March 21, 1861; The New York Herald
The Confederate States have already annexed several of the United States vessels found in Southern waters. That, however, might be borne with tolerable equanimity, and those vessels might be replaced by others; but the worst of it is that all the regions on which the United States government calculated for the production of live oak timber for the construction of ships-of-war are located within the jurisdiction of the Southern confederacy. We are therefore dependent upon the charity of an alien government for the material for a navy. The South can, and probably will, go to work to get up an effective marine; but what will the North do? This is one of the fruits of that conflict of which the republican party is at once the author and the victim.