■:•:.■.':: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 00D05D5fl20fc> \ ■ . **b. A. <*► * • . o • tf O ♦ . ■ &'-. ^ o V - SI H i ' .0 y"*^ G* ' +M* **6 ^ . w A 6 °* *•• w 3 ^ * * -'«. V VV • 1 ** ^ • V *c .0- "-<,> *.,,•■ V* -* 6*i b 9 d 6<\b6 t ALlffTElf ' FROM J.J.SPEED,OF BALTIMORE, TO A LANDHOLDER OF BALTIMORE COUNTY, O N TH E SUBJECT OF DISUNION. BALTIMORE: PRINTED BY SHERWOOD & CO N, W. Corner Baltimore and Gay streets. 1850. > N \\ A LETTER FROM J. J. SPEED, OF BALTIMORE, TO A LANDHOLDER OF BALTIMORE COUNTY, ON THE SUBJECT OF DISUNION. BALTIMORE: PRINTED BY SHERWOOD & CO N. \V. Corner Baltimore and Gay streets. 1850. Baltimore, 6th July, 1850., My Dear Sir, — I have received and read your excellent letter. Its sentiments are most just; and if they could be gener- ally diffused, would command the public admiration and give encouragement and strength to the drooping patriotism of the country. For, after all, these emo- tions of patriotism, ennobling as they are, share but the lot of the other affections of the mind ; they are em- boldened or depressed, become strong or timid as they meet with encouragement or disfavor in quarters enti- tled to respect; and, though the love of country and affection for the government are sentiments of great warmth and gallantry in the American breast, they may, nevertheless, sink under discouragement and be- come listless and passive under the influence of such proceedings and debates as have recently taken place in the two Houses of Congress. Those debates, ex- tending, now, through half a calendar year — from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox — and so on, again, to the longest day of summer, have been quite too re- markable not to have attracted and chained your atten- tion. The desperate proposition of disunion has been put forth and discussed, with as much coolness and de- liberation, as if its adoption would not be positively fatal to the liberties of the country. And it is this cool- ness and complacency that should alarm us. That the deliberations of Congress should now be engrossed and controlled by measures that, at any other period of our history, would have been denounced as treason, in the obscurest assemblies of the people, is well calculated to excite alarm in our breasts. A government vouch- safed to us by Providence as a reward for the virtues of a generation that has gone before us, a government that has by its benign efficacy and vigor, in the short space of two-thirds of a century, conducted a young nation from helplessness to greatness, a government whose operations have been so vastly beneficial to man- kind, so encouraging to Christianity and to human lib- erty, a government that, guided by the principles of its great founder, has resisted the trespasses and betrayals of foreign diplomacy and withstood the rudest assaults of foreign war, is now, it appears, to be torn down by our own hands, or rather, by the hands of our rulers, who like children, in the delirium of play, seem re- solved to throw in the dust the things that are most precious to us. The emblems of our greatness, suc- cesses and triumphs, with the bulwarks of our security, are to be trampled under foot. This great confederacy is to be broken up and torn asunder, and two Republics are to be established in its place — a Northern and a Southern Republic, — whose natural condition would be war — war whose duration would be for ages and whose flame and havoc have not been equaled by any of the modern conflicts of mankind. The storming of Ismail and the slaughter at Saragossa may present some ex- ample of its desperation; and, in addition to the infor- mations of ancient history, we know the stained banks of the Tweed and the Rhine present us with some of the deeper foot-prints of border warfare. What do our rulers expect? The dismemberment of the Union could not change the physical geography of the coun- try. The great rivers would still flow on; the soils of the. South would still produce their staples ; cotton and sugar would not grow north of the Potomac, nor could the great fisheries of New Foundland be removed nearer the tropics. These would remain; not as sour- ces and elements of wealth for a whole people, but as objects of strife and contest. The looms of New England, the iron of Pennsylvania and the less valuable gold of California would remain, not to succour and nournish an empire, but to be fought for, in many fields, by a dismembered people. The public lands would preserve their present locations, their titles being left for adjustment by the issues of war. And the great waters of the Mississippi would still roll on, — sweeping through the continent — not, as now, bearing upon their currents the harvests of great regions to friendly mar- kets — but cutting through hostile States, — its commerce chained and entangled by tariffs and duties, its banks and great cities bristling with fortresses and all the dark equipments of war. And then, instead of the note of prosperity and joy that now rings through its valleys, expressing the gratitude and happiness of a noble peo- ple, the shout of war would be heard from its mouths to its highest sources, and the wail and lament of a na- tion would be poured out upon its waters. The break- ing up of the Union, upon sectional differences, could not heal those differences. Would the property in slaves be rendered more secure by offering them a cer- tain refuge in a hostile State ? Would not the warm questions that now agitate the country be increased in heat by discussions, in public assemblies, where they could not be opposed by reason or met by argument ? What is now urged in the National Legislature as com- plaint, would, in the Congresses of the new Republics, be put forward as accusation and charge — repelled by recrimination and the issues left to the sword. Diplo- macy could not adjust them. What we ourselves agree cannot be settled by friendly conference, could hardly be arranged by the colder deliberations of diplomatic agents. Let us consider for example, what would be the provision of the organic law of the Northern Re- public in regard to slavery. Unquestionably it would be the same as that of England. That the fleeing slave should be free as soon as he set foot on their territory, and the pursuit of the master would in itself be made felony ! And what a scene would this present along a thousand miles of inland frontier; and, including that of the ocean, a frontier greater in extent than the whole circumference of the British islands? And, on the other hand, what would become of the looms of New England ? What would become of her great factories with all their expensive equipments ? Would they not be stricken motionless if the cotton of the South were withheld from them? And would it not be withheld, as far as the strongest preferences and treaty discrimi- nations could direct it into European channels ? And the great fisheries of New Foundland and the naviga- tion of the Mississippi, objects of such prominence in the labored negotiations of Mr. Jay and Mr. Gallatin, and in the earlier treaties of the country: what would become of them? These great arms of strength and national support were purchased by concessions for the good of the whole country. Would either State give them up ? Could diplomacy award them to either, or divide them ? Certainly not. It might as well at- tempt to divide the sun beams, the rains, or the cool- ing dews of Heaven. In whatever way this great subject can be viewed, it presents a bright picture of felicity and strength on (he one side, and of gloom and decay on the other. In case of disunion, those entangling alliances against which Washington warned us would be eagerly sought after by the opposing Republics. Each would seek to strengthen its arm against its rival by purchasing the favor of European States. Those purchases would be made by concessions in commerce ; and the strongest discriminations in trade against the sister Republic, would purchase the strongest friendship abroad. And Great Britain would then have it in her power to re- press the industry and close the work-shops of New England; to deaden her navigation and break up her prosperity. Corn she could get, to be sure, from the granaries of New York and the countries that border on the Upper Lakes. But how could she pay for it ? If the Southern Republic would be vulnerable through the vast masses of her property that is now producing contention, she would hold a weapon of corresponding power in her great production of Staples and her posi- tive control over the disposition of them. We know that Cotton alone, after supplying the home market, and the industry of New England, constitutes about two thirds, in value, of all- the exports of the United States ; that upon this great staple the wealth and revenues of the country almost entirely turn. We know, indeed, that in various forms, it engages a great portion of the capital and one half of the physical in- dustry of Great Britain. We know that the surplus bread stuffs of the Continent are bought by Great Britain, for consumption and commerce, by Cotton, in the first stages of manufacture — the raw material be- ing of American production. Few are ignorant that the surplus Cotton crop, amounting to over a hundred mil- lions of dollars, more than pay for all the imports of 8 ihe United States, whether from this side or beyond the (ape of Good Hope. In short, it is upon Cotton mainly, more than upon many other of the leading articles of human consump- tion combined, that the wealth and commerce of the world turns; and \}m\ for all its vast manufactures this Bide the Cape of Good Hope, the raw material, with but little exception, is supplied by the plantations of the United Stairs. And these plantations would all fall in the Southern Republic. Not an ounce could be grown north of the Potomac. And what an engine "i good or of evil this would leave in the grasp of the South ! What an engine for retaliation upon the north for any encroachments upon that peculiar property that is now raising these disturbances! And, in proportion to the vastness of these means of mutual annoyance, is the power and magnitude of the argument against dis- union. But, sir, vivid as these pictures are, and true as I consider the positions of this letter, there is one other and more touching view in which it becomes you and me, and the other inhabitants of the shores of the Chesa- p' .ike, to look at this great subject. Much as we love the Union, our best affections belong to our own State. And what is to become of Maryland, in this breaking up of the country ? She will be a border State, whether the line of separation fall upon the Potomac, the Chesapeake, or the southern line of Pennsylvania. To her may be addressed the lessons of border war- tare. It will be her lot to furnish battle fields and burial grounds for contending armies, and to suffer most (Void the afflictions of war. And is this to be the lot of our beloved state? of Maryland, who has so recently and so proudly risen from all her difficulties ? 9 No, no ; rather let her move on in the great sisterhood of States — preserving her robes in their purity and beau- ty — clinging to the birth-right and inheritance that she received under the last testament of the great Parent of the Country, blessing his memory, repeating his lessons, and chaining herself faster and faster to the Union. These subjects would soon lead me into a course of very wide reflection •, but the letter is al- ready quite long enough, and I conclude, by begging you to believe me, as always, Your friend, J. J. SPEED. 146 & .% \\\Y • \V«* \ •^ o o • ' * <^» °o J? » • " # * *«^