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The Cotton Tax.

HOW IT OPERATES ON PRODUCTION -HOW IT ROBS THE FREEDMEN--ITS FOLLY.

An officer of the Freedman's Bureau, at Demopolis, Alabama, has written a letter to the Alabama Republican, in which he expo-ses the folly, if not wickedness, of the tax put on cotton by the Radical Congress. It is the testimony of one who knows whereof he writes :
AN ARGUMENT AGAINST THE COTTON TAX, BY AN OFFIC R OF THE FREEDMAN'S BUREAU.
DEMOPOLIS, Ala., March 13, 1867.
The erroneous idea that there are immense profits in raising cotton has, undoubtedly, induced Congress to impose the tax of three cents a pound; while the actual truth is, it is not more profitable than the cultivation of any other agricultural product. What made it profitable in former times, was the continually increasing number and value of the slaves who cultivated the crop, rather than the proceeds of the crop itself; for it is well known that a man not owning slaves never could made a decent living by his own labor in the cotton-field, and even at present prices its cultivation is not more profitable than that of many other agricultural products which are not taxed. 

To illustrate: One man with a mule, in a good cotton season, at a high average, in the old cotton States, can make 2,000 pounds of lint cotton and about enough corn to feed his mule. This takes his entire time for twelve months in the year. This cotton at the present price will sell for $500, on which the Government tax of 8 cents per pound amounts to $60. Now one man with a team in Illinois, by working six months in the year, can make 2,000 bushels of corn, worth at least $800. A tax on this $800 worth of corn raised by one man in Illinois, in proportion to that imposed on the $500 worth of cotton raised by one man in Alabama, would be $96 or nearly 5 cents per bushel. But as it takes only half the labor to make the corn that is required to make the cotton, the tax on it should be doubled, or 10 cents per bushel, in order to equalize the business.

One man in Berkshire county can provide for and milk twenty cows, from which he can make 8,000 pounds of cheese, which will net $1,400. Now a tax on this $1,400 worth of cheese which one man in Berkshire can make, in proportion to the $60 tax on $500 worth of cotton which one man in Alabama can make, would be $160, or two cents per pound. How would our Berkshire farmers relish this? One man in any Northern State can take care of and provide for enough sheep to produce 2,000 pounds of wool, which is just the number of pounds of cotton which one man in Alabama can produce. But wool usually sells at double the price of cotton at its home market; hence a tax on wool parallel with that on cotton should be six cents per pound. Yet Congress, instead of taxing wool until it stands on equal footing with cotton, or removing the tax from cotton until it stands on equal footing with wool, keeps a tax on cotton which does not increase the market value anywhere, and puts a high protective duty on all imported wool, which largely increases the home value of the native article. It is well enough to protect American wool, but why thus oppress American cotton? Is it magnanimous? Is it just? Is it encouraging Southern emigration? Is it not rather poor statesmanship, and blind sectional legislation? 

This, however is not the worst feature of it. This little tax of three cents per pound on cotton produces actually destitution and suffering among the freedmen. I have assisted in the settlement of accounts with freedmen, on perhaps fifty plantations in Alabama during the winter, and know perhaps well their condition. The following statement of the situation on one plantation will illustrate that on hundreds of others. In the latter part of December I visited one plantation lying about ten miles up the Tombighee river, for the purpose of settling with the freedmen. There was made on the place less than one thousand pounds of cotton to the hand, and no corn. It was an average cotton crop for last year in this section of the country. The freedmen were to receive as wages their rations of cornmeal and pork, and one-forth of the crop which [[page torn]]
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Transcription Notes:
One indecipherable word in the middle of the last paragraph, then a large part of the paper is missing at the bottom. Gl Hf