overseer and their families. Now, upon the absurd supposition that a
free man, with a will in his work, would do no more work than a slave,
what would be the result of his labor? 1st, food for his family; 2d, 10
acres of cotton, at 500 pounds to the acre, 5000 pounds, at 10 cents per
pound, or $500. But the result would be much greater, for, as a Southern
man has well said, 'the maximum of slave labor would be the minimum of
free labor;' and the writer can bring proof of many instances where each
field hand has produced 13, 15, and even 18 bales of cotton in a year.
With the denser population which would follow the emancipation of the
slaves and the breaking up of the plantation system, a harvest force for
the picking season would be available, and one man would as easily
cultivate 20 to 25 acres of cotton, with assistance in the picking
season, as he could thirty acres of corn, the usual allotment to each
hand upon the corn land of Texas.

The very expense of slave labor is a proof of the profit which must be
derived from it. The writer has elsewhere estimated the cost of slave
labor at $20 per month, which statement has been questioned, because no
allowance was made for the increase of the live stock. Now it is well
understood that where the women are worked in the fields in such a
manner as to make their labor pay, the increase of live stock is much
smaller, and the business of breeding is left to the first families in
Virginia and other localities where the land has been exhausted (readers
will pardon a plain statement,--it will cause them to realize the full
horror of the business). The slaves in the cotton States increased from
1850 to 1860 33-88/100 per cent., in all the other slave States 9-61/100
per cent. The surplus increase in the cotton States, above the average,
was 190,632. Where did they come from?[C] At $900 each, this surplus
represents a capital of $171,568,800. How was this sum earned, and to
whom was it paid?