Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "At the close of the late war with Great Britain, every thing in the political and commercial changes, resulting from the general peace, indicated unparalleled prosperity to the Southern States, and great embarrassment and distress to those of the North. The nations of the Continent had all directed their efforts to the business of manufacturing; and all Europe may be said to have converted their swords into machinery, creating unprecedented demand for cotton, the great staple of the Southern States. There is nothing in the history of commerce that can be compared with the increased demand for this staple, notwithstanding the restrictions by which this Government has limited that demand. As cotton, tobacco, and rice, are produced only on a small portion of the globe, while all other agricultural staples are common to every region of the earth, this circumstance gave the planting States very great advantages. To cap the climax of the commercial advantages opened to the cotton planters, England, their great and most valued customer, received their cotton under a mere nominal duty. On the other hand, the prospects of the Northern States were as dismal as those of the Southern States were brilliant. They had lost the carrying trade of the world, which the wars of Europe had thrown into their hands. They had lost the demand and the high prices which our own war had created for their grain and other productions; and, soon afterward, they also lost the foreign market for their grain, owing, partly, to foreign corn laws, but still more to other causes. Such were the prospects, and such the well-founded hope of the Southern States at the close of the late war, in which they bore so glorious a part in vindicating the freedom of trade. But where are now these cheering prospects and animating hopes? Blasted, sir--utterly blasted--by the consuming and withering course of a system of legislation which wages an exterminating war against the blessings of commerce and the bounties of a merciful Providence; and which, by an impious perversion of language, is called 'Protection.' . . . . I will not add, sir, my deep and deliberate conviction, in the face of all the miserable cant and hypocrisy with which the world abounds on the subject, that any course of measures which shall hasten the abolition of slavery, by destroying the value of slave labor, will bring upon the Southern States the greatest political calamity with which they can be afflicted; for I sincerely believe, that when the people of those States shall be compelled, by such means, to emancipate their slaves, they will be but a few degrees above the condition of slaves themselves. Yes, sir, mark what I say: when the people of the South cease to be masters, by the tampering influence of this Government, direct or indirect, they will assuredly be slaves. It is the clear and distinct perception of the