Saturday, October 3, 2009

Cotton-Gin

Exterior of Eli Whitney workshop, Washington, Georgia

"When the institution [of slavery] became profitable, all talk of its abolition ceased where it existed; and naturally as human nature is constituted, arguments were adduced in its support. The cotton-gin probably had much to do with the justification of slavery."
- Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, pp.149-150