15 receives as tributaries all the waters of th e West? To possess New Orleans is to command a valley which comprises two- thirds of the United States. “ We will neutralize the river,” they say. We all know what such promises* are worth. We have seen what Russia did with the mouth of the Danube. The Crimean war was necessary that Germany might regain the free use of her great river. If to-morrow a new war should break out between Austria and Russia, we may be sure that the possession of the Danube would be the stake of the contest. It cannot be otherwise in America from the day when the Mississippi, for hundreds of leagues, shall flow between two slave- holdipg shores. Already the effect of the war has been to stop the exportation of wheat and corn', the -riches of the West. In 1861 it became necessary to burn the useless crops, to the great injury of Europe, who is the gainer by these exports. The South understands so thoroughly the strength of her position, that her ambition is to separate the valley of the Mississippi from the Eastern States, to unite herself with the West, and to condemn thus the Yankees of New England to a ruinous isolation. The Confederates use the Mississippi as a bait by which they hope to reconstruct, profitably to themselves— that is to say, in the interests of slavery—the Union which they have broken up through fear of liberty. We see, then, what to think of the pretended tyranny of the North ; what truth there is in the assertion that she wishes to oppress and subjugate the South. On the contrary, the North only defends herself. In maintaining the Union, it is her right, it is her existence that she would save. Thus far I have spoken in the name of the material interests only—legitimate interests, and which, founded on solemn titles, constitutes a sacred right; but if we examine the moral and political interests—interests of a superior order—-we shall see still more clearly that the North cannot yield without self- destruction. The United States are a Republic, the. freest and at the same time the mildest and happiest government that the world has ever seen. In what consists this prosperity of the Americans? They are alone upon an immense territory; they' have never been obliged to concentrate power and weaken liberty, for the purpose of resisting the ambition and jealousy of
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