HIS PART IN THE CIVIL WAR 157 



obedience to our revenue laws at home and secure re- 

 spect to our citizens abroad. But can we? Did ever 

 unprotected wealth secure immunity to its owner? In 

 the first place, cotton becomes, when handled in any- 

 other way than the regular commercial way, a two- 

 edged sword, as apt to wound producer as consumer. 

 Every obstacle, which we place between it and the chan- 

 nels of commerce here, operates as a bounty for its pro- 

 duction elsewhere. It is a very current but mistaken 

 idea to suppose that this is the only country in the 

 world properly adapted to the cultivation of cotton. No 

 such thing. Should even the present paper blockade 

 continue for a few years, and cotton rule at the present 

 New York prices of 22 cents, or even at 15 cents, our 

 political dreamers may wake up and find the cotton 

 scepter, if not entirely lost to our hold, at least divided 

 in our hand. . . . Suppose England and France do not 

 choose for a few months to come to break this paper 

 blockade, which we have not the naval strength to force, 

 paper though it be, does it follow that that blockade, 

 weak and ineffectual as, up to this time, it has notori- 

 ously been, will continue so until those nations get ready 

 to act? The amount appropriated for the Lincoln navy 

 during the current year is upwards of $40,000,000. . . . 

 We cannot, either with cotton or with all the agricultural 

 staples of the Confederacy put together, adopt any 

 course which will make cotton and trade stand us as a 

 nation in the stead of a navy". 



Then followed his statement as to the kind of war 

 vessels that were needed to give the Confederacy com- 

 mand, at least, of its own waters, and at an expense of 

 no more than three million dollars. ''In this change of 

 circumstances", he wrote, ''it so happens that the navy 



