Early County GaArchives News.....Joel Crawford Letter  January 2 1845
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Georgia Messenger 2 Jan 1845

[Quoting]From the Fort Gaines Whig.
Manufactures in Georgia.
               BLAKELY, 	Dec 18, 1844.
TO HON. THOMAS BUTLER KING:
     Dear Sir:--Those who have known you long, vs little doubt the deep 
interest you take in the prosperity of Georgia, as the competency of your 
counsels, to promote it.  A personal acquaintance of some years standing, 
enables me to advance this opinion of your character; and may authorize the 
call which I now propose to make in behalf of one branch of domestic industry, 
which, until recently, the whoe [sic] South has unaccountably neglected—I have 
allusion to manufactures.
     Shrewd observers in other countries, have doubtless regarded the conduct 
of our people in reference to this subject, with sentiments of mingled surprise 
and contempt.  Exhibiting varieties of soil and climate singularly adapted to 
almost every variety of crop, rich ores, water-power and timber equal to every 
demand, and a population which needs nothing but the direction of science, and 
the stimulus of reward, to accomplish any thing within the range of enterprize 
and art—the present generation, in all the leads to permanent wealth, are 
nearly as little advanced as that which, forty years ago delved as we do now, 
in growing the cotton plant.  Such labor was indeed at that time adequately 
rewarded, and to some extend justified a neglect of those mechanical processes, 
by which the great staple of the country is converted into forms immediately 
subservient to the use of man.  But even then, a division of part of the 
capital and labor of the country, to the manufacture of cloth and other 
fabrics, could not have failed to give a large augmentation of annual income.  
Now, because of redundant production, and perhaps still more, because of the 
advantage taken of our supineness by the more sagacious European, the cotton 
crop has ceased to yield remunerating profits—the growers have placed 
themselves in the condition of a hawker in a glutted market, where sellers are 
always at the mercy of buyers, and often compelled to capricious sacrifices.
     The clumsiest manufacturer of cotton cloth in the United States, is making 
more than double the income on the capital invested, that now comes to the 
hands of the planter; and in well conducted factories, the profits are far 
greater.  By the aid of suitable machinery converting cotton wool into cotton 
cloth, an hundred hands will duplicate the value of crops that cost a years 
labor or perhaps a thousand.  This is accomplished by labor saving machinery—by 
ordering dead matter, acting under the impluses of Nature’s laws, to substitute 
the strength and skill of man; but with an accuracy and despatch, to which the 
strength, senses and volition[?] of man are wholly unequal.  The efficacy of 
labor saving machinery in the augmentation of national and individual wealth, 
has been demonstrated by every writer on political economy, from Adam Smith 
down to the humble compilers of our latest school books.
     Every President of the United States, from Washington to Jackson,  has 
recommended to Congress, the policy of so contriving their tariffs of duties on 
foreign imports, as to stimulate in this country the growth of manufactures.  
At an early period of Mr. Jefferson’s life, he seems to have been adverse to 
the establishment of manufactures in Virginia; but subsequently his opinions on 
the subject underwent a radical change, and no statesman in the Union has 
spoken more emphatically in recommending such employment of American labor and 
capital.
     With a people so well known to be lovers of money as the Georgians, one 
would suppose that these teachings of Philosophy, backed by the opinions of so 
many men in whose counsels they have been accustomed to place the highest 
confidence, would be conclusive.  And yet there is scarcely a dozen cotton 
mills in a State which might most profitably employ five hundred.  The little 
State of Rhode Island, the whole extent of whose territory scarcely exceeds the 
size of a single county in Georgia, has in successful operation not less than 
two hundred cotton and wool factories, besides many for other purposes.  I need 
not tell you what are the fruits of such enterprize in Rhode Island.  All who 
have visited the towns and villages of that enlightened little member of the 
confederacy, know that her growing prosperity has no parallel in the whole 
plantation country of the South.  In soil, climate, and other sources of 
wealth, our comparative advantage are pre-eminent; yet we are becoming poor and 
her people rich—results which are readily accounted for when it is seen that 
one man by the use of machinery, can accomplish more than twenty by mere manual 
labor.
     Nothing is easier than to calculate the differences between the raw 
material and that of the various fabricks [sic] made of it.  One thousand 
pounds of raw cotton may not be worth at the market in Augusta or Savannah, 
fifty dollars—converted into cheap cloth and sold in the same market, the price 
might not fall below three times that sum.  And this is a fair example of the 
selling and the buying which has and must continue to impoverish the planter.  
It is equally too, an example of that augmented rate of income, were we to ship 
to foreign countries, cloth, cordage, &c., instead of cotton wool—were we to 
manufacture our staple at home instead of sending it for that purpose to New or 
Old England.  In most counties of the State, sufficient crops of wheat are 
produced for home consumption—and in many, good mills have been constructed, 
the use of which fortunately relieves our plow and hoe loving population from 
the expense and inconveniences of sending their grain to Richmond or Baltimore 
to be ground into flour.  Nothing indeed could more certainly subject a stupid 
people to anecia [?] and ridicule than such a milling operation—yet it is 
scarcely distinguishable from that which seems to be the settled practice of 
Georgia in the disposition of her great staple.
     I am not apprised that any country on the globe, of the same extent, 
contains a larger amount of water power than ours.  With the exception of a 
narrow border on the seaboard, we have scarcely a county that does not furnish 
an abundance of this quazi perpetual motion, to drive all the machinery 
requisite to manufacture its own cotton crops.  And if water power were 
wanting, or that of steam should be preferred, no country more abounds in cheap 
wood fuel than ours, especially in the region of long-leaved pine.
I know it has been said that the condition and character of our population are 
unfavorable to the success of this branch of domestic industry.  We all know 
that for years past this has occasionally been the theme of stump oratory—and 
we know too that stump oratory has not unfrequently been the vehicle of 
conveying to the public mind impressions far more efficadious in securing the 
triumph of a party, than in advancing the knowledge and interests of the 
people.  Invectives against Yankee factories and Whig tariffs may subserve the 
sinister purposes of the moment; but the decree has gone forth, sanctioned by 
the wisdom and spirit of the age—we must keep pace with the progress of 
improvement or lose caste as a civilized nation.  The South may invoke the 
falicities of “freetrade,” and fulminate the vengeance of Nullification against 
all who question the orthodoxy of the “forty bale”creed; but the well 
marshalled colums of Northern Democracy have taken a position in reference to 
this subject which they will not abandon.—With a fairly counted majority of 
more than sixty members, a Democratic Congress last winter refused to ratify 
the sham report of its own committee—they would not, and never will impugn the 
policy which fosters American industry.  Free trade, as Mr. Webster said of the 
United States Bank, has become an obsolete idea—and we of the South may find 
far better employment inseizing and appropriating the high advantages which 
belong to our actual situation, than waging a fruitless war against the 
protective policy of the Government, or maintaining a dogged adhesion to the 
maxims and usages of a by-gone age.
     But what is there in the character of our population which denies to us 
the benefits of manufacturing labor?  The negro is held in bondage by the legal 
authority of his master; but can he on that account be less qualified for the 
use of simple machinery, than the equally unenlightened and far worse provided 
European?  I see no reason to doubt, that with the same apprenticeship he will 
become equally, if not more expert.  Should it, however, be determined, that 
the cotton fields and the negroes of the South are to be inseparable, the labor 
of white persons can be had readily in this State.  It will hardly be asserted 
that boys, girls, or adults in this country would be less apt to learn the 
routine of factory duty than those of the same color age and sex in any other 
part of the Union—nor is there any reason to doubt that like advantages would 
accrue to both them and their employees, as are known to be realized in 
Pennsylvania and New York.  At some of the factories now in operation, slaves 
are employed, but white persons are more frequently called to the work, and can 
be hired at lower wages, I understand, than are paid in the Northern States.  
The owner of a cotton mill in this State assures me, that he can at any time, 
and on short notice, increase his number of laborers to any desirable extent—
that the light work, punctual pay and snug quarters of the factory, give it a 
decided preference amonth the laboring classes of his neighborhood, expecially 
the females and boys.  Actual experiment in this State has negatived all 
presumption against the feasibility of securing cheap and effective labor for 
manufacturing purposes.
     That no country whose pursuits have been exclusively agricultural, was 
ever permanently prosperous—that a proper division of labor is indispensable to 
the greatest attainment of wealth—that a division of one-tenth or more of the 
labor now employed in procuring the raw material, to the manufacture of cotton 
into cloth, cordage, bagging, yarn &c., would infallibly raise the market price 
of the article, are propositions which can be clearly established.
To your more practised and fertile pen, you have as I suppose, leisure and 
ready access to statistical authority, I beg leave to refer the discussion of 
these and other topics pertaining to the objects and purpose of this letter.
     With great esteem, your most obedient, 
                                    JOEL CRAWFORD.


Additional Comments:
Georgia Journal & Messenger Mar 1843-Aug 1848
This particular article is copied by the Messenger from The Fort Gaines Whig, a 
newspaper which was published in Fort Gaines, Early (now Clay) Co., Ga.

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