Direct Trade of Soutern States with Europe, No. 1 [pp. 208-226]

MR. M'DUFFIE'S REPORT.
Mr. Jenkins proposed this:
Resolred, That as an introduction to a direct importing system at the South,
it is indispensably necessary that the crop of the present year should be directly
exported by Southern merchants and planters, and that to effect this object, the
Southern banking institutions should lend such aid as they safely and convenient ly can.
Sir. McDuffie moved for the appointment of a committee to pre pare an address to the people of the South-west, of which, we be lieve, he was the chairman, and performed the duties. As this is a
valuable paper, we shall now introduce it, and continue in subsequent
numbers the subject of SOUTRHERN FOREIGN COMMERCE. With the
political doctrines of the paper, of course, we have nothing to do.
Of the numerous subjects deeply and intimately connected with
your permanent prosperity and happiness, which have, during the
last fifteen years demand(led( of you all the consideration which your
intelligence could bestow, andi all exertions your patriotism could
contribute, none have come more directly " home to your business
and your bosoms," than that upon which we now propose to address
you.
The struggle in which you were so long engaged, in relieving your
commerce from the burdens imposed upon it by partial legislation,
has been terminated by a compromise, which, if finally carried out in
the liberal and magnanimous spirit in which it was conceived, cannot fail to perpetuate the political harmony which it was the means
of restoring. But it is not to be disguised, that the system of high
protecting duties, failing mainly upon the productions of the exporting States, combined with the system of federaldisbursement, which
expended the revenue resulting from those duties almost exclusively
in the Northern States, has converted the slight superiority originally
possessed by the northern cities, in the business of foreign importations, into an overwhlelming preponderance, and diverted almost the
whole of the immense commerce of the Southern and South-western
States into artificial, circuitous, and unnatural channels. In the
commercial relations of extensive and wealthy communities, it was
to have been expected that effects would for some time survive their
causes; and accordingly that portion of the commerce of the United
States which is appropriately our own, consisting of an exchange of
our agricultural productions for the manufactures of foreign countries,
is still carried on principally through northern cities, by the agency
of northern merchants, who levy a transit duty-voluntarily paid,
to be sure, but utterly incompatible wivth.a just and enlightened view
of our own interests.
Now that the system of compulsory tribute is greatly reduced, and
rapidly coming to a close, we are called upon, by every consideration
of enlightened self-interest, to signalize our complete commercial
emancipation, by throwing off this system of voluntary tribute, which
can continue only by our consent and co-operation.
A candid and dispassionate survey of the actual condition of our
foreign commerce, as compared with our great natural advantages,
will demonstrate that to bring about this consummation, " so devoutly
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