In conclusion, I have to say that the cotton cloths manufactured in our country are nearly as much a necessary as breadstuffs, entering into the daily life of all, whether rich or poor, like daily bread.
In the debate which ensued, Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, alluded to Mr. Sumner.
“I have been very strongly arrested by the debate to-day, and I very much approve of its spirit and its tenor. I am glad to see gentlemen quitting visionary subjects”—
Mr. Clark. Do not lug them in.
—“and coming to questions of legitimate political economy; and especially I am glad that the Senators from Massachusetts have shown a disposition to come to such legitimate ground of legislation.”
In the same speech the Kentucky Senator indulged in prophecy.
“And if the slaves were liberated, if the theory of the gentlemen from Massachusetts and other Senators were carried into operation, I believe, as certainly as I believe that I am now addressing the Senate of the United States, that there would not be one fifth as much cotton raised in any year in the next five years as has been raised, according to the estimate of the Senator from Rhode Island, for the past year. I do not believe that the man lives, that the child lives, who will ever see, after the universal emancipation of the slaves, under any state of labor, or of care, or of application of labor, either the labor of men or of machinery, that the production of cotton in the United States will reach one half of five millions of bags.”[61]
The amendment striking out the tax was adopted,—Yeas 20, Nays 16.