COTTON IS KING:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The first edition of Cotton is King was issued as an experiment. Its favorable reception led to further investigation, and an enlargement of the work for a second edition.
The present publishers have bought the copyright of the third edition, with the privilege of printing it in the form and manner that may best suit their purposes. This step severs the author from all further connection with the work, and affords him an opportunity of stating a few of the facts which led, originally, to its production. He was connected with the newspaper press, as an editor, from 1824 till 1836. This included the period of the tariff controversy, and the rise of the anti-slavery party of this country. After resigning the editorial chair, he still remained associated with public affairs, so as to afford him opportunities of observing the progress of events. In 1848 he accepted an appointment as Agent of the American Colonization Society, for Ohio; and was thus brought directly into contact with the elements of agitation upon the slavery question, in the aspect which that controversy had then assumed. Upon visiting Columbus, the seat of government of the State, in January, 1849, the Legislature, then in session, was found in great, agitation about the repeal of the Black Laws, which had originally been enacted to prevent the immigration of colored men into the State. The abolitionists held the balance of power, and were uncompromising in their demands. To escape from the difficulty, and prevent all future agitation upon the subject, politicians united in erasing this cause of disturbance from the statute book. The colored people had been in convention at the capitol; and felt themselves in a position, as they imagined, to control the legislation of the State. They were encouraged in this belief by the abolitionists, and proceeded to effect an organization by which black men were to stump the State in advocacy of their claims to an equality with white men.
At this juncture the Colonization cause was brought before the Legislature, by a memorial asking aid to send emigrants to Liberia. An appointment was also made, by the agent, for a Lecture on Colonization, to be delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives; and respectful notices sent to the African churches, inviting the colored people to attend. This invitation was met by them with the publication of a call for an indignation meeting; which, on assembling, denounced both the agent and the cause he advocated, in terms unfitted to be copied into this work. One of the resolutions, however, has some significance, as foreshadowing the final action they contemplated, and which has shown itself so futile, as a means of redress, in the recent Harper's Ferry Tragedy. That resolution reads as follows:
"Resolved,—That we will never leave this country while one of our brethren groans in slavish fetters in the United States, but will remain on this soil and contend for our rights, and those of our enslaved race—upon the rostrum—in the pulpit—in the social circle, and upon the field, if necessary, until liberty to the captive shall be proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of this great Republic, or we called from time to eternity."