J B Jones to the Southern Convention at Savannah 1856

APPENDIX NO. 7.
SOUTHERN PRESSES AT THE NORTH.

To the President of the Southern Convention:

The undersigned, a native of the South, but for several years a resident in the vicinity of Philadelphia, would respectfully submit for the consideration of the Convention, a plan for the establishment of co-operating presses, in the Northern cities, devoted to the rights and interests of the slaveholding States.

The Press, in most countries, seems to be the lever by which the popular sentiment is moved. The editorial articles of the London Times are sent throughout the kingdom by telegraph, and read in distant places on bulletin boards. The Ministry, and the Lords and Commons, alike acknowledge the influence thus wielded. In our own country, a journal has attained the circulation of nearly 300,000 copies during the first fifteen years of its existence. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the following statement of the growth and extraordinary circulation of the “New York Tribune.” The table furnishes statistics of the number of papers sent to the different States, &c., and the increase during the first period of the Black Republican agitation:

There is reason to suppose such a gigantic engine has been a principal auxiliary in the consolidation of the vast Northern party, which menaces the constitutional rights of the South. It has become an element of power, if not the very substance and embodiment of it; and from the city of New York, candidates are dictated to the people, and policy to the Federal Government. In this manner a political predominance was centralized in Paris, which governed France; and Brissot, from that distant city, instigated the massacre of St. Domingo.

The undersigned, during his transactions with business men and others, has been led to understand that the amount of patronage bestowed on the North by the slaveholding States, is much more than equivalent to the annual expenditures of the Federal Government; and this is regarded by the recipients as a species of tribute, to which they are justly entitled; and the immense monuments of wealth and greatness flowing from it, they claim as exclusively their own, while the absence of similar evidences of prosperity at the sources whence their profits are derived, is often made the subject of reproach and derision. The planter, as he gazed upon the marble palaces of the North, could once be sensible of a patriotic pride in contemplating the grandeur of a common country. He was conscious of having contributed to the elevation of every magnificent structure. Every ship, and every railroad had been built, in part, with his money. The profits of his custom increased the number of manufactories, and multiplied the population, “for whosesoever the carcass is there the vultures will be gathered together.” But the dream is at an end; the vision departed. In the streets of a Northern city he is now regarded as an alien, a vassal, or an enemy. They laugh him to scorn because he has no great cities “in his own country;” no competing railroads; no factories, and no equality of population. And the thunders of their presses and their pulpits are launched against the “iniquity of slavery.”

Foreign and native capitalists, whose professions were philanthropic, but whose purposes were certainly of a different tendency, have been known to furnish the means for the establishment of large jobbing houses, whose managers were abolitionists, and whose customers were the country merchants in the slave States. In this manner the seeds of pernicious sentiment have been scattered in the South. And the profits received by the jobber from the country merchant, who received them from the planter, have been employed to sustain the anti-slavery presses and abolition lecturers.

For the correction or such evils, it seems incumbent on the people of the South to adopt such action as will effectually tend to the vindication of their rights, to the security of their peace, and the promotion of their pecuniary interests.

The undersigned suggests the establishment of four daily journals, one in each of the following cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Each of the presses to issue, likewise, semi-weekly and weekly papers for country circulation. All the presses to be under the direction of a Committee, to ensure perfect co-operation of sentiment; and the corps of editors to be Southern born, of approved judgment, good character, and ample experience.

Connected with each office an agency to be formed, to obtain and preserve a perfectly reliable list of banks, bankers, brokers, shippers, importers manufacturers, commission merchants, jobbers, publishers and booksellers, hotel-keepers, shop-keepers, artisans, &c., friendly to the institutions of the South, and upon whom the people of the slave States may safely bestow their patronage. By not referring to our enemies, there can be nothing invidious or dishonorable in knowing our friends.

The duty of the presses to be —

1st. Advocacy of the utmost economy on the part of the Southern people until arrangements can be completed for the manufacture within their own limits, and the direct importation of such articles as are usually bought in the North. To demonstrate the practicability of building cities on their own soil. To explain how they have been indirectly sustaining the burden of the existing commerce and steam communication with Europe, while all the benefits have been realized by their Northern traducers. To show that when the South resolves that her BUYING and SELLING shall be done on her own soil, then, and then only, her commercial vassalage will cease. That if she would require the purchasers of cotton to seek it on the plantations, and to pay for it in specie, millions would be saved in the items of freights and commissions. Bills of exchange, predicated upon the products of the South, would cease to garnish the counters of the money-changers’ shops in Wall street, and the vaults of the Metropolitan banks would be subjected to a healthful depletion. To prove that in this way only, the South may be tributary to her own protection. That her population would increase, for wheresoever the profits of a country are to be reaped, the greatest redundancy of people will exist. That the various products of the world would be poured into her lap, in exchange for a share of her grand surplus of $150,000,000 annually dug from her cotton fields. That towns and manufactories would spring up on her coasts, and artisans and operatives would repair thither to supply her demands. Colleges and schools, the arts and sciences, would flourish in her midst. Her commercial thraldom would be at an end. Old England herself would be tributary to her. Every thing commendable and desirable in New England, in obedience to a law of nature, would be transferred to the South. She would speedily have sufficient revenue to maintain an army equal to the one with which Napoleon conquered Europe, and to launch a navy sufficient for her security. And, that, in consideration of recent events, and all the indices of the future, the South should slumber no more. She should never rest from her labors, never pause in her preparations, until she is quite ready to hurl defiance at her enemies.

2d. To urge the formation of companies for the purpose of establishing steam communication between Southern ports and Europe. To invoke the opulent citizens of Southern States, neither to embark in Northern ships, nor to make their customary tours of the North.

3d. To watch the Sub-Treasury. To keep up an incessant demand for an instantaneous dispersion of the public funds. To show that although the duties are collected in New York, the importations are paid for and consumed by Southern and Southwestern people. That the bills of the importers are liquidated by the proceeds of the sales of Southern staples; and, therefore, the South should not only have the custody of a fair proportion of the revenue, but should require from the Government impartial and equal appropriations. To exhibit the relative contributions of the North and South to the wealth of the confederacy; showing that the United States Treasury realized $127,000,000 from the sales of the territories ceded by Virginia and Georgia; and of that amount some $52,000,000 only sufficed to purchase Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, Nebraska, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Utah, and perhaps a half-dozen other States and territories. While, on the other hand, the territories given by Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut, yielded no revenue to the Union. The lands were sold, and the proceeds were retained by the Northern contributors. Nothing was relinquished by them but jurisdiction, in the bestowal of Vermont, Maine, &c.

4th. To furnish early information of the machinations of the diabolical abolition societies, and to warn Southern readers against newspapers, pamphlets, tracts, prints, and books calculated to produce injury.

5th. To utter Southern sentiment boldly and fully in the hot-beds of abolitionism, and to send their leading articles to all the capitals of Europe. To maintain, without hesitation, and unequivocally, the true position of the South, viz: That slavery is both right and expedient. That, sanctioned by omnipotence — by royal charters and treaties — by tradition and inheritance — recognized by the Constitution, and its propriety and benefits tested by experience, those who condemn it are our enemies, and those who attempt its overthrow must abide the arbitrament of arms, and to that result it will probably come at last.

Unquestionably such organs of the South would incur a tempest of wrath and obloquy, and their mission would have to be performed without regard to Northern approbation or support. The presses and other materials would cost $100,000; the weekly expenses of each, including rent, editors’ salaries, reporters, compositors, and pressmen would be not less than $500; the cost of paper would depend upon the number of subscribers.

The efficacy of the plan might be tested with a single press, having agencies and correspondents in the other cities. If successful there would be no difficulty in erecting the others. But if the scheme of daily and semiweekly papers be deemed impracticable or inexpedient, the undersigned has no doubt that, upon the endorsement of the Southern Convention, and an assurance of obtaining a reasonable number of subscribers, there are individuals who would be willing, at their own expense, to undertake the publication of a weekly journal in Philadelphia, devoted to Southern rights and Southern interests.

Respectfully submitted,

John B. Jones

Burlington, New Jersey, November, 1856