When compelled to acknowledge the superior prosperity of the free States, the slaveholders are fond of imputing the difference to tariffs, or to government patronage, or to any other than the true cause.
Tappan addresses the excuses slaveholders make for their economic struggles, attributing them to slavery rather than external factors.
Share
More from Lewis Tappan
The very advertisements in your newspapers show that, for a vast proportion of the comforts and conveniences of life, you are dependent on Northern manufacturers and mechanics.
We surely need not detain you with farther details on this head, to convince you what an enormous sacrifice of happiness and prosperity you are offering on the altar of slavery.
Cotton is the product of slave labor, and its profits at home are confined almost exclusively to the slaveholders.
We ask your attention to the injuries inflicted upon you and your children, by an institution which lives by your sufferance, and will die at your mandate.