Northerners and southerners alike hoped that slavery would just die out. But the rise of king cotton and its domination of the southern economy just made slavery stronger.

北方人和南方人都同样希望奴隶制消亡但棉花王国的兴起和其作为南方经济的支柱使得奴隶制愈发牢固。

No wonder Southern statesmen saw, in the annexation of Texas and the conquest of Mexico, slavery and King Cotton triumphant—secure for all time against adverse legislation.

难怪南方政治家认为， 在吞并德克萨斯和征服墨西哥时，奴隶制和科顿国王取得了胜利——永远可以抵御不利的立法。

Ever active in their search for new fields as they exhausted the virgin soil of the older states, the restless subjects of King Cotton quickly reached the frontier of Louisiana.

当他们耗尽旧州的处女地时，他们一直积极寻找新的领域，科顿国王焦躁不安的臣民很快就到达了路易斯安那州的边境。

Tested by figures of production, King Cotton had shriveled by 1860 to a petty prince in comparison, for each year the captains of industry turned out goods worth nearly twenty times all the bales of cotton picked on Southern plantations.

通过生产数据的检验，相比之下， 棉花大王到 1860 年已经缩水为一个小王子，工业巨头每年生产的商品价值几乎是南方种植园采摘的所有棉花包的 20 倍。