That section was not slow to feel the unequal action of the protective principle.

The character of its labor incapacitated the South from dividing the benefits of the new revenue policy with its free rival.

The South of necessity was restricted to a single industry, the tillage of the earth.

Slave labor did not possess the intelligence, the skill, the patience, the mechanical versatility to embark successfully in manufacturing enterprises.

Free labor monopolised the protected industries, and Northern capital caught all the golden showers of fiscal legislation.
What the South needed, from an economic point of view, was unrestricted access to the markets of the world for her products, and the freest competition of the world in her own markets.