Speaking in favor of manufactures, the Hon. J. H. Lumpkin, of Georgia, said in 1852:—
“It is objected that these manufacturing establishments will become the hotbeds of crime. But I am by no means ready to concede that our poor, degraded, half-fed, half-clothed, and ignorant population—without Sabbath Schools, or any other kind of instruction, mental or moral, or without any just appreciation of character—will be injured by giving them employment, which will bring them under the oversight of employers, who will inspire them with self-respect by taking an interest in their welfare.”
In a paper on the “Extension of Cotton and Wool Factories at the South,” Mr. Steadman, of Tennessee, says:—
“In Lowell, labor is paid the fair compensation of 80 cents a day for men, and $2 a week for women, beside board, while in Tennessee the average compensation for labor does not exceed 50 cents per day for men, and $1,25 per week for women.”
In the course of a speech which he delivered in Congress several years ago, Mr. T. L. Clingman, of North Carolina, said:—
“Our manufacturing establishments can obtain the raw material (cotton) at nearly two cents on the pound cheaper than the New-England establishments. Labor is likewise one hundred per cent. cheaper. In the upper parts of the State, the labor of either a free man or a slave, including board, clothing, &c., can be obtained for from $110 to $120 per annum. It will cost at least twice that sum in New-England. The difference in the cost of female labor, whether free or slave, is even greater.”
The Richmond (Va.) Dispatch says:—
“We will only suppose that the ready-made shoes imported into this city from the North, and sold here, were manufactured in Richmond. What a great addition it would be to the means of employment! How many boys and females would find the means of earning their bread, who are now suffering for a regular supply of the necessaries of life.”
A citizen of New-Orleans, writing in DeBow’s Review, says:—
“At present the sources of employment open to females (save in menial offices) are very limited; and an inability to procure suitable occupation is an evil much to be deplored, as tending in its consequences to produce demoralization. The superior grades of female labor may be considered such as imply a necessity for education on the part of the employee, while the menial class is generally regarded as of the lowest; and in a slave State, this standard is ‘in the lowest depths, a lower deep,’ from the fact that, by association, it is a reduction of the white servant to the level of their colored fellow-menials.”