Year: 1860




geological survey Of the State, an Oh.
ject of primary Importance to every


parish within her borders. Under the


guarded provisions of our Constitution


it is almost impossible for the State to
fall into any very serious error in aiding
in the construction of useful works. The
danger lies less in extending constitu.
tional assistance to corporations for
building railroads, than in the careless
execution of the laws by which the State
becomes a corporation Unless studi-
ously watched, the restrictions imposed
by the organic law will be evaded by
the corporations, and the State not only
exposed to loss, but the spirit, if not the
letter of the Constitution, be: violated


A careful review of our State affairs
and vigilant examination into our re-
sources, is more incumbent on us now
than heretofore, in view of the disturbed
state of our relations with large por-
tion of the people Of other parts Of tho
Union.


Louisiana has always been moderate
and conservative in her sentiments. She
has never at any period of our national
history countenanced extreme opinions
or violent measures. Her citizens have
ever been loyal lovers of the union of
those States as made and administered
by our fathers. If her devotion to the
Union shall be weakened, it will be be-
cause of the intolerance of sectional
majority; and if it be ever obliterated
l,oh %tak rko1n Lo,
resulted in practical oppression, or pro.
duced state of things to which no sen.
sitive people can submit.


But loyal as Louisiana is supposed to
be to the Federal Union, it must not be
forgotten that she is something moro
than mere State of the Union. She ia,
by her position, by her principles, and
by her choice, a Southern slaveholding
State, and events seem to be fastening
to a crisis the relation which those
States bear to the Union, in which her
duty to herself and to her sister States
may be brought into painful conflict
with her devotion to the Union. A great
party has grown up at the North and
West, whose sole bond of union is ami
mostly to the institutions of fifteen States
of the Union. So bitter is this hostility
felt towards the slavery that these fiji.
teen States regard as a great social, po-
litical blessing, that it exhibits itself in
Legislation for the avowed purpose Of
destroying the rights of Shareholders
guaranteed by the Constitution and pro-
tected by acts of Congress. Popular
addresses, Legislative resolutions, Ex-
ccutive communications, the press and
the pulpit, all inculcate hatred against
us and war upon the institution of sla-
very, an institution interviewer with the
very elements of our existence. The
engendercd in the popular
mind by the doctrines Taught and the
enmity excited, manifested itself very
by an irruption of armed men
in the State of Virginia, whose object
was to incite insurrection, and whose
means were treason and murder. The
abrupt end to which the conspiracy was
brought, and the sharp. quick and just
punishment of the conspirators, proved
that the South had not over-estimated
the stability of her institutions, But
The apologies and eulogiums which de-
veloped at the North widespread SYM
oathy with the felons, have deepened
he distrust in the permanency Of our
Federal Government, and awakened sen-
;iments favorable to separation of the
States.


The representatives Of these feelings
against us and our domestic institutions
IRE now struggling to obtain possession
If the Government, SO that Federal law
nay illustrate their doctrines, and Fed
sral power enforce them | cannot con.
without the most serious alarm
;le condition to which the Southern
States will be reduced, if political par
ty, organized only in one section Of the
country, and without followers or SYM
pathizers in the other, should obtain pos
session Of the Government when the
only foundation on which that party
rests, is detestation of slavery, and when
the minority slave section will be with
out the power to protect itself through
the instrumentality of Federal authority.
When that time arrives the Southern
States will be practically without repre-
in the Federal Government,
and the South occupy the position OF
subjugated States.


The Union cannot last without re-
cognition Of the vital principles of the
that the States are equal
in the Confederacy. Every State mus
be permitted to determine her own so al
institutions, and left to the enjo.
Of them in peace; and the Ter''orles'
the common property Of the S1.0es mus .ss
be freely opened to sett)"aeh. Wy Tn r,'o
nonnle Of the cnnfaderak e4uatS. 4nG