Year: 1875




While it is comparatively easy to as
semble our people upon any political
question that agitates for the moment,
and while our most eminent speakers will
prepare themselves for an Grafton upon
such occasions, it is much to be regretted
that such interests as that which calls
the people of the Mississippi valley to,
gether for the consideration of their chief
concerns should not excite the same in
terest nor command the same general and
generous dedication of talent to the public
service.


1t was at Memphis upon the Mississippi,
and upon the occasion of meeting for the
improvement OF the navigation that Mr..
Calhoun uttered those Pythonic words
which relieved the Democratic party from
its pledge to give no federal aid to works
of internal improvement. The Mississippi
was chrstened an '.Inland Sea, and forth
with it became proper to deepen the har-
Dor and remove the rocks and mud bars
which obstructed its general use. 1t was
device about equal to thst of the cum
ming pilgrim who was condemned to make
tramp with peas in his shoes He merely
boiled the peas and performed the trip.
So, the Democracy of that day boiled
the peas of internal improvement, and
have marched comfortably to the grant of
land to railroads, schools and canals and
the absorption OF every possible public dol
lar applicable to the material development
of the country.


This convention is, however, for pur-
pose even more important than the i'm
provement Of navigation. 1t is to con-
slider if the federal government should not
in wisdom reclaim and defend every acre
of arabic land adequate to the production
of cotton and sugar These two articles
| are national in their universal use, and
every citizen is interested in making their
production as cheap and as abundant as
possible. If the nation be sovereign it
has the same duty to perform that Holland
has done ia. its dykes, or England in re-
claiming the fens of Norfolk. If the gov
ernment can build railroad to give tax
able value to alternate sections, then it
may certainly aid in adding millions OF
acres to the national resources by exc
cutting a work with which individuals
should not be intrusted, and which no
one State should be called on to perform.
Leaving the question of federal duty
to the consideration and conscience of the
average congressman of the day, we will
examine succinctly the effect of protec-
ton levee upon the interests of the people
of the United States, and especially of
those who deal with the valley territory.


The labor applicable to cotton culture
has destroyed great deal of the best up
lands, and tends to soil which requires
neither renewal nor fertilizers. The al
luvial lands of the Mississippi will fur
nish the ouly soil in the Union which can
be relied on permanently for the produc-
ton of this staple. While the hill lands
of the East are abandoned, while the
labor heretofore employed on those lands
is migrating by thousands in search of
those alluvial lands and that genial eli
mate which suits the physical wants of
that labor, the only check to this labor or
to this location is the uncertainty of the
alluvial lands. Let the government pro-
tect these lands, and within few years
there will be concentrated along the lower
Mississippi and its Southern tributaries
population adequate to produce all the
cotton clothing which the people of the
United States will ever need. Let the
government forbear to do this, and the
culture Of cotton, like that of tobacco,
may continue to exhaust and abandon
those lands which requires high farming
to continue in production.


The Mississippi is like the Nile in the
inexhaustible fertility Of its lands. 1t is
capable of bearing population as dense
as that Of the Nile lands, and were the
public mind satisfied of the safety and
salubrity of these lands, to result from
works Of reclamation and defense, there
can be no reason why there should not be,
within comparatively short period, a
population of three millions in the farms,
cities, villages and workshops Of Louisi-
ana, Mississippi and Arkansas alone.


We trust the people of Mississippi will
see in this convention disposition to aid
their material interests. They will remem-
Der that on their political opponents will in
agreat degree depend the grant of the ap-
preparation indispensable to shut the over
flow from their fields. They should in
justice remember that to the colored peo-
pie they will be indebted for an addition
of some ten or twelve members of Con-
gress, and that if they should by intoler-
ance succeed in excluding these people
from suffrage it will deprive the South of
between thirty and thirty;hve members Of
Congress.


We hope for entire harmony among the
friends OF this great work, and that all
men will see that to accomplish anything
by national aid. will require the cordial
cooperation and tolerance of all.