His factory made him quite a rich man.
Some of the southern states showed their gratitude.
In 1817, Mr. Whitney married Miss Edwards of Connecticut.
He had a son and three daughters.
The people of New Haven respected him.
They gave him great honor.
He died on January 8, 1825.
The little cotton-gin had done a great work.
The sunny South was covered with beautiful plantations.
The cotton fields shone in the sunlight.
[Illustration]
Riches were beginning to fill the pockets of the planters.
Only one blight remained upon the land.
This was the dreadful system of slavery.
And that, too, has been destroyed.
We wish that Mr. Whitney might see the South of to-day.
He did not live to know how great a curse slavery might be.
He did not foresee that his cotton-gin might help to cause a great
war.
Yet the blue and the gray fought and died.
The blood of many a hero stained a southern field.
All this that the cotton-pickers might be free!
All this that our country might be truly "the land of the free and
the home of the brave!"
[Illustration: S.F.B. MORSE.]
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE.
If everything were now as it was in 1791, what a queer place this
world of ours would be to us!
A hundred years ago!
Suppose we imagine ourselves living in the year 1800.
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