International cotton trade
August 3, 1840
From Liverpool, Garrison writes to Joseph Pease, In commenting on the status of the abolition movement, he contends “That if England would supply herself with free trade cotton from some other part of the world, to the exclusion of all slave grown cotton, it is quite certain that, within seven years, American slavery would be peaceably abolished, from absolute necessity, as well as from the moral change which will by that time have been wrought in the free States of America…. it now seems to be placed beyond all doubt, that cotton can be grown by free labor at a much less expense, and in far greater abundance, in British India, than it is now done by slave labor in the United States; hence, that England, as a matter of self-interest, as well as on the score of humanity, should without delay redress the wrongs of India, give protection and encouragement to its oppressed and suffering population, and thus obtain a cheap, permanent and abundant supply of free cotton from her own vast and fertile possessions in the East…” 1