command our rivers, bays, &c., to defend our shores, and protect our inhabitants against the enemy.
"There are a good many citizens among us who say 'cotton is king;' they hold that this king is to do all and more for us than it is possible for a navy to do. . . .
"All such are in a delusion. In the first place, cotton and the staples of the South are only some of its nobles; and unless human nature be changed, they, without a navy, will be powerless for protection. Unless we have the national ability to put forth navy strength necessary to support the dignity of the nation, its great staples will be a source of weakness, for mere wealth is weakness, and, like unprotected wealth everywhere, our commercial staples will invite to outrage and wrong.
"There seems to be a vague idea floating in the public mind of the South that, somehow or other, cotton is to enable us to do, if not entirely, at least to a great degree, what other nations require armies and navies to accomplish for them. Because cotton-wool is essential to the industry of certain people, and because we are the chief growers of cotton-wool, therefore, say these political dreamers, we can so treat cotton, in a diplomatic way, as both to enforce obedience to our revenue laws at home and secure respect to our citizens abroad. But can we? Did ever unprotected wealth secure immunity to its owner?
"In the first place, cotton becomes, when handled in any other way than the regular commercial way, a two-edged sword, as apt to wound producer as consumer. Every obstacle which we place between it and the channels of commerce here, operates as a bounty for its production elsewhere.
"It is a very current but mistaken idea to suppose that this is the only country in the world properly adapted to the cultivation of cotton. No such thing. Should even the
