The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-09-23
The Georgia and Nashville Conventions.


1t is now well settled that both of these bodies
will assemble 1t is also highly probable that
the whole cotton region will unite for redress
and safety. The States of South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Ar
kansas, arc compactly united, in territory, in in
terest, and in sentiment.
However other slave States may fancy they
can exist without slavery, and may therefore
tamper and compromise with the enemies of
that institution, the cotton States know that it
is vital to them. Without slavery, the growth
of cotton must be abandoned in the South, and
that region relinquished by the white race to the
black.
But it happens that the white people of those
States have the power and the will, the number,
the wealth and position, to a. ert such catas-
trophe. They are not going TO countenance any
Northern usurpation, or Southern submission, or
alliance with it, that will have the effect,
/. Of cutting off slave emigration to new
territories.
q Or inviting white emigration to them from
the slavcholding States.
3. OF fastening slave emigration to the Cotton
States from the border slave States
Thus reducing the white population of the Cot
ton States aud augmenting the slave population
in them, so as at length to concentrate in the
Cotton States population il W hich slaves shall
largely preponderate, with an anti-slavery popu-
lation around them, and All anti-slavery Govern
ment over and among them
The detection of the border slave States from
the cause of the South, instead of delaying will
accelerate the movement. of the Cotton States.
The active cooperation of Kentucky, Maryland
and Delaware, with the North, in the system of
Southern ACKNOWLEDGMENT, exclusion and dis
grace, and the apathy of Virginia will teach the
Cotton States they have no time to lose.
Now it so happens that these Cotton States
have the largest foreign commerce of any peo-
pie OF the same number in the world, and "a
commerce that employs more tonnage. They
command the South Atlantic coast, the Gulf of
Mexico, the West Indies, the mouth and much
of the course Of the Mississippi. Yet although
they furnish an enormous foreign export, the
corresponding import goes into the North, and
the profits of selling and distributing that inn
port, are monopolized by the North. The ex-
porting States are compelled to pay the differ
ence of exchange and the cost of transportation,
besides a profit to the Northern importer, before
they can receive commodities in exchange for
their own products
Now, next to the preservation of harmony
among the States, which was the first great OBJ
ject of the Union, and which has failed, was the
regulation of Commerce But it was never in
tended or dreamed that the Union would result
in commercial monopoly by single State, or
two or three States or cities. Or the contrary
it was expressly provided in the Constitution,
that no preference shall be given TO the ports of
one State over another. The trainers Of the
Constitution do not appear TO have understood
that the inevitable tendency of Union under /
a common government is to concentrate its Com (
merce in a single city. Yet such is the case
Commerce seeks with an irresistible instinct a
common centre, because exchanges are effected
With facility in proportion TO the quantity and
variety of commodities that can be collected in
a single spot. Hence, the moment the Union
was formed the largest city had the start, other
shngs being equal, in the ri airy for commercial
The Northern cities were the largest
In addition to that and as cause of that they
we're nearer 10 Europe, the seat of civilized
The assumption Of the debts of the
rom JEFFERSON and MADISON, threw some fifty
Millions of convertible capital into those cities