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

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE SOUTH AND WEST. 3
and the vast interior which they are destined to supply with the manufactures of foreign countries. In this view of the subject, too high
an estimate can scarcely be placed upon a railroad communication
between the Southern Atlantic cities and the navigable waters of the
West. The most high-wrought visions of enthusiasm will, we doubt
not, be found, in the rapid progress of events, to sink down into insignificance, when compared with the splendid realities which time
will soon develop; and we confidently anticipate that ten years hence
history will exhibit to us results which the most excited imagination
would not now venture to predict. This magnificent scheme of internal communication will give us the command of the whole Valley of
the Mississippi, in spite of the established ascendency of the Northern
cities, in the business of foreign importations and internal commerce.
For whether we scale the interposing mountain barriers, like Hannibal, or turn them like his more skilful successor and rival, the line
of operations which will carry us to the centre of this immense theatre of commercial competition, will be but half as long as that of our
Northern rivals; and, what is next in importance, will be at all times
unobstructed, while theirs will be closed up for several months annually, by the freezing of their rivers and canals. And though we may
neither defeat the Romans in successive battles, nor drive the Austrians out of Italy by annihilating successive armies, we shall perform
an achievement more glorious than either that of Hannibal or Napoleon, while we conquer and bless, by the peaceful weapons of industry
and enterprise, plains incomparably more rich and extensive than
those which they overran and desolated by the destructive weapons
of war.
It is impossible for any enlightened and patriotic citizen of the
Southern States to contemplate, without enthusiasm, the beneficial
effects which wvill be produced on our commercial, social, and political relations, by opening a direct communication with the great Valley of the Mississippi. It will form an indissoluble bond of union
between communities whose interests are closely interwoven, and
will give a tenfold activity to a commerce which even the Alleghany
heights have not been able altogether to prevent. The commercial
cities of the South Atlantic and of the Gulf of Mexico, are undoubtedly the natural marts of the Western people for obtaining thieir supplies of foreign merchandise. It is there they find a ilarket for the
principal part of their own staple productions, even now, when they
obtain their supplies of foreign merchandise from the Northern cities,
by a complicated and expensive operation, and by a long and tedious
transportation. How decidedly it would be to their interest to obtain,
by a direct exchange, their foreign merchandise from the com!nmlunlities where they sell their domestic productions, avoiding all the expense and delay and hazard of purchasing bills on the North! And
how great and overwhelming will be the preference due to this direct
intercourse of exchanges, when the transportation of their merchandise shall be but half in point of distance, and omme-sixthl in point of
time? Every merchant wvhlo und(lerstands experimmentally the importance of time in the transportation of his iimelm(lan(lise, will at once
perceive the decisive advantage which this circurnstantce alone will
give to our Southern cities over their Northern competitors. We,