Yet, gentlemen, let us not argue too strong- tury, Charleston continued to contest the ly, from what, after all, may be but the most palm with New-York. But how has that deceptive appearances. Our disappointments struggle ended? Who dares grapple with have been so many and so bitter in the past, that colossal city, without the certainty of and we have had the chalice broken so often being ground into powder? What has beat our lips, that it is impossible, even with all come of southern commercial competition, the sanguine characteristics of our nature, not now that New-York and New-England conto be agitated with doubts and fears. Our duct nine-tenths of the imports of the country addresses, our reports, our discussions, may and one half of its exports, though nearly all be destined to be as evanescent as the breath of these exports, with which, of course, the which utters them, or as valueless as the paper imports are purchased, are of southern mateupon which they are inscribed; and the rial, and more than an equal proportion of the heritage of our fathers be ours still, in all the imports are for southern consumption ?* Thus future, to "resolve and re-resolve," yet "die it is calculated that the South lends from year the same." to year a trading capital to the North amounting to nearly one hundred millions of dollars, and upon which the North receives the entire profits! Can it be wondered at, then, that the North grows rich, and powerful, and great, whilst we, at best, are stationary ?

I am wrong, perhaps, to doubt for the West-the giant West, which has sprung from swaddling clothes into colossal habiliments; which has promised nothing, yet fulfilled everything-but yesterday a wilderness, to-day, nourishing and supporting as many thronging, active, enterprising millions, nearly, as did Great Britain, when she resisted, during the Napoleon wars, the shock of all the armies in Europe. But what shall we say of the South-the old South, which fought the battles of the Revolution-which gave the statesmen, the generals, and the wealth of those early times-which concentrated then the agriculture, the commerce, and, even to some extent, the manufactures of the continent, but which has lost, or is losing everything else, save that agriculture; and even this last resource growing less and less remunerative, threatens in the event to complete her beggary? How much has the South promised, and how little has she fulfilled? Her manufactures originated coeval with those of the North, and when there were not fifteen cotton factories in the whole Union, she had constructed an immense one in her limits. Nearly half a century has passed since then, and yet the South, though growing nearly all of the cotton required for the world's consumption, leaves 29-30ths of the profitable business of its conversion into fabrics to other and to foreign hands!

And how has it been with our commerce? When New-England struggled with the whale in northern seas, the rich argosies of the South, laden with abundant products, were seeking the markets of all Europe. Seventy years before the Revolution, Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina, as the chronicles tell us, furnished the entire exports of the colonies, and imported more largely than New-England or New-York. Fifty years before the Revolution things had but slightly changed, and the exports of New-York, New-England, and Pennsylvania together, were less in amount than those of the single colony of Carolina. Even in 1775, the exports of New-York were £187,000; Carolina, £579,000; Virginia, £758,000. Imports of New-York, £1,200; Virginia and Maryland, £2,000; Carolina, £6,000. Georgia, a new plantation, equaled New-York! As late as the close of the cen

The first steamship that ever crossed the broad Atlantic sailed from the southern port of Savannah; and in 1839, when the practicability of this description of navigation was fully demonstrated, Virginia was talking of negotiations with the French, in order that Norfolk might be made the terminus of a line contemplated from Havre-yet, at this day, throughout the length and breadth of the South, what steamer seeks a European portthough the North rapidly approximates to a daily line?

The South had within her limits once the

longest rail-road in the world, and projected, and actually commenced constructing the first great rail-road across the mountains to the teeming West; and how has she pursued this movement?

Whilst the North has opened innumerable communications with the valley, and is draining it of the most valuable products, in return inundating it with the products of her workshops and her commerce, enriching herself beyond the dreams of her own enthusiasts, what single communication has the South to that valley, except what nature has given her-the great river and its tributaries—a communication which must soon After be superseded by the works of art. twenty years' experience, notwithstanding our early promise, and with equal population with the North, we have but one-third the actual miles of rail-road constructed, though our territory is five times as great. In other words, the North has twelve times, or including Texas, eighteen times the extent of railroads to the square mile that the South has; and each mile of northern territory has expended thirty times as much upon such roads as each mile of southern territory.t

These are stubborn facts, gentlemen, whatever reason may be assigned for them; and though one or two of the southern states may

The calculation is, of course, intended as an

constitute, in some sort, an exception, as for instance, Georgia, which has lately made rapid strides beyond her neighbors, no one can object to us that we have not stated the proposition with general fairness and truth.

Gentlemen of the South and the West, the true mischief under which we labor stands upon the surface, and requires no probing to discover. Four times the number of grain growers find but a two-fold increased market for their products, and 750,000 additional slaves are becoming consumers in a larger degree than producers. Here is labor expend

improvement, and of advanced prosperity and wealth. Where, then, shall we look for a practical remedy? We must diversify, or find new employment for labor. And how is this to be done? I answer,

I. In the construction of a system of rail.

We have been content to be solely agriculturists, and to exhaust the fertility of an abundant soil, believing that all other pursuits being derivative only, were of less im-ed without profit-lost to all the purposes of portance, and even dignity. The fashion of the South has been to consider the production of cotton, and sugar, and rice, the only rational pursuits of gentlemen, except the professions, and like the haughty Greek and Roman, to class the trading and the manufacturing spirit as essentially servile. I admit the day is pass-roads through our limits.-It is a merit of railing away, but it is passing too late to save us, unless we display a degree of vigor and energy far beyond what past experience would bid us hope. The planters of the South perceive the position of peril in which they are placed. They have a slave force which has increased in numbers 711,085 in ten years, and which must be shut up forever within its present limits, though the productions of these slaves have not increased in value in proportion, or in anything like it.

Is this not a significant fact, and does it not encourage dark forebodings of the future? Yet the result is but natural, and clearly deducible from the rules of legitimate political economy. Mere production from the soil soon finds its limit and limits population. Gentlemen of the West, you too already begin to feel this truth; for have you procured a market for your breadstuffs and provisions at all comparable with your capacity to supply them? Twenty years ago your exports were one-half of what they are at present, though your population has increased four-fold since then; and when, in 1846, under the pressure of foreign famine, you exported three times your exports of the present year-you demonstrated the inexhaustible character of your granaries, and that want of demand which begins already to press so severely upon you. The planters of the South have lately met in convention, at Macon, Ga., and propose another convention in May next, in Montgomery. Some of their delegates were sent to this convention. But what is it they propose? It is not to create a demand for their labor in its present exercise, or to create new results for that labor, but letting things remain as they are, to affix a certain arbitrary standard of price, and by a combination among themselves, preserve that staudard, in defiance of all extraneous influences. It is barely possible that something may come off this scheme that shall tell upon their future prosperity. It is possible that there are other plans which may be adopted, more promising of success, or at least that something is practicable to relieve the planters, as things now stand; yet we must be allowed to entertain some doubt in the matter.

roads that they have the highest influence in diversifying the industry of a people. They open a country and extend population, thus creating the very trade that supports them. They raise the price of lands by bringing them into more immediate connection with market, and thus pay back the investment, without reference to their actual earnings, which, in addition, are usually as large as those of other descriptions of investment. They build up cities, as all experience shows, 'and, by giving certainty, speed and economy to communication, make manufactories practicable where otherwise we in vain would look for them. The example of Georgia is in point, where a thousand villages are springing up and manufactories extending, thus acquiring for her the reputation of the Massa chusetts of the South. Every rail-road in New-England develops in its course manufacturing villages, and few of these villages may be found there without such communication with the capital. The South has been content with the cumbrous machinery of her wagons, and with the frequently interrupted and dangerous navigation of her rivers; and this has been the case with the West. Thus nine-tenths of our country has been literally shut out from market for more than half the year, and, during the remainder, pays the penalties of delays and losses, which are never incident to rail-roads, and which counterbalance the advantages of cheaper freights, though, as to actual cheapness, it may be affirmed that rail-road communication among us could be made as cheap, all things considered, as that conducted at present on the rivers. We know that the immense steamboat interest of the West is now actually paying no dividend, being a most hazardous business, and that it is so much capital almost unproductively employed, and thus lost to the country. Yet, what are our rivers and our steamboats? Floating Etnas, which belch forth their bolts of death in the moments of our greatest fancied security and repose. Never could a convention have met at a more propitious moment than this. We have just passed through a season of the most frightful losses of life on our rivers, and have witnessed

Wherever negro labor has been applied, it has been with great success. Of the 700,000 negroes, whose labor has added nothing to the wealth we had ten years ago, could 100,000 be diverted to the construction of railroads, the South might open several thousand miles every year, and would have the same means of ironing them that she has now from her other resources. Let no one object that our population is too scattered; this will Whence this disposition to throw the valley condense it, and invite immigration, which of the Mississippi into the lap of the North, now takes altogether a northern direction, thus rolling, as it were, commerce up stream, because here nothing is held out to it. Be- and reversing the natural state of things? sides, denseness of population has not been The rail-roads and the canals point in that dithe secret of success to the North. New-rection, and everything is absorbed in the England, though no denser than Ohio, has three rapacious exactions of New-York and Boston. times the extent of rail-road; and the small Is there not a greater reciprocity between

.

the interests of the South and the West than of Kentucky, has demonstrated, that wher between those of the West and the North? the coal and the iron, and the provisions are, Is there not a demand here for western pro- there will be the seat of manufacturing emduce, and one that will grow as we advance pire; and by a calculation as close as it is together? Have we not ports and harbors perfect, has demonstrated for the Ohio Valat least equal to the North? Are not the ley the prospective Manchesters and Lowells Northwest and the West as much interested of the Union. We think this the truth, but in keeping up the speediest and the best out- not the whole truth. The South has only to let to the Gulf of Mexico as they are to the make a systematic and combined movement to Atlantic seaboard? And are not rail-roads break down northern supremacy in this parsuperseding every other means of outlet 1 ticular. What practical difficulty is there in We scarcely yet appreciate the importance the way of her supplying the whole demand of the Gulf of Mexico, this great southern sea, of America, at least, for coarse cottons and which should as much be guarded by the yarns? The material may be used upon the South as the British channel is by the Eng- spot where it is grown, thus saving all the lish. Look at its fertile and abundant islands, expense of shipment and insurance, and incapable of supplying the tropical products of terest and commissions, equivalent to two or the world, if in hands adequate to their de- three cents a pound, or to a protective tariff velopment, and who can doubt that, before enjoyed by the South over the North of from the century has passed away, these islands 25 to 33 per cent. Our experiments, when will be overrun, peaceably or even forcibly, fairly tested, have been successful; and it is by a people who, in fifty years, have planted worthy of remark, that the embarrassments of ten millious of freemen in a wilderness! northern mills during the last year, were not Great God, can we even conceive what will in the same degree felt by those of the South, be the future importance of these islands! whilst southern cotton goods already take But then, look further. The Gulf of Mexico the palm even in northern markets. Our sweeps into the Caribbean Sea, and unlocks surplus negro labor has here a wide field for us the whole of South America-a region open; and every one familiar with the mere which, with Anglo-Saxon amalgamation, mechanical and unintelligent operation of may, in the progress of history, be as impor- tending the machinery of a cotton-mill, will tant as the present importance of our own admit that negro labor, properly organized country. In its great bosom blend the wa- and directed, can be as effective as the ignoters of the Mississippi and the Amazon rivers, rant and miserable operatives of Great Briwhich dwarf all others in the world. There tain. Where it has been tried, and the exis a wilderness of treasures in this valley of periments have been numerous enough, it has the Amazon. "Of more than thrice the size proved successful. If twenty planters, workof the valley of the Mississippi," says Lieut. ing twenty hands each, were to set aside, on Maury, "the valley of the Amazon is entirely the average, five of their hands for purposes inter-tropical. An everlasting summer reigns of manufacture, there would be one hundred there. Up to the very base of the Audes the hands, in addition to the younger ones, now river is navigable for vessels of the largest almost unproductive. The machinery for class. All the climates of India are there. these hundred hands, and the rude buildings, Indeed, we may say, from the mouth to the would not exceed $40,000, or $2,000 each, sources of the Amazon, piled up, one above and thus, without materially diminishing the other, and spread out, Andean-like, over their production of cotton, it could be thrown steppe after steppe in beautiful, unbroken into a shape which would double its value. succession, are all the climates and all the Are such combinations among the planters soils, with capacities of production that are practicable? If they are not, they are at to be found between the regions of perpetual least practicable to our people. But, says summer and everlasting snows." The Gulf one, we have not the capital to spare. I adof Mexico opens to us the Pacific and the In-mit we have not at present, because it is didies, through whichever of the Isthmean routes that may be selected, though the one by Tehuantepec is clearly best adapted to the wants of the southern and western states. Even should a route across the continent be secured, that route must cross the Mississippi at a southern point, if Texas be true to herself, and thus the importance of converging western roads in this direction.

II. Having constructed a system of railroads netting every section of our territory, the South and West will naturally resort to manufactures, which is our second great remedy for the evils which the present shows and the future foreshadows. Hamilton Smith,

verted into different channels; but if we will withdraw it, we shall find there is quite enough among us. Or even if we had not the capital, it will be easy to invite it from all sections of the Union, and the world, if we can demonstrate, as we can, a higher degree of profit for it here. But we must have laws to favor such organizations, and a sound and liberal system of financial credit and banking. How much of the mighty capital of the North is foreign, accumulated by debt, or invited by the hope of profit? The South can have as much, if she will but make the effort.

But, gentlemen, we should soon have capi tal enough, and to spare, if we could add to