of 1819), produced a less sum by more than half a million of dollars;
and the crop of 1824, amounting to thirty millions of pounds less than
that of the preceding year, produced a million and a half of dollars
more.

If there be any foundation for the established law of price, supply,
and demand, ought not the fact of this great increase of the supply to
account satisfactorily for the alleged low price of cotton? * * *

Let us suppose that the home demand for cotton, which has been created
by the American system, should cease, and that the two hundred thousand
bales which the home market now absorbs were now thrown into the glutted
markets of foreign countries; would not the effect inevitably be to
produce a further and great reduction in the price of the article?
If there be any truth in the facts and principles which I have before
stated and endeavored to illustrate, it cannot be doubted that the
existence of American manufactures has tended to increase the demand
and extend the consumption of the raw material; and that, but for this
increased demand, the price of the article would have fallen possibly
one half lower than it now is. The error of the opposite argument is
in assuming one thing, which being denied, the whole fails--that is, it
assumes that the whole labor of the United States would be profitably
employed without manufactures. Now, the truth is that the system excites
and creates labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth
communicates additional ability to consume, which acts on all the
objects contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. The amount of
cotton imported into the two ports of Boston and Providence alone during
the last year (and it was imported exclusively for the home manufacture)
was 109,517 bales.