The Port Gibson herald, and correspondent. (Port Gibson, Claiborne Co., Miss.) 1848-18??, 1850-06-28

A SOUTHERN STATE.-The following sketch
of the State OF Georgia is from speech of
Mr.. Stephens, of that State. It will be read
with interest 1t shows what Southern State
is, and what the South may be-:
Georgia has her beds of coal and iron, her
lime, gypsum and mari, her quarries of granite
and marble She has inhaustibe treasures of
minerals, including gold, the most precious of
metals. She has soil and climate suitable,
for the growth and culture of almost every
product known to husbandry and agriculture.
A better county for wheat and corn and alt
the cereal plants, to say nothing of cotton and
tobacco, is not to be found in an equal space
on this continent. There, too, grow the orange,
| the olive, the vine and the fig, with forests Of
oak and pine sufficient to build and mast the
navies of the world. She has mountains for
grazing, rivers for commerce, etc, waterfalls
| for machinery of all kinds without number
Nor have these great natural advantages and
resources been neglected. Young as she is,
she is now the first cotton growing State in
the Union. Her last years crop will not fall
far short of six hundred thousand bales, if it
! does not exceed it. She has, believe, thirty
six cotton factories in operation, and a great
many more fastening to competion-one of
them has, or soon will have ten thousand
| spindles, with two hundred looms capable of
| turning out eight thousand yards of cloth per
| day. Her yarns are already finding their way
to the markets Of the north and foreign coun-
tries; and the day is not distant when she will
take the lead in the manufacture, as well as
the production OF this great staple. She has
also her flour mills and paper niills-her for
| ges, boundaries and furnaces, not with their
fires extinguished, as the gentleman from Penn
| sylvanla said of some in his State; but in full
blast Her exports last year were not less
than thirty millions of dollars, equal to, if not
greater, than those of all New England to-
gether.
She has six hundred and fifty miles of rail-
road in operation, at cost Of fifteen millions
of dollars, and two hundred more in the pro-
gress of construction. BY her energy and en-
terprise, she has scaled the mountain barriers
and opened the way for the steam car, from
the southern Atlantic ports to the waters of
the great valley OF the west. But this is not
all. She has four chartered universities-nay
FIVE, for she has one devoted exclusively toahe
education of her daughters She was the first
State, | believe, to establish female college,
which is now in a f1ourishing condition, and
one of the brightest ornaments of her charac-
ter. She has four hundred young men pursu-
ing collegiate course; greater number,
believe, than any State in the Union, in pro-
portion to her white population. You will find
out not only these things to be so, but tell
you also what you will not find. You will not
find anybody in the State Begging bread or
asking aims. You will find but few paupers.
You will not find forty thousand beings,
pinched with cold and hunger, demanding the
right Of labor, as saw it stated to be the case,
not long since, in the city of New York.
Mr. Sweetser interrupted, and asked if the
factories in Georgia had not been erected by
{ northern capital?
Mr.. Stephens said: No, sir, they were built
by Georgia capital. The six hundred and fifty
miles of railroad now in operation, to which I
have alluded, were built by Georgia capital.
One hundred and thirty-six miles, from Atlanta
to Chattanooga, on the Tennessee river, which is
one of the greatest monuments of the enter
prise of the age, was built by the State. But
her public debt is only little over eighteen
hundred thousand dollars, while that of the
State Of New York is over twenty millions,
besides the fourteen millions owned by the
city alone; and the debt of Pennsylvania is
! forty millions of dollars. The bonds of the
State of Georgia are held mostly by her own
people. You do not see them hawked about
in northern or foreign markets, at deprecia-
! ton. But they, as well as The stocks and Sc
] curties of the private companies, are held
mostly by her own citizens, and are command
, ing premiums at nome"