Tyler, John, autograph letter signed to H. Smith Esqr., Sherwood Forest, Virginia, 5 February 1849

TYLER, JOHN

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ("JOHN TYLER") TO H. SMITH ESQR., COMMENTING ON THE FUTURE OF "KING COTTON"

Six pages (12 1/2 x 7 5/8 in.; 317 x 194 mm) on three sheets, Sherwood Forest, Virginia, 5 February 1849, with engraved portrait; blind stamped eagle in upper right corner of first page, light browning, folds, some scattered fox marks, a few edge tears and minor losses. 

Tyler affirms cotton's relationship to American mid-nineteenth-century progress, and forcefully predicts its bright future.

"New manufactories and in considerable number are rising up all over the country is proof that the day has already dawn'd in which the cotton planter may look for an immensely valuable market at his own door...the U. States may justly be regarded as having a virtual monopoly of the cotton plant."

Southern cotton advanced following the American Revolution, driven by new inventions in the English textile industry, by the cotton gin that separated seeds, and by an influx of slave labor. However, this would all change with the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, after which America's cotton production would drastically decline.