"Commerce," said he, "has long ago spread her sails and sailed away from you. You have not, as yet, dug more than coal enough to warm yourselves at your own hearths; you have not yet spun more than coarse cotton enough in the way of manufacture to clothe your own slaves. You have no commerce, no mining, no manufactures. You have relied alone upon the single power of agriculture—and such agriculture! Your sedge patches outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source of wealth has scarred the very bosom of mother earth."[[196]]
It will be observed that neither the authors of the address issued by the Agricultural Society of Virginia, nor Governor Wise, attribute the poverty and backwardness of Virginia to the institution of slavery. Their statements, however, are none the less valuable as showing the status—financial and industrial—to which Virginia had been reduced.
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[183]
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History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 179.
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[185]
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Causes of Civil War, Chadwick, p. 35.
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[186]
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Niles' Register, Vol. XXXVI, No. 932, p. 356.
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[187]
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Virginia Slavery Debate, 1832, White, Speech of
Thomas Marshall, p. 6.
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[188]
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Idem, Speech of Charles J. Faulkner, p. 7.
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[189]
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Virginia Slavery Debate, 1832, White, Speech of
Philip A. Bolling, p. 14.
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