convention to assist the sugar and the mo- on the other. Those cotton ships are not lasses to get to Chicago by railway, if sugar good provision and assorted-cargo carriers. and molasses shall prefer that, to water car-The clippers are for that. The new models riage. beat steam. One of them (the Flying Cloud) has been known to sail 430 statute miles in one day, and upwards of 1,100 miles in three consecutive days. These ships cannot come to New-Orleans. The bar will not admit them; and one of them can go to California and return while a "cotton droger" is getting around Cape Horn. We buy Virginia hams here in Washington now that are cured in Terre Haute, on the Wabash. By the old and natural roads to market that could not be; the route of the ham would have been down to New-Orleans, thence by ship to New-York, and thence back by a packet into the capes of Virginia, and so up the Potomac to Washington-a two or three months' voyage, during which, in consequence of the climates through it must have passed, and the stowage it must encounter, it probably would have come to life again. At any rate, it would have been alive by the time it reached this place. Now, in consequence of these rail-roads, which have been tapping the Mississippi valley, the Westphalias" of Terre Haute can reach here in a week by paying cent a lb. They come up the Ohio, instead of going down; and across by rail-road, instead of around by water. The commercial history of this ham is that of much produce in the valley of the Upper Mississippi. Here, therefore, in these tap ping railways, is to be found another of the silent causes which have lessened the deliveries of produce at New-Orleans. Besides, the winds are such, that a vessel, bound from New-Orleans to Brazil or California, has to go out of the gulf into the gulf stream, and then steer northwardly, till she reaches the parallel of 35° or 40°, so that it is not greatly out of her way to touch at NewYork. Hence, most of the trade with Califormia in produce of the Mississippi valley is carried on by the way of New-York, on account of the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi. In all these circumstances are to be found lamps for our feet, and lights for our eyes, as we attempt to devise the ways by which enterprise and energy may restore to New-Orleans all the advantages which their absence from her high places has suffered to be taken away from her, or to be withheld, because never enjoyed. The objects of the convention, as set forth the committee's circular of November 4th, 1851, "are, as far as possible, to bring about a concentration and unity of effort in all these states, in the extension of their rail-road systems, and in bringing into more active connection their population and their industry." To add to the deleterious effects upon New-in Orleans of this tapping of the Mississippi River at the other end of its valley, and on the eastern side, are the bars at the Balize, and the influence which the depth of water there exercises the baneful influence which the bar there exercises upon the models and the sailing qualities, and, in fact, upon the whole economy of the ships that are built for the New-Orleans trade. And it is bad for the owners to be compelled to build ships that will not answer equally well for all trades. The best carriers, therefore, cannot come to New-Orleans. If they could, New-Orleans would soon find her merchants shipping the produce that lines the levee direct to its foreign port of destination. As it is, the ingenuity of ship-builders has contrived models for cotton ships. These are immense carriers, and can take cotton to England at rates which a few years ago would have been considered ruinous to owners. These vessels being once loaded and over the bar into blue water, will take cotton to Liverpool nearly as cheap as they will to New-York or Boston. The voyage is short, and perhaps the chances for a return cargo are better in Liverpool; therefore, they go direct. In these facts and circumstances, and in this view of them, we can see the operation of causes which tend to increase the foreign export trade on one hand, and to decrease it But it seems to be the wish of the committee that I should confine my attention to "the extension of southern and western commerce, the home and foreign trade, &c." Therefore, being invited out to sea, I shall let the rail-roads, which it is the special object of the convention to encourage, alone. I take my departure from the premises above stated, and treat of extending the commerce of the Mississippi valley, &c., by sea. The apparent decline in the business of New-Orleans is, as I have already intimated, due to the effects of the telegraph and railroad, and to the improvements in steam, ship-building, and navigation. This is the root of the matter. What, then, are the steps which the South and West ought to take-what are the measures which they ought to adopt, in order to insure to them that degree of commercial wealth and prosperity, which their resources and their geographical position entitle them to expect? The answer to this question lies under several heads, and the principal of them are these: 1st-A liberal policy on the part of NewOrleans, touching fees of various kinds, to which the produce that comes there shall be subjected. 2d-Embankments, to confine the Mississippi River in its channel. 3d-To deepen the water on one of the bars in the passes of the river. 4th-The establishment of lines of sea steamers. 5th-Attention to the mineral resources of our region of country, and a free use of its manufacturing facilities. 6th-The opening of commercial highways across the Isthmus. 7th-The establishment, in the Mississippi valley, of a navy yard, depot, and workshops, which in war shall have strength, capacity, and resources enough to give us command of the Gulf of Mexico, and control of the commerce passing through it. 8th-The free navigation of the Amazon River, and the building up there of those business relations and friendly ties, which hold nations together in the bonds of peace and friendship. These are the measures-the means are simple they consist in a firm reliance upon our own abilities, with a determination to perform our part in the matter, and to require the government to do its part as well. Such are the questions which I propose to consider, except in so far as the proposed rail-roads may be involved in the case. That, as already remarked, I leave to wiser heads. If the people of the South and West will be but true to themselves-if they will put their shoulders to the wheel, and, as one man, appear, in the persons of their representatives here, in the halls of Congress, and insist upon fair, even-handed justice in the appropriatious for public works, that course of legislation will follow, which long ago ought to have been adopted with regard to the Mississippi River, and kindred subjects. I do not present these measures, or any of them, as substitutes or rivals to the proposed system of railways; nor do I hold them up as measures which will, ought, or should divert attention from the railways. There will be ability enough in the Convention to treat all of these measures, and to present each one to the public in its true bearings upon the common weal; and there is energy with enterprise enough in that region to carry them all on together. II. The drowned lands in the Mississippi valley have been ceded to the states in which they lie, upon condition that those states, in reclaiming them, will confine the river within its banks. The reclamation of these lands would improve the climate of a vast region of country, and make it much more salubrious; it would add vastly to the wealth of those states by giving value to the lands, and greatly increase their commercial resources by bringing immense regions of these vacant lands under VOL. III. 2 cultivation; and it would also vastly improve the navigation of the river. An object of so much importance to the health and prosperity of so many people, in so many states, is certainly worth looking after; and the work, when done, should be done in the most thorough and effective manner. Therefore let us pray Congress for the appointment of an engineer who shall plan the work; and for the enactment of a statute requiring the states to have the work done according to that plan. This work is to last for all time. Suppose, therefore, merely for the sake of illustration, that one of the states above Louisiana should be unfortunate in the adoption of a plan; that after having let the work, accepted it, and parted with the lands, experience should prove the plan to be bad or the work to be useless. Louisiana then is overflowed in spite of herself; and her works, which we will suppose were really sufficient, are thus in danger of being rendered of no avail. The prosperity of the valley is to be greatly affected by this work of embankment, drainage, and reclamation; and, therefore, the best talents that the country affords should be employed to direct it. III. More than fourteen feet water cannot now be counted upon in crossing any of the bars at the Balize. Vessels drawing sixteen feet are sometimes dragged over them through the mud. As for the ability of New-Orleans, or the people who send their produce there on its way to market, to avail themselves of the improvement in ship-building, as long as the passes of the river are obstructed by bars, it is out of the question. The sailing qualities of ships are according to their models; their models are regulated by their draught; and their draught is controlled by the depth of water on the bar. Therefore, the people of the great valley of the West, the men whose labors and whose enterprise have put the heart of the country where it is, and who supply all those great staples out of which the business of commerce raises revenue for the government-therefore, I say, those people must be doomed to second and third rate ships to do business for them upon the great waters, because that government will not do its duty. Had the people of the Mississippi valley been true to themselves, no representative of theirs would have ever been found recording his vote more than once against an appropriation for keeping the mouth of that river free and open for ships of the largest class. A year or two ago, the Secretary of the Navy was kind enough to yield to my solicitations, and to direct a series of observations to be conducted upon the habits of the Mississippi River, at Memphis. This series commenced 1st March, 1850, and was continued daily for a year, by Robert A. Marr, Passed Mid. U. S. Navy; a most intelligent officer, and a patient and indefatigable observer. His attention was directed, among other things, to the volume of water, as well as the quantity of sediment, borne down the river by Memphis. His observations were most carefully made. According to them, and upon the supposition that the year gave a fair average, there go by Memphis daily, 471,550 cubic yards of sand and mud, or silt, as it is called. Because the river runs faster at Memphis than it does at and below New-Orleans, and because, as the current slackens, the silt is precipitated, we are, I presume, correct in the inference, that the waters of the Mississippi River are more heavily laden with silt as they pass Memphis, than they are when they reach the Balize. Now we know very well, and we derive the knowledge from many years of observation, that the Mississippi River does not raise its bottom, below New-Orleans, at the rate of more than a few inches in a year, if at the rate of an inch. To cross the bar at either of the passes, a vessel has only to sail a few hundred yards. Suppose the bar were to rise up at the rate of one or two feet, instead of a few inches in the year; the channel-way across the bar for ships need not be more than 300 or 400 feet wide; and how much dredging would it take to excavate annually a layer of mud one or two feet deep, from a channel-way a quarter of a mile long, by 300 or 400 feet wide? This is the matter about which the government has, for the last twenty years, been having examinations made. Éxaminations will never satisfy. Let us make the experiment.* I have no doubt whatever as to the practicability of deepening one or more of the bars of the mouth of the Mississippi, and by dredg. ing, of keeping any required depth of water there. A gale might now and then interfere with it. But it is a case in which experiment, and experiment alone, can properly decide, It is worth the trial. I hope, there. fore, that the delegates to the Convention, and the people whom they represent, will take the matter in hand, and not rest till Congress causes the experiment of deepening one of the bars at the mouth of the Mississippi to be made. This is no New-Orleans question: it is not confined to the valley, nor to the people of the South and West. It is a great national concern. The people of Missouri, Iowa, and Tennessee, of Maine, Massachusetts and Texas, are as much interested in this matter as are those of Louisiana. IV. Steamships are the railways of the sea. Notwithstanding there be fine navigable See an article upon this subject, in one of the numbers of the "Western Review," published at St. Louis. streams and good turnpike roads leading into a city, it is found, by ample experience, that a few rail-roads, well placed and brought into the same city, will vastly increase its business, and, hence, its prosperity. What is singular about these railways is, that they do not interfere with the turnpikes nor the river trade. They create a business of their own. So it is with lines of steamships. They do not interfere with the coasters and the sailing packets, which answer to the turnpike and river craft of the interior. But they also create a business of their own. Look what the European steamers have done for NewYork and Boston. So far from interfering with the business under canvas, from those cities, they have stimulated it, and made it more active. Ever since steamers began to ply between New-York and Liverpool, the New-York packet ships have been increasing both in number and size. And it is as idle for us of the South and West to repose upon the great commercial advantages which na ture has vouchsafed to New-Orleans, or that region of country, by reason of her own geographical position, and the geographical position of the Gulf of Mexico-it is as idle, I say, for the people to rest quiet, and expect the proper lines of steamers to come to them, as it has been for them to rest quiet upon the advantages which the Mississippi River gave them, while around them was enterprise and activity. Other cities and sections tapped the Mississippi valley, and sent rail-roads there for their own benefit and advantage. They may also, from the same motives, send their steamships to ply about New-Orleans. The people of New-Orleans have waked up to the reality of their position in one of those respects. The watchful are never caught asleep twice; and it is time they were beginning to be up and doing in the other. VI. As soon as there is a commercial thoroughfare across the Isthmus, which will unload, handle, and transport the breadstuffs with the other heavy produce of the Mississippi valley, across the Isthmus, and put it on board ships in the Pacific for less than it costs to get it as far as Cape Horn, on the way, that moment is the Gulf of Mexico raised to the summit level of this world's commerce. All nations will then be down hill from the Gulf; and the people who inhabit the great valley of the West, and who pass its produce down through the Mississippi River into the Gulf, and deliver it there to the winds of heaven, or the currents of the sea, may then take their choice, and go with it by downstream or fair-wind navigation, to any market place upon the sea-shore in the wide world. Then, New-Orleans, instead of New-York, should glut the markets of California and Peru with breadstuffs, cucuyos and merchandise. Then, the valley of the West, instead of the coal mines of England and the mines of Penn sylvania, should supply the vast demands which the Pacific Ocean has, and the far greater which it will have, for coal. It will give New-Orleans the command of a better coffee market than any she now has; and she can then send coffee, along with Louisiana sugar, up to that other mouth of the Mississippi which Illinois enterprise has discovered in Lake Michigan. to be. Therefore, let the people of the South and West take time by the forelock, and wake up Tennessee and Kentucky, and other parts, to their duty, in that great manufacturing and mining region which nature has fitted them The people of South America and Califor. nia, and the isles of the Pacific, will depend on them for merchandise; for the ports and outlets to market of the western people; and southern states will then be the half-way house on the great market-ways. England and Europe, to reach the "grand ocean," as the French navigators style the Pacific, will have to pass by our very doors as they go, and come within call as they return. A magnificent future is that which commerce, by the laws of trade, and the decrees of nature, holds in store for the people of the South and West. If we will only do our part, the prize is won, and the wealth and the power are ours also. VII. Should there ever be, and doubtless there will be, several such highways across the Isthmus; and should war ever again occur among maritime nations, is it to be supposed that the belligerents, be they who they may. will look on and see us quietly enjoying all the advantages of these thoroughfares, and becoming thereby a head and shoulders taller than all the nations in the world? never. No, Moreover, we are bound by that golden cord which never has, and-as far as it depends upon the people from my part of the country, whom I now address-which never can be tarnished or weakened-by the faith of this great nation, are we bound to maintain the neutrality of those highways. That we may do this that we may be true to ourselves, and secure in the possession of that great edifice of commerce, of wealth, grandeur and power, the keystone of which you have assembled to put in, the naval supremacy and command of the Gulf of Mexico, a mare clausum, and an American sea, is a sine qua non It will never do to let Great Britain, or any other power, command that sheet of water with her ships of war. To whom shall its defences be entrusted, but to us of the South and West, who have so much at stake there? It is well known that we will fight hard for our cotton bags. Therefore, fortify the Tortugas, and build up the navy-yard at Memphis. The South and the West have been thimble-rigged out of that navy yard. The law made it a naval depot, or dockyard. It has been converted into a rope-walk, and thereby it has become a by-word and a reproach, if not an eyesore to its friends. I repeat here what I have recently had occasion officially to say upon the same subject; "The enterprise of American citizens is about to open one or more commercial highways across the Isthmus. The access to them lies through American waters. They will be the channels of communication between the distant shores of the nation-its great highways from one part of the Union to the other. road to market from the Mississippi valley, The way to these thoroughfares, and the run side by side through the Gulf of Mexico. No system of measures for providing for the common defence can be considered either complete or effective, unless it secure the command to us of this mare clausum. Its commercial importance, already great, will, in a few years more, be paramount. "Already the natural outlet for millions, it is destined to surpass all other arms of the sea for its commerce, its wealth, and its national importance. "The currents and winds at sea are such as to unite, in the Florida Pass, the commercial mouth of the Amazon with that of the Mississippi. "The market-way across the seas, from the valley of the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Magdalena, the Atrato, the Coatzacoalcos, the Rio Grande and the Mississippi, passes through or upon the borders of this sea. The works are projected which will turn in that direction the commerce of the East; and all the ships engaged in it, whether from Europe or America, will sail through the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, passing by our doors both coming and going. "Through the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, the country requires safe conduct in war for its mails, its citizens, and their merchandise, as they pass to and fro from one part of the Union to the other. "The natural outlet to a system of river basins, that include within their broad dimensions 70 degrees of latitude-the most fertile lands in either hemispheres, and an area of them exceeding in extent the whole continent of Europe-this arm of the ocean that is spread out before our southern doors, occupies that position upon which the business of commerce is to reach its summit level. "Here is to be the scene of contest be tween maritime nations in war. Here are In the valley of the Mississippi nature has placed the means, and our free institutions, the men for defending that gulf and the interests connected therewith. Unless we avail ourselves of these resources, it will be difficult and expensive to command it in war. Therefore, in providing a system of national defences for our interests in that quarter, one of the first steps is to complete the navy-yard at Memphis, and make of it an establishment worthy of its objects, and capable of giving force and effect, in time of war, to the immense naval resources, power and strength of the great valley of the West. To Memphis, Pensacola, and the fortifications at Key West and Tortugas, ought to be mainly entrusted the defences of the Gulf of Mexico. It has been said, "It is too expensive to build a navy-yard at Memphis; piles will have to be driven at the edge of the river;" yet it is not too expensive to drive them in the bottom of the sea at New-York, and build there a dock, which the Secretary of the Navy, in his last annual report, tells the country has cost $2,146,255. I do not comprehend the logic which makes it too expensive to provide for the common defences in the Gulf of Mexico, the most vital part in our whole system, when it has been by no means too expensive to provide defences for the Atlantic. Provide as effectually, or as ineffectually, we care not which, for the common defence of the Gulf as for that of the Atlantic. All we want is justice, even-handed, impartial justice. According to the report of the Secretary of War, just presented to Congress, on the subject of fortifications, the amount expended upon the army and navy, exclusive of dock-yards, in providing for the common defence since 1816, has amounted to upwards of seventy-five millions of dollars. How much of this has been expended upon gulf defences, or for the benefit of the people whom I address? Precious little. We all know the Atlantic states have enjoyed a double benefit: first, of having the works in them; and secondly, of drawing the money for them from the South and West, and spending it in the North and East. To me, gentlemen, it is immaterial whether a proper naval establishment at Memphis will cost one or twenty millions of dollars to found it. Let us have it, I say, if it be necessary. If the country want it, and if great interests of state demand it, shall a nation like this expose itself to injury and insult because it cannot afford to supply the necessary means of defence to any part of it? Let us have an establishment there worthy of its object and of the people whose purposes it is to subserve. It should be the pride and the boast of the entire Mississippi valley. In times of peace it would stand you in the place of a great university for teaching the higher branches of many of the mechanic arts to your young men. The workshops connected with such an establishment would be filled with apprentices whom the government pays while they are learning their trade. These workshops would draw to your section of country many of the most skilful mechanics. They would stimulate the industrial pursuits of that region, and assist in the development of its mineral resources. These are some of the advantages which such establishments carry along with them in peace, and make their presence so greatly to be desired along the Atlantic borders. You have assembled to plan foundations for your future commerce; to provide the means for defending that commerce, appears to me to be intimately and necessarily connected with the subject of your deliberations. Hence the reason for calling your attention to a suitable naval establishment at Memphis. VIII. The free navigation of the Amazon is the greatest commercial boon that the people of the South and West-indeed, that the people of the United States can crave. That river-basin is but a continuation of the Mississippi valley. The Mississippi takes its rise near the parallel of 50° north latitude, where the climates are suited to the growth of barley, wheat, and the hardy cereal grains. The river runs south, crossing parallels of latitude, and changing with every mile its climate, and the character or quality of the great agricultural staples which are produced on its banks. Having left behind it the regions for peltries, wheat and corn; for hemp and tobacco; for pulse, apples, whiskey, oil and cotton; and having crossed the pastoral lands for hogs, horses and cattle, it reaches, near the latitude of 30°, the northern verge of the sugar cane. Thence expanding out into the gulf, with all these staples upon its bosom, to be exchanged for the produce of other climes and latitudes, it passes on to Key West and the Tortugas; and there at that commercial gateway to the ocean, which opens out upon the Tropic of Cancer, it delivers up to the winds and the waves of the sea for the distant markets, the fruits of its teeming soil and multitudinous climes. Then comes in the great valley of the Amazon; taking up the agricultural produce and staples which the Mississippi had just |