Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1859-04-13
Senator Hammond on Direct


The Macon (Ga) State Press publishes the
| following letter, addressed by Senator HAM
MoND to HOWELL COBB, of Houston, in re-
Spouse to an invitation TO attend the next
| Cotton Planters Convention, at Macon:
RED CIIFFE, March 29, 1859.
Dear Sir Il am obliged to you for your in
vitation to attend your meeting at Macon,
| and if my health and engagements will per-
nit. | will attend. but not TO make a speech
| that is out Of my line.
| entirely sympathze with your movement.
regard Direct Trade absolutely necessary
| to the independence of the South; without it,,
| she will ever be provincial though she may
| continue to furnish as she now does more of
| the material of commerce, than any other
| population of the same numbers ever did !;
| and materials that constitute the most vital
| currents of commercial circulation, cOntrOll-
| ing. in fact. almost the whole.
| Our drawbacks have been, not the superior
| energy or intellect Of any other people, but
our shallow bars, yellow fever, and want of
mercantile capital Time, | think will show
| that vessels of 1000 tons are as profitable as
larger ones. to carry on trade, and these can
| enter our ports The yellow fever can be
wholly evaded 10y combining our business sea-
son to the eight months Of the year during
which are exempt. These eight months
being those in which we can and in fact do
carry nearly all our products to market, they
are naturally our business months. and those
best adapted To business and climate such as
ours
1t is because we submit to the convenience
of othcIs that we allow IL to be necessary
that there should be any transactions from
the interior, or from aboard. during the four,
possible, yellow fever months. The grand
difficulty is as to capital; our means are. for
the most part in fact almost entirely employ
ed in settling fresh lands, subduing the forests
and furnishing the materials to clothe and
feed the world. in these we find full employ
ment for all our means and all our energy.
But this will not always be so, and if the
owners of the comparatively idle millions, in
other parts, do not soon seek the rich harvest
they may reap here, our own surplusage will
enable US to occupy that field also.
Nothing Thinks wanting to our Southern
country but time, provided we have capacity
to appreciate, before it is too late, our I'M
paralleled resources, and the energy to
develop them. | think we have. | have
every confidence in our future, let mere
politics take what course and produce what
results they may. Southern industry, at this
moment the most prosperous of any on the
globe, rest also on the securest basis, and it
only requires that it should rise to full APP
probation and assertion of itself, to become
free. in little time, of all those provincial
clogs which now cucumber it.
| confess that have been devoted TO other
matters too much To have learned precisely
the way in which your Association proposes
to effect the great object and am, therefore,
unable 10 judge as to its probable results, but
that there is way, and that success is sure,
do not doubt.
Very respectfully, your ob't servant.
J. III. HAMMOND.
HowEII Conn Esq