Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

4

winters, which change streams and foun- our neighbors, being able to show in turn tains alike into solid ice, and leave through- a career of progress and advancement which, out the length and breadth of your wide do- when correctly appreciated and understood, minions literally "no green thing alive" must satisfy the minds of the most exactYour population has magnified and multi-ing. We do not shun the comparison, but plied, and in its denseness been compelled to seek every available outlet, so that if they want a piece of ice at Timbuctoo, or a friction match at Nova Zembla, a Yankee trader will be found present there, and ready to supply the want. Your small towns swell into great ones, and your wonderful Manhattan rivals already the leviathans of the old world, which have had the benefit of ages of refinement and civilization.

Thus you are, people of the North; and here, to-day, as I look around me upon this extraordinary museum, which your farmers, your machinists, apprentices, artisans and manufacturers have fabricated in their ingenuity and enterprise, I seem to see, as through a diminishing mirror, and at one glance, your active and busy millions reflected, like that mirror, in which it is fabled one of the Ptolemies could see everything that was enacted in Egypt.

rather court and invite it; and here, to-day, in your swarming hive, and where I see smiles of proud triumph upon every lip, and hear every voice eloquent in your praises, I take high pleasure in calling up in vivid memory the region which I proudly call my HOME-the beautiful inner domestic life and high civilization which marks the society of the SOUTH-the pregnant cane-fields of the Lower Mississippi, the fleecy gossypium, overrunning its millions and millions of acres, in rank luxuriance, and at once giving food and raiment to the laboring millions of the old and the new world.

What have we of the plantation states been doing towards the extension of this great confederacy? How have our people been employed in every period of their history? What is now our social and political position, and what does the future promise us?

Fellow-citizens, much misrepresentation of the South, in every point of view, has been but too common, and we are ourselves somewhat at fault in not diffusing correct information which it is in our power to give. Ignorant or bad men have found capital in traducing our institutions and our people, or in underrating our position and import

that in the great and liberal city of NewYork, and before an institution which professes to be AMERICAN, that this subject of the SOUTH is one of the most interesting that could be brought into discussion, and that having invited me, a Southern man, to speak, you will freely and willingly hear me for my cause, and be patient that you may hear.

I will not deny that I am astonished and delighted, and that in my own region I would imitate very much what belongs to your character and career; but at the same time I must be allowed to say, in kindly intention, and with the utmost frankness, I am not ashamed to name that region in the same breath with your own. In the true spirit of my countrymen, I will even go fur-ance in the confederation. I have supposed ther, and add, so nearly are the good things of this world balanced, and so much do I believe in substantial blessings we have the advantage, that I would be very far indeed from changing places with you in the confederacy! The sun shines not alone for the North, nor the stars-nor have you the winds, and the rains, and the dews to yourself, though the snows be all your own Your people seem often, however, to think I begin with COMMERCE. It is by our and to act as if it were otherwise, and God commercial relations that we are known to had made the world entirely for them, and the rest of the world. This rears for us no part of it for us, the "outside barbari- fleets and navies, and from it come the revans," beyond the "pillars of Hercules," enues for the most part of the nation. Beinterpreted to mean landmarks of Mason fore the Revolution, or from 1760 to 1769, and Dixon," the very outposts of all civiliza- the southern colonies, with a less population tion and progress. Think not that we than New-England, New-York and Pennof the benighted South, like the British chief-sylvania, exported nearly five times as much tain, when carried in the triumphant procession of the conqueror to Rome, are going to marvel in surveying all of your great and wonderful works, that you have envied us, notwithstanding OUR POOR HUTS on the banks of the Potomac, or by the shores of the Mexican Gulf!

[ocr errors]

No, no, sirs: the South has nothing to blush for and no son of hers may hold down his head when any people upon earth are in discussion. Whilst we are surprised, we are not envious of the career of any of

produce. In the same period Carolina and Georgia exported twice the value of NewYork, Pennsylvania and New-England. In the years 1821 to 1830, New-York alone exceeded these states. Under the policy of the federal government of protecting American ship-builders and ship-owners, who, from the peculiar nature of the country, are from the North, the larger portion of this trade has been attracted away from our ports and concentrated in yours. Yet is the case unaffected, if we may still trace the products of

[ocr errors]

our industry and our skill. Whatever may It is this cotton which employs the millions be the value of the great foreign trade of the of New-England, and which throws the nation, it is evident the imports of the coun- grave statistician of Old England, McCultry must only come in exchange for the ex-loch, into ecstasies : ports, and that, if we had nothing to export, we could get nothing in return. Whence then does this nation seek its exports? Let us take the last five years. In 1846 the exports of Northern growth or manufacture, and much of this manufacture is out of Southern material, were $27,331,290, whilst those of Southern produce, cotton, tobacco, rice, naval stores, &c., were $74,000,000, or three times as much! In 1847 the Southern exports were $102,000,000, against the Northern $48,000,000; in 1848, $98,000,000, against $34,000,000; in 1849, $99,000.000 against $32,000,000.

pro

"Little more than half a century has elapsed since the British cotton manufacture was in its infancy, and it now forms the principal business carried on in the country, affording an advantageous field for the accumulation and employment of millions upon millions of capital, and of thousands and thousands of workmen. The skill and genius by which these astonishing results have been achieved, have been contributed in no common degree to raise the British one of the main sources of our power. They have nation to the high and conspicuous place she now occupies. Nor is it much to say, that it was the wealth and energy derived from the cotton manufac ture that bore us triumphantly through the late dreadful wars; and at the same time that it gives us strength to endure burdens that would have crushed our fathers, and could not be supported by any other people."

leans.

66

Thus then is it, that the South is lending annually to the North 100 millions of dolI will next take the article of SUGAR. In lars to be used by her as capital in conduct- 1804, when Louisiana was purchased from ing the foreign imports of the country, which France, her sugar product, we have it on the nearly all come in your ships and to your highest authority, was next to nothing. Incities, and enrich your people in an extraor- deed, it was only in 1796 that Mr. Bore condinary ratio! Mr. Kettell, of New-York, ceived, as Judge Rost assures us, the desperate estimates the profits which have been made purpose of making sugar, amid the general by northern ship-owners upon southern pro- existing prejudice that the juice would not ductions, at $40,000,000 in round numbers." grain." Crowds from every quarter came What has the South been doing in GEN- to witness his experiment, near New-OrERAL INDUSTRY? She has carried the Gentlemen, it grains," was the exduction of COTTON, which, at the close of the clamation of the sugar-maker; and from the last century, was thought by Mr. Jay and Balize to the Dubuque-from the Wabash others never could be an American product, to the Yellow-stone-the great, the all-abto an extent which has distanced the wildest sorbing news of the colony was, that "the calculations; in the fineness and excellence juice of the cane had grained in Lower of its production, excelled every nation upon Louisiana." earth, monopolizing the industry entirely to herself. Of what avail has been British competition in the East, on a soil adapted to the culture, with labor so cheap that a beggar in this country would starve upon its results, with the fostering regards of ministers and agents? Of what moment have been the rivalries of the Pacha of Egypt, of the The gross product of the last five years West Indies and South America! Southern has been nearly 1,200,000 hhds., against litenterprise and industry have triumphed over tle over 600,000 hhds. in the previous five all, and has, for a quarter of a century, mon-years. The crop of 1849-'50 reached nearopolized the staple to themselves. The cot- ly 250,000 hhds., of the value, with molaston wool and its fabrics of the South are ses, &c., of about $15,000,000. Within a even sent to China and to India, where the cultivation of the plant seems to have thrived as far back almost as the fabulous age of Fohi, and where it has been manufactured into fabrics so delicate, that the orientals call them "webs of woven wind.”*

Half a century has passed since then, and the population of our country increased from 4,000,000 to over 23,000,000 of people, whose cousumption of sugar is more than half supplied by the industry of Louisiana, and will, in a few years more, in the rapid progress of the state, be entirely so supplied.

year or two, one hundred new sugar estates will be opened. What other community can show as favorable results? Our product is already one-sixth the product of the world, and one-half the product of Cuba; and while we have been at work in developing it, Great Britain has seen her rich sugar colonies dwindle into insignificance, and must look abroad even for the supply of her own

In the table of supplies we may observe, that while other countries have been nearly stationary, our production has advanced with great rapidity. In twenty years our average crop has increased from 848,000 bales to 2,351,000, or nearly three hundred fold. If the period of 25 years, from 1825 to 1850, be divided into five equal intervals, the increase for each will be found to be 27, 37, 38, and 15 per cent. In the same time the production of all other countries has only risen from 383,000 to 440,000 bales, having absolutely declined in the last five years over 16 per cent. In the first period of five years, the-Prof. McKay.

crop of the United States constituted 68 per cent. of the whole! In the second, 74; in the third, 77; in the fourth, 80; and in the fifth, 84 per cent, of the whole. As our bales have increased very much in weight, and are now much larger than those of other countries, our advance has been still greater, and our rank still higher than these figures indicate.

wants. The investment in mere machinery, &c., with us, is of the most costly kindnot less, perhaps, than $15,000,000; and experiments on the most liberal and largest scale are continually prosecuted. Five years ago, two of our most intelligent citizens went to the Spanish West Indies to examine into the state of the sugar industry, and returned with the gratifying intelligence that they could find nothing there to learn, but that in every respect the Louisianian was in advance. These things we have effected, though

"The slaves by which Cuba canes are cultivated, are, in spite of the suppression of the slave trade, imported from Africa, at a cost which, on an average, does not exceed, the price in Louisiana of a good pair of mules. The climate there permits these slaves to be worked with as few clothes as they were in the habit of wearing in their native country; whilst our slaves are, generally at least, as well fed and clothed as laborers are in Europe. Canes in Cuba ripen during fourteen or eighteen months, and require no plowing, no ditching, and hardly any weeding; their rattoons last fifteen or twenty years. With us, after having tilled our soil in a manner no farmer in the United States would be ashamed of, we must get sugar out of our canes, on an average, eight months after they have come out of the ground, and must re-plant every second year. They grind six months in the year; we can hardly calculate on half that time. With all these disadvantages against us, our planters make fully as many pounds of sugar to the working hand as can be made in Cuba."

But I have other testimony. In 1849, the government sent a special agent, Mr. Fleischman, to examine the sugar industry of Louisiana. This gentleman, on his return, made an elaborate and valuable report, in which he says:

"There is no exaggeration in saying, that there is no sugar-growing country, where all the modern improvements have been more fairly tested and adopted, than in Louisiana, and where such perfect boiling apparatus is used, fulfilling all the conditions that science and experience have pointed out as necessary for obtaining a pure and perfect crystalline sugar, combined with the utmost economy of fuel.

The success of these improved modes is due to the enterprise and high intelligence of the Louisiana planters, who spare no expense to carry this important branch of agriculture and manufacture to its highest perfection. They have succeeded in making, strictly from the cane-juice, sugar of absolute che mical purity, combining perfection of crystal and color. This is, indeed, a proud triumph,' says Professor McCulloch, in his valuable report to Congress. In the whole range of the chemical arts, I am not aware of another instance were so perfect a result is in like manner immediately attained.' "What was supposed impossible has been accomplished by the Louisiana planter, notwithstanding the obstacles of the late maturity of the cane, early frosts, and other incidents occurring there, which casualties are unknown to the sugar planter of the tropical regions. But not only in the raising of cane and the manufacture of sugar does the

SUGAR CROPS IN JAMAICA. 112,163 hhds.

1804

1844.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Louisiana planter excel: he deserves also commendation for the manner in which he has embellished his country. His leisure hours are devoted to the beautifying of his estates, thus rendering the margin of the Mississippi a continuation of beautiful villages, surrounded by tropical plants and trees."

The same gentleman is transported into ecstasies on descending the lower Mississippi, and viewing the cane-fields of our thriving state:

entered the state of Louisiana. Its river, the crea"I cannot describe the delight I felt when I first tor of this rich alluvial territory, after having tossed and rolled its mighty waters against the wild shores of the upper country, carrying away and building up, inundating vast tracts, and leaving everywhere traces of its destructive sway, begins at once to slacken its current and keep its turbid stream within the bounds of fertile banks, gliding majestically through highly cultivated plains, covered with the graceful sugar-cane, the uniformity of which is continually diversified by beautiful dwellings, gardens, and the towering chimneys of the sugar-houses, the handsome fronts of which stand forth in the pictaresque background of the forest, forming an everchanging scene.

"The traveler who floats in one of the gigantic palaces of the southwest, can from the high deck behold with delight the enchanting scenery the whole day long, and look with regret on the setting sun, which, gradually withdrawing behind the dark outline of the cypress forest, leaves this lovely country reposing under the dark mantle of night. Not less beautiful and well cultivated are the shores of the great bayous and tributaries crossing the state in all directions. I invariably met with that far-famed hospitable welcome peculiarly characteristic of the Southern gentleman and planter."

But this is not all. We have Texas,

which already produces as much as Louisiana did in 1822, and which, in many parts, is abundantly adapted to the culture; and Florida, which, in time, will enter the competition for a large share of the results.

I will not pause.to consider our tobacco and our rice, though they cannot be considered contemptible, since the value we annually export in these articles, alone, is one-third the value of the exports of all the North, in every product whatever: nor shall I refer to less important staples.

Let us turn now to the subject of MANUFACTURES. Let the North not suppose she has the monopoly here to herself. A great revolution is in progress. Already the sta ples of Southern manufacture are exhibited at your fairs, which elicit, as your own Reports show, the highest approval and admiration. The product of Southern looms compete in your own markets in the heavier cotton fabrics. The South knows her advantage, and is pushing it with a vigor and energy which nothing can now arrest. She is building up an Institute at Charleston, which will in time vie with your own, and at its great FAIR, last November, made an exhibition .34,444 hhds. which excited universal surprise and admiration. These fairs will multiply in her limits. Already the amount of cotton which she annually consumes in manufactures is between 80 and 90,000 bales, or about as

47,926 36,223 .48,554 42,212

[ocr errors]

Jamaica in 1850, by JOHN BIGELOW.

"Thus, then, the products of the western country

whether descending the White River or the mighty stream of the Missouri; whether floating along the current of the Mississippi or its tributary branches, many of them noble rivers, and, like the Illinois, haustible fertility; whether descending along the stream of the Ohio itself, or any of its secondary waters, will only have to pause in their descending progress, turn against the current of the Tennessee hours, according to the rate at which carriages shall for two or three days, and then in forty or sixty be made to travel, may be placed in Augusta, on navigable water flowing into the Atlantic, or in another day on continued railroads, may be delivered in Charleston or Savannah, in Atlantic ports possessing every advantage that mercantile enterprise may require. Six days, therefore, of uninterrupted traOhio and the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlanvel, may take produce from the confluence of the tic, and in twelve days a return cargo may be delivered at the same points!"

much as the consumption of the whole North in 1830! Every day our capitalists are investing in new mills, and the planters themselves are urged into the business on the assurance that they can add at the low-flowing through territories of exuberant and inexest forty dollars to every bale of cotton they produce. In the states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, 130 mills are at work, with 140,000 spindles. These mills have a bounty of from 1 to 2 cents, on every pound of cotton used, in the saving of transportation and other expenses, and it is exhibited in their profits, which are not behind those of the most favored in the world. All of this we have done in scarcely more than ten years; and no one can consider the subject without arriving at the conclusion, that the South is becoming, and will become, perhaps jointly with the West, the great cotton manufacturing region of the world. Were she to work up her 2,500,000 bales of cotton, and receive the profit at $40 each, she would realize from 70 to 100,000 millions; or if the 600.000 bales manufactured in the United States were manufactured in her limits, she would have 25 millions of dollars to add to her present enormous annual products! Hear what Mr. James, a northern man, says upon this subject:

Accordingly the Charleston and Hamburg rail-road was built, which was at the time the longest rail-road in the world! Scarcely had it been completed, when the citizens of that great emporium were found still urging onwards their great enterprise of reaching the Ohio or the Mississippi, and they projected the Louisville and Cincinnati railroad, over five hundred miles in length, and which had the appearance of the most stupendous project known to human industry! The road failed from the extraordinary revulsions of the times; but as it is now in "In the cotton-growing states, fuel for the gene- process of attainment by the addition of sucration of steam-power is abundant, and its cost is cessive links to the chain, the great credit of scarcely more than one-tenth part of its cost in the enterprise must be given to the South, New-England. Why, then, should not the South, even if utterly destitute of water-power, manufac and to the practical minds who were engaged ture at least a considerable portion of the cotton upon it. At a time when New-York was grown in her own fields? The bare saving in trans- communicating with the West through two portation, commission and fuel, when compared with the amount they cost the manufacturer in New- rivers, two canals, and the lakes; and PhilEngland, would twice cover the cost of steam-power adelphia through the same number of canals, at the South, including engine, repairs, the pay of two rail-roads, and eight hundred miles of engineer, and, in fact, all incidental expenses. I repeat the inquiry then-Why should not the South river, the Charlestonians were at work in become the manufacturer of her own product? She substituting, in the language of General would thus retain to herself at least a considerable Hayne, portion of the many advantages now derived from it by others. For one, the writer can assign no other reason why this is not done, than inattention to, and neglect of the most certain and infallible means to promote the best interests of the community."

And how is it with INTERNAL IMPROVE MENTS? It is admitted, from the denser population, the larger commerce, and the less navigation privileges of the North, she has gone very far ahead in the extension of internal improvements. But here again the

South has no cause to blush. In all communities strictly agricultural, where the people travel little, and where the freight to be transported is necessarily bulky, the greatest discouragements are opposed to the construction of railroads; yet has the South not been entirely inactive. As early as 1828, when there was not, according to the Railroad Journal, "a locomotive in successful operation in America, Stephen Elliott, of South Carolina, spoke to his fellow-citizens in the following remarkable and prophetic manner :

"A direct communication between the western states and the Atlantic by the shortest route, a route by which goods will be conveyed in three or four days from Charleston to Cincinnati-a route 340 miles nearer than that by New-York, 240 nearer than that by Philadelphia, and 40 miles nearer than that by Baltimore, even should the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad be carried to Pittsburg."

Let us take these southern states in their order. We have Maryland with her Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and her Chesapeake and Ohio Rail-road, drawing off the produce of the West to Baltimore. We have Virginia, with her Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, intended, when finished, to connect Memphis with Richmond; as also several other roads directed towards the West, to say nothing of the great James River and Kanahaw Canal, which, in the language of Governor Floyd, will soon float to Richmond the flatboat which has been loaded at the Falls of St. Anthony. In North Carolina, we have the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, 186 miles in length; the Gaston and

It was my intention, fellow-citizens, to have carried out this subject with many interesting details and statistics; but I have been interrupted in the midst of it by a severe attack of indisposition, lasting throughout most of the short time given to me by the society for preparation.

Was I wrong then in saying, that no son of the South need hold down his head when her name is mentioned ? Here are six or seven millions of people, occupying fifteen states, including Kentucky and Missouri, who, in addition to the supply of their main wants, are furnishing annually upwards of $100,000,000 in exportable products to the nation, and who, it is but fair to say, in the last half century, have produced of such exportable products $3,000,000,000.

How has this money been expended? Ask your artisans, and manufacturers, and merchants, your rail-roads and hotels, your shipowners and builders, and sailors, do not all of these know what customers the South have been to them? Of those innumerable products of your industry which I see scattered with such a liberal hand around me here, how many are destined for southern markets? And would not the closing of these markets be a greater calamity to you than a war with all of Europe combined?

Raleigh Rail-road, &c., and at the last session | these efforts, and the best guarantees for it of the Legislature was chartered a road from are, that a company is now organized there Charlotte to Goldsboro', 210 miles in length, for the construction of a rail-road across the spanning the finest and most improved parts Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and active interest of the state. South Carolina, with her great is taken in a road to Jackson, Miss., and road to Hamburg, and its Columbia and Cam- other similar enterprises. den branches, reaching in length, altogether, over two hundred miles; and her road in construction to Greenville and to Charlotte, N. C., which will add as much more in length, demands an honorable mention, and she will find herself, in two or three years, in immediate rail-road communication with the Mississippi River at Memphis, and with the Columbia at Nashville, and will give an impetus to Charleston which will make it soon a formidable competitor with the North. Georgia, though she may not like the compliment, has made such progress as to be called the "Massachusetts of the South." She has the Macon and Western Road, of 100 miles, at the cost of $1,500,000; the Georgia Road, from Augusta to Atlanta, 171 miles, and cost $3,500,000; Central Road, 191 miles, and cost $3,000,000; Memphis Branch Road, cost $130,000; the Western and Atlantic Road to the Tennessee River, 140 miles, and cost about $4,000,000. Thus have six hundred and sixty miles of rail-roads been constructed and equipped within the last fifteen years, at a cost of about $12,000,000, two-thirds of which has been furnished by individual enterprise and capital, and the rest by the state. Alabama is next upon the map. Though she has but one successful road in operation, viz., from Montgomery, she is yet pressing it forward to the Georgia line with commendable zeal. Her citizens are determined not to be outdone in this competition, and they have already, by their contributions, placed their great railroad from Mobile to the Ohio River beyond the possibility of failure; being nearly 500 miles in length, and requiring $6,000,000 or $8,000,000. The grant of public lands lately made by Congress to this road, places it upon a secnre basis. There are also other roads projected and chartered in Alabama, of which we may mention one to connect Montgomery with Pensacola; another from Selma to the Tennessee River; a third to connect with the Mississippi Road to Vicksburg; a fourth from Mobile to Girard, thus reducing greatly the travel to New-York. When we come to Louisiana, we find a somewhat different state of things from the rest of the South. So small a part of her population is native and kindred, and devoted to the advancement of this state, it cannot be wondered she is far behind. Latterly, however, a better prospect dawns. Her great city, NewOrleans, finds that in the ceaseless race for power and position, she will be distanced by northern competition, unless efforts equally herculean are put forth. She will make

I suppose, in the season just closed, which has seen your hotels all crowded to their doors, that at least 50,000 southerners, or those supported at the South, have been traveling at the North, for pleasure, for health, &c. Supposing each one of these to have expended but $300, there is an aggregate of $15,000,000, which your people have derived from our traveling propensities, in a single year! What is the gross amount of your various products consumed by us, is almost impossible to be given. The figures would astound you if they were.

The south has ever been fondly attached to the Union, and the land which claims the author of the Declaration of American Independence, and the Father of the Republic, both as her own, has never been wanting in chivalrous devotion to that Union. Taking the statistics of the Revolutionary war, and supposing the average period of enlistment was about the same for all the years at the North and at the South, it will be found that in the first five years, or from 1775 to 1780, when the war was chiefly at the North, the southern states supplied each year about one-third the whole number of enlistments. As soon, how. ever, as the war extended southward and be came general, the southern states rapidly ad

« ПредишнаНапред »