The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 3, February, 1836Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 3, February, 1836
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Judge Story's picture of her happiness, that make it worthy of
insertion:
"We have lived," says he, "to see all their fears and prophecies of
evil scattered to the winds. We have witnessed the solid growth and
prosperity of the whole country, under the auspices of the National
Government, to an extent never even imagined by its warmest friends.
We have seen our agriculture pour forth its various products, created
by a generous, I had almost said, a profuse industry. The miserable
exports, scarcely amounting in the times, of which I have been
speaking, in the aggregate, to the sum of one or two hundred thousand
dollars, now almost reach to forty[9] millions a year in a single
staple. We have seen our commerce, which scarcely crept along our
noiseless docks, and stood motionless and withering, while the breezes
of the ocean moaned through the crevices of our ruined wharves and
deserted warehouses, spread its white canvass in every clime; and,
laden with its rich returns, spring buoyant on the waves of the home
ports; and cloud the very shores with forests of masts, over which the
stars and stripes are gallantly streaming. We have seen our
manufactures, awakening from a deathlike lethargy, crowd every street
of our towns and cities with their busy workmen, and their busier
machinery; and startling the silence of our wide streams, and deep
dells, and sequestered valleys. We have seen our wild waterfalls,
subdued by the power of man, become the mere instruments of his will,
and, under the guidance of mechanical genius, now driving with
unerring certainty the flying shuttle, now weaving the mysterious
threads of the most delicate fabrics, and now pressing the reluctant
metals into form, as if they were but playthings in the hands of
giants. We have seen our rivers bear upon their bright waters the
swelling sails of our coasters, and the sleepless wheels of our
steamboats in endless progress. Nay, the very tides of the ocean, in
their regular ebb and flow in our ports, seem now but heralds to
announce the arrival and departure of our uncounted navigation. We
have seen all these things; and we can scarcely believe, that there
were days and nights, nay, months and years, in which our wisest
patriots and statesmen sat down, in anxious meditation to devise the
measures which should save the country from impending ruin."
[Footnote 9: The exports of cotton alone, in the year ending Sept.
30th, 1834, were $49,448,000--_Reviewer_.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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