Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-01-26
The Cumberland VsIiey-Iis Great
Mnni

Want.
EDITUEs UNIoN AND DlsPATcH-My
texts, the people Of Tennessee must
depend upon themselves" What if the
negro won't work so as to be a productive
laborer2 II he does not, by a law Of his
being which cannot BE- set aside or
ignored, he win perish His race vii
pass away That race constitutes less
than one-iourth Of the population Of the
State The white race number more
than eight hundred thousand Of our pop
ulation; so that Tennessee IL emphatieally
3 white mans country lt is no use
troubling ourselves about whether the
two hundred and fifty thousand negroes
among MS will work or not If they do
not, they must suffer the penalty Of idle"
ness and vice. Somebody that will work
viii take their place, sooner or later
This all viii follow and be settled by
a law which IL fixed and immutable
What we have TO do is, to go to work our
selves, every one Of as, with strong, manly
and selfreliant courage upon our own re-
sources, and develop them Here we
have, for instance, in the Cumberland
river valley as fine a body of land, in
Guiding fifteen or twenty counties, as
there is in the world, and not one acre in
three in complete cultivation Here with
the proper cultivation may be produced
to An almost unlimited extent, cotton,
corn, wheat tobacco, rye, oats, barley
potatoes, apples, peaches, melons, and
nearly all small fruits Much Of the land
in this region is not excelled by the ce.e-
brated blue grass region of Kentucky for
pastures Of blue grass, both in winter and
summer, and by none in the world for
the growth Of the hay grasses No sec
ton Of country in the world can, hence,
excel it in its adaptation 10 the raising of
domestic animals, such as horses, mules,
hogs, cattle sheep and poultry The ez~
tent Of its productive powers in all these
items has never yet been half reached
To bring this region, as well as all other
parts of our State, into such a state Of
cultivation as will reach this point, is an
object worthy Of our strongest exertions
We can do this if we viii, and by 80
doing we shall achieve our independence
1t is not necessary for me to stop here to
point ont the facilities for manufacturing
our raw materials, with which the State |
abounds everywhere This has been
often done, and by ADLER pens
There is one thing we have yet to do,
in the Cumberland river valley, before |
We can be independent and that is, build |
railroad through It parallel with the |
Cumberland river This ia essential 10 |
the development of our resources, and
consequcntlyto our prosperity We mus !
build this road We can do it. and we |
may aa we'll go at it at once The pre-
liminary survey Of such road is now
being made east of Nashville. A point |
seyentv~fyn miles east Of that city has |
been reached by the surveying party, dis |
covering a practical and in many respects.
an exceedingly favorable route for rails
road This route runs parallel with the |
Cumberland river til that stream leaves |
the State, and through one Of the richest |
valleys in the world But it is no pur-
pose Of mine to point ont the practica-
bihty Of this contemplated railroad |
This has been done il the most exhaua
tive and able manner by the accom-
plished editor of DeBo0's Reriar who !
is the President of that road
This road can and must be built We
can build it ourselves The charter is
liberal granting State aid ON an exten-
siye scale Shall we hesitate, each coun-
ty OF ue, 10 vote a tax sufficient to build |
It through our respective borders We |
can do this and make money by the ope-
ration Let us see There are IN the /
county in which live 2,6G6 families
Each one of these families consumes at
least one barrel of salt a year The
on that salt, per barrel,
over what it would be had we this road /
is at least three dollars making to the
county, on the single item of salt SL99S.
which would be saved by the railroad
This sum is the interest on Sl33, 800, the
interest Of which we could pay equally
for a few years annually in the form of a
railroad tax 90 free ourselves from the |
La r1as, E,ravav Nam ANr,,- 1