"It (North America) contains every variety (within the temperate zone) of climate and produce, a greater extent of mines,—coal, iron, gold, silver, and quicksilver than all Europe. A vast system of navigable streams, exceeding in cheap water communication all Europe. The shore-line of its rivers is 122,784 miles, employing an interior steam tonnage exceeding that of all the world, and the cost of canals of equal capacity, would have been more than TEN BILLIONS of DOLLARS, and would have been subject to tolls and lockage. Its hydraulic power, timber, and raw material exceed those of all Europe. It has constructed more miles of telegraph and rail than all the world.”—Condensed from "Letter on American Resources," by the Hon. Robert J. Walker.

"That after cheap food, the next great desideratum is cheap transit, so that everything may be procured from the localities where, from natural facilities, it can be obtained with the least labour. "That railways worked with quick trains cannot convey the quantity.

I say that the cost of transit by rail is absolutely destructive of the great traffic of a continental country;-that what Dr. Lardner says is literally true-" that goods generally cannot bear the cost of railway transit," and consequently, as shown in America, that where there is not water transit, the great mass of goods are not moved at all, and all trade in them is prevented. If it were not for the water-line from the Upper Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic, not one barrel of flour would be shipped out of one hundred that are at present brought down.

"In the United States, the difference of the cost of the two modes is well known, and the effects of it clearly shown. On the Erie Canal, a through traffic of about 300,000 tons a month is conveyed, during the seven months that it is open, at a charge (not cost) of d. per ton per mile; and on the parallel railway the through traffic, during the five months that the canal is closed by frost, is under 10,000 tons a month. The report of the state engineer of New York, for 1853, is full of the most important information on this subject."-Sir A. Cotton, late chief engineer of Madras, in "Letter to the Society of Arts."

***The above bears partly upon the material unity of America, and partly on its material resources. It shows the extent, cheapness, durability, and indestructibility of its water carriage. But the water system is mostly connected, directly or indirectly, with the Mississippi, which is the chief factor of the material unity of America. Sir A. Cotton's authority is very high, and his letter was written to urge the needs of Irrigation and improved river navigation in India.

CONTENTS.

Opinions of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, De Tocqueville, Napoleon I., Beecher. The material problem of the South.-Nature against the South. Special and extraordinary Geographical Unity of America.-Proved by Precedent, Authority, and War.-All countries own this Law of Material Unity. The only unalterable conditions and influences.Italy, Switzerland, Ireland, Russia, Turkey, Poland, &c.— Mountain and Water systems, and Climate.-Three leading positions as to American Unity.-The Mississippi, 27,000 miles of navigable water.-The only certain outlet.-America will not strangle herself.-A fortiori.-South, North, East, West, and Centre; moral, political and commercial aspects.Future Capital.-Naval and Military Strategy.—Immense interior and coast navigation and tonnage.-Rail and Telegraph, Post and Revenue.-West of Rocky Mountains. Canada and Mexico.-The task before the South.-Summary.

"There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and inevitable enemy. It is New Orleans.”

"The occlusion of the Mississippi is a state of things in which we cannot exist. *** *** The use of the Mississippi is so indispensable that we cannot hesitate one moment to hazard our existence for its maintenance. Whatever power, other than ourselves, holds the country West of the Mississippi, becomes our natural enemy."-Thos. Jefferson, 1802, 1803.

"The Times is a great power, the greatest perhaps in the world, except the Mississippi."-Lincoln to Times' correspondent.

"So long as he held it (New Orleans) he had in his hands the future greatness of the United States, and would never have ceded it, were he not desirous of creating a counterpoise to the maritime strength of England."-Napoleon I.

La Galissonière pleaded that, considering the want of maritime strength, Canada and Louisiana were the bulwarks of France against English ambition.-Memoire on French Colonies, 1750. "New Orleans is the key to Mexico."-Spanish Ambassador, 1766.

The Problem, and the dream of the South is,

how to dissever the Gulf and Border States from the North, and to connect them with the great western valley of the Mississippi, and the ancient and mighty realm of Mexico.* It is the business of the present chapter to show that nature has beforehand rendered this scheme visionary and impossible. The fiat of her perpetual and indestructible influences rendered a United Slave Empire as impossible as it is infamous. Those who deny the pertinence of this mode of reasoning, or its special applicability to America in consequence of the special and extraordinary geographical unity of that continent, will not deceive many others, even if they succeed in deceiving themselves, for any man who can look at a map, and has studied history, will admit the importance of the argument.

The geographical unity of America is proved by Precedent, Authority, and War. Historical analogies everywhere prove the force of geographical unity. Authorities prove it. The course and strategy of the present war prove it. The policy of the first French settlers was shaped by it. The

*This idea is as old as 1706, when Col. Burr organized the expedition for which he was afterwards tried. President Jefferson, writing to La Fayette, said of Burr, "His conspiracy "has been one of the most flagitious of which history will ever “furnish an example. He meant to separate the Western "States from us, to add Mexico to them, place himself at their "head, establish what he would deem an energetic government, "and then provide an example, and an instrument, for the sub"version of our freedom. The man who could expect to effect "this with American materials must be fit for Bedlam."

Burr's first enterprise was to have been to seize New Orleans, the Gate of the Mississippi, "which he supposed would powerfully bridle the upper country."

possessors of New Orleans, Port Hudson, or Vicksburg, must either grasp the great natural artery, and cut the spinal cord of the aggregate national life, or hold it for the nation against all

comers.

The special and extraordinary material unity of the American continent, is one of the most remarkable and influential facts in the whole world.

Other countries-all countries, feel the irresistible power of this natural Law.

The energies of civilization, and the genius of war, can only act through existing material conditions. Of these, the mightiest, and the only ones that remain, are those great geographical features that present unalterable conditions of attack and defence, and a certain unceasing influence in an uniform direction.

As Italy was kept in pieces, very much by her extreme length and narrowness, her open coasts, and midland mountain ranges, as the natural fortresses of Switzerland for ages kept despotism at bay, as the nearness of Ireland to England has retained her to the British sceptre, as the great material disturbing force of this continent, for two centuries, has been the natural effort of Russia to seek her outlets at the Sound and the Bosphorus, and to communicate with Europe through Poland, which has, on her side, no great natural military frontier,-as in all these instances, time and space, represented by geographical facilities or obstacles, have constituted a Principle, have become immutable material guarantees for

uniform efforts in a certain direction, and have thus produced, and must ever produce, certain great results, so in America, where the natural features are on a vaster scale, and material unity more marked than in any other country of the world, we are bound to inquire, when considering the issues of the present struggle, on which side are these marked advantages, and against whom are these material obstacles? For whom declare these permanent influences, so apt to prevail in the end, and which are before and after every conflict, and always the same?

It has constantly been observed by philosophers, that the mountain ranges, beginning with the Pyrenees, and under the names of the Alps, the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, traversing Europe and Asia from West to East, are amongst the mightiest agencies the world has known, hoarding certain influences on the one side, and damming them back on the other, until, in the course of Providence, and the increase of population, &c., the fresh and strong energies of northern barbarian nature have been let loose upon the effête and crumbling civilisations of the South,-upon systems refined into weakness, or enervated by vice, to destroy that which deserved destruction, or to share in that which had been thus prepared for their use.

But this is only one of the material agencies that help to constitute and guarantee the unity of nations.

The natural material Unity of a Nation is