RITCHIE & NEVINS, OFFICIAL STENOGRAPHERS,

49 WEST THIRD STREET, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

OFFICERS OF THE CONVENTION.

Hon. JOHN W. GARRETT, Baltimore, Md.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION.

FIRST DAY.

CINCINNATI, Ohio, October 4th, 1870.

The Southern Commercial Convention having assembled at 11 o'clock, A. M., in Pike's Music Hall, it was called to order by Hon. R. M. BISHOP, of Ohio, Vice President of the Convention held at Louisville, Ky., in October, 1869. Mr. BISHOP said:

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:

In the absence of the Hon. MILLARD FILLMORE, President of the late Southern Commercial Convention, at Louisville, as a Vice President of that Convention, from the State of Ohio, I have been requested by the Committee of Arrangements to call this Convention to order. The task which has been imposed upon me is a pleasant one. It is exceedingly pleasant to me to meet my fellow countrymen, from nearly all the States of this Union, who have been sent here, and who have met together for the purpose of deliberating upon important subjects in which we are all directly interested. That our deliberations may be such as they should be, we will now, if the audience will please to arise, invoke the divine blessing.

The delegates arose, and Rev. J. L. ROBERTSON made a prayer.

Mr. R. M. BISHOP: Gentlemen, I now have the pleasure of introducing Hon. GEORGE F. DAVIS, President of the Board of Aldermen of Cincinnati, who will deliver a few words of salutation on behalf of our city government. (Applause.)

Mr. DAVIS came forward on the platform and spoke as follows:

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION:

It is made my pleasant duty, on behalf of the city government of Cincinnati, in the, absence of his Honor the Mayor, to welcome you to our city. I do this the more heartily because you do not come to seek your own good as individuals, or that of any particular locality, but to consider the best interests of our whole country. Four meetings at Memphis, New Orleans and Louisville-the two first of which I had the pleasure of attendingwere productive of much good, not only in the consideration of great commercial questions, but in the formation of acquaintances among ourselves; to a better knowledge of the necessities of the various portions of the country, and of their competence and ability, under a wise administration of affairs, to remedy them. We welcome you here, because we desire to form social acquaintance with you. Our country is so extended that we have need to come together in some sort of annual gathering, that we may gather up and carry back to the remote sections of our land the good will of each. Trade is said to be selfish; but with its twin sister, commerce, it has been the forerunner of that which has been for the greatest good of mankind, the promotion of civil and religious liberty. Therefore, we welcome you as the representatives of the best interests of our whole country, and controlling that which by proper guidance, may keep this great aggregation of commonwealths united in one common bond of union. Last year you met in a sister State, united by her Virginia mother to the Atlantic ocean on the east, and by the Mississippi and its tributaries to the north-west, west and south to the great gulf of Mexico. To-day, you meet again on the border, in a State not less noble, and also united on the north, and thence east and west, by the noblest chain of lakes in the world, and by her river to the same great south and west as her sister State of Kentucky. Isolate either of these commonwealths from each other and the rest of the country, and what harm to themselves, and what confusion to all others concerned! How can a land so united as we are by river and lake, by history and language and social ties, be disunited? May we not hope that these meetings on the border may be the means of uniting us all in one. We welcome you,