he entire value of the crop would not pay for its
transportation. Is this the proposition of Carolina? What is the only
commerce we could carry on with her? By abandoning the culture of cotton
upon our fertile lands, for the benefit of Carolina, and our planters
all becoming drovers of horses, mules, and cattle, to exchange for her
imports, and return with them, packed on the number unsold of our mules
and horses. And are these the benefits for which we are asked to
dissolve the Union, and place the channel of the Mississippi above and
below, and its outlet, in the hands of a foreign government, denying a
passage ascending or descending, to our imports or exports, and
excluding us from the ocean altogether? If Carolina's scheme were
practicable, Mississippi would not sell the Union for dollars and cents;
but though the scheme might be beneficial to Carolina, by stopping the
culture of cotton on our fertile soil, to the people of this State it is
ruin immediate and inevitable. The remedy Carolina proposes to us for
the Tariff, is worse than the disease. The disease is not mortal--it is
now in a course of cure; but Carolina's remedy is death--it is suicide;
for the _dissolution of the Union is political suicide_.

A Southern convention is proposed, of the States of North and South
Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. If
the object be a confederacy of these States, without Louisiana and the
Western, Middle, and Northern States, if patriotism, or love for the
Union were insufficient to restrain us from attempting this fatal
measure, we have seen that it would blast forever the fortunes of the
planters of Mississippi. But what States will unite in this convention?
Georgia has disavowed the act of the self-constituted, self-elected
minority convention that acted in her name. The history of Virginia
speaks in the voice of indignant rebuke to all those States that
assemble sectional conventions. North Carolina, unassuming, but
steadfast in support of the Union, will enter into no such convention.
Alabama, if her public meetings and journals and her chief magistrate
speak the voice of the State, will send no delegates. Tennessee, brave
and patriotic, devoted to the Union, and sustaining its banner in war
and in peace, meets the proposition with a decided refusal. I imagine,
then, our delegates would return without finding this Southern
convention. I am opposed to all sectional conventions. We have had