The South and West have been thimble-rigged out of that work. The law has made it a naval depot, or dock-yard. It has been converted into a rope-walk, and thereby it has become a by-word and a reproach, if not an eye-sore. I repeat here what I have recently had occasion elsewhere to say upon the same subject:

"The enterprise of American citizens is about to open one or more commercial highways across the Isthmus. The access to them lies through American waters. They will be the channels of communication between the distant shores of the nation—its great highways from one part of the Union to the other.

"The faith of the nation has been pledged touching the neutrality of some of these communications. The country will expect its navy to keep them open in war, and to preserve unsullied the national faith.

"The way to these thoroughfares and the road to market from the Mississippi valley run side by side through the Gulf of Mexico.

"No system of measures for providing for the common defence can be considered either complete or effective unless it secures the command to us of this mare clausum. Its commercial importance, already great, will in a few years more be paramount.

"Already the natural outlet for millions, it is destined to surpass all other arms of the sea for its commerce, its wealth, and its national importance.

"The currents and winds at sea are such as to unite in the Florida pass the commercial mouth of the Amazon with that of the Mississippi.

"The market way across the seas, from the valley of the Amazon to the Orinoco, the Magdalena, the Atrato, the Coatzacoalcos, the Rio Grande, and the Mississippi, passes through or upon the borders of this sea.

"The works are projected which will turn in that direction the commerce of the East; and all the ships engaged in it, whether from Europe or America, will sail through the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean sea, passing by our doors, both coming and going.

"Through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea, that country will require safe conduct in war for its mails, its citizens, and their merchandise, as they pass to and from one part of the Union to the other.

"The natural outlet to a system of river basins that include within their broad dimensions 70° of latitude, the most fertile lands in either hemisphere, and an area of them exceeding in extent the whole continent of Europe, this arm of the ocean that is spread out before our southern doors occupies that position upon which the business of commerce is to reach its fullest development.

"Here is to be the scene of contest between maritime nations in

war. Here are the gateways of the ocean, and the power will hold the keys thereof that has the naval supremacy in the Gulf of

Mexico.

"The great sea-fights of this country are probably to take place here.

"In the valley of the Mississippi Nature has placed the means and our free institutions the men for defending that Gulf and the interests connected therewith. Unless we avail ourselves of these resources now, it will be difficult and expensive to command it

in war.

"Therefore, in providing a system of national defences for our interests in that quarter, one of the first steps is to complete the navy-yard at Memphis, and make of it an establishment worthy of its object, and capable of giving force and effect in time of war to the immense naval resources, power, and strength of the great valley of the West.

"To Memphis, Pensacola, and the fortifications at Key West and the Tortugas, ought to be mainly intrusted the defence of the Gulf of Mexico.

It has been said: "It is too expensive to build a navy-yard at Memphis; piles will have to be driven at the edge of the river." Yet it would seem it is not too expensive to drive them in the bottom of the sea at New York, and build there a dock which the Secretary of the Navy, in his last annual report, tells the country has cost $2,146,255 36.

I do not comprehend the logic which makes it too expensive to provide for the common defence in the Gulf of Mexico- the most vital port in our whole system-when it has been by no means too expensive to provide defences for the Atlantic. Provide as effectually, or as ineffectually, we care not which, for the common defence of the Gulf as for the common defence of the Atlantic. we want is justice-even-handed, impartial justice.

All

According to the report of the Secretary of war just presented to Congress on the subject of fortifications, the amount expended upon the army and navy, exclusive of dock-yards, in providing for the common defence since 1816, has reached to upwards of $75,000,000. How much of this has been expended upon Gulf defences, or for the benefit of the people whom I address? Precious little. We all know the Atlantic States have enjoyed a double benefit from this expenditure: first, of having the works in them; and, secondly, of drawing the money from the South and West, and spending it in the North and East.

To me, gentlemen, it is immaterial whether a proper naval establishment at Memphis will cost one or twenty millions of dollars to found it. Let us have it, I say, if it be necessary. If the country want it, and if great interests of State demand it, shall a nation

like this expose itself to injury and insult because it cannot afford to supply the necessary means of defence to any part of it? Let us have an establishment there worthy of its object and of the people whose purposes it is to subserve. It should be the pride and the boast of the entire Mississippi valley. In times of peace it would stand you in the place of a great university for teaching the higher branches of many of the mechanic arts to your young men.

The workshops connected with such an establishment would be filled with apprentices, whom the Government pays while they are learning their trade. These workshops would draw to your section of country many of the most skillful mechanics. They would stimulate the industrial pursuits of that region, and assist in the development of its mineral resources. These are some of the incidental advantages which such establishments carry along with them in peace, and which make their presence so greatly to be desired. along the Atlantic borders.

You have assembled to plan foundations for your future commerce. To provide the means of defending that commerce appears to me to be intimately and necessarily connected with the subject of your deliberations. Hence the reason for calling your attention to a suitable naval establishment at Memphis, and for pressing it upon your consideration with all the earnestness that is admissible.

The free navigation of the Amazon is the greatest commercial boon that the people of the South and West—indeed that the people of the United States- can crave. That river basin is but a continuation of the Mississippi valley. The Mississippi takes its rise near the parallel of 50 degrees north latitude, where the climates are suited to the growth of barley, wheat, and the hardy cereal grains. The river runs south, crossing parallels of latitude, and changing with every mile its climate and the character or quality of the great agricultural staples which are produced on its banks.

Having left behind it the region for peltries, wheat, and corn, for hemp and tobacco, for pulse, apples, whiskey, wine, oil, and cotton, and having crossed the pastural lands for hogs, horses, and cattle, it reaches, near the latitude of 30 degrees, the northern verge of the sugar-cane; thence, expanding out into the Gulf, with all these staples upon its bosom, to be exchanged for the duce of other climes and latitudes, it passes on to Key West and the Tortugas; and there, at that commercial gate-way to the Ocean, which opens out upon the tropic of Cancer, it delivers up to the winds and the waves of the sea, for the distant markets, the fruits of its teaming soil and multitudinous climes.

pro

Then comes chiming in the great valley of the Amazon. Taking up climes, produce, and staples which the Mississippi had just reached, and pushing the variety beyond the Equator far down into the other hemisphere, it increases and diversifies the great assortment to a wonderful extent, adding drug. after drug, spice after

spice, and staple after staple, until sugar and coffee, rice and indigo, all manner of nuts, balsams and spices, cocoa and cotton, cochineal and tobacco, India-rubber, dye- wood, peltrics, flax, and wool, ornamental woods, mines of silver, gold, and precious stones -many of them of new varieties, kinds, and virtues have been reached, and added to the list of countless treasures, boundless commercial capacities, and dazzling resources of these two magnificent water-sheds.

Saving and excepting tea, which, midway the two valleys, is indigenous to the mountains of Costa Rica, and which is the only article of commerce that is gathered from the field, the forest, or the mine, that is not to be found in one or the other of these two river basins, everything that is grown or cultivated upon the face of the earth is to be found in equal if not in greater perfection and abundance in one or the other of these valleys than in any other part of the world. One of them is in the rear of New Orleans, and the other in its front. It is for the Convention to say whether these two rivers shall be united in the bonds of commerce or not.

The Amazon, with its tributaries, is said to afford an inland navigation up and down of not less than 70,000 miles. The country drained by that river and the water-courses connected with it is more than half as large as Europe, and it is thought to contain nearly as much arable land within it as is to be found on that continent. It has resources enough to maintain a population of hundreds of millions of souls.

The navigation on that river is at present such that the people of the upper country can make but one trip in the year. They have there, in their delightful climate of an everlasting spring, the calm season and the trade-wind season. The trade-winds blow up the river. In the calm season the natives in their rude bungoas, loaded with produce of the upper country, drift down with the current. Arrived with their stuff at Para, they sell almost for dollars what they procured for cents at the place of production. Having completed the business of the season, they wait for the south-east trade-winds to set in: with them they return, and complete the business and the trading for the year.

To afford the Convention an idea of the business carried on by sea with Para, I quote returns of exports for the year ending December 31, 1850, which Mr. Norris, the American consul for that port, has had the kindness to furnish me: