February 27, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
Commercial reconstruction is the grand object of the war with all the capitalists and people of the North who are not Abolitionists. They are unwilling to give up the special privileges and advantages unjustly and unconstitutionally conferred upon them in the Union, and to live upon their legitimate, fair and proper resources. They still wish to prosper at our cost. The loss of a special, unrestricted commerce with the South, and discriminations against other nations, must be ruin to their hot house commerce, and ruin to their navigation and manufactures, which, under the Union, were created and fostered by Congressional enactments. Every brick in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, if it could rightly display its origin, would have ‘from the South’ written on it. With the loss of the trade and navigation of the South, real estate and stocks of all kinds, in all their cities and town, must go down in value. The mighty tide of prosperity, which, like the Gulf stream, rolled from the South, and apparently as unchangeable, would be diverted from their forced channels to other nations; and they would have to go through the terrible process of living on their own resources, while we transact our own business on the best terms in the markets of the world. To save them from so mighty a catastrophe, they have plunged into war and bankruptcy, deeming war and bankruptcy cheaply purchased, with the commercial reconstruction which would place them where they were before the war began. With a Zolverein established between the Confederate and the United States, the cities of the Confederates will be as they have heretofore been, but suburbs of New York and Boston. Our whole foreign trade will be carried on by Northern cities; and their jobbers will be our gracious intermediaries. Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk and Mobile will advance, by the small portion of their native population, which shall not emigrate to more prosperous regions, whilst Yankee agents and emissaries will swarm over the land to carry on our trade. Their insolence and interference will be proportioned to their success, and irritations and discontent prepare the way for another revolution, or the gradual and final overthrow of our civilization.
For ourselves, we frankly declare that if the great contest in which we are engaged does not secure us freedom from Yankee intervention and control in our commercial as well as political relations, we will deem the contest a failure. How have Great Britain and other nations established their conquests in Asia and America? First, a trading port is established – then exclusive mercantile and commercial interests are obtained – then intervention – then conquest. To suppose that such a people as the Yankees, once having us under their control by peculiar commercial privileges, will ever allow us to cast off their association, is absurd. The present war tells us our fate. As they now attempt to coerce us to contribute to their commercial interest, will they not do it hereafter, should we attempt to throw off their former commercial privileges with us – and we can abolish them but by a war – a war most certainly, by the very nature of such a relation, in which they will be stronger and we weaker than we now are. There is but one path of safety for us to pursue. We must carry on our own commerce, build up our own navigation, do our trading direct with all nations, and control our own political destinies, independent of Northern entanglement.
At this very moment our coast swarms with Yankee Captains of coasters, who came into our waters by a monopoly they established to carry our products to market. They eat of our bread, and grew rich at our expense; and now they stand on the quarter decks of their men of war to pilot them in their work of desolation and death. It is useless to attempt to disguise it. A slaveholding people are a peculiar people, and they cannot admit an unguarded intercourse with every other people without danger to themselves. The statutes of every Southern State show how carefully their peace is to be guarded from the interference of citizens of other States. Free, unrestricted intercourse can only be safe with other Slaveholding States. Hence we are for embracing in our Confederacy every State which recognizes and establishes the institution of slavery by its fundamental law. But to give to our Yankee enemies the privileges of citizens of the Confederate States, in all the relations of commerce, is to defeat the very objects of our Confederacy. Those objects are peace and justice and prosperity. Neither of these can be safe under the commercial predominance of the Northern people. With commercial dependence on the part of the South, the Anti-Slavery North will thrive and grow as heretofore, fattening upon the transaction of our business, and receiving the lion’s share of the profits of our labors. The South, however prosperous, will grow beautifully less in comparison, until her liberties and institutions get to be past praying for.
Yet we are perfectly willing to give them all the commercial privileges granted to other nations; and we are for free trade with all nations, excepting so far as the peace and defence of the Confederate States, as Slaveholding States, shall require. Direct trade with all nations, and favors to none, is our policy; but to establish free trade with the Yankees, whilst the intercourse and commerce of other nations are trammelled with import duties or prohibitions, will, in our judgment, be a folly which no repentance can ever atone for. This was the privilege which they enjoyed under the Union of the United States; and they turn and turn, and yet go on, and turn again, to obtain it from us. Now and forever, we will lift up our voice against it. We tell the people to beware in time, and to distrust the labors of the secret sessions and the irresponsible counsels of Richmond.