There is little need to go further into the rift which began to develop almost immediately. In 1861 the split occurred. The war between the States caused hardly more suffering than the blockade which cut off the spinners of Manchester from the vegetable wool which supplied them the means of living. Cotton proved its power and its domination. It was a beneficent monarch, but it brooked no denial of its overlordship.
Early Exports
to England Heavy
The invention of the Whitney Gin, as we have just said, found the United States able to use but a small part of the cotton grown. What became of the remainder? Obviously, it was exported to provide the means for operating the English mills. Here is a table which shows how American cotton left the Southern ports for England and the Continent in the alternate decennial years beginning in 1790, three years before the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. The figures are exclusive of linters.
| Year |
Exports in Equivalent of 500 Pound Bales |
| 1790 | 379 |
| 1810 | 124,116 |
| 1830 | 553,960 |
| 1850 | 1,854,474 |
| 1870 | 2,922,757 |
| 1890 | 5,850,219 |
| 1910 | 8,025,991 |
| 1917 | 4,587,000 |
In 1910 American cotton made up almost exactly three-quarters of the whole amount imported into Great Britain. The other countries of Europe have developed a spinning industry by no means inconsiderable. American cotton is sent to almost all those European countries which spin and weave.
Such a movement had of course a profound effect upon the currents of world trade. The cotton crop is the second in value of all the crops produced in the United States, and such a large part of it is exported that the credit it gives to its sellers enables them to buy in return some of the most valuable of the products manufactured in Europe.
The following table gives the amount of cotton, expressed in the equivalent of 500 pound bales, exported to the various countries named in the decennial years:
| Year |
United Kingdom | Germany | France | Italy | Russia | Netherlands | Belgium |
| 1821 | 175,438 | 1,496 | 54,878 | 1,796 | 609 | 8,372 | |
| 1830 | 419,661 | 2,246 | 150,212 | 471 | 223 | 17,135 | |
| 1840 | 989,830 | 18,317 | 358,180 | 7,805 | 4,406 | 21,698 | 25,780 |
| 1850 | 863,062 | 10,090 | 251,668 | 18,707 | 8,677 | 8,590 | 25,492 |
| 1860 | 2,528,274 | 132,145 | 567,935 | 54,037 | 43,396 | 25,515 | 29,601 |
| 1870 | 1,298,332 | 173,552 | 306,293 | 14,549 | 30,341 | 17,050 | 3,452 |
| 1880 | 2,433,255 | 308,045 | 359,693 | 59,126 | 204,500 | 65,325 | 17,896 |
| 1890 | 2,905,152 | 837,641 | 484,759 | 129,751 | 193,163 | 17,438 | 93,588 |
| 1900 | 2,302,128 | 1,619,173 | 736,092 | 443,951 | 54,950 | 74,635 | 148,319 |
| 1910 | 2,444,558 | 1,887,657 | 968,422 | 393,327 | 67,203 | 18,823 | 102,346 |
| 1917 | 2,387,101 | 658,553 | 369,213 | 15,945 | 10,098 |