The Tarboro' southerner., 1870-10-13
Address of Hon. Geo. H. Pen
ton in the Southern Com
mercial Convention.

GOu Ill GQS Oo4AA-
mercial Convention.
The following is the reception ad-
dress of Hon. Geo. H. Pendleton on
the opening of the Southern CONNER
cial Convention at Cincinnati on Tues
day:
Friends: Every industrial interest,
and advocates of every growing enter
prise from the Alleghauies to the
Rocky Mountains, attest the dignity
of this convention and the magnitude
of the questions committed to its con-
sideration. Your predecessors, who
met at Norfolk in 1868, were few in
numbers, and the chief object of their
consideration was the ocean trade Of
the Atlantic cities with Europe
Your numbers already reach many
hundreds, and your debates will touch
every project Of material development,
every phase of intelligent industry,
every facility of commercial inter
cou,s Sc, every plan Of finance and taxa
ton, every encouragement of immigra>
ton, every question Of governmental
economy.
This Convention meets to consider
and advance the interests Of the great
Mississippi Valley. Arc, centre and
source of the well being of other por-
tions of the country, its development
is their growth, its prosperity their
wealth, and when the ha I'd of industry
touches into life any dormant clement
of power which nature has hidden in
its fields, mines, lakes or rivers, they
grow by its activity and move under
Its impr sion. The Mississippi Val
ley! The very name calls up vision
of transcendaut grandeur-lands teen,
ing with cotton, ice, sugar, corn. bar
ley. 1t stretches from central Penn
sylvania to the western boundary of
ka1sas, from the Lake Of the Woods
to the Gulf of Mexico. Its soils are
fertile, its mines productive, forests
exhaustless, its climate healthful
Ere long a hundred millions of peo-
pie will inhabit it. They will till its
fertile soil, they will work its fruitful
mines, they will manufacture its raw
materials, they will be an active en-
terprisiug, selt-reIiant and industrious
people. They will not submit to so-
laticn. They will require, and they
viii have, free, uninterrupted and easy
commuuicG ton with the Gulf of Mexi-
co By the Mississippi river, with the
Chesapeake Bay by canal iu Virginia,
with Sandy Hook by canal in New
York, with the North Atlantic by
the Lakes and the St. Lawrence. They
will reach the Pacific By the Northern
and Central and Southern. They will
dig through the mountains of Virginia
and import by way of Norfolk. They
will thread the valleys of Kontuck y
and Tennessee, and load ships a;
Charleston for Savannah. They vii
build levees on the Southern rivers
and reclaim to cultivation their ricl
alluv!on. They will sweep away every
embarrassment caused by the protec
tive system, and they will demand
every improvement in the burthcn o
taxation and in the benefits Of currency
which the most enlightened aud saga
cious civilization can suggest. Thi
is the Southern Commercial Conven
ton. Ohio was the first fruit of th,
munlfcence OF magnanimous Virginia
eldest born Of the northwest, fairest o
her sisters. Conscious of her own ma
tured and matroDly beauty she look
with loving pride upon their youthful
bloom and visor. In her name [ biz
: you welcome