealth; hence grew their cities. Their wealth was but the accumulation deposited from our commerce, just as the delta of the Nile was enriched by the the deposit of rich alluvial soil brought from the mountains and deposited in it. The riches, money and power of the North came in the same way. Our cotton was the source of it..."
Speech of Alexander Stephens, Vice-President CSA, Augusta, Ga., 11 July 1861
Sixty-one millions of New-England capital consisted alone in cotton manufactures and cotton spindles. These factories look to us for our raw materials. This capital is now literally paralyzed; it is dead capital; and will be as long as this war lasts....
The great difference between the North and the South to carry on the war --and this I say to you in prospect of a long war, for I wish our people to see the full magnitude and to feel the full responsibility which rests upon us in it, and to see our responsibility to meet it-- is this: The North sold us some two hundred and fifty millions annually. This was their riches; hence came their wealth; hence grew their cities. Their wealth was but the accumulation deposited from our commerce, just as the delta of the Nile was enriched by the the deposit of rich alluvial soil brought from the mountains and deposited in it. The riches, money and power of the North came in the same way. Our cotton was the source of it..."
Speech of Alexander Stephens, Vice-President CSA, Augusta, Ga., 11 July 1861
Bringing the