It was, indeed, its necessity. Had all the people been alike--had
their institutions all been the same--there would have been no interest
to bring them together; there would have been no cause or necessity for
any restraint being imposed upon them. It was the fact that they
differed which rendered it necessary to have some law governing their
intercourse. It was the fact that their products were opposite--that
their pursuits were various--that rendered it the great interest of the
people that they should have free trade existing among each other; that
free trade which Franklin characterized as being between the States such
as existed between the counties of England.
Since that era, however, a fiber then unknown in the United States, and
the production of which is dependent upon the domestic institution of
African slavery, has come to be cultivated in such amounts, to enter so
into the wearing apparel of the world, so greatly to add to the comfort
of the poor, that it may be said to-day that that little fiber, cotton,
wraps the commercial world and binds it to the United States in bonds to
keep the peace with us which no Government dare break. It has built up
the Northern States. It is their great manufacturing interest to-day. It
supports their shipping abroad. It enables them to purchase in the
markets of China, when the high premium to be paid on the milled dollar
would otherwise exclude them from that market.
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