COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. > PAGE. Number and Tonnage of American and Foreign Vessels cleared from the United States to Foreign Countries in 1849-50.. 467 Number and Tonnage of American and Foreign Vessels entered United States in 1849-50....... 468 Our Commerce with the East Indies, and Ports in the Pacific, in 1850.... Trade of Australia............. COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS. Law relating to the Appraisement of Merchandise in the United States.. 472 473 474 475 475 476 477 478 478 479 479 480 481 Condensed Abstract of Laws of Hawaiian islands respecting Commerce The Bank of the State of South Carolina.--Revenue of Great Britain in 1850-51.. 496 Insurance of Passengers on Railways in London.. Mawdeslay's Self-Acting Feathering Screw.-Cheap Traveling from Paris to London. JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. Flax, and its Manufacture Manufacture of Glass Animals. The Manufacture of Paisley Shawls.. Coal for Gas-Oil Cloth Factory at St. Louis. Of the Culture of Flax Seed in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa.. Mineral Productions of Mexico-Quicksilver--Copper--Iron.. Cannelton, Indiana, Cotton Manufactory.-Mining in France and Belgium.. 507 508 509 510 511 512 512 513 Ship Building in New York.-Copper and Iron Mines of Lake Superior.-Wine Making in Missouri 514 MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES. Credit to whom Credit is Due-the Baltimore Price Current vs. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine... 515 A Merchant, Philanthropist, and Christian.-Important to Merchants Trading with Sardinia..... 516 A Merchants' Club for all Nations.. The Gutta Percha Trade.-The British Navigation Laws.. Responsibility of Men in Commercial Companies.-An Honorable and Honest Merchant.. The Early-closing Movement-Lines from "Punch.". The Trade and Traders of Bokhara-A Candid Merchant in New Orleans.... 520 "What is Life Assurance ?"-" Peels' Motives for Advocating Free Trade.". Epitaph on a Linen Draper.-Imports of River Plate Hides into Great Britain.. A Novel Speculation..... Art. I. THE UNION, PAST AND FUTURE: แ A BRIEF REVIEW," REVIEWED. THE leading article in the October (1850) number of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, is "A BRIEF REVIEW," by Mr. E. H. Derby, of Massachusetts, of a pamphlet first published in Washington, and afterwards republished in Charleston, entitled "The Union, Past and Future: How it Works, and How to Save it; by a Citizen of Virginia." This review is the most elaborate criticism which has yet appeared, and by its fullness and superior ability, merits a reply, in which I shall attempt to meet every objection it makes." The reviewer begins by insinuating, what he does not venture to charge directly, that the object of the essay is not what it professes, "to count the means of resistance; the relative strength of the opponents; the value of what we must hazard; and the surest way of preserving the Union in its original equality;" but that the real design was "to stab the Union under the guise of friendship, and to seek its ruin." I confess I am not one of those who indulge in an idolatrous veneration for the Union, and in order to preserve it forget the causes for which it was formed; still less would I cloak my real estimate of its value under the fashionable cant which affects to regard it as a piece of perfection, above all criticism, as the Ultima Thule of all human progress! at the same time, I am fully aware of all its advantages, and none can more strongly desire to preserve it, as created by the Constitution, and as the old Republican party-yes, as the old Virginian school of '98 and '99, now so much derided-interpreted that great treaty; and such was the object of the pamphlet, to inquire how we could preserve the Union of our fathers, the equal union of sovereign States, and to stab, not under the guise of friendship, but openly, as a mortal foe, the unequal Union, or rather, the consolidated despotism which threatened us. With this view, the proper course of argument was obviously that which the essay pursues. It first states, "that the South has at stake, not merely the fourteen hundred millions of dollars, the value of her slave property, but all of honor, and of happiness, that civilization and society can give." To prove this, it briefly reviews the past contests between the North and the South, and shows that the great questions then pending, (last winter,) were but one stage in a long history of ever growing demands on the part of the North, and as constant concessions from the South, and that the final result must be the entire supremacy of the former section, with the abolition of slavery in the latter. Having thus proved that the real issue was more important to the South than the Union itself, the essay next shows that the Union may be safely staked upon this issue, because, 1st, if it were lost, the South still has internal resources to form a confederacy of the first order; and 2d, the North would, in that event, be so weak, and the advantages she derives from the Union are so enormous, that she would yield to the claims of the South for equality, if once convinced that it was the only condition on which the Union could be preserved. There is nothing in the pamphlet that does not bear on some one of these points; its facts may be mistaken, but I have yet to learn what there is in "the spirit or character" of such an argument that can justly "irritate dispassionate" men, like Mr. Derby, and in what rule of logic its reasoning fails. The reviewer does not attempt to tell me, but confines himself to attacks upon various facts, and subordinate arguments, on which the main argument depends. I proceed to notice them, nearly in the order in which he presents them. In the "history of the causes of the present crisis," the essay asserts that Virginia ceded the Northwestern Territory to the United States; that slavery then existed there; that its prohibition was to the injury of the South; that the only condition of the cession which has operated favorably to the South, was that the territory should not be divided into more than five States, and that this condition has been violated by giving 22,336 square miles of its area, more than the average size of all the free States east of the Ohio, to constitue the future State of Minesota. This point is not essential to the main argument, but Mr. Derby recurs to it more than once, and his reply will serve as a test of his general accuracy; I think it will be seen that he has made numerous mistakes. He first disputes the title of Virginia to the North-western Territory, and he next says, that the South has been amply compensated for any concession that may have been made in giving up that region to the free States; but all this obviously does not touch the main question, whether the formation of Minesota out of part of the Northwest Territory, violates a condition of the cession from Virginia. For it matters not what compensations have been made for the loss of this territory to slave labor, or whether the title of Virginia was good. She certainly claimed the whole region between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Lakes, and she certainly ceded that claim to the United States upon specified conditions, which were recognized by all parties as a binding compact. One of these conditions operated in favor of the political power of the Southern States, and it has certainly been violated in the formation of Minesota. Now, to meet this difficulty, our reviewer intimates that the whole compact between Virginia and the United States is contained in the first legisla tive act of cession, and that when Congress proposed a change in one of the articles, which Virginia accepted, it is not to be considered as part of the compact, because Virginia merely consented to it. This seems so strange an argument, that I will quote it at length, in Mr. Derby's own words: "The deed by which Virginia ceded to Congress her claims north-west of the Ohio does not, as our author imagines, restrict the number of States in that region to five; it authorized many more, for it required they should not exceed 150 miles square, which is less than half the size of Illinois. Subsequently, Virginia, by the act of 1787, at the request of Congress, consented to an enlarged size and diminished number. Did she by this act cede away her interest? (Page 372.) Such an argument almost answers itself, but let us examine it and state the case more fully. It is true, that the first act of cession from Virginia required that the new States to be formed out of this territory should not exceed more than 150 miles square. When Congress, by the ordinance of 1787, proposed that the States should be larger, and that not more than five should be formed out of the whole territory, it acknowledged that the transaction was a compact, for, as Mr. Derby says, it requested the consent of Virginia to this change in the terms. Virginia, by the act of December 30th, 1788, (not 1787, see Herring's Stat. at large, xii. 780,) "ratifies and confirms" this proposed change, as "an article of compact between the original States, and the people and the States in the said territory." Now, whatever might have been the first intent of the parties to the compact, or their expectation as to the effect of its articles on their several interests, the result is that they all operate to the injury of Virginia and the other Southern States, except this single article, which is now openly violated! What decent pretext can be found for such a breach of covenant, or what code of laws or morals teaches that a party is bound only by that portion of a bargain which the other party proposes? Or what name ought to be given to the sophistry which would preclude Virginia from the benefit of this article, after it had become part of the compact, because she did not suggest it, but only "ratified and confirmed it?" Still more, how could any abandonment of right on her part justify the North in depriving other Southern States who were equally parties to the contract, of the advantage of any of its clauses? Would such conduct be honest between individuals? Mr. Derby, I will suppose, offers to sell me a cargo of ice for a certain number of hogsheads of tobacco, to be sent him a year hence. I agree to take the ice, but "request" Mr. Derby to receive in return, so many bushels of corn, instead of the tobacco. He "consents," and when the time comes for payment, it happens that the corn is worth more than the tobacco, contrary to my expectation, and I refuse to deliver him the corn, because he consented to that change in the bargain at my "request." Would not this be infamously dishonest ?And how can Mr. Derby think it any better in States than in individuals? So much for the main point; let us follow Mr. Derby to the less material. He asserts, that the South has been fully compensated for any loss of slave territory in the North-west. He says, "a compensation has been made in Missouri, which runs north of the Virginia line." (This is a mistake; the States are nearly parallel, and a small portion of Virginia is, in fact, north of any part of Missouri." And he then triumphantly asks, "And again, if Missouri does not compensate for any concession, were the acquisitions of Louisiana, Florida, and Texas concessions to the North? Will they not more than weigh down the portion of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, bordering on the Ohio?" "With respect to concessions, has not the North done more than justice to the South? Would Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia more than pay the excess given to the South before the war with Mexico?" A very few words will show what these concessions and this excess are. By the treaties of Louisiana and Florida, we acquired 1,248,29 square miles east of the Rocky Mountains. Every part of this territory was already and incontestably slave territory. The doctrine of non-intervention, as interpreted by our modern doctors, and applied, so as to exclude us from our Mexican conquests, would then have worked very differently; it would have left the whole country west of the Mississippi slave territory. Slavery needed no admission, for it was already there. But non-intervention then permitted Congress to exclude forever the property of the South from all the country north of 36° 30', except in Missouri. The result was that after deducting 248,851 square miles for the Indian Territory, the South retained Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri, in all, 225,277 square miles, and the North took all the rest, that is, 774,162 square miles, being an excess of 548,885 square miles. Does Mr. Derby call this a compensation to the South? But he includes Texas, which, before the recent dismemberment, contained 325,000 square miles; deduct this, and the excess to the North is still 223,885 square miles. But the compromise has reduced the area of Texas to 215,000 square miles, and Oregon, containing 341,463 square miles, was all "acquired before the war with Mexico," and Congress, (by non-intervention?) has prohibited slavery in its whole extent. Therefore, the true statement of our territorial acquisitions before the war with Mexico is as follows:— By the treaty of Louisiana and the Missouri Compromise, the And by the Oregon Treaty and act of Congress. Total acquisition to the North...... . sq. miles The South acquired by the treaties of Louisiana and Florida.. Total acquisition to the South....... Excess of acquisitions to the North ...... 774,162 1,115,625 1,115,625 225,277 215,000 440,277 440,277 675,348 A thousand thanks to Mr. Derby for his candor! At last we know what New England means by a concession to the South! It is to allow her about one-fourth of the common territories, and to exclude her from the other three-fourths! And a compensation for the North-west Territory, is to buy a vast empire with taxes of which she pays three-fourths, and give her only one-fourth of the purchase! I knew that Webster's Dictionary had gone far to change the old English language into a New England dialect, but their new meaning of concession and compensation, to say nothing of an excess given to the South " being 675,348 square miles less than what was given to the North, prove that Massachusetts is still progressive. I have frequently heard of Northern concessions to the South, and have always been puzzled to know what they were-I rejoice at last to learn! The review next asserts that slave labor lost very little in the exclusion from the North-west Territory, for "the land was adapted to free labor. The Ohio gave the best boundary Letween the Free and the Slave States." (p. 372.) Now, I can see no geographical or political reason why the short line from Virginia to the Lakes, between Ohio and Pennsylvania, would not have been a still better boundary; on the contrary, it would have united the whole valley of the Mississippi in its instutions and interests. And as to the fitness of the land for free labor, I will not enter upon any theoretical reasoning, but simply remind Mr. Derby of a few facts. Four-fifths of Ohio |