The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1853-05-24
The Great Memphis Convention-IIighly I'm
pOrtnnt Movement Of the south.

portant Movement OF the South.
we have on several occasions heretofore ad-
verted to the specific and general objects for the
consideration of which the great business con-
vention of the Southern States will assemble at
Memphis on the first of June. We publish, this
morning, few particulars of the delegations
appointed to represent their respective States
at this interesting, extraordinary, and import
ant assemblage.
From Maryland to Louisiana the men of the
South at last appear to have walked up to a
practical conception of their domestic policy;
and the numerous distinguished names, of all
parties, which appear in the several delega-
tions attest that this affair at Memphis is to be
something more than a holiday jubilee for the
explosion of gas and champagne, and the con-
sumption of Tennessee beef and corn dodgers.
1t is plainly intended that this convention shall
mark the initial point of a great revolution in
the South-a radical and comprehensive revo-
lution-without secession, without civil or SER
vile war; without foreign or meretricious aid
without arms other than those Of domestic en-
terprise, energy and activity, organized upon
practical basis, and directed to the practical OBJ
jects of the carrying trade, home manufactures,
home colleges, and more enlarged system Of
common school education.
And it is gratifying especially, to observe
that South Carolina that fiery, high-spirited
and impetuous little commonwealth, has at
length had the film of political transcendental-
ism removed from her eys; and that she sees
that railroads, steamships, factories, foundries
and schools, are of greater moment to the self
sustaining dignity of State than all the mi
croscopical hair-splitting constitutional abstrac
tons that have been discovered from the epoch
of '9s and '99 down to the present day. In
battling against a rigid Northern monopoly
protecting tariff. she perhaps did well enough,
though her resistance was carried to nullifca-
ton. In opposing the nefarious schemes of
Northern traitors and fanatics for the bloody
determination Of slavery, she was, perhaps, ex-
cusable, though her opposition was carried
to the very threshold of secession and a
Southern confederacy. No doubt her radical
uncompromising resistance in both cases did
much to effect a compromise between the North
and the South; and to this extent the entire
South and the Union may be indebted to South
Carolina. But in the sequel she has discov-
cred that neither the causes of the compare
tive decline Of the Southern States, nor the
means for their domestic prosperity. are de-
pendent upon hair-splitting interpretations of
the plain letter and law of the Federal
Constitution. And we repeat, that it is
highly gratifying to note this invaluable
in for har
sake and the immediate interests of all con-
cerned.
Georgia. the Empire State of the cotton coun-
try, has already illustrated, in her extensive
system Of railroads, and in her numerous and
prosperous cotton factories, the great fact that
the South has within itself the essential ele-
ments of the highest industrial prosperity. 1t
is not surprising, therefore, that Georgia should
nominate a powerful delegation. of nearly all
her leading men of every county to attend the
Memphis Convention. Alabama, too, is deeply
infected with the contagion of railroads, and
Mississippi has caught the fever from Tennes-
see In fact, from the Dismal Swamp to the
Balize, from Charleston to Chattanooga and
from Mobile to the Muscle Shoals, the hitherto
| sleeping South has been walked up to the prac-
tical meaning of Southern rights, by that great
constitutional eypounder, the railroad locomo-
tive. 1t passes through the pine barrens, and
lively towns and villages spring up in its track
it winds through the gorges Of otherwise i'm
passable mountains, and foundries, forges. and
furnaces make the mountain sides resound win
their wholesome music-it rushes, like the en-
bodiment Of a tempest, over region Of swamps
and morasses, and straightway the swamp and
the morass are blooming with fields Of rice
and cotton--it halts at a neglected seaport, and
ships line the reviving wharves from the utter
most parts of the earth; or it stops for wood
and water at a country cross-road. and hotels,
schools and churches rise out Of the earth at its
approach. In the language Of Captain Maury,
the locomotive has turned the Mississippi up
| side down and transferred one of it's mouths
| from the Gulf Of Mexico to the port of New
York. And it is this great agent of civilization
and progress-of commercial development and
material prosperity-that has instgated this
Memphis Convention.
We may therefore expect the most important
results from this businesslike gathering of the
| Southern States. 1t may not be amiss here to
repeat the special objects of their proposed de-
liberations. They are to consider the policy Of
A continental cotton market, in opposition to
Liverpool;
A domestic port of transhipmcnt and domes-
tic exchanges, in opposition to New York;
Lines of steamships directly between the
| ports of the South and Europe;
Direct expectations and importations;
Home manufactures;
Home schools and colleges &c.
Now. upon every one of these specifications
the Southern States may do something to les
zen their dependence upon the North. A CONT
mental cotton depot in opposition to Liverpool
suggests the desideratum Of more uniform