The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1859-12-03
Colonization and Commerce.

We make the following extracts from the
eloquent address of the Hon. Frank. P.
Blair Jr., delivered before the Young Mems
Mercantile Library Association of Cincin-
natl. They will abundantly repay a care
full perusal:
SIS The tropical regions of
America arc the richest i'm the whole world.
This is due to the peculiar coniguration of
that part of our continent, and the prevalence
of the northeastern and southeastern trade
winds, which come sweeping across d vast
expanse of ocean, surcharged with moisture,
and striking at right angles upon the coast,
they penetrate deep into the interior, where
the moisture is precipitated by the cold at
mosphere of the mountains, forming the
largest rivers in the world, which traverse
the entire country, imparting to it the most
extraordinary fertility, giving unquestiona-
BILE guarantee of its being the predestined
seat of future empire. For civilization, be
it observed, is of amphibious birth. 1t has
ever arisen on the sea shore, on the banks
of the navigahle rivers, half from the flood,
and half from the land. The Ganges, the
Nile, and the great cities which stood, as it
were, knee deep, or still stand in the waters
of the Mediterranean, vouch for this. A
y
seat of opulence or power, and the coantry
TO which allude has pre-eminent title to
that appellation.
Even here on the banks of the "beautl-
full river" | am constrained to declare that
the Amazon, the La Plata, and the OrinocO,
together with their tributaries, are unrival-
led on either continent, nor are there any
where else on the globe, such an endless di-
versity of gorgeous scenes-such boundless
expanses of vegetable and floral magnif-
cence, as their valleys disclose. These val
leys clothed with growth OF verdure,
fame in purple, crimson and gold, outshin-
ing in the brilliancy of their variegated
bloom, the winged tribes in the adjacent
forest, whose plumage is enriched with the
colors of the prism. In the whole tropical
region of our continent, the eye of many
may behold one unending round of vernal
promise and ripening harvest. There the
opening blossom and the matured fruit min
gle on the same stem, which is released
from its burthen and converted into a cornu-
copia, by every passing breeze. The same
gentle swaying that whitens the ground
with the petals of the flowers, strews it
with the bursting fruit. The radiant cli-
mate kas no Hvinter in its year, and the
---..tPresent summers, VI rather the three
seasons in their indivisible union, have no
interregnum in their rule and give the teem-
ing earth no rest from the labor of bringing
forth her choicest productions. .
There the task Of agriculture will be, not
to stimulate, but to repress and tame the
powers of the soil. There the household,
however numerous, will not be adequate to
gather what the solitary husbandman shall
SOW Hours of labor will purchase weeks
of luxurious ease. Skies and earth, air and
water, proclaim the Promised Land, nay, the
Paradise of the negro. While the white
man degenerates and withers in the glare of
all its splendor, sinking into valetudina-
rian, impotent in body and mind, or sud-
denly encounters death in breathing the
subtle poisons with which its exhalations
are pregnant, the black man by virtue of
that mysterious quality of organism con-
ferred by race, finds these exhalations in
noxious, and the torrid glare an elixir for
body and mind. His very pores, like those
of plant, seem to absorb the solar light
and fire, and the reekings of the moist and
warm earth affect his health as little as the
odor of hecatombs did the disposition of the
Epicurian Gods. In such a region his ma
ture is in harmony with all the elements
which surround him.