The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1861-04-02
vissinia .as the Missress Of southern Gem.

c*Sg NV
TUESDAY, MORNINa.e.. APRIL 2. isci
VIRGINIA. 'As the Mistress Of Southern Gem
merce.
While Submission would at once deprive
Virginia Of half million Of laborers, depopu-
late her wealthiest sections, and produce a
state Of private Indebtedness and public taxa
tfon that would set her back hundred years
in wealth and resources, secession and union
with the South would retain these iaborcrs,
give new stimulus to all her interests, bring
her forward at once as leading manufactur-
ing and commercial power, and overspread
hsr whole surface with a prosperity never
DRAINED Of before by her most sanguine en-
thusiasts. From her present condition as
etartiug point. submission would be rapid
descent downward to poverty, decay, and
ruin secession, vigorous, bounding ascent
to the highest condition of all uence ana pros
perity. To ASCERTAIN the natural association
which she should seek, Virginia has but to
ask, who are her ustomers Is there a sim
sle article Of trade which her farmers. her
manufacturers, or her merchants, sell TO the
North, in quantity, for Northern eonsump-
toni Her tobacco is sold all over the world,
and much of It goes to New York and other
Northern cities, for shipment, to consumers
everywhere; but except that comparatively
incon siderable portion OF this article used at
the North, 1t would BE- difficult to discover
what Virginia production it is that goes to the
North, for Northern consumption. Virginia
purchases much from the North, at very high
prices, and in unnecessary quantities. Be-
coming indebted to the North for these pur-
chases, it Is necessary for her to ship her ex-
ports, for the most part, to Northern cities, in
liq uidation Of tho indebtedness; whence they
are exported by Northern merchants, on their
own account, to the markets OF the world
But this fact only proves that Virginia has
been made tributary to the North, by an I'M
natural manipulation of commencement that
tho North 10 a consumer of one-tenth part of
her shipments thither-not that this condition
of trade is natural or profitable TO Virginia
on the contrary, it is most unnatural and I'M
profitable.
Various efforts have been made to change
this course Of trade, SO exhausting, so impov
srishing, so hurtful to Virginia but hereto
fore they have always proved inefsctual.-
At length, however, q great movement has &C.
Cured, which, if Virginia participate in it, at
once cuts her trade loose from the clutches of
her Northern task-mastsrs--at once strikes
from SIxBAD's back the Old Man of the Sea.
The secession Of the Southern States has
produced two tariffs, which, If Virginia be-
came a part of the Sou thern Confederacy, cuts
her aloof from the North and throws open to
her manufactures and products of all kinds,
duty free, the markets of those States. At
the same time that these markets are opened
III n
grain, tobacco, flour, cattle. horses, mules, ne
groes, machinery, and manufactures of all
sorts, giving her preference over the North
ern and Western States for these articles, and
a first profit equal to the duty on the arti-
cles, she will be separated from the North by
a high Northern tariff that will put an end to
the monopoly which that section now holds
upon her trade. At present, New York is the
grand funnel through which the whole trade
of the South, of Virginia especially, is made
to pass--is the grand Maelstrom which swal-
lows up and engulfs the profits and wealth of
the South. The withdrawal of Virginia from
that section-the separation which will be eff
fected between the two sections by the ire
spectivs tariffs, land nothing marks the boun-
Diary lines between countries more effectually
than the doudne, will at once release her
from her present commercial vassalage to the
North, at the same time that it will place her
in the relation of chief factor and commercial
agent for the Southern Confederacy.
The most direct exit for all Southern pro-
duce to Europe, is through the ports of Vir-
ginia. Snch are already the facilities afforded
by her chain of railroads, reaching from Nor.
folk to Memphis, that cotton now realizes
Liverpool prices to its owner on the very day
he ships it from Memphis; where the mer.
chants are eager to cash the sixty day drafts
he can now draw against the shipment, know
ing that the cotton will arrive in the English
port in forty five, at the longest In the ship
ment of such an article cotton, time, itself
becomes money and that line Of ransporta-
ton which affords the most expeditions tran
cit will always command the bulk of the
freight. The shortest passage to Europe
from any Southern port, is from Norfolk; and
the grand network of railroads converging
there from all parts of the South enables
cotton to be placed there, from the reno test
corners of the South, several days sooner
than by the water navigat ton of the Gulf
Two years would, if Virginia becomes State
of the Southern Confederacy, see Norfolk and
the Chesapeake cities enjoying the great bulk
of the cotton export trade of the American
continent. The export trade would bring, al
SO, the import trade of the South into the
same waters, and the immense business now
monopolized by New York would be trans
fsrred to the banks of the Elizabeth and
james. For Virginia to remain part of the
Northern COnfederacy, is to remain forever in
political provincialism and commercial vas
salage. To sever that disparaging and bane-
full connection, is to assert for herself that
political and commercial independence which
God and Nature designed as her destiny, and
10 at once prepare herself for welding the
sceptre Of commerce in the wealthest Con.