Southern standard. [volume] (Columbus, Miss.) 1851-1856, 1852-03-13
COLU NIBU s:
wednesday Morning, 7sarcIa 10. 1889
Le!ter Zen LIeut. 7. Y. lIanry.
CONCLUDED.

Its importance is great, legions of benefits and
advantages are to flow from it, many of lhem are
palpable and obvious, some are dim In the mists
of the future, but all of them are certain In
short, commercial matter, the free navigation
of the Amazon is the question of the age. AS
time and use shall develop its bearings, our chill
dren will weigh the effects upon the prosperity of
the country of the free navigation of the Amazon.
with the acquisition of Louisiana. They will
place them in the balance together to contrast and
compare them, and in considering the effects of
each, they viii dispute and wrange as to which of
the two has proved the greater blessing to their
country.
The question which l propose for the especial
consideration of the convention relates to the free
navigation of the Amazon itself-to the right of
the people of the United States to send their
steamboats, to that river to ply up and down it.,
and sell and get gain on the banks thereof, as
they do upon the waters of their own Mississippi.
Commerce. so far as climate and soil are con
cerned in mnistering to its wants and importing
health and activity to its influence, IS based upon
an exchange of the produce of one latitude for
the produce Of another, and for the simple reason
that the planter who grows sugar in Louisiana
does not wish to exchange 1t for Brazil coffee or
Brazil anything else that is not sugar.
For this reason, Europe for hundreds Of years
past has been struggling for the commerce of the
east, and for no other reason than that latitudes
and climates, and consequently wants and pro-
duce that are not to be found or satisfied in Eu-
rope, abound in the east.
In Il commercial sense the valleys that are drai-
ned by the g father Of waters and the g king
of rivers " as the Amazon is called, are compli-
ments of each Other-What one lacks the other
supplies. Together they furnish all those natural
products and staples which complete the list of ar
tcles in the circle of commerce. As in one sense
the Gulf Of Mexico IS but expansion Of the
Mississippi river, commercially speaking, the
Caribbean sea is only an expansion into one sheet
of water for the Amazon the Oronoco and the
Magdelena. These two arms Of the ocean are
the fountains Of the Gulf stream, and the people
of the Mississippi valley have but to roll away the
commercial stones which lie over this fountain, and
then they and their chiidren's children may taste
of It's sweets and drink of its riches, and there
shall be none to drive them away.
The right of our people to 90 with their MIssls-
sippi steamers into the Amazon will when eGercis-
ed draw emigrants to that valley, who being
there will become our best customers, and as soon
as the proper impulse is given to their commerce
and the industrial pursuits, shall then find
there at our doors instead Of away on the other
side of the world, all the productions of the East
In short the East in one sense will be brought
within eight ten days sail of New Orleans in
stead of being removed to the distance of four OF
five months off as it now Is.
Several nations as Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and
Brazil, are the owners of the Amazon and its
navigable tributaries. Brazil, however, is the
principal owner-all the lower Amazon is hers,
and she has given none of the upper countries as
yet the right of way through it to and from the
sea.
The question then is, do the people who are
represented in this Convention-nay dc the peo-
pie of the United States set any value upon the
right of steam and trade up and down the nayiga-
bic streams of that magnificent watershed ?
At present the country is for the most part vii
derness of bowling monkeys and noisy parrots
its boundaries are fringed with settlements bu
only here and there when you leave the. outskirts
of the valley and begin to penetrate into the inte
rior the traces of civilized man to be found.
To obtain this right is the work of diplomacy
but the States and people who have been invited
to this Convention may by their action influence
that diplomacy. They want nothing but wha
is right and if they ask they are also willing t.
give.
Brazil may be invited to give the free nayiga
ton OF this river away as boon to civilization
and make 1t common to the world But it is no
to be supposed that Brazil will part with iewe
OF such exceeding great value without consider
alton. Is 1t worth having Shall it be bough
without money, or shall the free navigation of th
Mississippi be offered to Brazil in exchange fo
the free navigation of the Amazon?
By our own laws an English vessel or tn
free to sail up the Mississippi river, to land ant
take in a cargo at st. Louis, and with it to com
down again, as she is to go up the Chesapeak
Bay to Baltimore, or the Delaware to PhiladeI
phia.
But do such foreign vessels go up to St. Louis
No Why? Because when they arrive at Ne
Orleans with their cargoes of foreign merchandis
which they have brought across the seas they fin
it cheaper to send it up in one of our river boa
than to take it up themselves; and therefore, tn
foreign vessels by our own laws may go up an
come down, yet the pre-navigation Of the Missl
sippi to this extent has proved of no practlc
value to any of them. Would they go up fartht
if they could
Still the time was when the free navigation
the Mississippi river question Of deep an
absorbing political interest to us, and we may il
fer therefore, that certain degree of jealous
with regard to it still fingers in the public mind
Therefore the propriety in re-openng ii
question at this time and on this occasion and
this place.
Admitted upon the Amazon with their boat
Cur people would desire to participate there
what is called with us .sthe river trade, " for cor